Habits that kill fun in a session.

[Jamin]

I'm so sick of bad DM fiat.

"I make a sense motive check..."

"You can't."

"What do you mean I can't?"

"It doesn't work. There's some kind of magic stopping you..."

"There's magic stopping me from using sense motive? Stopping my character from having intuition?"

"Yep. You have to trust him."


And, of course, the guy WAS evil, and we were never allowed to question it. It didn't even make sense that he was trying to trick us... Our characters were evil, and had told him, "look, if you're actually an evil tyrant hellbent on world domination, that's cool with us." Right up until the end, our characters didn't want to fight him, but the DM made it clear this was the only way things were going down, no matter how little sense it made. So the wizard summoned us to his magic tower, threatened us until we attacked him, then we were trapped until we found the boss fight (which was, of course, 2 lvl 13 characters against 3 great wyrm dragons, ending with us being saved by Mordenkeinen and the DM's favourite PC from an old game).
Wow just wow.

[Tael]

Really? I'd be fine if they were backstabbing for legitimate in-game reasons. "I'm evil or they're evil" sound like weak excuses to me.

I took it as if one of the characters was secretly a double agent, it would be a good excuse for backstabbing, but yeah, I agree with you.

[Trellan]

Oh, that reminds me of one:

DMs that creatively interpret the 'useful information' clause of Knowledge checks to make them pointless. I'm playing an elemental blaster...useful knowledge to me is what resistances/immunities it might have. Useful knowledge is not 'its acidic blood splashes on people who injure it in melee' or 'its aura of dark magic makes channeling positive energy less effective'. If I invest skill points in something and use it the way it's intended, throw me a bone instead of screwing me over for 'added challenge'.

As an addendum to that one: DMs that creatively interpret the way Knowledge checks work to make them completely worthless in general, usually by not understanding how DCs work.

Player: "Alright, I got a 30 on my check! What do I know about this thing?"
DM: "It's a chain devil. It can control chains to attack you."

.......

[Tael]

As an addendum to that one: DMs that creatively interpret the way Knowledge checks work to make them completely worthless in general, usually by not understanding how DCs work.

Player: "Alright, I got a 30 on my check! What do I know about this thing?"
DM: "It's a chain devil. It can control chains to attack you."

.......

Uh, you can just point him to the skills chapter of the PHB. It's RAW that you get a lot more than that. Have you never brought this up with your DM?

[Silus]

Really? I'd be fine if they were backstabbing for legitimate in-game reasons. "I'm evil or they're evil" sound like weak excuses to me.

Well at least it's an excuse. I've had times where a certain player in my group would do something backstabby for some undisclosed reason.

[Trellan]

Uh, you can just point him to the skills chapter of the PHB. It's RAW that you get a lot more than that. Have you never brought this up with your DM?

That would be the whole point of my post in a thread about habits that kill fun, yes. If talking to him fixed the problem it wouldn't exactly be an annoying habit. He assigns insanely high DCs to all skill checks and increases them as players gain in level so it's almost impossible to make even simple checks. This same DM is also known for such things as having us roll a DC 20 spot check to see a rather large island at a rather close distance and a DC 15 listen check to hear a cannon going off fifteen feet away from us.

[Firechanter]

I hate it when a GM won't even listen to my character concept. Actually so far that's only happened with one particular GM. That guy actually runs some pretty cool plots sometimes, but he seems to be scared that anything you give your character might break his game.
For example, we're playing a Savage Worlds mini-campaign. I decided to make a Ranger-type, and wanted to buy the "Beast Master" edge. For those not in the know, that basically gives you an Animal Companion much like the D&D class feature. The book suggests "a large dog or wolf" but also says other options are possible.
Just out of courtesy I didn't simply write it down but _asked_ the GM if I could have an animal companion. Mistake. The GM says "No, forget it." (he previously said me playing a Ranger was a good idea and fitting to his plot) He even refuses to read the description of Beast Master, but adds something like "You can have a monkey or a pig." (clearly intended as turnoff) - Yes thank you very much.

As it was just for a mini-campaign (3rd and hopefully final session tonight) I didn't cause a fuss but took a different edge. But my desire to play again with him as GM is greatly diminished.

[DarkEternal]

Honestly, for the Knowledge checks it depends on how you interpret them. In Monster Manual V, you have a Knowledge check chart to each monster and what you get for passing certain DC's. Here's a random one for Mercurion:

Knowledge (Arcana)

DC Result

27--This rare and reclusive creature is no giant,
but a merchurion—a powerful hulking menace
of living metal. This result reveals all living
construct traits.

32---Merchurions have the ability to shape magic
weapons from their own bodies, but foes who
engage these creatures in melee do so at their
peril. Magic weapons that strike a merchurion
have their properties absorbed and utilized in the
creature’s own attacks.

37---A slain merchurion immediately collapses to a
pool of silvery liquid that retains some of the
creature’s magical essence. Weapons dipped in
this liquid become silvered and strike as magic
weapons against the toughest creatures.

It says nothing about how he's vulnerable to sonic magic, or that he's got a DR 10 to everything except if the weapon is magic and silver in composition.

So yeah, that really is up to DM's interpretation what you learned about him. It can go down your road that you learned about it's weaknesses, or that you as a scholar wanted to know about their functions, how they were made and such.

[soir8]

I hate it when a GM won't even listen to my character concept. Actually so far that's only happened with one particular GM. That guy actually runs some pretty cool plots sometimes, but he seems to be scared that anything you give your character might break his game.
For example, we're playing a Savage Worlds mini-campaign. I decided to make a Ranger-type, and wanted to buy the "Beast Master" edge. For those not in the know, that basically gives you an Animal Companion much like the D&D class feature. The book suggests "a large dog or wolf" but also says other options are possible.
Just out of courtesy I didn't simply write it down but _asked_ the GM if I could have an animal companion. Mistake. The GM says "No, forget it." (he previously said me playing a Ranger was a good idea and fitting to his plot) He even refuses to read the description of Beast Master, but adds something like "You can have a monkey or a pig." (clearly intended as turnoff) - Yes thank you very much.

As it was just for a mini-campaign (3rd and hopefully final session tonight) I didn't cause a fuss but took a different edge. But my desire to play again with him as GM is greatly diminished.


I had to argue the case to my DM that hexblades weren't overpowered with the online fixes. Whenever he plays, the guy almost always rolls a cleric or druid.

[Sipex]

I will add that 4th edition has the same problem with monster knowledge checks. The player's handbook only says what skills you use to make knowledge checks vs certain monster types and rough DCs for 'Really difficult checks' vs 'Really easy checks' and what tier of play.

The monster manuals have small sections which give different flavour text (much like the post by DarkEternal) for the check you make.

Only the DM screen actually lets you (as a DM) know what stats the player can actually know by making a knowledge check, it's not recorded anywhere else (to my knowledge).

[Trellan]

Honestly, for the Knowledge checks it depends on how you interpret them.

From the SRD:

"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."

So, given my chain devil example (which was completely pulled out of thin air as a representation of a common occurrence), the DC would be 18. I rolled a 30 in my hypothetical situation, which means I should get a total of three bits of "useful information". It's fair to say that the bit about attacking with chains is useful, although a bit obvious. Let's be REALLY generous and say that the thing's name also counts as useful. I'm still shorted one bit of "useful information". There's a difference between not providing certain pieces of information and providing NO information at all. If there's a chart, sure, that's cool. Mercurions are probably pretty obscure creatures, so it makes sense you'd have to roll high for them. Chain devils have no such chart, and since this particular DM always uses homebrew monsters or MMI monsters, I'm pretty sure none of the ones I'd be rolling for would.

Not to mention that, if I rolled a 30, that means I've invested enough in my knowledge skill to have a modifier of at least +10 and all I'm getting for it is information that could be pretty easily surmised by just looking at the thing.

[Choco]

Backstabbing and loot whoring: Negotiating your way into some better loot I'm fine with. Everyone's done that at some point I'm sure. But leaving the party in the middle of combat to, say, loot a chest or something so you can pocket the gold? Yeah, not cool. Same goes for trying to backstab your party members for any reason other than "I'm evil" or "They're evil".

Luckily this has not been much of a problem (for too long anyway) in all the groups I have played in. Backstabbing characters are promptly killed upon discovery, and loot whores are given 1 warning and have all their non-combat-essential valuables at the time of discovery taken and distributed among the rest of the party before they meet with the same fate :smallbiggrin:


Players who get upset when there are actually consequences for their actions. Bonus points if said actions also screw over the entire party, and the player is confused as to why everyone is mad at him (both IC and OOC).

[Feddlefew]

My top five:

5. Players who memorize source books, especially the monster manual.
5b. Players who complain when I use home brewed monsters.
4. That guy who brought his girlfriend over every. Single. Game.*
3. People getting food all over my dice or inside my dice bag. When I reach into my dice bag, I don't want to be finding melted snickers bars in there!
2. When people have to leave early, they should let me know ahead of time!*
1. Finish your turn, then go to get snacks, use the bathroom, or play with the dog.

*After the same person remembered he had prior arrangements halfway through a major battle, for the third session in a row, she took over his character. This continued for about a month. When always-leaves-early-guy stopped showing up, the party found a belt of gender changing... :smallamused:

[Tyndmyr]

Wow just wow.

Yeah, if that doesn't scream "bad DM", I don't know what does.

Skills are useful, if played by the book. Unfortunately, some DMs are really terrible at skills. The knowledge skills are common whipping boys. Sense motive, etc....also fairly common. I've gotten rolls that I *know* can't possibly fail, and received no additional information at all. Yay.

One more reason not to play a skillmonkey, I guess.


I once had a player surprise me by bringing over his kid. He peed on my bed.

[big teej]

mister "I think I"ll help you with your job"

the guy who finds something (lets say 2 quasi valuable gems)

and then begins to spout off about how he's going to use them to enchant his weapon.


you're a barbarian buddy, you MIGHT enchant a tavern wench with your muscles.

I"m all for players finding little nick-nacks and persuing their use.

telling me how it's going to work.
nope, sorry.

see also
"but wouldn't x do y?"

this is the guy who after informing the party that -monster- does a certain action, is positive you've made a mistake of some sort, and wants to help. you. out.

mister "why am I playing with you?"
this is the guy who lets his players roll monty haul and complains when creation is 4d6 drop lowest + 300 gp

common phrases from this individual
"dude..... can't I bump this one stat a point?"
"dude..... I didn't get a single 18, can I reroll a number or two?"
"dude..... you're so mean to your players"
"this is so lame!"
"I assume we get a backpack and stuff for free right?"

to reiterate, these all these statements followed me informing the player of creation rules, which were the following.

"4d6 drop the lowest, arrange to taste, you are assumed to start butt naked and have 300 gold to fix it, if you don't have a single number above 14 or your total bonus isn't positive, you may reroll"

on a similar note
mister "hits on your girlfriend"
some of us are lucky enough to have a significant other in our life who GENUINELY enjoys to play the game. (some slightly less lucky of us also have significant others who are willing to humor us.)

this is the guy who will sit down behind the screen and roleplay random NPCs hitting on your SO's character.

mister arbitrary.
this is the guy who will change things on a whim to make sure the game progress EXACTLY how he envisions it.
case in point.
solo campaign, a minor villian begins to monolouge, taking notes from "the gamers" I pull out my bow and shoot him, so he'll be flat footed, and I might actually hit him with my crappy ranged to hit bonus.

the DM rolls a d20. I, curious, ask "watcha rolling?"
DM: a reflex save to see if the guy dodges your arrow.
me. :smallconfused::smallfurious::smallyuk:
last time I checked, that's what AC is for.... and the distinction between normal, touch, and flatfooted....

then there's mister "no it doesn't work that way"
this is the guy who will let you take some feat/class/race/whatever that grants you a Super Cool Power. and then when you try to use it as intended, informs you that "it doesn't work that way"
bonus points if he won't let you switch it out for something else that DOES work.

and last.
mister "hey check out my super cool NPC ideas"
these are the guys who insist (consciously or not) to constantly, consistently, and completely overshadow everything your character does with an NPC's actions.

example:
in a campaign a while back, I was booking passage to an island. being a fighter in half plate, I wanted a ring of waterbreathing...
one of the pirate privateer ship captains had one, and was willing to wager it in a board game.
I rolled low, and was properly trounced in the game.
to which I responded
"sir, this is no contest, you've played this game for years, I have never seen this game until I entered this very room"
concedeing my point, the half-orc captian agreed to a second contest of my choosing.

I chose .....
an ah-chery contest

and promptly won.
I thucked an arrow closer to the beer bottle we were shooting at than he did.

the other pirate captains who were watching this prompted to.
1. 'spin' the bottle around by hitting it with an arrow.
2. plant a dagger right below the bottle on the post.
3. pull out a hand crossbow and break the bottle.
4. pull out a GRENADE and blow up the post.

[Trellan]

and last.
mister "hey check out my super cool NPC ideas"
these are the guys who insist (consciously or not) to constantly, consistently, and completely overshadow everything your character does with an NPC's actions.


Oh man, I've got a really bad one of those too. This guy LOVES anything even remotely like a rogue. For a long time, all he would play was rogue-like characters, often completely misunderstanding their abilities in an effort to make them WAY better than they were. Of course, when he DMs this translates directly into every. single. merchant being a master swindler and at least half the populace of any given city being able to sleight of hand your full plate off you as you round a corner. Don't even go near a thieve's guild, you'll regret it. And man are you in trouble if YOU play a rogue-like character in his game, because then every single one of those aforementioned NPCs thinks you're honing in on their turf and they need to cut you down to size.

[gourdcaptain]

Agree with the people who can't build. I've somehow ended up at least partially responsible for the builds of half the group. (Admittedly, this is from being the optimizer of the group and people consulting me for advice.) But seriously, we have to go over how skill points are distributed again? Really? (Yes, I realize most people don't plan out their build to LV 20 barring odd events before even playing them, but still).

Oh, also have to add the guy who can't do math - we have a player at my PF game who cannot add numbers together. (It's not even in his favor - he somehow ends up consistently 2 to 3 below what he actually got on his hit roll.)

[soir8]

Agree with the people who can't build. I've somehow ended up at least partially responsible for the builds of half the group. (Admittedly, this is from being the optimizer of the group and people consulting me for advice.) But seriously, we have to go over how skill points are distributed again? Really? (Yes, I realize most people don't plan out their build to LV 20 barring odd events before even playing them, but still).

Oh, also have to add the guy who can't do math - we have a player at my PF game who cannot add numbers together. (It's not even in his favor - he somehow ends up consistently 2 to 3 below what he actually got on his hit roll.)

I'm guilty of the second one :smallbiggrin:

I've told my players before, "when I say 'so x + y multiplied by z is...' and sit there looking thoughtful, I'm not actually doing the maths, I'm waiting for one of you to do it for me."

My brain just turns off when numbers are involved.

All my players are fairly new to D&D, so I do a lot of character building for them - usually I'll just ask them what they want to be able to do, and then I try and come up with something that fits. One of my players, though, has really taken off as a natural optimizer. His previous character was an uber-cheesy frenzied berserker who, by lvl 13, was doing around 400 damage per round (I know there are far more broken melee builds, but this was impressive for a newbie) and had a few warblade lvls to patch up the character's weaknesses. Now he's a focused Conjurer, and I can't wait to see what he makes of building a caster.

[Feldarove]

I hate much of the horrible things that have been listed. For me a few of the worst are:

Players not knowing the rules at all!

DMs who just stop dming in the middle of a campaign because they are "worn out"

Negative players/DMs

I really hate negative players. Especially ones who seem to hate even playing dnd. I also hate when players roll stats, get medium to bad stats and then just make a character they don't like and just plot on how to get thiere character killed.

[Provengreil]

DMs who just stop dming in the middle of a campaign because they are "worn out"


how dd I forget that one? it happened to me in reverse though. we were 4/5ths of the way through a campaign and the Players announce it's getting too boring. Normally this is a sign of bad DMing, but no one brought it up with me so I never had a chance to correct anything, and everyone seemed to be having fun at the time so i didn't see it coming at all.

[Claudius Maximus]

how dd I forget that one? it happened to me in reverse though. we were 4/5ths of the way through a campaign and the Players announce it's getting too boring. Normally this is a sign of bad DMing, but no one brought it up with me so I never had a chance to correct anything, and everyone seemed to be having fun at the time so i didn't see it coming at all.

This is my greatest fear, especially since the players are so tight-lipped with criticism.

[Eric Tolle]

Wow just wow.

That's not so bad. Now, the GM in this story...:




On May 7 1998, 12:00 am, [email protected] wrote:

> Story #2:
> Playing Space Opera, I had a referee whose opposition was *always*, without
> fail, able to trivially kick the PCs' butt. He also railroaded with a
> heavier hand than anyone I've ever even heard rumors of. We latched on to
> the pattern early in the game and started to experiment to see just how far
> this referee power trip went. One of the experiments was to just attack a
> random passer-by with everything we had (and, trust me, we had *incredible*
> levels of power!--this would have been a Monty Hall campaign except for the
> fact that everything else had even more power). Sure enough, this completely
> random passer-by just happened to be an incredibly powerful psionic who
> trivially wiped the streets clean with us. Then this same NPC--the one we
> opened up relationships with by trying to kill, mind--decided that we were
> trustworthy folk who would be perfect for a military mission he had in mind.
> Here's where things got very surreal:
> 1) We refused to participate so he teleported us to the battlefield.
> 2) We just stood around and ignored everything going on around us so we got
> teleported inside a (tracked) tank.
> 3) We refused to drive the tank or fire its gun at anything so it drove
> itself and shot at the opposition (who were, of course, able to just swat
> aside the rounds).
> 4) We climbed out of the tank and jumped in front of it under its treads so
> it levitated over us with its hitherto unseen anti-gravity device.
> 5) My character tried to use a force knife to cut his own throat, but the
> force knife blade contracted to nothing whenever it got close to being able
> to injure my character.
>
> At this point we all just got up and left the game, never to return.

[dsmiles]

Here's one that kills it for me:

A DM who won't make a rules decision when players have been arguing about how a rule works for more than a few minutes. I came to play, not waste my time.

On that note:

Players who argue about rules for more than a few minutes.

[bloodtide]

Players that insist on Rolling--This comes up a lot when as DM I'll just handwave things to keep the game moving.


DM-You walk by some bright red flowers that smell very pleasant.
Player-''Oh, what are they?!'' looks for d20
DM-With your 10 ranks in knowledge nature and 10 ranks in elven lore and the fact that your a half elven druid...you just know that the flowers are Resp Flowers, a type of specialty elven flower...
PlayerIgnores DM-I roll a 27 on my Plant Lore, what are the flowers?

Everything Knowledge Roll-where the player wants to know everything.

Player--I rolled a 30, what are the humanoids?
DM--They are a race you heard of call the Jask. A cat-like race that lives in small groups. They are good at hunting and have great jumpping abilities.
Player AND???
DM What?
Player Tell me more, I want to know everything about them.

[DarkEternal]

Players that insist on Rolling--This comes up a lot when as DM I'll just handwave things to keep the game moving.


DM-You walk by some bright red flowers that smell very pleasant.
Player-''Oh, what are they?!'' looks for d20
DM-With your 10 ranks in knowledge nature and 10 ranks in elven lore and the fact that your a half elven druid...you just know that the flowers are Resp Flowers, a type of specialty elven flower...
PlayerIgnores DM-I roll a 27 on my Plant Lore, what are the flowers?

Everything Knowledge Roll-where the player wants to know everything.

Player--I rolled a 30, what are the humanoids?
DM--They are a race you heard of call the Jask. A cat-like race that lives in small groups. They are good at hunting and have great jumpping abilities.
Player AND???
DM What?
Player Tell me more, I want to know everything about them.

I was always the DM, never the player, but I admit, I would probably be the player that wants to know everything. Not due to some roll, but just out of fluff and general interest in whatever tale and history the DM can spin around these beings, even if I could find it myself in a Monster Manual. And yes, I do know how tiring and annoying this can be for a DM.

[Provengreil]

Everything Knowledge Roll-where the player wants to know everything.

Player--I rolled a 30, what are the humanoids?
DM--They are a race you heard of call the Jask. A cat-like race that lives in small groups. They are good at hunting and have great jumpping abilities.
Player AND???
DM What?
Player Tell me more, I want to know everything about them.

to be fair, a 30 ought to get you more than a name and hunting habits, that's the common knowledge area.

[big teej]

how dd I forget that one? it happened to me in reverse though. we were 4/5ths of the way through a campaign and the Players announce it's getting too boring. Normally this is a sign of bad DMing, but no one brought it up with me so I never had a chance to correct anything, and everyone seemed to be having fun at the time so i didn't see it coming at all.

I would die if my players did this to me. because thus far, I've not recieved a single criticism thus far, and people apparently are having fun.\




That's not so bad. Now, the GM in this story...:




On May 7 1998, 12:00 am, [email protected] wrote:

> Story #2:
> Playing Space Opera, I had a referee whose opposition was *always*, without
> fail, able to trivially kick the PCs' butt. He also railroaded with a
> heavier hand than anyone I've ever even heard rumors of. We latched on to
> the pattern early in the game and started to experiment to see just how far
> this referee power trip went. One of the experiments was to just attack a
> random passer-by with everything we had (and, trust me, we had *incredible*
> levels of power!--this would have been a Monty Hall campaign except for the
> fact that everything else had even more power). Sure enough, this completely
> random passer-by just happened to be an incredibly powerful psionic who
> trivially wiped the streets clean with us. Then this same NPC--the one we
> opened up relationships with by trying to kill, mind--decided that we were
> trustworthy folk who would be perfect for a military mission he had in mind.
> Here's where things got very surreal:
> 1) We refused to participate so he teleported us to the battlefield.
> 2) We just stood around and ignored everything going on around us so we got
> teleported inside a (tracked) tank.
> 3) We refused to drive the tank or fire its gun at anything so it drove
> itself and shot at the opposition (who were, of course, able to just swat
> aside the rounds).
> 4) We climbed out of the tank and jumped in front of it under its treads so
> it levitated over us with its hitherto unseen anti-gravity device.
> 5) My character tried to use a force knife to cut his own throat, but the
> force knife blade contracted to nothing whenever it got close to being able
> to injure my character.
>
> At this point we all just got up and left the game, never to return.


I would have staged a coup.....

[Sipex]

I'll put a vote for "Player who won't give you criticism when they have some."

Seriously guys, I know it might SEEM like I have telepathy at times but that's only because you're fighting a race of psionic users.

[Glass Mouse]

how dd I forget that one? it happened to me in reverse though. we were 4/5ths of the way through a campaign and the Players announce it's getting too boring. Normally this is a sign of bad DMing, but no one brought it up with me so I never had a chance to correct anything, and everyone seemed to be having fun at the time so i didn't see it coming at all.

That's an overwhelming fear of mine and the main reason I periodically ask for feedback.
Of course, my group consists of my (way too sweet) boyfriend, a "you put more work into this than I do, so I can't critisize you" guy, and a guy whose preferred playing style is completely different from mine, so who knows....... :smalltongue:

To contribute something meaningful:

I just found a new pet peeve: Players who don't want me looking at their character sheet.
Yeah, dude... I'm the GM. That's not gonna fly.

Related: Players who simply must win, cannot act against their better judgment and thus cannot be trusted not to metagame.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure if this is just a clash of playing styles. Is this inherently bad, or is it common practise among powergamers/optimizers?

[some guy]

That's an overwhelming fear of mine and the main reason I periodically ask for feedback.
Of course, my group consists of my (way too sweet) boyfriend, a "you put more work into this than I do, so I can't critisize you" guy, and a guy whose preferred playing style is completely different from mine, so who knows....... :smalltongue:


Yeah, asking for feedback is basically a Good Thing for a GM to do. Of course, even then players might be sparse with criticizing.

As for my own peeves:
I usually DM, but I play in one campaign. Unfortunately most players in this group are not really organized with their scheduling. Seriously, we always play on wednesdays, the DM reminds everyone two days before and still people keep forgetting it. Which usually results in waiting 1,5 hour before playing/ not playing at all/ me setting up a one-shot.

People who don't know how a spell works after using every session and still insisting on looking it up after you've said how it works.
player: So I cast Ray of Enfeeblement.
me: Alright, so that's a touch attack that does 1d6+4 strength damage.
player: I'm going to look that up!
It would be so bad, but it keeps happing.

[NowhereMan583]

the DM rolls a d20. I, curious, ask "watcha rolling?"
DM: a reflex save to see if the guy dodges your arrow.
me. :smallconfused::smallfurious::smallyuk:
last time I checked, that's what AC is for.... and the distinction between normal, touch, and flatfooted....

I have a player who does this. Every time anything hits her character, she asks if she gets a reflex save to dodge it. I've tried explaining that this is exactly what the dexterity bonus to her AC represents, but the next session she'll ask the same question...

On that note:
Players who not only refuse to learn the rules, but then are upset that the other players know the rules better.
The same player above doesn't own any of the rulebooks, and basically refuses to look at the SRD -- when it comes time to level up, she'll just ask me to tell her what to add to her sheet, claiming that she "doesn't know where to find it", even though I've pointed out multiple times where the "Rogue" table can be found, and explained the use of the "Search" function. Then, when another player suggested she try feinting in order to hit more often, she asked angrily why nobody had explained this rule to her before. Because it's your job to figure out how to play your character. (She's also played a rogue in three consecutive campaigns and always has to ask how sneak attack works. Not just "when can I do it?", but "what does it do?")

[Claudius Maximus]

Related: Players who simply must win, cannot act against their better judgment and thus cannot be trusted not to metagame.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure if this is just a clash of playing styles. Is this inherently bad, or is it common practise among powergamers/optimizers?

That sounds like a playstyle difference, with people who primarily consider it a game where they're supposed to try their best to succeed. Basically, people who want to "win" the game.

I've only met a few of these people, but I have not observed any particular correlation between them and optimizers, though I would honestly not be surprised if there were one on a wider basis. On the other hand, I consider myself an optimizer and someone who especially enjoys the tactical/wargaming aspect of the game, but I can certainly act primarily in-character.

On some kind of mutant third hand though, I do usually play prudent/knowledgeable characters, who rarely act against their own interest, and now that I think about it it might be because I can't really escape my extensive metagame knowledge. Huh...

[Nerocite]

How about someone that doesn't have a character, even though we've been playing for a month?

[Sarco_Phage]

How about someone that doesn't have a character, even though we've been playing for a month?

I'm... not sure how this is possible.

[bloodtide]

to be fair, a 30 ought to get you more than a name and hunting habits, that's the common knowledge area.

The problem here is that the group is knee deep in the Swamp of Doom, just five minutes from the big encounter of the night. And one player, instead of wanting to play D&D, wants the DM to sit back and read a book to them for the next half hour.


The player that wants to know everything, but won't ask directly--this is a variant of the know everything player. All they really want to know is the monsters diet, but they will let the DM go on forever, telling them all about the monster.

The What Is It's Weakness Player--This is the player that is convinced that each and every monster has a special weakness. Something like a special spot where if the hit the monster then they will automatically kill it.

[Nerocite]

I'm... not sure how this is possible.

He just made it up as he played.

[dsmiles]

He just made it up as he played.
So...he did have a character. He was playing Red Mage! :smallbiggrin:

[Sarco_Phage]

He just made it up as he played.

I admire his balls. I mean, if I had him as a player, I'd probably have punched him in the **** by now, but from here I can only shake my head in wonder.

[Mulletmanalive]

The fifty year old player who brags about gaming while the rest of us were in diapers but makes the dumbest actions possible.

Ohh gaaawd...

The rest are annoying but this one drives me crazy...


The guy who plays a wizard and constantly talks through every damn thing, weighing the pros and cons of every possible spell combo and then launches into this Time Stop based killplan that takes so long that the GM and the rest of us managed two pints at the pub down the steet, then finally realises we're gone and phones us to lecture us on not allowing him to have his fun...


Yes, I'm one of those guys whose turn is usually short [and i don't play wizards for fear of becoming like this moron] and then ends up clawing my eyes out waiting for my turn to come around again...

[Nerocite]

Ohh gaaawd...

Yes, I'm one of those guys whose turn is usually short [and i don't play wizards for fear of becoming like this moron] and then ends up clawing my eyes out waiting for my turn to come around again...

This. So much. My turns are "run up to monsters and hit them", while the other guys have to re-examine their character sheet every turn.

[gourdcaptain]

Getting the Stormwind fallacy invoked on me. I got made fun of for being a min/maxer when I tried to join a game yesterday which I thought was PF, was then told was 3.5e after building an approved character, and daring to ask to rebuild to the new system. No, I'm not sure what I was supposed to do with all my features and feats that don't exist in 3.5e. Oh, and then my class/race combo (Half-Giant Psychic Warrior) was said to not fit the campaign setting and I was told to repick, despite asking approval a week earlier. At this point I more or less walked out. (And by a friend's account who went past a bit later, they figured I was a terrible roleplayer because I played a psionic character and asked if I was overoptimized for the campaign.)

[gourdcaptain]

This. So much. My turns are "run up to monsters and hit them", while the other guys have to re-examine their character sheet every turn.

Hell, I'll play a COMPLICATED character (ToB, spellcaster) and still take less time than the Archer Ranger to figure out what to do. Or in 4e games where people have been playing the same character for 24+ sessions, and still end up looking up their powers regularly from the books.

[dsmiles]

(And by a friend's account who went past a bit later, they figured I was a terrible roleplayer because I played a psionic character and asked if I was overoptimized for the campaign.)
People who think psionics are overpowered just because they don't understand them, killing fun since 3e. :smalltongue:

[Provengreil]

The What Is It's Weakness Player--This is the player that is convinced that each and every monster has a special weakness. Something like a special spot where if the hit the monster then they will automatically kill it.

I blame nintendo: all those flashing "shoot me" buttons have made things way too easy in some games.

[Claudius Maximus]

Not to mention all the RPGs with elemental rock-paper-scissors paradigms. And Pokémon.

It also doesn't help that some monsters do have weaknesses. I think they should be around, but rare. It's awesome when you drown a Crawling Head, but if you get to attack a weakness of every monster everyone just takes it for granted.

[AsteriskAmp]

The What Is It's Weakness Player--This is the player that is convinced that each and every monster has a special weakness. Something like a special spot where if the hit the monster then they will automatically kill it.

Just serve it up on a plate to them -only for it to be horribly wrong-.
Tempt them not to make the check, making it glaringly obvious, get them to try to make called shots at a penalty or something and be horribly or hilariously wrong.

For example, when fighting a Criohydra a player (whose brain I doubt exists) decided that there had to be a central head that when cut would insta-kill it, so I described it as having a head that looked rather well kept, and seemed a bit bigger. He went for it in a sort of like last chance run, he got horrible damage, and reached the head and victoriously cut it. Then the hydra remained alive and promptly murdered him. The well kept head was one grown recently because of another adventuring party.

[Vknight]

Never able to plan do any sort of detective work. Some memebers at the end of sessions complain to many battles. The next session is mainly roleplay there complaint is to little battles.

But the worst thing

The Worst Thing

Is giving them all the items they need to solve a puzzel or do anything in the story and it needs to be spelt out.

Pirates want some rum. Party wants to kill pirates subetly and gets to a nation 7days away via boat. They have a injestiable posion that takes 7-8days for effect.
There plan was to raid the ship. The knight they were talking to said this
"You still have that poison don't you?" *Players look blankly at me*

"Yeah but whats that going to do it makes them stronger faster and takes 7-8days to kill them."

"And you need to get to Soveliss which is 7days away correct?" *They stare*

Every time the poison was brought up someone would point out it takes to long to kill them and makes them tougher. They completly forgot that they were heading some place that was a distance away from them that would kill the pirates as they docked.
They kept on thinking of taking the ship. A fully stocked and armed pirate ship. With a captain who they can regonize from his wanted poster and bounty. Said Bounty equalling the man they were helping because he would kill them otherwise.

[Sipex]

Weaknesses are also inherit of the 2e system, where monsters had the oddest one hit kill buttons. Like a haunted helmet which could be defeated with some sort of specific liquor.

[Sarco_Phage]

Weaknesses are also inherit of the 2e system, where monsters had the oddest one hit kill buttons. Like a haunted helmet which could be defeated with some sort of specific liquor.

Tied in to the old fairy stories and myths, where magic was something special and unique, and beasts of legend had very specific conditions to kill them.

[Claudius Maximus]

Some of those are pretty cool though. I like ideas like beating a raging ghost by leading him to his grave, proving to him that he's dead. A lot of spirit type monsters from mythology have similar conditions.

[Sarco_Phage]

Yes, they are. I lament their passing.

[Ashram]

Two things that bug me:

1. DMs planning themselves into a hole: One person in my regular RPG group who has been DM before has a habit of planning these giant, overarching, grandiose plots for giant campaigns set for very specific characters. The four of us who are playing this game more or less got to decide the class of our character and some very basic character details, and that's it. He also keeps talking about the "endgame" and how cool it's going to be. As one of our fellow players said, "He's got more emotional investment in our characters than WE do."

2. DMs not taking criticism: The same DM as above also has a terrible, terrible problem with taking criticism personally. He always blows off any input we have for the current session, or typically in my case, he construes criticism as "b****ing". One more DM who thinks he is the greatest DM ever and completely infallible.

Also, on the one-hit-kill weaknesses, who can forget the rakshasa's one-hit-kill button, a weapon with Bless cast on it?

[dsmiles]

Also, on the one-hit-kill weaknesses, who can forget the rakshasa's one-hit-kill button, a weapon with Bless cast on it?Specifically, a blessed crossbow bolt (back in the day). :smallcool:

[Vknight]

Actually I believe any weapon that does piercing and being blessed.

[dsmiles]

Actually I believe any weapon that does piercing and being blessed.I think you missed the "back in the day" bit. 1e specifically called for a blessed crossbow bolt, and indeed had a slot on the magical weapons table just for it.

[zephyrkinetic]

Players who insist on playing characters who don't seem to want anything to do with adventuring. AKA, the Rincewind concept.

[Vknight]

Ok I was thinking a little later. Also I've only played 2ed and above. And considering my age and parents thats impressive

[Sarco_Phage]

You're under 20 and your parents have read Dark Dungeons, haven't they.

[dsmiles]

You're under 20 and your parents have read Dark Dungeons, haven't they.
Or watched Mazes and Monsters.

[Provengreil]

what's dark dungeons?

as for topic-tax, players who can't handle death. My table has seen PC death, from single PCs to to a max of an 80% PK. no matter who dies, why, or how many of them die, it always shuts down the rest of the session because people get disappointed and glum, but this isn't RPing a good grief or anything. we have simply never successfully had fun or enthusiasm at any time the rest of the session should a PC die.

EDIT: we have seen TPKs, but i don't count that because the session is over at that point. Usually there is only enough time to generate everyone's new character, since several of our members are quite slow at that.

[Vknight]

No just one of them has. The other is much more open to the idea but there still in there 60's and yes I'm only 19.

1 Hates all forms of fantasy and science fiction. Wants a working man, not a writer and artist. Thinks all knowing and can never be wrong. Also a jerk that thinks brute force is the answer even against others that can clearly kick you around the curb. Related to my other Aunt who hates him

The other is much more open was into all the drugs and what not. Reads fantasy sci-fi but preferes mystery. Has no intrest in D&D or stuff like that does not care. Also related to my aunt who has all the Discworld Series Autographed.

Now we see my problem I've got opposite ends of the spectrum parents. Thankfully one has high cholestorol. Sadly the youngest a member of my family has died in the last 100years was at 86.

[Claudius Maximus]

Jesus Vknight

You should probably look into this whole wishing members of your family dead thing. I think some kind of family counseling might be in order if things are really so serious.

[Vknight]

Yeah.
I had a therapist, he agreed with me after meeting my father. Also so do all my friends, hes not a nice guy but plays it when around others. (Others being people that are not part of his family or his sons friends)
I have a list of things he's done. But heres the big one

When my grandfather. His father died he tried to not go to the funeral. I'll repeat the statment if need be.
To make matters worse my grandfather was the nicest guy ever and was a baddass.

[big teej]

I've a few more. all related to a degree.

miss "I have boobs, ergo, I succeed at everything"

related
"I'm the only girl here, ergo...."


related
the DM who allows either of the above to fly.


on top of this.
miss "I'm the DM's girlfriend, ergo, I'm invulnerable, infallible, etc."

the DM who allows this to carry on.

and in case I haven't mentioned it.

mister "drools on your gamer girlfriend"

that one bears repeating.

[hewhosaysfish]

stuff about rum, poison and pirates

I must be stoopid because I don't get it.

The players were meant to poison the rum and sneak it onto the pirates' ship. The pirates then sail for Soveliss (I assume the pirates wanted to go to Soveliss, as well as the PCs, just not together) and die around the time they arrive.
So how do the PCs get to Soveliss? All they've achieved is to randomly murder some pirates.

Perhaps they were meant to stow away on the pirate ship? Hide in a dark
corner for a week straight, hoping that the pirates (who are extra-tough because of the side-effects of the poison) don't find them an kill them.
Or cling to the hull like barnacles for 7 days? Or peaceably trade the rum to the bloodthirsty, well-supplied pirates for passage to your destination and hope they don't do something violent to you instead?

In all of these cases, the poison seems unnecessary, an after thought just to say: "Ha! Suck it, pirates!"

Maybe drink the poison, use the unexplained extra-toughness to help you kill all the pirates, steal their ship and sail it to Soveliss with just enough time to spare to buy an antidote there? Seem a tad reckless.

Aha! Best plan yet:

1) Poison the rum
2) Secretly sneak it onto the pirate ship. Hope you don't get caught or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, badly out of position and without the element of surpise.
3) Pirates drink.
4) Attempt to open negotiations with the pirates. Hope they listen and don't try to kill you out of hand or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, probably slightly out of position and definitely without the element of surpise.
5) Tell the pirates you've given a slow acting poison. Hope they've actually drunk some of your special rum by this point or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, probably slightly out of position and definitely without the element of surpise.
5b) Hope they believe you about the poison or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, probably slightly out of position and definitely without the element of surpise.
6) Tell them you'll give them an antidote if they get you to Soveliss in time. Hope they trust you to give them the antidote (if one exists) or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, probably slightly out of position and definitely without the element of surpise.
6b) Hope the pirates don't think they can kill you (or your hypothetical friends in Soveliss who have the antidote) and take the antidote. Or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, probably slightly out of position and definitely without the element of surpise.
6c) Hope the pirates don't know of any good apothecaries with 7 day's travel. Or you'll have to fight them anyway; surrounded, probably slightly out of position and definitely without the element of surpise.
7) Sail on the pirate ship to Soveliss. Hope you don't hit any major delays or the pirtes may just decided they're doomed and try to take you with them (because you caused all this).
8) Give the pirates the antidote (if it exists). Then the pirates as they try to kill you. Because why wouldn't they?
Alternatively, don't give the pirates the antidote. Tell them you're just going to fetch if in town and then do a runner. Hope they believe you and don't insist on keeping half of the party as hostages.


But it still doesn't strike be as being am appreciably better plan than:

1) Give the rum to the pirates.
2) Let them drink it.
3) Launch a surprise attack that night while they're all drunk and sleeping and murder them all.
4) Steal the ship.
5) Throw the stupid poison in the goddamn sea. Hope no druids see you.


Is there something I'm not seeing, VKnight?
What was this brilliant One-True-Plan?

[Vknight]

They had the rum and the pirates were willing to take them for 1platinum if they worked, 2if they didn't. They decided to work. The pirates were leaving to Soveliss they had asked which ships were leaving that day and asked each captain where they were going.

They were ment to poison the rum, knowing its effects would killl the pirates when they docked so they could then sell the ship for passage back and make a profit. Or just hire a crew and sail the ship back.

No it just drove me crazy watching my players debating about how to invade a pirate ship. After being told by a royal knight to not try it. Said royal knight had in a different session become the truest form of badass by soloing the green dragon they were to help him with.

Actually the cure was in the city they were already at, locked inside a insane artificers head who was in jail. They did not know that and still don't having never asked him how to make the cure if there was any. They did not want to talk to him for his rhyming and constant babbling about random things (Off the cuff rhyming by an insane wizard is hard)

I forgot to mention this. They had also learned these pirates gave any ship they came across chance to surrender and the pirates would give safe passage for 1/2the stock. If not they took it all and killed half the crew.

No I was prepared if they used the poison I wanted them to come up with a plan but most involved storming a ship in the middle of the day. none could think of a better plan or lesss suicidal one at least. As for your plans those could have also been done. The poison is actually used by the evil orginization they have started to fight. Said orginization uses it for slave labor, they don't know of the group just the artificer with the poison. Who had been using it to tunnel into the mountain building a fortress.

[archon_huskie]

I would have paid for passage on pirate's ship (or signed up with the pirates).
Posioned the water/rum supplies they had on board.
Don't drink from that, drink from own waterskins
Sabotage ship so it takes an extra day for ship to reach Soveliss.
Dump pirate bodies overboard.
Sail in to Soveliss as Captain of the Ship

[Vknight]

Yeah or hire the pirates to sail you there. Learn how to sail ship on 7days to Soveliss, poison pirates and dump there bodies before getting there.

Or wait for the pirates to go out kill some crew memebers then later attack the ship now that it is weakened.

Or get the town guard or the Royal Knight to help you.

Use a different poison.

Head to the capital with the royal knight to get a boat chartered for you.

Go with the trade vessal thats also going to Soveliss.

[The Glyphstone]

No it just drove me crazy watching my players debating about how to invade a pirate ship. After being told by a royal knight to not try it. Said royal knight had in a different session become the truest form of badass by soloing the green dragon they were to help him with.


See, there's your big goof. You tried to convince them to not do something through the mouth of your Supur Speshul NPC of Awesomesauce. That's the #1 easiest and most guaranteed way to ensure that they do it, out of spite for what they percieve to be blatant railroading.

[Vknight]

The Eladrin (Both in and out of character) is the only one that doesn't like him.

And he wasn't supposed to do that, the Dragon just rolled 5 nat1's and the Knight rolled 5 nat 20's. I rolled for my players to see.

I can agree with that but they asked him after debating to attack or not to.
Heres how it went.

1-Debate about what to do with pirates.
2-Argue about how to get them to take them to Soveliss.
3-Ask me for advice
4-Completly ignore it argue about how the poison is useless because they'll be strong for 7days. One of them asks how long the trip is. I remind them how long it is and the poisons duration
5-Repeat with me giving different advice (5times)
6-Ask the Knight
7-Repeat step 4 (3Times)
8- Finally they do something and get the rum poison it and go to Soveliss
9- Session ends once in Soveliss fair winds cut the time to only 5 1/2days

[bloodtide]

1.The One Plot DM--No matter what happens in the game, or what the characters try to do, the DM only wants to do the single plot that they have spent time creating. Granted this is part of D&D, but i'm talking about the extreme here:

Players(looking at a map)--"We go into the Hardy Horse Tavern"
DM(sad, bored and looking down)--"The tavern is empty''
Players(look confused, look back to the map)--"We go to the Way Inn''
DM(sad, bored and looking down)--"The inn is empty''
Players-"Um, does any place look not empty?"
DM(brightens up and gets excited)--''Why yes the Deadly Drink Tavern is full of noise, people and excitement!"

OR

Players--We head south into the woods
DM(sad, bored and looking down)--You walk around for six weeks and just see trees. You guys want to go north into the Woods of Doom now?


2.The One Clue DM--The DM has crafted a plot that hinges on one single clue. If the players don't find that clue, then the plot can go no where. This clue is often hard to find(naturally), but also hard to easy(naturally).

The problem comes when the players don't find or miss the clue, and the DM just sits back and pouts. The game can go on for hours and hours, with the players just running in circles and the DM getting frustrated and board. All because the players don't have that one clue, and the DM won't give another hint or such as they ''have already told the players too much'' or ''they should be able to figure it out".

3.Option Clues(or facts or knowledge)--This is where a DM makes a type of mystery or unknown fact. Something that is obvious to them, as they know the answer, but not to everyone else.

Example:Only one of the family of Toi can use the magic stone. The players track down a wandering trader Cain, last of the Toi family who has a companion, Amdelan. Unfortunately the Toi family guy is killed, so the players suck around and can't finish the quest. After four hours of doing nothing but sitting around, the game ends. As people are packing up the DM reveals--"Ha, you guys did not figure it out! Amdelan was Cain's brother and was a member of the Toi family too!'' The players are hurt and complain that ''Just as two guys stand within five feet of each other, we can't assume they are automatically brothers."

[Sarco_Phage]

I wonder why he bothered creating a town with any level of detail if he didn't want his players to go anywhere else.

[bloodtide]

I wonder why he bothered creating a town with any level of detail if he didn't want his players to go anywhere else.

1.Sometimes it's just that they 'make a map to fill in later' or use a pre generated map.

2.Sometimes they just expect the players to read their minds, and not go places they don't want you too..

3.Worse are the video game-like ones. The Happy Horse Tavern is automatically empty until you complete the guest 'Where Goes The Happy horse?"...then it's a normal tavern.

[Choco]

ooo, heres one that just happen:


Players who snap at you when you point out they are breaking the rules. Seriously, in my 4e group they do things like 2+ standard actions in 1 round (without using action points or anything else), and when I point that out they snap and tell me to shut up. Said players then go on to ask other players without as much rules knowledge any questions to increase the chances of breaking the rules further....

[dsmiles]

ooo, heres one that just happen:


Players who snap at you when you point out they are breaking the rules. Seriously, in my 4e group they do things like 2+ standard actions in 1 round (without using action points or anything else), and when I point that out they snap and tell me to shut up. Said players then go on to ask other players without as much rules knowledge any questions to increase the chances of breaking the rules further....
You should probably get new players, if this is the way they behave. That's kind of jerkass territory, right there.

[Sarco_Phage]

Yeah, I'm kind of just getting this mental image of a DM with a chain around his neck, cowering in fear everytime he does anything at all.

Player: "What do you mean the monster hit me? **** you, that never happened!"

DM: "PLEASE DON'T HURT ME"

[Choco]

You should probably get new players, if this is the way they behave. That's kind of jerkass territory, right there.

I know, I'm working on it, but unfortunately I am stuck with them until I find another group for that day, luckily this dont come up too often, so its tolerable and not yet in the ragequit territory....

Also, same group:


DM's who just ignore dice rolls and obviously fiat (for the sake of story!) almost everything. Case in point, my char who as an AC 50% higher than everyone else also seems to get hit twice as much by attacks that target AC. Also I get crit a good 3x more than anyone else in the party. Also enemies I fight take 2x as long to kill even though I do 2x as much damage as the guy next to me fighting an identical enemy. This can be attributed to dice luck, but not if it is the case for MONTHS.


Oh yeah, and one I forgot to share from the Exalted group the day before:


Players who think Your Momma jokes are funny more than 50 times in one night. Yeah one time gets a chuckle, and it is kinda funny the next 5, but once you hit 60 (I actually counted) times....

[tcrudisi]

Players who spend more time checking e-mail or their phone than actually socializing with the others at the table. I'm tolerant of people not paying attention to the plot if they are talking with others at the table; I'm not tolerant of people missing plot points and not knowing what's going on in combat because they were sending text messages or checking e-mail.

The first is annoying (but it's a social game, so I tolerate it). The second is just disruptive.

[The Glyphstone]

9- Session ends once in Soveliss fair winds cut the time to only 5 1/2days

Why did this happen? Were you randomly rolling for the wind conditions? otherwise, this is just cheating your players out of success even after they finally got around to doing what you wanted them to.

[Vknight]

Thats why I confiscate them if my players pull there phones and or I-Pods out.

-Edit-

Ninja.

I roll for weather but also have some story control. For instance if it was really sunny then I roll heavy rain I change it to light rain that stays for 2days. Also the climate so yeah.

Well after they gave them the poison they asked if there was a faster way to get to Soveliss -_-
Yes yes they did 3-4miuntes after

Travelers Chant(On the ship) or a lower level version of the weather ritual I forget which.

[Guancyto]

Players(looking at a map)--"We go into the Hardy Horse Tavern"
DM(sad, bored and looking down)--"The tavern is empty''


I know this isn't what he meant or meant to do, but that sounds like a plot opening all on its own. The doors are unlocked and open, everything seems to be in order except there's no one there. No bored staff holding down the fort during slow hours. No workmen renovating the place, no guards who came in off-duty and noticed a problem. No dust, no blood, no signs of struggle, no signs saying 'sorry, we're closed'. It's even in the middle of a populated area, so for no one to have noticed and come in to see what's up, and simultaneously for no one else to have not realized it was empty and come in seeking beer is probably indicative of something interesting going on.

I would jump on that immediately. Mind you, I would also steal the silverware.

[Claudius Maximus]

Yeah, I'm kind of just getting this mental image of a DM with a chain around his neck, cowering in fear everytime he does anything at all.

Player: "What do you mean the monster hit me? **** you, that never happened!"

DM: "PLEASE DON'T HURT ME"

Back when I first started playing with my other young friends it was like this.

Me: "So then, you're poisoned"
Older, Bigger Friend: *Slams fist on table*
Me: "Never mind"

We had plenty of fun though.

[BRC]

I know this isn't what he meant or meant to do, but that sounds like a plot opening all on its own. The doors are unlocked and open, everything seems to be in order except there's no one there. No bored staff holding down the fort during slow hours. No workmen renovating the place, no guards who came in off-duty and noticed a problem. No dust, no blood, no signs of struggle, no signs saying 'sorry, we're closed'. It's even in the middle of a populated area, so for no one to have noticed and come in to see what's up, and simultaneously for no one else to have not realized it was empty and come in seeking beer is probably indicative of something interesting going on.

I would jump on that immediately. Mind you, I would also steal the silverware.

At which point you learn that the bar caters exclusively to Ninjas, Illusionists, and other masters of remaining unseen.

Or the bar in question burned down years ago. The ghost of the proprietor haunts the ruins, projecting the illusion of the bar as it once was.

Or the Regional Barfighting Championships are about to be held there, the Ref's just finished sweeping it for illicitly placed weapons, potions, or traps. The Contestants have just finished up with their regulation beers (Three for Humans, Five for Dwarves and Orcs. four for Half Orcs, Two for Gnomes, Elves, and Halflings) and are about to enter and begin Round One.

Or the local Kobold Trapsmith's Guild rented out the place to use as a showroom. The Kobolds just finished installing everything, but they havn't quite marked the Safe Zones yet.

[ryu]

That's... that's... brilliant!

[Hiro Protagonest]

Or the Regional Barfighting Championships are about to be held there, the Ref's just finished sweeping it for illicitly placed weapons, potions, or traps. The Contestants have just finished up with their regulation beers (Three for Humans, Five for Dwarves and Orcs. four for Half Orcs, Two for Gnomes, Elves, and Halflings) and are about to enter and begin Round One. Hey, that's pretty good. Though you're a little off the mark on how many beers gnomes should have, with their constitution bonus and whatnot.


Or the local Kobold Trapsmith's Guild rented out the place to use as a showroom. The Kobolds just finished installing everything, but they havn't quite marked the Safe Zones yet.

Lol! :smallbiggrin:

[Choco]

Man, I'm on a roll today!


DM's who change monster's stats in the middle of combat and don't bother to even try to hide it.


Example:

*30 damage is dealt to a monster*
DM: "Alright, the monster is bloodied!" (for those who don't know, in 4e bloodied means at or below half HP)
*80 damage is dealt to the same monster over the next few turns*
Me: "Dude, ain't that thing dead yet?"
DM: "Nope, I told you the fights would get tougher the higher level you get!"
Me: :smallconfused:

[Guancyto]

Or the local Kobold Trapsmith's Guild rented out the place to use as a showroom. The Kobolds just finished installing everything, but they havn't quite marked the Safe Zones yet.

This is win. Well, most of those were, but this especially.

Or or or! They could be ready to go on their showroom, and have a number of hidden viewing locations already set up where their customers can view traps in action against a party of adventurers. Why a tavern? Because adventurers are always drawn to taverns, naturally.

[BRC]

This is win. Well, most of those were, but this especially.

Or or or! They could be ready to go on their showroom, and have a number of hidden viewing locations already set up where their customers can view traps in action against a party of adventurers. Why a tavern? Because adventurers are always drawn to taverns, naturally.

That would be great. A PC steps on a plank, suddenly a cage drops down from the ceiling while spikes emerge from the floor on each side.

Then, a Kobold wearing a shining suit and a gigantic smile steps out "That was a demonstration of the Dillema X-57. Notice the seamless triggering, the smooth activation, how any attempts to dodge the cage result in being skewered by the spikes. This is a great piece of work suitable for dungeons, towers, keeps, or even a crypt, and it comes with a Fifty Year or 30 Victim warranty!" The kobold steps up to the cage "As a victim of the Dillema X-57's ingenious design, do you have any thoughts on this product?"

[Hiro Protagonest]

The kobold steps up to the cage "As a victim of the Dillema X-57's ingenious design, do you have any thoughts on this product?"

"Well, I could just buy a 10-foot pole and tap the floor in front of me, thereby activating the trap before I got close," I reply.


Okay, now I'm thinking of using this for my campaign. :smallbiggrin:

[ryu]

It's a good concept I must admit but in the case of spike skewering I assume we don't necessarily care if the victim lives or dies. I'd recommend having the spikes pop from under the cage too or have large sections of the floor around the trap fall out or otherwise break. This allows a trap much less likely to kill the victim if you only wanted them caged or a more certain outcome if you were okay with death to begin with. Also if you let me out of the cage I've got some great ideas involving angry badgers, a rune of pain, and a pressure plate requiring at least ten pounds of force to activate...

And that would be how I'd respond.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's a good concept I must admit but in the case of spike skewering I assume we don't necessarily care if the victim lives or dies. I'd recommend having the spikes pop from under the cage too or have large sections of the floor around the trap fall out or otherwise break. This allows a trap much less likely to kill the victim if you only wanted them caged or a more certain outcome if you were okay with death to begin with. Also if you let me out of the cage I've got some great ideas involving angry badgers, a rune of pain, and a pressure plate requiring at least ten pounds of force to activate...

"...For the right price."

[jamesnomoon]

Ok, here's a few that make me consider tazors and barbed wire leashes as player control measures.

Players who, after they've finished their action, start butting in on other players actions to tell you what else they're doing. Ok, you gunned down the <Fill in bad guy>, and true, you might be out of ammo or whatever. You don't need to tell me you're reloading your gun or drawing your knife or whatever when I'm dealing with another players action. It disrupts flow and makes the other player feel belittled by your trivial detail that would be dealt with the moment your turn comes around again. It's especially annoying when its interrupting a serious or pivotal moment for another character.

Related to this is the inability to read the mood and situation. If a major part of a characters background is, say, a vengeance story, and the final climactic duel is about to take place between said PC and the NPC they want to kill, having your sneaky type backstab/snipe the NPC or your mage throw his biggest spell or whatever totally ruins the tone. Perhaps its true to the game, but I personally find that stealing a shining moment for another player is very poor form.

Constantly reminiscing about old games they/we've played. It's fun now and again to recall fun we've had, but in the middle of a tense scene it's incredibly annoying to hear "Hey, remember back when we..." for the 9th time. Time and place, I think.

Creating characters that apparently have no reason to a: Be on the mission/quest b: Have any reason to talk and/or work with the other characters or c: Have an active desire to actually be nowhere near whats going on. Or all the above. Why create the character in the first place? Silent lone-wolf uber-ninjas with no social skills and all the empathy of a thrown half-brick make good movie fodder, but if you're not prepared to put the effort in, they make terrible PC's. I'm not going to bow and scrape to these kinds of characters and twist the story so they're centre stage just to suit the Riddick-wannabe.

Wow, its cathartic to vent. Some of the above seems a little petty to me now that I've typed it out, but hell, they *are* things that annoy the crap out of me. :smallsmile:

[Tael]

"Well, I could just buy a 10-foot pole and tap the floor in front of me, thereby activating the trap before I got close," I reply.


Okay, now I'm thinking of using this for my campaign. :smallbiggrin:

You do realize that a 10 foot pole cannot activate any traps right? The amount of force required to press down a pressure plate from that angle with be ridiculously huge. The pole would snap before the trap was triggered.

[Choco]

Related to this is the inability to read the mood and situation. If a major part of a characters background is, say, a vengeance story, and the final climactic duel is about to take place between said PC and the NPC they want to kill, having your sneaky type backstab/snipe the NPC or your mage throw his biggest spell or whatever totally ruins the tone. Perhaps its true to the game, but I personally find that stealing a shining moment for another player is very poor form.

Oh God, that annoys me to no end as well. ESPECIALLY when they were told both IC and OOC to butt out and this is the other character's show. Then of course they don't understand why everyone is mad at them.


Wow, its cathartic to vent. Some of the above seems a little petty to me now that I've typed it out, but hell, they *are* things that annoy the crap out of me. :smallsmile:

Thats what the thread is here for, even if it IS small and petty and we personally realize that, it dont make it any less annoying and venting sure as hell helps :smallbiggrin:.


You do realize that a 10 foot pole cannot activate any traps right? The amount of force required to press down a pressure plate from that angle with be ridiculously huge. The pole would snap before the trap was triggered.

10 foot adamantine pole wielded by a Hulking Hurler build. That should do the trick!

[BRC]

It's a good concept I must admit but in the case of spike skewering I assume we don't necessarily care if the victim lives or dies. I'd recommend having the spikes pop from under the cage too or have large sections of the floor around the trap fall out or otherwise break. This allows a trap much less likely to kill the victim if you only wanted them caged or a more certain outcome if you were okay with death to begin with. Also if you let me out of the cage I've got some great ideas involving angry badgers, a rune of pain, and a pressure plate requiring at least ten pounds of force to activate...

And that would be how I'd respond.
"Submit your resume with our R&D Department"



Okay, now I'm thinking of using this for my campaign. :smallbiggrin:
As a result of this thread, I actually had a great idea. The PC's hear about some ancient Dungeon full of Treasure that only opens at a certain time. The PC's go there, get inside, and find themselves trapped in a Kobold Showroom, being followed through the dungeon by a group of incredibly powerful enemies (A Dragon, a Lich, a guy in giant spikey armor, a Vampire) and a Kobold sales rep who describes the many features of the various monsters and traps the PC's are thrown up against.

If they get too beat up, the Kobold tosses them some potions and mentions "You guys are doing great out there, now drink up, we need you in tip top shape for the next demonstration!".

At one point the Kobold calls up the Ghosts of adventurers who have died to the traps of this particular firm, each one giving a testimony as to the traps effectiveness and affordability.

If the PC's help the Kobold make a sale (intentionally or otherwise), they get extra treasure. For example, if the rogue dodges the trap, then spends lots of time talking about how hard it was to dodge, how he didn't see it coming, and how, had he not gotten luck, he would surely be dead right now.

[ryu]

Shall we make a separate thread for this kobald trap topic? If so would it belong under silly forum games, play by post dnd, or perhaps just roleplay general discussion as it relates to experimental methods of pain causing? I don't want to derail a thread I've had fun reading...

Also please give a brief notification of title and sub forum if you post the thread.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Shall we make a separate thread for this kobald trap topic? If so would it belong under silly forum games, play by post dnd, or perhaps just roleplay general discussion as it relates to experimental methods of pain causing? I don't want to derail a thread I've had fun reading...

Also please give a brief notification of title and sub forum if you post the thread.

Hey, that's a good idea, start a new thread in silly message board games.

OT, my group is good about this stuff, so I don't have anything too add.

[Provengreil]

Creating characters that apparently have no reason to a: Be on the mission/quest b: Have any reason to talk and/or work with the other characters or c: Have an active desire to actually be nowhere near whats going on. Or all the above. Why create the character in the first place? Silent lone-wolf uber-ninjas with no social skills and all the empathy of a thrown half-brick make good movie fodder, but if you're not prepared to put the effort in, they make terrible PC's. I'm not going to bow and scrape to these kinds of characters and twist the story so they're centre stage just to suit the Riddick-wannabe.


This kind of character looks better in the player's mind. as for your list:

having no reason to be on the quest? money/power/asked by friends/notoriety/magical research/curiosity/thrill of adventure/relocation cause you hate your hometown. there's 8 reasons to tie into any quest you want.

Having no reason to talk to the rest of the party? depends on when you make the character. at generation there's no excuse for this, but if it happens mid-adventure, you're almost certainly gonna be a new hire in a tavern or something. so i always find this sketchy and hand waved anyway.

Having no desire to be near the action? better be a real good friend OOC, cause this is gonna get the rest of the party to boot you, sometimes with pointy objects. it's a self solving problem if you let things play out like they should.

[bloodtide]

1.Players that sulk(or worse) if Their Plan does not work--The player comes up with an idea. While this is good gaming and it's fine to let a player's plan work for fun. There is a limit.

Such as:

Player--We quickly slam the front door of the tavern closed trapping the guards inside and Jobin casts hold portal on it.
DM--(nods) OK
Player--Then I take my ( tiny one pint) flask of lamp oil and toss it on the tavern and light it with my touch and jump back as the tavern explodes!
DM--Um, the tavern does not explode.
Player--"WHAT?"
DM--Your flask of oil just catches fire and starts to burn at little, but it does not explode
Player--fine, I just sit there then and do nothing


2.Players that take actions without thinking things through(especially common sense stuff)

Like:
DM--as you sit there, the guards come around from in back of the tavern
Player--''What?'' How did they get out?
DM--apparently they went out the back door of the tavern
Player--What, that is not fair! It's not right that taverns have a back door!

OR

DM--The guards inside open the front window and climb out.
Player--What? You can't enter or exit a tavern by the window!

3.Players that attempt to control too much of the game--This happens in the first example above. Everything, in the game is controlled by the DM..such as NPC reactions, weather and the physical laws. A player can't just say 'things happen'.

Such as

Payer--I cast Grease on the street in front of lord Moneybags
DM--OK
Player--and when Lord Moneybags slips on the grease his money pouch falls off his belt and rolls down the street to where I'm standing and I take it and run. How much loot did I get?

[big teej]

Ok,
Related to this is the inability to read the mood and situation. If a major part of a characters background is, say, a vengeance story, and the final climactic duel is about to take place between said PC and the NPC they want to kill, having your sneaky type backstab/snipe the NPC or your mage throw his biggest spell or whatever totally ruins the tone. Perhaps its true to the game, but I personally find that stealing a shining moment for another player is very poor form.


okay, I'm not going to lie, I am seriously concerned about this happening to me in a campaign I'm in right now.

the backstory/introduction I wrote for the character involves a guy who killed my horse, the party has seen me break character (well, my accurately, seen my CHARACTER break character) and chase this guy down at the expense of everything else (I've even taken AOOs to chase this guy)

and everyone KNOWs that when we finally catch this guy, I plan on dropping every Knight's Challenge I can think of /have on this guy and wailing on him...

however,
there's a particular player (our cleric) and a particular character (our barbarian) I feel would try to interfere.

I feel the barbarian would hedge off because
A) the character realizes that occaisionally "the knight just HAS to kill something by himself"
and
B) the player is intelligent. and would not do something so mean.

however, the cleric?
I can see the cleric walking up and ganking my kill when I'm about to land the final blow.
it happened before in a fight with a toss away combat. (I was 2 hits away from killing it, and the whole party was basically right there to jump on the monster if I failed) and the cleric walks up and stabs it.

killing it......


also,

mister "kills the mood/fun just by opening his mouth"
he could have a grating voice
a terrible sense of humor/timing
he could just be annoying on the whole
maybe something as simple as a CHA penalty.

but this guy (if you haven't played with him or met him out of game, you will)
puts a damper on your mood just by speaking.


it saddens me, because on the one hand I feel like he's trying really hard not to be so irritating.
but on the other hand, he says some REALLY stupid and insenstive things. stupid to the degree of if I hear another similar comment, I'm going to ask him to leave.

what sparked the decision you ask?

one of our members is in a wheel chair, whilst waiting for said player to come unlock the room for us, I heard someone coming up the hallway, thinking it might be said player, I walked over and had a look. then, announcing my findings, said "well thats not -player name-" this guy then walks up behind me and YELLS in a high grating tone "holy crap -player- can walk!"

and I was like :smallfurious:

and to be honest, if the player HAD heard him do this, he'd be out. between that and a rape joke, he's on thin ice.....

I wonder if I should let him know...

it seems inappropriate and exteremely passive aggressive to do so now given that both incidents were several weeks past.

heck, this might almost warrant its own thread.

/ramble.

[jamesnomoon]

having no reason to be on the quest? money/power/asked by friends/notoriety/magical research/curiosity/thrill of adventure/relocation cause you hate your hometown. there's 8 reasons to tie into any quest you want.



I'm in total agreement. I would have posted how I would fixed these issues, but I think you've covered it nicely. The players I'm thinking of in this situation seem to have a dogged *need* to have a character that has no reason to be in the game. Every suggestion made to fix the situation was dismissed, as they "made no sense to the character" or similar. In the end I just stopped trying, my efforts clearly weren't being appreciated.

[hewhosaysfish]

They had the rum and the pirates were willing to take them for 1platinum if they worked, 2if they didn't. They decided to work. The pirates were leaving to Soveliss they had asked which ships were leaving that day and asked each captain where they were going.


Ah, that will be what was confusing me: the poison was a big fat red herring.


They were ment to poison the rum, knowing its effects would killl the pirates when they docked so they could then sell the ship for passage back and make a profit. Or just hire a crew and sail the ship back.

Wait what? Why do they have to kill the pirates?

If your players just balked at paying 10gp for passage on a ship and instead started plotting to murder some NPCs and kill their stuff... then that would be the sort of crazy PC behaviour we see DMs compaining about all the time.

But your complaint is not that your players can't seem to complete an entirely straightforward business transation without adding a couple of dozen homicides to the mix; rather your complaint is that they're not committing random murder the way you planned.

:smallconfused: <- confused

[Ghost6442]

evil campaign?

[Choco]

I'm in total agreement. I would have posted how I would fixed these issues, but I think you've covered it nicely. The players I'm thinking of in this situation seem to have a dogged *need* to have a character that has no reason to be in the game. Every suggestion made to fix the situation was dismissed, as they "made no sense to the character" or similar. In the end I just stopped trying, my efforts clearly weren't being appreciated.

You may need to get a bit heavy-handed to fix that.

DM: "OK, so what do you guys do?"
Players: "We set out to accomplish <quest>."
Annoying Player: "Uh, my character has no desire to go, he is going to stay home."
DM: "OK, everyone except Annoying Player goes on the adventure.."
*3 hours of RP'ing the adventure later*
Annoying Player: "Come on, you have been on them for 3 hours now, what about me?"
DM: "Oh yeah, you are sitting at home sipping some tea, nothing new to report, now back to the adventure..."

Basically if they don't want to play the game, they don't have to!

[stainboy]

*30 damage is dealt to a monster*
DM: "Alright, the monster is bloodied!" (for those who don't know, in 4e bloodied means at or below half HP)
*80 damage is dealt to the same monster over the next few turns*
Me: "Dude, ain't that thing dead yet?"
DM: "Nope, I told you the fights would get tougher the higher level you get!"
Me: :smallconfused:

See also: unspecified save DCs where the DC is "higher than you rolled." Even though you rolled like a 26.

In 4e I guess that's "unspecified attack bonuses that hit even though the monster rolled a 3." Probably happens less though. It's easier to lie about a DC than a modified roll.

[onthetown]

DMs who change their house rules every other session are pretty annoying.

Our current one used to do it horribly, though we've cut him back a bit now. I remember when I was first learning the game, he (unfortunately) put in a whole bunch of house rules, so I didn't know what to look up and what to ask after. I learned that the stuff to ask after was the stuff that changed on a weekly basis. And he was a new DM, too, so it wasn't exactly a smart move on his part to start using all sorts of his own rules.

A famous one was that he first said that bards and sorcerers can use the entire bard and sorcerer spell lists because they don't have a set number of spells to learn. I thought this was great. Then, a few months later, he suddenly said, "I was wrong, you need to pick spells." So I did. A couple of weeks later, he saw me looking up my spells and said, "What are you doing? You're a spontaneous caster, you can just use the spell list." This went back and forth about fifteen times before he finally looked in the bloody book and showed me where the rule was and what I had to do.

[Triaxx]

The one power player in a game where everyone else is having fun, and WON'T shut up about how you should 'optimize' your character.

Most annoying DM's can be solved by casting: 'Bigby's PHB tossing hand'.

[Choco]

See also: unspecified save DCs where the DC is "higher than you rolled." Even though you rolled like a 26.

In 4e I guess that's "unspecified attack bonuses that hit even though the monster rolled a 3." Probably happens less though. It's easier to lie about a DC than a modified roll.

That is basically what is going on in this game. The higher my AC gets (I have abilities that raise my AC against certain targets, AOO's, etc.), the more I get hit by attacks that target AC. I am more than slightly annoyed because my entire build was based around avoiding getting hit by AC targeting attacks.


Players who in the first session of the game are already trying to start some PvP because OOC they don't like your character concept. Then when you proceed to pummel them (leaving them alive even!), they get mad that the rest of the group didn't help them.

[Arutema]

People who talk about OOC stuff when it's not their turn. I'm trying to pay attention to the battle here and plan my next move. I don't want to hear about the latest movie/book/video game right now.

[navar100]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

My DM did it again with his choo-choo train and UBER NPC. The campaign was going so well and unlike it so far until recent session.

We tracked down the BBEG who is building an army while also having as prisoner my character's brother and the paladin's adoptive father. The BBEG is in a tower of a grand citadel of many towers where different factions have a tower. We ended the previous session with our own tower and sent a message to a known enemy of the BBEG to offer/get assistance.

Recent session: Party members disappear. The grand citadel is collapsing as a zone of chaos we know about out of character interferes. The zone has random teleports, hence the disappearances. The cavalier is given a quest by guest NPC ancestral spirit to rescue a dwarf and a human in the zone of chaos. The BBEG's tower has already collapsed. Our tower is collapsing. Party members teleport away one by one (fail a will save). Finally we all teleport into the zone of chaos how convenient right next to the dwarf and human the cavalier was ordered to rescue.

One party member is still missing. (Player couldn't attend the session.) We find her unconscious in a crystal coffin with two warring elven houses fighting over her. The character is an elf. We come up with a plan to get the coffin while the houses are distracted in their battle. In comes UBER NPC telling us that's a stupid thing to do. She casts various unnamed spells and now we can get the coffin freely. In the previous campaign we entered this zone it was an epic-like quest to find an exit. UBER NPC teleports us directly to a portal home.

We travel to the paladin's NPC patron because he can help our party member in the coffin. Meanwhile, we have no idea where the BBEG is now and have no way to find him. With nothing to do now we try to come up with ideas, relying on footnotes and possible adventuring hooks we encountered while hunting the BBEG. Instead, the patron assigns us escort duty of Important NPC to a city. We escort her and defend against the obligatory attack in the city. Session ends ready to escort her back.

[Tyndmyr]

A lot of these are pretty bad. Still, I'd have to go with urination on my bed being the worst one yet.

[Combat Reflexes]

Bad player habit n+1:

The player who always complains.

"Now I'm paralyzed again! This adventure sucks!"

"That giant has way to high AC! This adventure sucks!"

"Why is there no +2 Anchored Slippery Moderate Fortification Full Plate in the town shop? This adventure sucks!"

dude, D&D is all about acceptance. Complaining will only get you rocks. On your head.

[Glass Mouse]

A lot of these are pretty bad. Still, I'd have to go with urination on my bed being the worst one yet.

W-what? No. Please tell me this is made up.



I've only met a few of these people, but I have not observed any particular correlation between them and optimizers, though I would honestly not be surprised if there were one on a wider basis. On the other hand, I consider myself an optimizer and someone who especially enjoys the tactical/wargaming aspect of the game, but I can certainly act primarily in-character.

First, thanks for answering.

Second, I think you're right that it's probably just a clash of playing styles. Me, I treat RPGs as storytelling, a creative exercise. I'll ignore rules if I they conflict with Rule of Cool, and I put much more effort into NPCs and environment than I do in puzzles and dice-rolling encounters. Two players seem to love this, and the third... Maybe I just needed to realize this so I can start accomodating him a little more.
As for optimization/metagaming: I don't think there's necessarily a link, but both can easily stem from the "must win" mentality, so... dunno. In any case, if you can't stop metagaming, I applaud that you reflect this mechanics-wise instead of just munching and being a metagaming jerk :smallwink:

[Tyndmyr]

W-what? No. Please tell me this is made up.

Oh, I dearly wish it was.

Honestly, I think it even beats the handgun story for suckiness, which I know I've told before, and which might be on this thread.

Lesson to players everywhere: If you decide to bring your kid to your GMs house, try to at least have some sort of way to keep him occupied. Letting him into the GMs bedroom when you know the kid's got a bedwetting problem is probably not going to be popular.

[big teej]

Oh, I dearly wish it was.

Honestly, I think it even beats the handgun story for suckiness, which I know I've told before, and which might be on this thread.

Lesson to players everywhere: If you decide to bring your kid to your GMs house, try to at least have some sort of way to keep him occupied. Letting him into the GMs bedroom when you know the kid's got a bedwetting problem is probably not going to be popular.

too be honest, depending on the player..... showing up with an unanouncced kid might be enough for me to bar them at the door.

[Gamer Girl]

The Player that Brings too much Stuff--For D&D this is the player who brings three book bags full of D&D hard cover books, plus papers and all sorts of things to write with. Then said player will attempt to fill up a good quarter of the available table space with there stuff.

The Player that Brings an Annoying novelty Item--Something that just disrupts the whole game.

My all time classic here is the Skull Dice Roller. I guess it came from some board game or such. Basically it was a large plastic skull with a hole in the top, that you could put a dice into. Then push the button and the skull would laugh and cackle and make all type of haunting electronic noises....and then shoot/roll the dice out of it's mouth.

The Player that Brings No Stuff--Your luck this player has their character sheet. And that will be all they have. So every couple of minutes they need to 'barrow' a book to look something up. And note that it's not that we are talking about the poor player that has no books....we are talking about the one that has a good role-playing library. They just don't bring it.

[AsteriskAmp]

too be honest, depending on the player..... showing up with an unanouncced kid might be enough for me to bar them at the door.

Or an invitation to drag them down the path of DnD...

[big teej]

The Player that Brings too much Stuff--For D&D this is the player who brings three book bags full of D&D hard cover books, plus papers and all sorts of things to write with. Then said player will attempt to fill up a good quarter of the available table space with there stuff.

The Player that Brings an Annoying novelty Item--Something that just disrupts the whole game.

My all time classic here is the Skull Dice Roller. I guess it came from some board game or such. Basically it was a large plastic skull with a hole in the top, that you could put a dice into. Then push the button and the skull would laugh and cackle and make all type of haunting electronic noises....and then shoot/roll the dice out of it's mouth.
.

alright, up to a point, I'm the first one... I bring every sourcebook I have. BUT I keep them isolated away from game space until called for.

also, I want this skull device.
it intrigues me.



Or an invitation to drag them down the path of DnD...

touche!

depends on age of child and bedwetting history.

and status of my own munchkins (should I have any at the time)

[Calmar]

Bad player habit n+1:

The player who always complains.

"Now I'm paralyzed again! This adventure sucks!"

"That giant has way to high AC! This adventure sucks!"

"Why is there no +2 Anchored Slippery Moderate Fortification Full Plate in the town shop? This adventure sucks!"

dude, D&D is all about acceptance. Complaining will only get you rocks. On your head.

You are so right. This kind of habit is the worst of all, in my opinion, because it pointlessly lessens the fun of the session and insults the DM's work.

Would you mind if I quoted your words in my signature? :smallsmile:

[Combat Reflexes]

Would you mind if I quoted your words in my signature? :smallsmile:

no, no, not at all! Spread the wisdom :smallbiggrin:

[GeminiVeil]

Mr. 'I'm Helping!'
The player who goes through the session, swearing he is trying to help the plot or story along, but just ends up invariably messing things up. They could really believe this or not, but the effect is the same.

Mr. 'I stab Random NPC #97!'
The player who is trying to work our real world frustrations in game by stabbing, maiming, or killing everything that even remotely seems to be standing in the way.

Mr. 'My character would/wouldn't because'
The player who, for lack of a better description, makes characters that refuse to have any motivation at all for any plot that does not revolve around their characters. They have very specific plot hooks involved with their character and won't pay attention to any others. Sometimes they will complain that it's the DM that won't give them plot hooks for their characters, and sometimes they are correct.
Which leads me to:

Mr. 'I never knew that rule!'
The DM who either doesn't know/forgets really obvious rules (a pre-req for a feat, magic wep has to be +1 before other enchants, etc.) and doesn't want to change it, even though you (as a player) have taken major steps to satisfy these rules, and the DM never said any different when you did so.

Mr 'That's the rule! I swear! Where? Uhhhh. . .'
The DM that says that everything he says is THE RULEZ, not just his house rules. When called on it, cannot provide any documentation on the actual rules, and says the rules changed if you show him anything that contradict him. (house rules are fine, normally, but just CALL THEM THAT! :smallsmile:)

[Sarco_Phage]

The first two are Elan and Belkar, respectively. I think Red Mage is somewhere down there as well.

[The Anarresti]

When the DM...

Stops the session ever 10 minutes because it's time for another smoke break. I get it, you smoke, you need your fix, but can you at least wait until between scenes? It's frustrating as all get-out trying to get anything accomplished like that.


Can someone say nicotine patch? As DM you have a duty to keep the flow going, so why not get a couple patches and just use them for the game.

[Tyndmyr]

The Player that Brings too much Stuff--For D&D this is the player who brings three book bags full of D&D hard cover books, plus papers and all sorts of things to write with. Then said player will attempt to fill up a good quarter of the available table space with there stuff.

This...this is me. I own all the D&D books. I get much use from them. I don't generally put them on the table though, because the table is much too small(ongoing group joke).


The Player that Brings an Annoying novelty Item--Something that just disrupts the whole game.

My all time classic here is the Skull Dice Roller. I guess it came from some board game or such. Basically it was a large plastic skull with a hole in the top, that you could put a dice into. Then push the button and the skull would laugh and cackle and make all type of haunting electronic noises....and then shoot/roll the dice out of it's mouth.

God, I want it bad. Tell me how it can be mine.

[Gamer Girl]

1.The ''I'm just playing My Character'' Guy--Now, all players should play their character, 'in character'. Yet the player in question is always using this as an excuse to do dumb, silly, problem causing or game breaking stuff.

DM-''The shopkeeper turns around and looks through a chest...''
Player-"I grab all the money from his cash box!?!"
DM-"What? Your gonna rob your sponsor and the guy that is helping you out?''
Player(Shrugs)"I'm a thief"
DM--"Your a lawful good cleric of peace?!""

Or worse:

DM--''The guards escort you to the dinning room and leave..."
Player--"I grab all the silverware and stuff them in a sack!"
DM-"What? Your gonna steal from the king?"
Player(Shrugs)"I'm a thief"
DM--"Your a paladin!"


2.The Cheery-Picking of a Characters Personalities--This can get annoying. It's great when a player gets into character and role-plays, but it's not so great when they only role-play to their advantage.


DM--''The cure for the kingdom's pox is in the wooded chest, but the room is full of spiders..''
Player--"Oh, my character is afraid of spiders..so, I um..run''

But

DM--''The ton of treasure is in the wooded chest, but the room is full of spiders..''
Player--"I walk into the room and open the chest, how much loot do I get?''
DM--"But wait, your character is afraid of spiders..."
Player--"Oh, he just ignores that"
Player

[Choco]

2.The Cheery-Picking of a Characters Personalities--This can get annoying. It's great when a player gets into character and role-plays, but it's not so great when they only role-play to their advantage.

Those piss me off too. Especially if the DM purposely designs encounters to actually challenge some of the flaws they took while min-maxing, and the player INSISTS that the character just through sheer willpower ignores the flaw.

Directly related:

"Create and then forget personality trait" Guy--The guy who on the spot does some excellent RP/character development by giving his character a personality flaw (when it would somehow be to his advantage of course), only to completely ignore said flaw when it comes up again to his disadvantage.

[Trellan]

1.The ''I'm just playing My Character'' Guy--Now, all players should play their character, 'in character'. Yet the player in question is always using this as an excuse to do dumb, silly, problem causing or game breaking stuff.

DM-''The shopkeeper turns around and looks through a chest...''
Player-"I grab all the money from his cash box!?!"
DM-"What? Your gonna rob your sponsor and the guy that is helping you out?''
Player(Shrugs)"I'm a thief"
DM--"Your a lawful good cleric of peace?!""

Or worse:

DM--''The guards escort you to the dinning room and leave..."
Player--"I grab all the silverware and stuff them in a sack!"
DM-"What? Your gonna steal from the king?"
Player(Shrugs)"I'm a thief"
DM--"Your a paladin!"


2.The Cheery-Picking of a Characters Personalities--This can get annoying. It's great when a player gets into character and role-plays, but it's not so great when they only role-play to their advantage.


DM--''The cure for the kingdom's pox is in the wooded chest, but the room is full of spiders..''
Player--"Oh, my character is afraid of spiders..so, I um..run''

But

DM--''The ton of treasure is in the wooded chest, but the room is full of spiders..''
Player--"I walk into the room and open the chest, how much loot do I get?''
DM--"But wait, your character is afraid of spiders..."
Player--"Oh, he just ignores that"
Player

1a: "You're obviously neutral, not lawful good. Your god doesn't recognize neutral clerics; you can no longer pray for spells."

1b: "You're obviously not lawful good; you fall."

2: "The chest is trapped. You now have the pox that you neglected to cure earlier."

Of course, those kinds of players will probably just whine about stuff like this, but the point is still there: consequences. :smallwink:

[Choco]

Of course, those kinds of players will probably just whine about stuff like this, but the point is still there: consequences. :smallwink:

AMEN. When I DM there are always consequences, for everything you do, good or bad (otherwise you can't have an immersive world really). As for players doing stupid/destructive/counter-productive things, they can only hope that said consequences do not negatively impact the group as a whole, lest they become the focus of their group's collective wrath :smallamused:.

So let's add this to the list!

Mr. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR MY ACTIONS!?!?"--The guy who cries foul every time his stupid/thoughtless actions result in some negative consequence for him and/or the rest of the group. Why yes, dude, yes, there ARE in fact negative consequences for you LG character walking around slaughtering innocent villagers just cause they happen to be standing in front of you...

[Vladislav]

The Skull Dice Roller wins the thread. Nothing else ever mentioned in the history of the universe can possibly compare. If I had this device, I would build a shrine and worship it. I would agree to assign a negative level to all my characters if I could have this item.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Mr. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR MY ACTIONS!?!?"--The guy who cries foul every time his stupid/thoughtless actions result in some negative consequence for him and/or the rest of the group. Why yes, dude, yes, there ARE in fact negative consequences for you LG character walking around slaughtering innocent villagers just cause they happen to be standing in front of you...

This is probably the guy who plays Runescape, as there is no alignment system in it and you can kill as many villagers as you want.

I used to play Runescape, but it was too flat, no substance, and even the short quests were out of my patience range.

[Pigkappa]

Mr. 'I stab Random NPC #97!'
The player who is trying to work our real world frustrations in game by stabbing, maiming, or killing everything that even remotely seems to be standing in the way.

This is common and really, really disappointing. Totally screws half of the plot hooks.

"An important cleric of Pelor's church tells you that mrs. Maurger asked to look for his husband who's gone missing while in the Svalich woods, and the divinations don't work. Please go take a look."
"Where does she live?"
"Mmh... In the noble quarters, she has a big house, it's easy to find it."

A few minutes later she is dead and I have to find another plot hook to send them there :smallfurious:.

[Vladislav]

This is common and really, really disappointing. Totally screws half of the plot hooks.

"An important cleric of Pelor's church tells you that mrs. Maurger asked to look for his husband who's gone missing while in the Svalich woods, and the divinations don't work. Please go take a look."
"Where does she live?"
"Mmh... In the noble quarters, she has a big house, it's easy to find it."

A few minutes later she is dead and I have to find another plot hook to send them there :smallfurious:.If she's the only one dead, you got off easy. Some groups I have a passing knowledge of would also kill the cleric and ransack the church, then set fire to the woods.

[Glass Mouse]

If she's the only one dead, you got off easy. Some groups I have a passing knowledge of would also kill the cleric and ransack the church, then set fire to the woods.

Sounds like those groups would really like to play an evil campaign.

[Choco]

Sounds like those groups would really like to play an evil campaign.

Not in my experience, cause when they finally DO get to play an evil campaign, they for some reason tone back on the evil acts. I think it's more of a "stick it to the man" rebellious attitude problem (and/or the overwhelming desire to be "unique", AKA the rest of the party is being good, so they gotta be evil, etc.) than anything else. And on top of that, when you finally get annoyed and give them a sandbox game to play in, they sit around waiting for you to hand them plot hooks on a silver platter.....

So lets add them to the list!

Mr. "I wanna play any game but the one we are playing"--The guy who always acts evil in the good campaign, so you start an evil campaign. This guy then proceeds to be as good as he can possibly be. You are playing a high-power campaign and he is trying to play it more mundane, so you start a lower power game and then he tries to minmax to be as high-power as possible. You start a fantasy game and he tries his hardest to make a Jedi, lightsaber and all. So you then run a scifi game and he's the guy in plate armor with a metal sword. You finally get annoyed and make an anything-goes sandbox game, and he insists on sitting around waiting for personalized plot hooks to be delivered to him.

[Vladislav]

Based on a recent experience, I'd like to add But I Didn't have the time! guy.

We all level up at the end of a session. He's playing a Bard. He gets to add a new spell to his list, can't quite decide, says he'll pick it later. Fast forward to next session, two weeks later.
- So, guys, what spell should I pick?
- Uhm, can we start playing... you had two weeks.
- But I didn't have the time!

This repeats for every new spell, new feat, new class feature that requires a choice ...

[onthetown]

How about...

The player who makes himself/herself right at home?

It's great to get comfortable. You're here to relax. But it'd be nice if you asked before going into the kitchen, rooting through the fridge, and taking a beer without even missing a beat. I just met you!

[PhallicWarrior]

Another habit is when one PC is a great, or at least decent, optimizer RAMPANT MUNCHKIN and the others....arent.

This is the problem in my M&M campaign. One player has the ability to teleport 800 ft as a reaction, and can open up portals at any point within that range if he chooses to. He is literally impossible to attack directly unless he's already stunned. Another player has a ludicrously broad array of spells he can cast (picture a 3.5 Batman Wizard, without the limit of spells per day.) and the ability to summon up to 6 completely undetectable duplicates of himself (They really should only be completely impossible to tell apart from him, but I didn't realize he was exploiting a deliberate misreading of the power extra until it was too late.) This in a party otherwise comprised of a ninja with semi-useful elemental control powers, and a brawler with six arms and a tail.

Luckily for me, the campaign's winding down and they've started making new characters for the next, lower-powered one.

The duplicating wizard player is making a robot that can adapt to any attack and reflect it back on the attacker, and Portal Guy wants to make a character with earth control, highly specialized super-speed, and lots of ranks in Expertise (Architecture). He's called Pyramid Scheme, and he can build a full-sized pyramid as a free action. The campaign is level six, and it's supposed to be a gritty, street-level story of intrigue, human darkness, and superheroics. (And I had to fight Portal Guy to get him to create someone vaguely sane. Not even going to get into what I'm going to have to do with the Borg-wannabe.)

[Volthawk]

Well, for M&M, you really need a GM who can say 'no, that's too powerful'.

[Ghost6442]

True story...

The players wander into a ruin what was just near the local trade highway. it looks like there was a bunch of highway men using this for a camp, but it has been abandoned for sometime, it also looked like they abandoned it quickly for unknown reasons. After spending hours searching the place and the best loot found is a rubbery carrot and some dusty bedrolls that smell funny. the players got to the next room, obviously this room was the quarters of the head highway man. it is actually still neat, and there is a diary on a table.

...

So then my players ate the diary and the table then complained I should throw in a plot hook already... *head desk*

[Volthawk]

True story...

The players wander into a ruin what was just near the local trade highway. it looks like there was a bunch of highway men using this for a camp, but it has been abandoned for sometime, it also looked like they abandoned it quickly for unknown reasons. After spending hours searching the place and the best loot found is a rubbery carrot and some dusty bedrolls that smell funny. the players got to the next room, obviously this room was the quarters of the head highway man. it is actually still neat, and there is a diary on a table.

...

So then my players ate the diary and the table then complained I should throw in a plot hook already... *head desk*

...they ate it? :smalleek: :smallconfused:

[Ghost6442]

yes... they ate both the diary AND the table...

[ryu]

I think I speak for all or at least most of us when I say the only possible response to that is :eek:. Agreed?

[ScionoftheVoid]

yes... they ate both the diary AND the table...

This is why plot points should not be obtainable only via one method.

It's also why all plot hook items should be magical, they impart knowledge upon anyone that touches it or reforms after destruction or otherwise has an excuse to give the plot hook no matter what the players do to it. Knowing players, this will have to include even that. That too. ...Not sure about that one, but I wouldn't put it past them.

[Galileo]

DM: "OK, so what do you guys do?"
Players: "We set out to accomplish <quest>."
Annoying Player: "Uh, my character has no desire to go, he is going to stay home."
DM: "OK, everyone except Annoying Player goes on the adventure.."
*3 hours of RP'ing the adventure later*
Annoying Player: "Come on, you have been on them for 3 hours now, what about me?"
DM: "Oh yeah, you are sitting at home sipping some tea, nothing new to report, now back to the adventure..."

Basically if they don't want to play the game, they don't have to!

Something similar to that happened a while back in one of my games.
After receiving a quest to go rescue someone being held in a stronghold three days ride away, the vampire character stayed behind in the village to do something (I think he wanted to stalk the quest-giver NPC, purely out of paranoia).
So the party sets out for the stronghold without him, started scouting around and found a guarded entrance. They start a fight there, the vampire decides he's critically needed there.

Vampire: "I steal a horse and start galloping over to help them."
Me: "Sure, but you're a vampire. You're going to need to ride at night to avoid the sun, and there's no way your horse can keep up a gallop across rough terrain for three days straight."
Vampire: "I put my hood up!"
Me: "It'll get shaken off by the horse's motion. You'll have to go slower."
Vampire: "Okay then, I just ride at an average pace."

I return to dealing with the ongoing combat, but next round...
Vampire: "Am I there yet?"
Me: "It's been six seconds, and you're THREE DAYS AWAY. What do you think?"
He does this every round until I finally go "Fine! The rest of the party suddenly decides to sleep for two days straight and when they wake up you've arrived!"

[Ghost6442]

This is why plot points should not be obtainable only via one method.

It's also why all plot hook items should be magical, they impart knowledge upon anyone that touches it or reforms after destruction or otherwise has an excuse to give the plot hook no matter what the players do to it. Knowing players, this will have to include even that. That too. ...Not sure about that one, but I wouldn't put it past them.

There was other other methods to gain the plot point. like how the place was deserted suddenly and if they poked around a bit deeper in the ruins it would leap on them like so much bad chicken.

they decided it was not worth their time and they rather go to the tavern and get drunk... So...
GM: After getting more drunk then really possible you wake up naked on a desert island, you have no idea how you got there, also you are badly sunburned.

[GeminiVeil]

Oh, I forgot one more of mine. Mr. 'The rules don't say I CAN'T do it!'
This is the guy who, obviously, trys to use the fact that the rules are silent on an issue as an excuse that it should be allowed. When told simply that this is not how the rules work, DM is accused of railroading, bad DMing, etc.

[Gnoman]

Technically, he's not incorrect, as the DM is expected to cover things the rules don't allow, but it sounds more like he's trying to cheat than simply be inventive.


I had a player who abused the concept as well, but that was mainly because he sees the game as a sandbox (as it should be) and got carried away with the freedom. (The most notable example was when his Jedi character, looking for a non-lethal weapon in a barroom brawl, decided to pick up one of the dancing girls and beat his enemies with her.)

[Tyndmyr]

I had a player who abused the concept as well, but that was mainly because he sees the game as a sandbox (as it should be) and got carried away with the freedom. (The most notable example was when his Jedi character, looking for a non-lethal weapon in a barroom brawl, decided to pick up one of the dancing girls and beat his enemies with her.)

Is...is that bad? :smallconfused:

[GeminiVeil]

Technically, he's not incorrect, as the DM is expected to cover things the rules don't allow, but it sounds more like he's trying to cheat than simply be inventive.


I had a player who abused the concept as well, but that was mainly because he sees the game as a sandbox (as it should be) and got carried away with the freedom. (The most notable example was when his Jedi character, looking for a non-lethal weapon in a barroom brawl, decided to pick up one of the dancing girls and beat his enemies with her.)

Depends on the subject. I'm not sure if you can really use another person to deal nonlethal damage, even though that is kinda funny to me. :smallsmile: They want to do things like trade up two move actions for a standard action, or enchant armor (without spikes) with some weapon enchantments. I know there have been more ridiculous things, but there have been SOOO many that I can't remember specifics off the top of my head other than these.


Is...is that bad? :smallconfused:

Well, not for the person swinging. I don't imagine it's very good for the health of the dancing girl. :smallbiggrin:

[Tael]

They want to do things like trade up two move actions for a standard action, or enchant armor (without spikes) with some weapon enchantments. I know there have been more ridiculous things, but there have been SOOO many that I can't remember specifics off the top of my head other than these.


But... Why would they even want to do these things? :smallconfused:
What possible use does trading two move actions for a standard action serve (I guess w/ a belt of battle one could cast two spells), let alone enchanting armor with weapon abilities?

[Hiro Protagonest]

But... Why would they even want to do these things? :smallconfused:
What possible use does trading two move actions for a standard action serve (I guess w/ a belt of battle one could cast two spells), let alone enchanting armor with weapon abilities?

Combine flaming armor with a bull rush. And it's cheaper to enchant armor.

[Tael]

Combine flaming armor with a bull rush. And it's cheaper to enchant armor.

For 1d6 damage when you bullrush. Yeah. Why do you want enchant it again?

[ryu]

Hey that's actually relevant at the low levels the players would most likely try it...

[GeminiVeil]

But... Why would they even want to do these things? :smallconfused:
What possible use does trading two move actions for a standard action serve (I guess w/ a belt of battle one could cast two spells), let alone enchanting armor with weapon abilities?

Pretty much what swiftmongoose here said. Armor enchant is cheaper, if you get someone devoted to bull rush or the like, it's half the cost. The trading two move actions bit is for the combat manuvers that require standard actions, you can now use 2. Typically, having two standard actions is more valuable than 1 move and 1 standard.


Combine flaming armor with a bull rush. And it's cheaper to enchant armor.

Pretty much this, yeah. Also, they think for things like grappling "If I have flaming and acidic on my armor, if I grapple, they will take the damage!" Or "I could just put mighty cleaving on my armor instead of my weapon for half the cost!" (I don't play with any optimizers currently. :smallsmile:) They are still like how I was when I first played, attitude of "Melee rocks! I hate spells!" It's fun for them, though, so I don't complain.

[bloodtide]

1.The Take Back Player--This is where the player does not listen, or simply just does something rash, and then when it effects them negatively, they want to 'take it back' and 'say it never happened'.

DM--As you walk through the storeroom, you see a small stone box, covered in green slime...
Player--"I walk over to the stone box and open it, what loot do I get!"
DM--"Roll a save for the green slime..."
Player--"What? What! Wait..ok, lets just say I did not touch the chest yet.

2.The Do Over Player--This is where something does not go exactly right, and they player wants to 'reset' everything a couple minutes.

DM--"The last troll is gone...."
Player 1--"wow, I'm down to 6 hp...they sure did a lot of damage to me "
Player 2--"You got a lot of AoO from standing there.."
Player 1--"Oh? Lets do that combat over again"


3.The Take Back Cheat--The character does something with a bad outcome. Then the player convinces the DM to take it back, and then the player does not do the same action.

DM--As you touch the red orb you are hit with a disintegration
Player--"What? Do over!"
DM--"OK"
Player--"I walk into the room and touch the blue orb"

[Volthawk]

Pretty much this, yeah. Also, they think for things like grappling "If I have flaming and acidic on my armor, if I grapple, they will take the damage!"

Well, there is actually an enchantment for that in the MiC. Acidic.

[GeminiVeil]

Well, there is actually an enchantment for that in the MiC. Acidic.

You know, I didn't know that. :smallredface: Well, even so, if I did allow for the ones out of the MiC, they would then just put all the elemental things on their armor and at lower levels have grapplers doing more damage than intended. This doesn't really break the game or anything, but then they would (I have no doubt) look around for armor enchants to add to weapons and vice versa. They like being able to take any ruling I use and attatch a lot of outcomes to it that I didn't anticipate. I can usually accomadate for this, so I don't find it a big deal, but I would still prefer to just forgo the hassle. :smallsmile:

EDIT: We don't use MiC a lot because we only have a basic understanding of the item creation rules. (it took me about 3 hours to grasp the whole 'Brew Potion' thing, silly I know)

[Tael]

Pretty much what swiftmongoose here said. Armor enchant is cheaper, if you get someone devoted to bull rush or the like, it's half the cost. The trading two move actions bit is for the combat manuvers that require standard actions, you can now use 2. Typically, having two standard actions is more valuable than 1 move and 1 standard.

Uh, what? How in the hell do get a second standard action? You only get 1 move + standard, or two move actions in a turn.



Pretty much this, yeah. Also, they think for things like grappling "If I have flaming and acidic on my armor, if I grapple, they will take the damage!" Or "I could just put mighty cleaving on my armor instead of my weapon for half the cost!" (I don't play with any optimizers currently. :smallsmile:) They are still like how I was when I first played, attitude of "Melee rocks! I hate spells!" It's fun for them, though, so I don't complain.
I can see people wanting to get mighty cleaving at half price (that is if the miss the part where is says "A mighty cleaving weapon allows a wielder with the Cleave feat to make one additional cleave attempt in a round.") But there is already a property which does exactly that, and it's not exactly super powerful in the first place.

Also, you do realize that this isn't a case of "The rules don't say I can't" as much as "The rules say I can't, but I never read that rule" right?

[GeminiVeil]

Uh, what? How in the hell do get a second standard action? You only get 1 move + standard, or two move actions in a turn.


I can see people wanting to get mighty cleaving at half price (that is if the miss the part where is says "A mighty cleaving weapon allows a wielder with the Cleave feat to make one additional cleave attempt in a round.") But there is already a property which does exactly that, and it's not exactly super powerful in the first place.

Also, you do realize that this isn't a case of "The rules don't say I can't" as much as "The rules say I can't, but I never read that rule" right?

Ok, since my original example has some. . . dispute to it, I will provide a different one.
Weapon Proficiency: Dead Gnome. Character had an unhealthy hatred of gnomes, so whenever the party would kill one of find one dead, he would simply put it in his bag of holding and use them as thrown ammo. Also tried to get them enchanted. Was finally able to work in the 'no' answer because enchants have to be 'masterwork' and I didn't know how a dead gnome would fall under that description.

EDIT: and to answer the move action things, there is one of the celerity line and belt of battle, off the top of my head. I can't think of any others at the moment, but since I am not as into D&D as other RPG's, I admit I probably missed some. And the 2nd standard is by getting 2 move actions (lets say the celerity one I refernace earlier, plus the one you normally get) and 'trading up' for a standard. There you have 2 standard, but no moves.

[Choco]

Family members of the host who decide to do their most noisy tasks right as the game is getting rolling, and as close to the group as they possibly can.


Also...


Family members of the host who constantly pester the host to do random menial tasks that could easily have waited until after the game.

[The Glyphstone]

Ok, since my original example has some. . . dispute to it, I will provide a different one.
Weapon Proficiency: Dead Gnome. Character had an unhealthy hatred of gnomes, so whenever the party would kill one of find one dead, he would simply put it in his bag of holding and use them as thrown ammo. Also tried to get them enchanted. Was finally able to work in the 'no' answer because enchants have to be 'masterwork' and I didn't know how a dead gnome would fall under that description.
.

Taxidermy, of course. A stuffed dead gnome, if done with high-quality stuffing, would be masterwork.

[AFS]

Oh, I forgot one more of mine. Mr. 'The rules don't say I CAN'T do it!'
This is the guy who, obviously, trys to use the fact that the rules are silent on an issue as an excuse that it should be allowed. When told simply that this is not how the rules work, DM is accused of railroading, bad DMing, etc.

I vote for this one. Been there done that. Not again.

[bloodtide]

Family members of the host who decide to do their most noisy tasks right as the game is getting rolling, and as close to the group as they possibly can.


Also...


Family members of the host who constantly pester the host to do random menial tasks that could easily have waited until after the game.


Yup, get this all the time.

Some classics of the first type:

They pull out the vacuum/carpet shampoo machine and do the whole house...at like 7pm on a Saturday night
Construction...again late a night
Washing dishes..but not just the couple of dirty ones..it's is where they do the annual wash all the dishes in the house


Second type:

Take out the trash--it will be picked up at 9am, so it has to be done at 7pm, just as the dragon attacks.
Call some one to apologize--they did something wrong and must say they are sorry...at 9pm on Saturday night
Move Furniture--You just have to move the sofa at 8pm, it makes no sense to do that during the day.


My all time winner:

Read the kid a Bedtime Story--Really? We game once a while and if it's the gamers 'turn' to read the story, they can't switch with the other parent(and note they do this all the time for the non-gamer parent). It's worse when they miss 45 nights in a row with no story...but as soon as a game is going on a story must be read!

[GeminiVeil]

Taxidermy, of course. A stuffed dead gnome, if done with high-quality stuffing, would be masterwork.

Isn't it then, technically, a STATUE of a dead gnome, using the dead gnome?
Thankfully, only one of my players reads this site, or else I could imagine the player of the gnome-flinger reading that and making 'dead gnome statue spears' or something.

[Firechanter]

Wow. The guys who ate the diary and then complained there was not plot hook take the cake. The papier-maché cake, I presume.

Although "The rules don't say I can't do it" is also a "favourite" of mine. We had that recently in another thread (although there it was referred as reductio ad absurdum) that the rules don't say you have to be in contact with the ground to jump, and nothing in the rules forbids double jumps (i.e. jumping in mid-air like in a nintendo game).

[Drascin]

This is the problem in my M&M campaign. One player has the ability to teleport 800 ft as a reaction, and can open up portals at any point within that range if he chooses to.

If I rememeber correctly, actually, he can't. I think there's actually a rule that says that movement powers can't be upgraded to be less than a move action, ever. So no Reaction Teleports. Don't have my book on me right now, but you should search for that rule in your book and point it out.

That said, it's M&M, if something is too powerful for your camapign you're not supposed to follow the rules anyway, you tell the player "sorry, dude, not appropiate" and refund him his points, and ask him to take something else. This is a system made to allow you to play both Spiderman and Galactus - and a campaign thought up for the first would not work for the second, so it's the GM's job to make sure it's so.

[Ghost6442]

Technically, he's not incorrect, as the DM is expected to cover things the rules don't allow, but it sounds more like he's trying to cheat than simply be inventive.


I had a player who abused the concept as well, but that was mainly because he sees the game as a sandbox (as it should be) and got carried away with the freedom. (The most notable example was when his Jedi character, looking for a non-lethal weapon in a barroom brawl, decided to pick up one of the dancing girls and beat his enemies with her.)

Didn't Jackie Chan use a unconscious guy as a weapon in one of his films?

lol I had a jedi who had unrivalled control of the force, to him a lightsabre duel was his 8 lightsabress taking on the enemy while he sat back and watched sipping tea. in said situation he would have used the force to pick up the bad guys and bash them together


My all time winner:

Read the kid a Bedtime Story--Really? We game once a while and if it's the gamers 'turn' to read the story, they can't switch with the other parent(and note they do this all the time for the non-gamer parent). It's worse when they miss 45 nights in a row with no story...but as soon as a game is going on a story must be read!

give him a character sheet and some dice, he'll get a story all right.

[Gamer Girl]

The Infinity Action Player--Where the player always thinks they can do several 'quick' things all at the same time.

Player--" Ok for my action of the round: I run 30 feet, open my backpack and drink two potions of healing, then cast magic weapon on my sword and make a full attack on the troll!"

DM--"Um..you can't do all of that...."
Player--"I'm drinking to potions and casting the spell all while running.
Dm--"You can't"
Player--"Man that's not fair, I can so run and drink Gatorade at the same time..."

The Real Proof Person--This person will attempt to prove or disprove something should be one way in the game as they can do it in 'real life'.

Player--"Ok, I got two bottles of Gatorade in my backpack, now watch me run down the football field and drink both of them before I get to the end zone''

I fondly remember the guy, Dave, who wanted to prove that a thief could not climb a wall..by throwing himself against a wall and just waving with his arms and legs 'see I can't climb this'.

[Hiro Protagonest]

lol I had a jedi who had unrivalled control of the force, to him a lightsabre duel was his 8 lightsabress taking on the enemy while he sat back and watched sipping tea. in said situation he would have used the force to pick up the bad guys and bash them together

That sounds awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[big teej]

I fondly remember the guy, Dave, who wanted to prove that a thief could not climb a wall..by throwing himself against a wall and just waving with his arms and legs 'see I can't climb this'.

my response: "forgot to put ranks in climb didn't ya?"


:smallbiggrin:

I've had experience with mister 'infitie action' as well.

I've got one I'm worried about seeing over the summer.

mister "yea I know I said i'd do this but...."
also "yea I'm totally interested and commited to this"

the first.
I offered to DM basically the whole summer if two conditions were met
1) the group exists when exams are over
2) everyone gives me something* to work with

*something is defined as: a background, some sort of hook for your character, something, anything I can work into the story/game to engage your character and you as the player, individually. this could be a personal nemesis, a desire to mate with ever tavern wench in the world, etc.

second, related to the first.
these are players who keep showing up.... but they refuse to engage in the game. this manifests itself as : not leveling up between sessions, just sort of sitting there in between combat. and basically giving off a vibe of "I'm not sure why I'm here"
etc.

bleh....

[GeminiVeil]

my response: "forgot to put ranks in climb didn't ya?"


:smallbiggrin:

I've had experience with mister 'infitie action' as well.

I've got one I'm worried about seeing over the summer.

mister "yea I know I said i'd do this but...."
also "yea I'm totally interested and commited to this"

the first.
I offered to DM basically the whole summer if two conditions were met
1) the group exists when exams are over
2) everyone gives me something* to work with

*something is defined as: a background, some sort of hook for your character, something, anything I can work into the story/game to engage your character and you as the player, individually. this could be a personal nemesis, a desire to mate with ever tavern wench in the world, etc.

second, related to the first.
these are players who keep showing up.... but they refuse to engage in the game. this manifests itself as : not leveling up between sessions, just sort of sitting there in between combat. and basically giving off a vibe of "I'm not sure why I'm here"
etc.

bleh....

+1 to Mr Infinite Action. I was going to mention that one before, but couldn't think of an adequate way to phrase it. This fits just about perfectly. :smallsmile:

[Choco]

Related to Mr. Infinite Action:

Mr. God of War--The guy who plays too much God of War and wants to try all sorts of crazy things, like climbing up the colossal dragon, breaking off one of it's teeth, and stabbing it in the eye with said tooth for an instant kill. This may work in freeform RP, but the rules of basically all tabletop PnP RPG's don't allow for that, and even those that allow for you to describe it that way (Exalted) only give a small boost to attack and/or damage, not an instant kill (or blinding effect in this case). On top of all that, they think they should be able to basically make like 5 grapple checks against a giant-sized creature (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235) in just 1 turn.

Mr. Freeform--The guy that has a lot of experience with freeform RP and is just starting out with rules heavy/tactics based PnP RP. Thinks that describing/narrating the character's action is a valid substitute for performing actions that require feats, skills, and/or abilities that said player's character doesn't have (for example, basically doing a whirlwind attack without actually having the feat or anything similar). He then gets royally butthurt because you purposely "shoot him down and don't let him be awesome".

Mr. Called Shot--The guy who says he is aiming to cut off the target's arm, and when he rolls and hits he is mad when you don't rule that the target (who is still at 190/200 HP) still has his arm. Same guy who thinks that because "he is aiming for vitals" it should do more damage on a hit. He does not like it when you remind him that his character is ALWAYS aiming for vitals when attacking to kill, and a good hit on a vital is represented with a critical hit and/or sneak attack.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Related to Mr. Infinite Action:

Mr. God of War--The guy who plays too much God of War and wants to try all sorts of crazy things, like climbing up the colossal dragon, breaking off one of it's teeth, and stabbing it in the eye with said tooth for an instant kill. This may work in freeform RP, but the rules of basically all tabletop PnP RPG's don't allow for that, and even those that allow for you to describe it that way (Exalted) only give a small boost to attack and/or damage, not an instant kill (or blinding effect in this case). On top of all that, they think they should be able to basically make like 5 grapple checks against a giant-sized creature (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235) in just 1 turn.

I can't believe the rules don't allow stuff like that. Although the giantbane feat from complete warrior allows you to do the thing Legolas does in LotR.

[navar100]

The Neighbors

Because of the neighbors downstairs/upstairs/next door everyone has to be highly sensitive for any noise above a whisper. You can have casual conversation but don't you dare exclaim "All right!" to enjoy the moment when an awesome event happens.

[Choco]

The Neighbors

Because of the neighbors downstairs/upstairs/next door everyone has to be highly sensitive for any noise above a whisper. You can have casual conversation but don't you dare exclaim "All right!" to enjoy the moment when an awesome event happens.

ooooooo, that reminded me of one that I haven't had to deal with for a while luckily:

The Neighbors, part 2

You can barely hear yourselves talk at a normal conversational tone because the fratboys downstairs/upstairs/next door are having yet another loud, drunken party.

[Tanngrisnir]

Mr. God of War--The guy who plays too much God of War and wants to try all sorts of crazy things, like climbing up the colossal dragon, breaking off one of it's teeth, and stabbing it in the eye with said tooth for an instant kill. This may work in freeform RP, but the rules of basically all tabletop PnP RPG's don't allow for that . . .

Have to say I don't agree with this point. It's very easy to work this out within the rules of D&D, our group does it all the time. If my DM wasn't able or willing to work like this, I'd find a new one.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Have to say I don't agree with this point. It's very easy to work this out within the rules of D&D, our group does it all the time. If my DM wasn't able or willing to work like this, I'd find a new one.

The giantbane feat does work for the thing Legolas did on the olyphant. Plus, I love this stuff in general.

[stainboy]

Mr. God of War--The guy who plays too much God of War and wants to try all sorts of crazy things, like climbing up the colossal dragon, breaking off one of it's teeth, and stabbing it in the eye with said tooth for an instant kill.

Climbing large creatures without getting wrecked by size modifiers or making special attacks to blind enemies are good ideas, if you have time to write house rules to support them. The player who wants to do it all in one action for an instant kill can go straight to hell.


Mr. Freeform--The guy that has a lot of experience with freeform RP and is just starting out with rules heavy/tactics based PnP RP.

You notice every time this guy claims he's "roleplaying," it gives him a huge mechanical advantage? Yeah, these guys are munchkins who don't want to admit they're munchkins. As a fun experiment, have a monster break the action economy to utterly decimate them in a single action, and watch them bellyache.


He does not like it when you remind him that his character is ALWAYS aiming for vitals when attacking to kill, and a good hit on a vital is represented with a critical hit and/or sneak attack.

I've had to explain this about a dozen times, but I've never had anyone really argue the point. I have allowed called shots to the arms and legs though. They use rules from some feat from Neverwinter Nights that I'd have to look up to tell you exactly what it does. I think legs are half damage + caltrop wound, and arms are half damage + a Strength penalty with attacks using your arms. It doesn't come up very often.

[randomhero00]

Shoot, I'd just be happy for all the frickin players to show up every week. ><

[Hiro Protagonest]

Climbing large creatures without getting wrecked by size modifiers or making special attacks to blind enemies are good ideas, if you have time to write house rules to support them. The player who wants to do it all in one action for an instant kill can go straight to hell.
That's what's unreasonable, the guy who thinks he can one shot a full sized dragon with a dagger. And without getting critical or sneak attack.
You notice every time this guy claims he's "roleplaying," it gives him a huge mechanical advantage? Yeah, these guys are munchkins who don't want to admit they're munchkins. As a fun experiment, have a monster break the action economy to utterly decimate them in a single action, and watch them bellyache.Yeah, these guys are like the paradox of munchkins. Munchkins use vague wording and bad game balance to their advantage, this guy just tries his best to ignore them entirely.
I've had to explain this about a dozen times, but I've never had anyone really argue the point. I have allowed called shots to the arms and legs though. They use rules from some feat from Neverwinter Nights that I'd have to look up to tell you exactly what it does. I think legs are half damage + caltrop wound, and arms are half damage + a Strength penalty with attacks using your arms. It doesn't come up very often.

That's a good idea.

[stainboy]

That's a good idea.

I like it, but it doesn't come up much in practice. It wrecks flyers with < Good maneuverability, but that's kind of the point.

So does climbing on big creatures, actually. Both of those came up to give melee options to deal with monsters flying away to kill them from the air.

[Ghost6442]

I've had to explain this about a dozen times, but I've never had anyone really argue the point. I have allowed called shots to the arms and legs though. They use rules from some feat from Neverwinter Nights that I'd have to look up to tell you exactly what it does. I think legs are half damage + caltrop wound, and arms are half damage + a Strength penalty with attacks using your arms. It doesn't come up very often.

Called Shot

Type of feat: general
Prerequisite: base attack bonus of +1 or higher

Specifics: Grants the ability to make a potentially disabling attack against an opponent's arms or legs. Called shots are made at a -4 penalty, and must overcome the target's discipline skill check. A successful called shot against the legs reduces the opponent's movement rate by 20% and gives them a -2 cumulative penalty to their dexterity. A successful called shot against the arms applies a cumulative -2 penalty to the creature's attack rolls.

Use: selected


... I love NWN, It was a good game

BTW: Successful called shots last four rounds.

[stainboy]

Oh, right, the Discipline skill. I have no idea what my called shots did then. I probably remembered Called Shot working in some completely different way and made the house rule based on that. I know legs or wings was a caltrop wound.

[Firechanter]

I just remembered something of many years ago; don't know if this has been brought up so I'll just share it:

The Lone Wolf player type.
You can't exactly say the player or his character is an asshat. He doesn't actively work against the party, he doesn't steal from, betray or turn on the other party members. He just seems to prefer playing his own game. His characters are loners that interact as little as possible with the party. You really wonder why they are there, or why exactly they are tagging along.

Another post today reminded me of an instance of this, many years ago. The culprit was actually my best friend back then, but it didn't annoy me any less. In one AD&D game he played a Druid, and was the sole source of magical healing in the party. Only that he didn't give a rat's ass about us, but rather spent his healing spells on his pet.

The campaign never really got in gear, because after a couple of sessions it was so pointless to think of reasons to drag this druid along who clearly didn't want to be with us. So the game died.
I guess it was about that time that I decided that characters in a game had to be group-compatible.

[Gamer Girl]

The Lone Wolf player type.
You can't exactly say the player or his character is an asshat. He doesn't actively work against the party, he doesn't steal from, betray or turn on the other party members. He just seems to prefer playing his own game. His characters are loners that interact as little as possible with the party. You really wonder why they are there, or why exactly they are tagging along.

I hate this type of player. They sit back and avoid playing, and you just wonder why they are in the game at all. When asked they just say 'I'm just playing my character.'

Some Lone Wolf Variants:

The Told-You-So Lone Wolf--No matter what this character sits in the back and just about says nothing for the whole game. Even if asked a direct question they will reply with one or two words at the most. Yet when the group falls for a trap or such, they are the first one to speak up and say 'you guys are so dumb I saw that coming a mile away'.

The Solo Game Lone Wolf--Just about every round, this player wants his character to leave the group and head off on some other activity. Yet this player will refuse to play in a solo game, and always wants to play in a group, just not with the group.

The Lone Wolf Teleporter--This is for the Lone wolf that is always, always running away from the group to scout, loot and such. For example, when the group enters a dungeon and is spending some time getting through a door, the Lone Wolf will run off on a side passage. Yet, as soon as the door gets open and some monster comes out, the Lone Wolf wants to teleport back and join the fight..even if they are like a mile away and would have no idea the fight is even taking place.

The Famous Lone Wolf--This is when the lone wolf copies a famous lone wolf type character. The worst might be Rastalin. But there are plenty of others.

The Not Fair Lone Wolf--This lone wolf stays apart from the group, and never helps them or is part of the group. And then when healing or other things like loot comes around, they complain when they don't get their 'fair share'. It can be even worse, when the character does not help a fellow group member in trouble as they are in all 'lone wolf' mode, yet they expect that character and everyone else to be fair and nice to them.

[Yukitsu]

Did anyone else read that last one and immediately think "Tsundere"? No? Just me? I'll be quiet.

[AsteriskAmp]

Did anyone else read that last one and immediately think "Tsundere"? No? Just me? I'll be quiet.

Not really a Tsundere, they don't go Tsun Tsun on the party but Dere Dere on a character, they go Tsun Tsun on everyone but want people to treat them nicely, which is kinda the definition of a rude person who could be better described by an adjective which begins with a synonym of mule.

[Calmar]

no, no, not at all! Spread the wisdom :smallbiggrin:

Thanks! :smallbiggrin:

[big teej]

if it hasn't already been mentioned....

detect-smite paladins.

a paladin who detects evil and, when found, smites it IMMEDIETLY WITHOUT ANY RECOURSE TO CONTEXT

funnily related story.
back when we were all learning the game, player played a paladin.
as random treasure for an encounter, they found a pile of copper pieces.

the paladin detect'd evil on the penny pile

me, feeling snarky, said "yes, one of the pennys, the shineiest and most spiffy of them all, is radiating evil."

"I smite evil on the penny"

:smalleek::smallconfused: erm...

fine, roll for damage.

naturally
he rolls max.
"the penny explodes into thousands of pieces, congratulations, you have slain the lich's favorite penny out of his collection."

is that worth xp?
no....:smallfurious:

[Ghost6442]

I tend to play a lone wolf... I'm there but not there, more it's the party doesn't care for my existence, rather then me wanting to be solo or not apart of the party. they generally see me as useless until their getting their butts kicked and I have to waste everything I have to help them escape, usually at the expense of my own characters life, more or less I'm the party sacrificial lamb as they don't like the way I tend to build my characters.

Yeah being generally ignored as a fellow PC except when I'm "useful" does kill the fun for me

(Selling me to a undermoutain creature as a snack was considered useful, some creature that ate people and made clones? admittedly the DM made it up to me by allowing me to control an army of said clones, which then betrayed the PC's and slaughtered them, ah sweet retribution)

[Choco]

I tend to play a lone wolf... I'm there but not there, more it's the party doesn't care for my existence, rather then me wanting to be solo or not apart of the party. they generally see me as useless until their getting their butts kicked and I have to waste everything I have to help them escape, usually at the expense of my own characters life, more or less I'm the party sacrificial lamb as they don't like the way I tend to build my characters.

Yeah being generally ignored as a fellow PC except when I'm "useful" does kill the fun for me

Man, I know how that is. My 4e group right now is the EXACT same way.

Awesome story with the Undermountain creature though, what I would give to have an incident like that in my game :smallbiggrin:. Though unfortunately, I know for a fact the DM will never allow me that... I may as well just accept my place as the Butt Monkey (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButtMonkey) of the group and find a way to amuse myself with it.

Also, here's one I seem to not be able to avoid...

The Storyteller DM--The DM that doesn't even gracefully try to railroad you: He doesn't even give the illusion of choice, just tells you what you are doing.

Example:

DM - "You slay the final troll, and get <loot> from this patrol! This was the last of the marauders you were assigned to take care of."
Me - "Sweet, so now that everyone is safe and I have some time I want to..."
DM - "You spend an uneventful week traveling back to the city to collect your reward."
Me - "But I don't want to go back to the city yet, I still have something I want to do in <farming town> first..."
Other Players - "Yeah, that place was awesome!"
DM - "Too late, you are already back in the city."
Players - :smallconfused:

And since I'm mentioning that, somewhat related and opposite:

Time Wasting Spotlight Hog players, and the DM's that can't say 'NO' to them--The ONE person in the group who spends at least 1-2 hours every session wasting time on something no one else cares about.

The biggest offender I have ran into so far is the person who, every time she encountered an NPC who shared her main skill, challenged said NPC to a contest, which the DM of course gladly spent about an hour setting up and running while the rest of us vegetated.

And another, that I luckily have only ran into one time:

The Freeform DM--The guy who rolls dice, and has us roll dice, but who we all know is only doing so as a formality, because he is really running a freeform game where if the dice don't land according to his wishes he just overrules them. If there is a 5% chance of success and we (or the monsters) were "meant to" succeed, it happens. If there is a 100% chance of success and the DM doesn't want us succeeding at it, we don't. If we are hitting too much in combat or not getting hit enough, that is soon corrected. Now every DM fudges on occasion, imagine it happening every other dice roll in a session and you got this guy.

[Gamer Girl]

1.The Storytelling 'Skip' DM--This type of DM will always try to 'Skip' the storyline along. Sometimes this is good, like then the DM just says 'you sail for three weeks and make it to Iceport', but sometimes this is bad:

Player--''We put all of are loot in that secret chamber in the tower ruins. Then head off to attack the orc camp''.

And Later...

DM--"You kill the last orc and clear the camp. Then you travel back to Fost and get the kings reward."
Players--(nod) ''OK"
DM--"ok"
Player 1--"Wait we needed to go back to the tower ruins and get that other loot''
DM--"Sorry, your back in the capital city already...looks like you just forgot about that loot''.

2.The Drag Out Storytelling DM--This is the opposite of the above. Where the DM wants to actively role play out every little thing. The group might be walking about an hour to a spot where a monster was sighted, but the DM will insist on having about 11 encounters before they get to that spot. Encounters like 'Happy Abe' the halfling selling apples or normal deer or an old boot.

The Drag Out Enabler Player--This player falls for everything the Drag Out DM does. If they find one left boot in the woods, they will want to search around and find the right boot too. When they see deer, they want to stop and attack('hunt') them.

[Choco]

The Drag Out Enabler Player--This player falls for everything the Drag Out DM does. If they find one left boot in the woods, they will want to search around and find the right boot too.

OMG this is EXACTLY what happened at the start of one of the games I am currently playing in. We came across one boot, and 2 of the players would NOT give it a rest for about 4 sessions until the party came across the matching boot.

The Puzzle Freaks out of Water--The DM and 1 of the players are total puzzle freaks, but the other 6 group members hate them with a passion. DM presents the party with a puzzle (that is not critical to our mission), and the 1 player REFUSES to move on until the puzzle is solved despite us telling her we obviously need more info on this first. So 2 sessions of the DM and said player playing with the puzzle later....

[Provengreil]

The Description DM: this guy will narrate everything. killing a random mook gets you a paragraph, get out the booze if you kill a bbeg, you'll be sober before it's done. you'd think a good way to head him off would be a quick narration of your strike, but no, that only encourages him to give an even more graphic description of how you poked a goblin with a sword. combat stretches on for hours on end for random encounters, boss fights can go entire sessions.

[LansXero]

Yeah being generally ignored as a fellow PC except when I'm "useful" does kill the fun for me

Thats not very nice at all. You could perhaps take a hint and agree with the others how they would like you to build your characters if they are all in agreement that its causing trouble, but still, the way they treat you is just rude and disrespectful.

[Choco]

The Description DM: this guy will narrate everything. killing a random mook gets you a paragraph, get out the booze if you kill a bbeg, you'll be sober before it's done. you'd think a good way to head him off would be a quick narration of your strike, but no, that only encourages him to give an even more graphic description of how you poked a goblin with a sword. combat stretches on for hours on end for random encounters, boss fights can go entire sessions.

Ugh, I hate this too. 1 sentence is usually enough, sometimes 2 are warranted and that's OK, but anything more just gets annoying. Bonus points if said DM gