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Ragitsu
2010-10-03, 02:40 PM
Hello everyone! I thought my debut post should be about a topic that's somewhat close to my heart.

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These stories involve the Deadlands games. I feel that where I am at, it is the most misunderstood and mangled game in town. None of these game involve any heated arguments, just me deciding to not play the game anymore. I eventually sold off all of my Deadlands material due to my enthusiasm of the game being slowly strangled.

The first campaign we tried, Crazy was the marshal. I had only had the player’s handbook for a couple of hours while Crazy had his books for several weeks preparing for the game. I decided to play a simple doctor, no magic, no ‘veterans of the weird west’, no twinked skills for gun slinging. The first problem was the marshal’s demand that I have a detailed list of what exactly was in my doctor’s bag, with solid research into the cost of these items. Sources of information were to be turned over to the marshal for his possession. This was told to me as we were sitting down to play.

The campaign started out in Minnesota, yet the C.S.A. had regular cavalry units running around shooting up things. The Union army was ‘historically incompetent and incapable of handling a real military force.’ It was up to the party hunt down Johnny Reb. (Fine, it’s part of the adventure.)

Our first fire fight, I was worthless. I didn’t have the detailed list of doctor’s equipment. To make things worse, one player T2, had a nasty tendency to bust (fumble) with his shotgun. The first time, T2 shot Stash’s character, who was more or less in front of T2. Stash moves to stand beside T2. T2 then busts again. The shotgun blast turns the gun 90° to the left and then discharges the entire load of buckshot. Stash then moves behind T2. T2 busts again and his shotgun forces him 180° to discharge the buckshot into Stash’s character. (That is how Crazy described things.)

It was at this point that I pointed out to Crazy that we were figuring the busts incorrectly. His response was, and this is a near quote, “Oh well. It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t read the rules, they were too boring. I only read the flavor text stories and figured that the dice rules were the same as the old Marvel super heroes game I used to play.”

This game fell completely apart when the party of eight characters were attacked by a full company of Confederate cavalry while the marshal said “There is nothing around to use for cover.” After a TPK, this was followed by the comment, “Why didn’t you take cover?”

Oh, in this game, one guy was playing an immortal, Highlander style. In Deadlands, as written, only demon possessed people return from the Dead. Crazy was almost livid when the immortal was slaughtered numerous times to the point of removing the head.

I left another of Crazy’s games when his Mary Sue character was upstaging the party. We were police officers in New York City and Mary Sue kept showing up at the crime scene. (We solved things in the second session, but he forced us to keep going to finish out the story properly.) Being a police officer at a crime scene, I went to question Mary Sue as he was at every crime. MS quickly went to brawling with my character, and in the two rounds, managed to take five actions each round with all his actions going before my character could react. The dozens of regular police officers refused to confront a 7 foot tall pugilist in 1870's NYC and the other PC’s were bared from interfering. This was my last night in the game. (Mary Sue had already solved the crime but would not share any information as we were the “typically incompetent and corrupt police officers of NYC.”)

This campaign fell apart when the party could not find any more clues. The player (EZ) of the character who had all the clues stopped showing up. EZ’s character was given a list of clues but when she dumped Crazy to go back to her husband and father of her unborn child, Crazy decided we had to find the clues again. However, as the rest of the players were not involved in the ‘pillow talk’ sessions, they had no idea that the clues existed.

Crazy has killed almost all of his Deadlands campaigns. Swimming across a river requires a swim roll equal to swimming in a hurricane and half the party drowns. Half of the party is stuck in a cenotes and if you have any action cards (everything was resolved by initiative), you had to make a high target number swim check to stay afloat. If you failed a swim roll, you lost your action (grabbing ropes or helping others) on top of being set back two successful checks. Some bandits were torturing a new PC in a center of a village. As the rest of the party moves in to stop this, the twenty other bandits who happened to be in camouflaged, defensive positions waiting for the party opened up for another TPK.

I have sworn to never play in another campaign in which Crazy is involved as either a player or GM. Others in my group have learned this lesson and he noticed that he was not the center of attention and left. Now, he only has his room mates to inflict his games upon. Last I heard, he is running Deadlands game with the immortals again with his current girlfriend getting all of the preferential treatment.

He also tried to run a prime directive 'game.' Some people were using the Prime d20 book, some were using D20 Modern, and some were using Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 books. While all of these are D20 games, they all have their own little tweaks to the game and are not 100% compatible. To make matters worse, he was allowing some to use Star Wars d20. (One character was a secret Jedi.) Crazy's goal was (and still is) to prove that a Star Trek war ship is only the equivalent to a Star Wars fighter. :smallredface:

DragoonWraith
2010-10-03, 03:39 PM
Nevermind my story, as it's pretty much irrelevant compared to the "WTF?!" of yours. Wow...

I wouldn't have shown up for a second session with that guy.

WarKitty
2010-10-03, 03:47 PM
I think my worst one was - we were halfway through the dungeon. Two of the other characters have taken a dislike to me for no particular states reason. (They later said it was because I was good and they were evil - I was TN and neither of them had detect good anyway.) About an hour into the first session one of the characters said "I'm bored...I fireball the rest of the party." Fireball caster level 5, killed half the party and severely injured the other half. About 3 of us quit right away.

Dust
2010-10-03, 04:01 PM
Longer than I was anticipating, spoilered for length.

In my old gaming hobbyshop, we had two groups - the OLD World of Darkness players and the NEW World of Darkness players. We were all about the same age, so the main separation of the groups was how long each had been roleplaying for.

One day, we invited the nWoD players to join us for a game of Werewolf, which went pretty well. In return, feeling some new-found camaraderie, they likewise invited us to a game of nWoD. It was "Insert City That We Live In Here" By Night, and everyone was allowed to make whatever they wanted from whatever books they owned. So we had werewolves, vampires, mages, frankensteins, changelings, and Lance Bass (http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/1226876.jpg). All it all, the game seemed like it was shaping up to be a Voltaire song.

The first problem was that the GM's friend from another city brought back one of his 'old characters', who was a mage with more points than anyone could conceivably ever have. He floated around the city in his gigantic magical black spire and instantly killed anyone who disagreed with him or annoyed him, and was working on learning how he could become the God of Death.

The plot, in short, was that there was a nuclear warhead heading toward the city for no adequately explainable reason, and the group of ninja werezombies and Lance Bass (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mDDPbm9UTfg/Rx8onA-otAI/AAAAAAAAK8E/GNH2Y2Q2J4g/s400/lance_bass.jpg) had to stop it. After being irritated by this game for awhile without showing it, I asked the GM why we didn't just leave town as it got closer and closer to ground zero. He agreed this was an option, but then informed me I would no longer be playing as I 'clearly did not understand the point of the game was to stop it instead of running away like a girl.' I was a bit taken aback and assured him I'd attempt to try and go along with the plot, but he wasn't having any of it.

So I sat out the rest of the game and blatantly flirted with his girlfriend instead, while listening to it play out.

Favorite part #1
One of the technomages shoots at the BBEG. GM informs technomage that despite his amazing roll, the shot misses. Player informs GM that, as he had statted up the gun beforehand, it had been imbued with the ability to never miss at such close range, and shows the GM how he had invested a ton of points into this ability. GM informs Player that he's out of bullets. Player responds that it doesn't use ammunition, either, see? GM informs Player that the gun is broken. "No, it's, uh...it's self-repairing, too. You approved it before we started, remember?" Player explodes.

Favorite part #2
GM declares he awards bonus experience for players using their supernatural powers. Two players immediately take over the loyal police station and get them to do all manner of unbelievable, X-rated Bevis-and-Butthead style acts, many of which were mindblowingly sexist and would have made hardcore fetish photographers turn white and steady themselves. Characters gain 50 XP each.


Remains one of most ridiculous gaming experiences of my life.

oxybe
2010-10-03, 04:02 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9184333&postcount=101

The Dark Fiddler
2010-10-03, 04:14 PM
Only once. My friend was starting a third campaign set in the same world as his other two (which were our first campaign and most epic campaign to date, respectively). At the start he was already giving me crap for playing a female character (my friend as well, we were playing sisters). Eventually, he gave us the privilege of being able to choose what sex chromosomes our characters had, after we had threatened to leave once, so we agreed to play... until we realized what he was doing with the other two players. He had given them twice the money we had gotten ("their backstory justifies it!", ignoring the fact that our characters were royalty) and given them uber-powerful builds that weren't even 100% legal (looking back, the extreme amounts of money were probably to get the builds done). We asked what we were getting to balance it and he said, completely straight-faced "well I'm already letting you two play sisters". That was it, we were done with him for that campaign.

Thankfully though, he's being much more reasonable in his newest campaign, and I'm playing a female character without any crap from him.

Ravens_cry
2010-10-03, 04:24 PM
Nevermind my story, as it's pretty much irrelevant compared to the "WTF?!" of yours. Wow...

I wouldn't have shown up for a second session with that guy.
It's surprising what you can put up with when they are the only game in town.
I came close with one. I know pre-made module trend to be rather railroady by nature, but this one was worse, despite being set in a city with much potential for contained free-wheeling adventure. In short, it was nothing liek how I had been given to expect. There was one crowning moment of awesome involving reciting a play, I had SO much fun with that. And, I enjoyed my character, particularly the second one, a half-crazy witch enthralled with the stars. But the rest of the module as well as severe intra-party angst, made it so bad I ALMOST left.

Ragitsu
2010-10-03, 04:30 PM
Ah, preferential treatment based on gender: probably among the worst offenses a GM can commit.

Seatbelt
2010-10-03, 04:42 PM
I ragequit a game once before it even started.

It was DM, our usual (fantastic) DM, and Indiana. My roommates. We wanted a pickup game because we were hankering for some RP.

We used creative chargen rules. 4D6 drop the lowest, in descending order. Play what you got. I ended up rolling hi dex high int, so I rolled up a swashbuckler elf named Benjamin Moore. He adopted a very human name to fit in better with the other pirates he associated with.

DM thought it was a stupid name for an elf and told me to change it. I refused and he said "Change it or you can't play in my game." So I went upstairs to play MotB. :smallcool: I still got to play D&D and they got to be bored.

Hackulator
2010-10-03, 04:59 PM
I was once quit a campaign before it ever started, leading to everyone else doing so and the game never happening. I believe the person who was going to run it may have actually been having an episode of genuine paranoid delusions at the time because of other things that went on.

We were at a session doing character creation for a high level game. The world was going to be in the midst of some arcane catastrophe which caused there to be zones of dead magic, basically areas that functioned as though they were an antimagic zone that NOTHING magical worked inside, even things that usually work in an anti-magic field. One of the players was going to play a Psion Uncarnate, and a discussion with the DM started regarding whether he would be able to enter the dead magic zones.

The DM went out to grab some food at a restaurant near the apartment, and while he was out we looked up incorporeal creatures and saw that the rules said they did not exist in antimagic fields, so the person decided to run something else since a character that didn't exist half the time would not be much fun to play. We start working on his new PC, and eventually the DM comes back. We tell him that my friend is now writing up a svirfniblen rogue, and he says thats fine and we continue on. No discussion occurs of why he has changed his character.

Eventually he leaves but I am still there hanging out, and at some point I mention that we looked up Incorporeal Creatures, and the DM starts freaking out that we didn't tell him. I point out that we didn't try to hide anything from him, and the person switched his character so as not to create any sort of issue, and so I didn't really even think about bringing it up. He responds with something along the lines of "Well maybe a person of integrity would have."

I did not take that statement very well. I responded with something that would likely get me banned if I wrote it here, but could be paraphrased as "where the heck do you get off questioning my integrity, you jerk", but in much more descriptive language. I then told him I was no longer interested in playing in his game and left shortly thereafter.

I heard later he pulled similar craziness with other friends of his and none of us has seen him in years, so who knows.

Maryring
2010-10-03, 05:26 PM
I've left twice.

Once was what was set up to be an interesting game. Lots of demon hunting, so I was playing a Musteval Wizard. After defeating many demons way outside our challenge rating (I had to end up in melee, because I was the only one who could bypass their DR) we came across an odd imp. After some fighting, he fled, only to attack us in our sleep while I was keeping watch. The two of us ended up fighting, and grappling and lots of other stuff a wizard shouldn't do, before I finally managed to MM him into submission.

Except then he suddenly gets up, enters cut-scene mode, and somehow suddenly gets a stinger with a poison that he auto-injects into me and changes my alignment into evil. That I wouldn't allow, (I'm very bad at playing evil characters) so I left.

The other time was when one of the DM's friends physically assaulted me.

Dark_Juggernaut
2010-10-03, 05:26 PM
I've not had much luck until the past few years with D&D, because of groups failing to keep the sessions coming.

One particular DM made me quit pretty fast. He kept on making up rules to make everyone more powerful, and then throwing enemies at the party that we couldn't handle, and then giving more power to the party in order to overcome the encounter. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and maybe he'd manage to get a handle on things, but then he brought in an old friend. This guy was cheating like crazy, and the DM was just rolling along with it to the point that I just stopped being available for games with him. I can't stand chaotic homebrewing.

Werekat
2010-10-03, 05:38 PM
Ah, yes. Since then, I do everything in my power to avoid OWoD games where the DMPC is also Prince of the City, and the ST happens to hate the very concept of your Clan, unless I know the Storyteller extremely well and know that will not influence judgement.

Favorite part:

Me: "Well, I've spent the better part of the year making artifacts, and my apprentices have not been far behind. The chantry is as well-defended mundanely as we could make it, and our magical defenses work well. We should be pretty much equipped to deal with an assault."
Storyteller: "Uh, actually, no. Since that time you went into that anomaly, all of what you personally have made had stopped working."
Me: "You're kidding me."
ST: "Just deal with it."
Me: "Ok, it might have stopped working - I've no idea what *else* was around in the damn place except what we saw - but why DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? We'd gone there TWO WEEKS ago, and all of the magical defenses on my chantry were my personal work."
ST: "You didn't notice."
Me: "So we'd gone around and through our magical defenses, done rituals, taught apprentices thaumaturgy, called in aid from the Clan, and all - all the while completely unprotected magically?"
ST: "Well, yeah, it might have been a mistake on my part. "
Me: "Maybe you could let us have dealt with at least part of it during those two weeks? We can count how many rituals we could have done collectively considering our previous activity in the city, and then see just how many of our defenses we've restored?"
ST: "No."
Me: "Why not? You've admitted that it was your mistake, why punish us for it?"
ST: "Just no. No rollbacks, period. You've got an assault on your hands and your prior defenses are down, deal with it."

And that's before starting on the purely personal drama that ST brought into the game. That part was far worse, but also far too personal for the Internetz. Suffice to say, it took us about half a year to finally become fed up with the case (we'd been lenient because the ST was having serious personal issues, and we'd been trying to help, most of us knowing firsthand just how tough a LARP ST's work is).

That incident was the straw that broke the camel's back, though.

So the Tremere chantry - most of us non-drinkers - got two bottles of vodka and a cooking pot full of ravioli, and proceeded to inform each other of our darkest secrets and special plots. It was the best way to get out of character in the most WTF campaign I've ever played.

Lord Loss
2010-10-03, 05:43 PM
Our campaign dissolved when a player threatened to BREAK MY ARM because I left a book at home that detailed another player's damage and wouldn't allow him to deal an amount of dice that dealt far more damage than the attack until we got the book back.

Greenish
2010-10-03, 05:46 PM
Eventually he leaves but I am still there hanging out, and at some point I mention that we looked up Incorporeal Creatures, and the DM starts freaking out that we didn't tell him.You should have pointed out that you did tell him. :smallcool:

holywhippet
2010-10-03, 06:12 PM
For one 2nd edition D&D campaign I left when I concluded the DM played a bit too rough and felt what what made sense to him was more important than the rules. Amongst things he did:

- set an explosive box trap in the first dungeon we did (ie. while we were still level 1)

- threw us up against basically a werewolf while travelling (were we an average of level 2 at the time with only one magical weapon).

- said werewolf severely wounded the party druid in the surprise round and killed him in the next

- decided that even though we were out in open fields, that the werewold wouldn't be at all slowed or stopped by the druid's entangle spell.

- decided that death at -10 HP gave too much chance for us to survive and changed it to -character level/2. Also, if we ever went below 0 HP he'd roll on his maiming tables which would result in permanent stat loss.

- ignore the rules about letting a character disengage from combat while an ally was adjacent and took a AoO against him as he was trying to withdraw.

To top it off, he once dropped a comment about running a game in the Dragonlance setting because "there are no clerics in Dragonlance". In his campaign worlds, only major cities have temples with clerics who can actually cast spells.

Dante & Vergil
2010-10-03, 06:36 PM
I've not had much luck until the past few years with D&D, because of groups failing to keep the sessions coming.

One particular DM made me quit pretty fast. He kept on making up rules to make everyone more powerful, and then throwing enemies at the party that we couldn't handle, and then giving more power to the party in order to overcome the encounter. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and maybe he'd manage to get a handle on things, but then he brought in an old friend. This guy was cheating like crazy, and the DM was just rolling along with it to the point that I just stopped being available for games with him. I can't stand chaotic homebrewing.

This sounds like my kind of game, seriously!:smallcool:

Hal
2010-10-03, 06:47 PM
The other time was when one of the DM's friends physically assaulted me.

C'mon, you can't just leave it at that. RL Drama >>> Table Drama.

Quietus
2010-10-03, 06:59 PM
- ignore the rules about letting a character disengage from combat while an ally was adjacent and took a AoO against him as he was trying to withdraw.

There's no rule about allies allowing safe disengage. There *is* the Withdraw action, though.


To top it off, he once dropped a comment about running a game in the Dragonlance setting because "there are no clerics in Dragonlance". In his campaign worlds, only major cities have temples with clerics who can actually cast spells.

This.. doesn't seem so unreasonable. Why should there be a spellcasting cleric in every 12-person village? I don't have clerics liberally scattered across my world for the convenience of PC healing, either. But most the rest of your points were reasonable. =P

Cerlis
2010-10-03, 07:09 PM
well actually if it where pre-war-of-the-lance Then there wouldnt be any Clerics in major cities (except maybe Palistine or whatever its called), with just a few scattered true clerics here or there. So a PC cleric makes sense, but NPC ones dont.

Greenish
2010-10-03, 07:14 PM
There's no rule about allies allowing safe disengage. There *is* the Withdraw action, though.Maybe it was different in 2e?

onthetown
2010-10-03, 07:20 PM
Long-running campaign about four years ago -- most of the original players had left and it was just the DM, a friend from school, a friend who showed up occasionally, my best friend, and me. The campaign had started out great, but it quickly degenerated when most of the group couldn't make it anymore.

My best friend and I were the only girls, and the guys acted like total sex addicts/pubescent teenage boys/general morons. Because the campaign didn't really feel serious anymore, the DM and the other guys did nothing but crack jokes about my best friend's character's rack (she had been established as the well-endowed redhead) or my own character's sleeping habits (for some reason, I think from joking around with the original group briefly, everybody thought she was basically a slut). Well, the original running jokes about these characteristics had died with the original group -- they were funny enough back at the beginning of the campaign when we all got along and had that air of comfortableness among us, but they had long since grown tired and my best friend and I desperately wanted to focus on the game. Instead, we had to listen to constant innuendo; it wasn't even tastefully done.

Don't get me wrong -- neither of us play up the fact that we're girls or have girl characters. I'm talking about brief jokes that we had all thought were funny back at the first of the campaign, and they weren't overused. You know, every now and then, when the DM would comment on the night passing peacefully, somebody would chirp up, "Except that we couldn't get to sleep with all the noise coming from onthetown's tent," and then we would all chuckle and get back into the game. End of joke until the next time we all feel foolish. Usually not more than one or two per session, and we had that sort of chemistry in our group where we could pull it off without derailing. It was cute and great.

Fast-forward to the dying group. The horrible innuendo was interfering with the game, probably because the DM was desperate to get us back to that old chemistry. While it did get the remaining guys to act like immature idiots and giggle over every little thing, it just annoyed my best friend and me. We had to ask them almost every session if we could just get back on track. We tried to speed up the campaign toward its end by leading the guys past side-quests and side-tracks. We stopped responding to the jokes. We tried humoring them for a few minutes sometimes. We blatantly told the DM and the rest of the group that we didn't like it. It still didn't stop.

It got to the point where my best friend and I convened in private before a gaming session. The original feeling of the group obviously wasn't going to come back without the group actually getting back together, which just wasn't possible. It also didn't seem possible for the remaining guys to act like mature adults and try to get on with the game. We decided that, the next time it got unbearable, we would leave.

It took -- seriously -- only five minutes of playtime to get there.

The session started out on track, as it usually did. We gathered some information. Found out we had to go somewhere. Rented some horses to make our travels easier.

As soon as you put my best friend's character and a horse together, the jokes about her breasts bouncing up and down started up. We looked at each other, and I've never seen them go so quiet that quickly. We should have learned to do that look earlier if it would get them to shut up; they just knew that something was up.

Then we told them that we were sick and tired of the innuendo, the campaign was a trainwreck compared to what it used to be, and we were leaving. Well, more accurately, they would be leaving -- it was my house.

About a year later, our DM started up again and his campaigns are much, much more mature and bearable. He now is able to sense the right times to encourage joking around, and we've actually gotten back to our old chemistry. Our current one has been going on for longer than the original one, and we love it. Leaving that campaign ended up being the best thing we ever did for everybody involved.

Lycan 01
2010-10-03, 07:55 PM
My total number of games dropped out of is 3. The first one is the best.


1 - My first time playing DnD, with my girlfriend, her best friend, and best friend's little brother as the DM. We thought he was an experienced player who'd studied the system and could teach us how to play; in reality, I knew more about DnD than him from reading Order of the Stick, than he knew from "studying" the 3.5 beginners game and DMG. Very quickly I become his least favorite player, simply because I know what I'm doing and like to think outside the box. First session goes okay. Second session... no. He waited 'til 3 AM the day of the game to write out the session, and it started with us being magically sucked down a drain into a sewer to fight crap-throwing French Knights while we were forced to search for the Holy Grail. I grew irritated... and he made my character wait in line to complain to the DM in-game. I grew more irritated... so I cut in line (past several Magic: the Gathering monsters, since he reasoned that just because you have a miniature of something, it can be in the game) and barge into the DM's office. He tells me to file paperwork before complaining to him, so my character leaps across his desk and brings his greatsword down on the in-game DM's face.

The entire party is teleported into a room full of mushrooms, since that's what was on the dungeon tile, nevermind it not making sense. The doors are locked - and the key to get out is on the other side of the dungeon, effectively leaving us trapped. At this point, me and the other two players are passing secret notes. An angel appears and scolds me for causing so much trouble... so I throw lantern oil on the angel and then hurl my torch. The DM says the Angel teleported away, and I doused the mushrooms with oil before throwing my torch on them. I stare at him... then ask what happens when mushrooms chemically react to burning lantern oil inside of a locked room.

He grins and tells me that the nuclear blast is visible from the village we first started at. I stare at him... then stand up and inform him that by a vote of 3-to-1, he has been removed from his position of DM and that my girlfriend and his sister have elected me the new DM. He is actually surprised like this, and when his dad walks in he asks if that's allowed. His dad grins and says it is, and that he should have done a better job.

I've been a DM for almost three years now, all because I was killed by exploding mushrooms. :smallcool:



2 - My character was raped by a cross-dresser, and my roommate's girlfriend's character was repeatedly put into explicitly sexual situations, one of which my character walked in on. She thought it was funny - her boyfriend did not. Myself, my roommate, and half the other players stopped partaking in that game "because we were always busy."


3 - Another game with my roommate and his girlfriend. New GM, running Vampire: the Requiem. Guess what happens? :smallbiggrin: That's right - only this time it's worse. The BBEG/GMPC (depending on how you look at it) seduces and/or rapes (depending on how you look at it) my roommate's girlfriend's character. This made my roommate (and some other players, myself included) extremely uncomfortable, because her character was basically just a vampire self-insert of herself, and the Storyteller basically forced her into the situation with overly-descriptive explainations of how the BBEG's pheremones and body language were intoxicating and overpowering to her Gangel senses. Then, to seal the deal, he said she didn't have to do anything with the BBEG - but if she did, there'd be valuable plot information and important stuff in exchange. So she went along with it in order to advence the storyline and help the team out - and got nothing. Oh wait, yeah she did - the Storyteller told her she woke up naked on satin sheets the next morning, with a check for 3,000 dollars and a romantic note on the nightstand. I was disturbed, but didn't say anything. My poor roommate, however, basically had to visualize his girlfriend being violated by the BBEG/Storyteller and then paid for her services like a whore, which proved to much for him to handle - he left the game right then and there.

Did I mention there was a gerbil involved? Yes, a secret discussion between the overly-perverted Daeva player and the Storyteller resulted in the Daeva selling his pet gerbil to the BBEG that night for... various purposes.


That game, needless to say, died. There was some recent talk of restarting it, minus some players, but it never got off the ground. Probably for the best.

onthetown
2010-10-03, 08:13 PM
3 - Another game with my roommate and his girlfriend...

And I thought mine was bad for sexual harassment. I think I can put up with a few jokes as long as I never have to have this happen. Without explicit permission from me, anyway.

Amphetryon
2010-10-03, 08:35 PM
I was invited to one game that generally started at 10pm and ran until 3 in the morning. I had to work the next morning. The DM was rarely prepared, and when he was 'prepared' it was due to running a Dungeon-printed module, so there was no cohesive story.

After 3 weeks of this, he scrapped the campaign so he could run Star Wars, because it was 'easier to ad lib.' Yeah, see ya.

comicshorse
2010-10-03, 09:03 PM
Just the one.
OWoD game. Warning bells started going off when the Malkavian expalined that as he had Status 5 he was a European Prince and so to important to be arrested by anybody in America ( where the game was set). Then we found out his Dark Fate flaw was to be killed by Caine, which meant he was unkillable until Caine actually appeared.
The fact the GM let him get away with this should have warned me. Then there were the blatant breaches of the Masquerade, the attacking other Kindred in Elysium, the Diablerie experiments. All of which the Prince ignored.
Then he started assassinating the other PCs. Des went first, then Jim, then my character was shopped to the Prince for a minor crime and executed on his recommendation. It wasn't until he decided to murder one of the new PCs literally the second that he was introduced in the game that I got up, said. "That's it " and walked out

Rising Chaos
2010-10-04, 12:01 AM
Interestingly enough the only game I've ever said 'to hell with it' to was one where I was the GM. It happened during one of my groups Dark Heresy games and without a doubt it was the absolute worst game I've ever run thanks to terrible luck and bad decisions.

The game opened with the group's Inquisitor laying out the mission, they were supposed to go down to a rebelling Hive city and stealthily integrate themselves with the insurrectionists to find out what the source of rebellion was (spoiler alert: It was a chaos cult).

The group got about half-way through the briefing when the psyker decided to camouflage for some reason, when he tried he rolled a 9, meaning perils of the warp. He then rolled a psychic scream which meant that instead of going invisible he let out a deafening screech and made the group roll to not be temporarily deafened. The only person to fail the role was the INQUISITOR. Who promptly stopped the briefing and told them to get onto the planet with a vehicle that wouldn't survive atmospheric entry.

After letting the group burn a fate point to retry the briefing the group embarked with an atmosphere-savvy vehicle. They were on the verge of beginning landing when the psyker again tried to camouflage... and again perils of the warp'd. This time however he rolled vice-versa and swapped minds with the techpriest, who was driving the vehicle. Immediately failing his checks to see if he could land properly/realize what just happened he slammed on the gas and smashed the arvus lander they were in into the landing pad, after some minor and one serious injury the group disembarked and the psyker finally managed to camouflage with his environment. As they began 'stealthing' around. The encounter then seemed to be going okay until they ran into the first group of cultists.

The cultists were Blood Pact members, for anyone unaware of what this means they worshiped the chaos god of blood and war. Part of this devotion was wearing the body parts of defeated foes. Ironically enough the PC's cleric was from a feral world whose custom also involved taking bodyparts of the dead as trophies, this meant that the Blood Pact they approached saw the cleric as a Captain-rank Blood Pact from the heads he had on his belt. The cleric attempted to deceive the Blood Pact and everything was going well, till the psyker once again tried something very odd. He attempted to give the group's assassin a slap on the ass as payback for some old minor grudge the two held. When he rolled to hit he missed and instead ended up punching the assassin in the balls. Predictably this made the assassin double over in pain and since the psyker was camouflaging with the environment this made for a strange sight in the Blood Pact's eyes.

The guardsmen then decided the best course of action was to act as though he had sacked the assassin and moved to fake a punch. He however also failed and managed to punch the assassin in the face, knocking him out. At this point the cleric decided "**** it" and began combat with the Blood Pact. The fight went down quite well save for when the cleric did something very, very odd that left him covered in a Blood Pact member's blood, gore ad excrement.

With combat done they approached their main objective, a desecrated church where the cultists were gathering, as a large section of the city was here (about 10 000 people) I again emphasized the point of stealth. However the cleric, still covered in blood guts and poo decided to wade into the crowd and go into the church. Since he stood out just a little the crowd took notice but gave him space, however when he entered the church he not only saw the big bad looking at him but also a hole to the warp which made him go just a tad insane. As he scrambled out the big bad called for his death and even though I had emphasized stealth the group leapt into combat.

Combat opened with the PC's making a tiny dent in the cultist's numbers and then dispersing. Most notably the guardsman running into a building and the techpriest bolting to find a vehicle to escape with. The cultists 10 000 strong turn saw them open fire on the group and blast an arm and a leg off of the cleric. Skipping ahead into combat the cleric had crawled to relative safety with the help of distracting grenades, the techpriest had procured a car and it started to look like they could do it before it all went to hell.

The cleric was assaulted by about three cultists and badly mauled, the guardsman leapt to the rescue... from out of a fifth floor building, and broke both his legs and his pelvis when he landed. As the assassin moved to cover them the rest of the group apparently decided they were dead anyway and planned to abandon them, even through they were only 8 meters away from them. The techpriest then told me he was doing wheelies with the car (he kind of infuriates me with a lack of willingness to even TRY getting into character) and when the PC's approached he didn't stop, this caused the scum (thief equivalent) to try and get into the car and immediately bounce off the car as he tried to get in.

However eventually the scum, psyker and techpriest got into the car tried to get away. As they did they were attacked by daemonic fliers who picked up the car and started to fly away with it. The scum, instead of shooting at the flyers opted to make a blind stab at one with his speak. He missed and hit the fuel tank, which started to leak fuel onto the car. Even though they had been left to die the assassin and guardsmen managed to kill enough fliers to force the car to land again. At this point I described that the car was leaking gas everywhere and asked the techpriest what he wanted to do.

His response was to gun the engines, when he rolled a percentage test to see what the gas would do he failed. The gas ignited and the car exploded into flames, killing all three instantly. The moronic thing they all never even thought to ask was where the extraction point was, as the car had landed a paltry three feet from it and the techpriest had never bothered to remember. Faced with that and the fact that the remaining 9800 cultists were still well armed and dangerous as opposed to the other 3 crippled PC's I got up in frustration, said "You know what? To hell with it this adventure never happened" and walked out of the room.

Most of them learned the importance of stealth and good thinking that game (The techprist didn't), but this game is the one I always refer to as a collosal screw up.

Steward
2010-10-04, 12:42 AM
I'm starting to think that there are a lot of people who only play roleplaying games so that they can hurt and embarass other people under the guise of "it's just a game!" Simply being bad at playing or DMing is one thing, but a lot of this stuff sounds more like juvenile sadism.

Lycan 01
2010-10-04, 01:10 AM
That sounds like an awesome game of Dark Heresy, actually. They failed, but at least they failed spectacularly. :smallcool:

My DH groups have done some stupid stuff, like trying to use Touch of Madness on an incognito Daemonhost, but never anything to make me just quit the game.

Halaster
2010-10-04, 01:37 AM
Wow, I guess I'm lucky I was the GM most of the time, and only rarely had players walk out on me. When I was younger, I tried to get everyone I personally liked to game, which didn't always work out, and some of them just said "this is stupid" and walked out, but that had nothing to do with the specific campaign or party.

Nowadays I tend to play games with mature and well-adjusted people who have been gaming for years, and if there is an issue with the game, we can talk about it and start something else instead.
The trouble with gaming is, I think, that there are scores of folks out there, who just don't get the "mature and well-adjusted" part done. Luckily, I can spot these most of the time. It usually begins, when they describe their game setting and flavor. You can tell, when someone says "you know, everyone can die" (meaning "everyone will die"), or "mine is a realistic game, no heroes", meaning "it's a big, nasty, no-win scenario where you will suffer" and so on. Probably worth it's own thread. The stuff people "market" their campaigns with and what it means.

Right now, I have one GM I'm thinking about quitting altogether. He's a nice guy, and he cooks for his games (and does it well), so I'm reluctant do walk, but it's just no good. He's all artsy and always goes on about genre and flavor and stuff, but never comes up with an original story, always playing whatever is in print, then GMs those in the most uninspired way, often reading out sections in a flat monotone, or just showing us pictures in the books instead of describing anything at all. He also doesn't really play the NPCs, and sometimes has trouble even paying attention to someone on the other end of the table. He's not stupid, mean or anything, he just isn't up to the GM thing, but totally fails to see that.

Ragitsu
2010-10-04, 01:57 AM
Probably worth it's own thread. The stuff people "market" their campaigns with and what it means.

I support this.

Chrono22
2010-10-04, 02:27 AM
Well, just two.

One was a pickup game at a mall when I was a teenager. The DM basically railroaded us relentlessly. Any attempt to find alternate, safer routes to a destination or make meaningful choices was prevented. Basically, his "dungeon" was a series of pointless 3-way intersections with combat at each intersection. I failed my will save to overcome his illusion of choice, and instead played some games at the arcade. My time wasn't wasted- an hour later, the rest of the group packed up and finished. They wiped against an opponent they couldn't beat.
The second time was a bit more recent. A local DM was running a game, and I opted to join. From the way he described his campaigns and playstyle, he sounded like he would be great. Turns out, his perception of his own DMing style did not match reality. His campaigns were boring, dry and lacked even basic descriptions. Combats were... mostly fiat and not very engaging. It didn't help that his wife (who was also a player) was a boring, agitated wet blanket and got preferential treatment. Half the time, she'd just stop playing to take a nap. So, at the end of every session, he encouraged the players to speak their minds about his DMing and the game in general. I guess he was used to getting alot of pushover players that liked to be led around by the nose, so (a few sessions later) when I actually came up with some opinions about how the game could improve, he was insulted. After supplying some constructive criticism and making some polite suggestions, he fumed and his wife accused me of calling him "a bad DM" along with a few choice words I can't reproduce here. I decided to leave after that. Boring games and lackluster DMing are no excuse for bad manners.

I support this.
Love the avatar! From 'here comes the rain', right?

Psyx
2010-10-04, 05:41 AM
Only left three games; two of them run by the same guy.

1) D&D 2E. Idiot GM who railroaded, handed out ridiculous items, only to take them away again. Cheated on monster saving throws et cetera constantly. Told us what was happening and what choices we should make... basically the very epitome of an awful GM.

2) Aberrant game where we were far from 'super'. I was unable to pull a gun, while running down stairs without falling down three flights of them. Our existence was glued firmly in the mundane, and we were horribly railroaded. The only way to solve plot was the way that the GM had thought of.

3) SLA game where we were constantly shouted at and made to feel like the dregs. Every character point spent on disadvantages was ruthlessly used to try to kill us... as was every point spent on advantages and merits. Everything was far more deadly than us, and everything happened to the monster's advantage. GM pulled no punches and gloated. Finally lost patience and left after character number three died on week three, having fell off a 2m wide stack of pallets, landed conveniently right at an NPC's feet, and took a called shot, point blank to the face before being able to react in any way because I was 'surprised'; yet the guy who just had someone land at his feet in a dark warehouse was able to fluidly, draw and execute me in the same amount of time. Go figure.

Roga
2010-10-04, 06:10 AM
From an old post, but one of the few games I've walked out on.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9157170&postcount=22

bokodasu
2010-10-04, 06:26 AM
There's a DM I won't play with; I rolled up my standard 6-CHA half-orc barbarian, and he constantly had every male NPC the party met hit on her. GROSS, DUDE. But he got annoyed at another DM and won't play with our group anymore, so even though I *would* have left his campaign if given the chance, I didn't get to.

The only campaign I ever actually left was because of another player who I finally got fed up with; he always makes purposefully "weak" characters (wizard!), gives them "useless" abilities (charm person!) and then refuses to use those abilities when they would actually be useful. (If only we had a way to get this low-level footpad to reveal to us the location of his gang's hideout...) And his "role-playing" is "monopolize every conversation with stupid banter, don't let anyone else get a word in edgewise, then complain about how you're the only person roleplaying and everyone else just wants to roll dice." Yes, we do want to roll dice, because it's the only time we'll ever get a chance to do anything! Only one DM can sit on his head enough for anyone else to have fun, and he won't play with that DM anymore.

Who, now that I think about it, is the same DM who annoyed the bad DM of the first paragraph. I should just keep playing with that guy. (Not that he's the perfect DM or anything; he annoys me plenty. Just not as much as those other guys.)

druid91
2010-10-04, 06:51 AM
From an old post, but one of the few games I've walked out on.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9157170&postcount=22

Wait, "He's a kender" is an acceptable response? What would he have said if you had put your flask at the bottom of an indestructible urn of epic poison?

senrath
2010-10-04, 07:02 AM
Wait, "He's a kender" is an acceptable response? What would he have said if you had put your flask at the bottom of an indestructible urn of epic poison?

Based on similar experiences (although not ones with Kender, thankfully), I'd guess that he would've just repeated "He's a Kender."

Lhurgyof
2010-10-04, 08:01 AM
Star Wars d20 game.

Spoilered for length.

So, the DM is this new British guy (No offense to any British people here, just a description) that started showing up to the local game store. He's kind of a douche, and I didn't really feel like playing, but my friend wanted me to, so I decided to play.

Ok, so no Jedi or force sensitive characters? That's fine with me. You have to be able to pilot a ship? That's fine as well, only a few skill points wasted. Heck, one of the PCs (my friend) is even playing a droid to help me.

So, I decide to make a Mon Kalamari scout trapsmith. Can't be one because "Mon Kalamari don't make traps". Ok, so I go with a human tech specialist. My name is Professor Membrane. Ok, game putters around a while, we don't get anything done. At this point the DM doesn't let me say "for science" and makes me change my name.

So my new name is Raymond Luxuryacht. (pronounced throat-wobbler mangrove, and yes it is a python joke but I only said it once or twice). The DM grabs my sheet and erases my name, putting my real name there. At this point I'm really put off.

The game goes pretty railroaded, somehow not really getting us anywhere.

Everything, EVEN SITTING DOWN requires a skill check or an ability check. Oh, and if you roll under a 15 expect to fail (Did I mention we're still only first level? With no XP?)

So, I get into the wrong flight sim, because apparently characters with 15 int are borderline retarded), turn the key, and get brought to the military base jail, get pulverized by the guards, then brought to the ER. I don't show up to the next game, and get a call from one of the players asking where I am. I can here the DM saying that I'm being raped in the background. Not sure if it was literal or not, but either way I'm never playing again.

3 games, no xp, DCs of 30 or higher for some skill checks as level 1 PC's, characters are expected to have at least 20s in stats to be functional humans, and the DM is railroading us. Oh, and he likes being a jerk to anyone who doesn't go along with his railroading.

In fact, the only reason I went was because my friend wanted me to.

Galdor Miriel
2010-10-04, 08:28 AM
As a teenager it was D&D that kept me on the straight and narrow. It gave my friends and me an outlet that did not involve wondering the streets at random, looking for a fight. Instead we wandered the many planes and got into serious fights.

But when I went to school I just could not find a decent game to join. I tried the role play club at University, turned up with 5 or 6 cherished and fully realised characters and the dm gave me a complete character with all stats and alignments etc predetermined. I took it as a challenge.

The dm gave me a level 3 thief of chaotic evil alignment, intelligence 8 wisdom 5.

The rest of the party included a level 7 paladin, who seemed to be someone the dm wanted to get to know better, nudge nudge wink wink, a 5th level dwarven warrior (also lawful good), a 5th level wizard and someone els I forget, but much higher level than me.

Suffice to say I played my character that I had had forced upon me appropriately, I was stupid, ruining plans, I made bad decisions and I tried to stab one of my companions in the back after they humiliated me for being handed my ass on a plate in a fight against a minotaur. I was level 3 for Thor's sake!

The dm then decided that I was not playing the party role very well and told me off for playing the character I had been given.

Well, I didn't go back. I got some good roleplaying at home, but then left it behind for years until starting again with some new friends. Luckily some people can run sane and fun games and today I am an avid player once more.

Quietus
2010-10-04, 08:30 AM
Maybe it was different in 2e?

Psh. That doesn't even make sense, who plays 2e? :smalltongue:

Ormagoden
2010-10-04, 08:58 AM
I just left a table, very recently as a matter of fact (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165648)...

big teej
2010-10-04, 01:42 PM
I feel very blessed to have never had a game as a DM or as a player where someone has gotten up and left (unless something like curfew or family called them away)



The trouble with gaming is, I think, that there are scores of folks out there, who just don't get the "mature and well-adjusted" part done. Luckily, I can spot these most of the time. It usually begins, when they describe their game setting and flavor. You can tell, when someone says "you know, everyone can die" (meaning "everyone will die"), or "mine is a realistic game, no heroes", meaning "it's a big, nasty, no-win scenario where you will suffer" and so on. Probably worth it's own thread. The stuff people "market" their campaigns with and what it means.


I like this idea, we should do this.

Tyndmyr
2010-10-04, 02:16 PM
After reading these stories, I'm not surprised ya'll left these games.

I'm mostly just shocked that anyone STAYED in these games. How do people that GM so poorly still have players?

Greenish
2010-10-04, 02:31 PM
So, I decide to make a Mon Kalamari scout trapsmith. Can't be one because "Mon Kalamari don't make traps".Wait, what?! If there's something the Mon Kalamari don't know about traps, it's not worth knowing!

Caphi
2010-10-04, 02:35 PM
Wait, what?! If there's something the Mon Kalamari don't know about traps, it's not worth knowing!

MON CALAMARI TRAP LORE
DC 5: IT'S A TRAP!

Ragitsu
2010-10-04, 03:07 PM
FI'm mostly just shocked that anyone STAYED in these games. How do people that GM so poorly still have players?

Friend/family loyalty can go a long ways...

Rising Chaos
2010-10-04, 04:33 PM
Friend/family loyalty can go a long ways...

That or a lack of any other GM's in the area.

Maryring
2010-10-04, 05:48 PM
C'mon, you can't just leave it at that. RL Drama >>> Table Drama.

If you're that curious. It wasn't much drama really, or even happen at the table. It happened during one of the smoke breaks (half the group smoked, so since we were all, for the most part, friends, us non-smokers join in as the group walks out to find a place to smoke). One of my DM's less... shall we say friendly friends dropped by. He'd no intention of playing, or really doing much but being a nuisance, interrupting the DM all the time and other such stuff. When the DM finally yielded to his chatter to join in on a smoke break, as explained before we all joined in. It was after the smoke break, on the way back that the trouble started. Mr trouble decided it'd be fun to throw rocks after cars, something I could not agree with. We quarreled a bit, causing the others to leave, thinking that we'd be along shortly. But it was not so. He threw a massive rock into the street, and I knew that any car that would pass that road would be heavily damaged if they didn't notice it in time and stop (to make matters worse, the street is very close to both a fire station, and the largest hospital around, which means that it is often frequented by emergency vehicles), so I went out into the street to move it. This caused trouble to see red, and he flipped out and attacked me, demanding I don't move the rock. After beating him enough to make him realize that he did not want the rock there, I returned to the DM, said that I would not let myself be subject to this, and biked off.

(I later made amends with the DM, since it really wasn't his fault, but it is by far the least pleasant round of DnD I've played.)

Ragitsu
2010-10-04, 10:04 PM
After some thought, I figured I'd post this story.

I warn you though, this is probably offensive to all women, everywhere, across all of space and time.

Years ago another player's girlfriend became a regular in an long-running AD&D game. She had never played an RPG before, but she caught on pretty quickly, and was actually a fantastic player once she got the hang of things.

This was your pretty standard AD&D game, dungeon crawling and some light RP. The female player, who I'll call 'Sarah', was playing a rogue, and her character was in an on-again-off-again relationship with a nobleman of rather dubious morals.

One day, at the beginning of the session, the DM accounces to all of us that Sarah's character is now pregnant with Probably Evil Nobleman's child.

Sarah takes this pretty well (I know I wouldn't have been happy with the DM's behavior), she shrugs and says, "My character goes and gets an abortion."

At this, the DM reels back, away from the table, like she just punched him in the face. He spends like thirty seconds sputtering, and finally regains his composure and screams, "WHAT!? WHY!? You aren't even going to mention this to Probably Evil Nobleman!?"

The rest of us are in shock, we're not exactly sure what to say or do.

Sarah is totally calm, and just kinda shrugs again and says, "No."

So, now the DM turns to us and screams, "Aren't any of you going to do anything about this!?"

One of the players kinda awkwardly pats Sarah on the shoulder and says, "We're your party, so we support whatever you do."

We all give him this very serious nod in agreement with her.

The DM starts screaming at us all, and I start laughing hysterically. It may have honestly been the closest I've ever come to wetting my pants.

He gets up from the table and declares the campaign is now over. Informing us that the baby Sarah's character was pregnant with was, in fact, the Messiah. Without the Messiah we have no chance of stopping the Big Bad, so the world is going to be destroyed. He tears up a bunch of campaign notes, and leaves, but not before screaming:

"I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY! YOU JUST ABORTED JESUS!"

Which pretty instantly became a meme for my RP group.

So, that's my story of how we made a DM say, "To hell with this." and quit a game.

Thought i'd share what a fellow poster had to say.

WarKitty
2010-10-04, 10:17 PM
Thought i'd share what a fellow poster had to say.

DMing rule number 1: Never ever make a plot point dependent on a single NPC, single action, etc., unless the players are made blatantly aware of this fact. PC's have a nasty habit of stabbing first and asking questions later.

Lycan 01
2010-10-04, 10:42 PM
Wowie, I got quite a laugh out of that one. *wipes a tear from his eye*

Camelot
2010-10-04, 11:06 PM
I've had a player insist on using a Jedi lego for a mini. I've had a character decide to visit their parents and make tea and cookies. I've had a character play a rogue who alway hid in the shadows and run away when anything threatening got near him. I've had a player watch while the rest of the party was wailed on by wraiths. I've had a character straight out of a bishojo anime. I've even had a player play Voldemort.

I've never left a game, and my players and I have enjoyed every single game I've run.

Shpadoinkle
2010-10-04, 11:13 PM
Mine's not as interesting as the others, but here it is anyway.

It was... some time ago. Seven or eight years, maybe. Anyway, new campagin, new characters, new setting, etc. DM has us all arriving in some big trade city on the shore. I don't remember how exactly we knew each other, if we did at all.

ANYWAY, there are like six players. Everybody's off doing thier own crap, including one guy, playing a rogue who spends a freaking hour sneaking around stealing crap from people and making about a 30 GP profit (guy was stealing crap like a sleeping guard's short sword. Wasn't magical, wan't masterwork, it was a standard, 100% unremakrable short sword exactly like the three thousand other short swords in that city.) Meanwhile, I'm bored to ****ing tears and getting kind of pissed off at the rogue's player because we could have been doing something AS A GROUP in that hour and made a hundred times that much money.

So when the DM focused on me, I just said I'm finding someplace to wait for everybody else to finish farting around so we could all go out and, you know, actually accomplish something. So he moves on to the next person.

This goes on for maybe four, four and a half hours. Eventually I just got up and said "It takes too damn long to get ANYTHING done, and I'm sick of it," and left. (Earlier in the session one of the other players bought a house for us to use as a headquarters- this took maybe forty minutes.) I later heard that in like the last five minutes of the session they finally got everyone together and left town on some quest or other. There was never a second session.

This was a really frustrating experience for me because, if we were lucky, we played once every two or three weeks, and on top of that I had to drive an hour to get there and an hour back, and I could sit on my ass making pointless conversation without actually getting anything done at home.

Looking back on it I can see that the DM was probably shooting for a more RP heavy game than I was used to, but I'd gamed with him in the past (with both of us as players) and he'd never really given me any indication he'd be DMing like that, so it totally came out of left field for me. I expected to be carving up monsters and dodging traps, not playing The Sims.

The Glyphstone
2010-10-04, 11:16 PM
Thought i'd share what a fellow poster had to say:

epic story


I would sig that, except it'd look religious out of context, and thus not exactly appropriate for me. So +1 internet instead.:smallbiggrin: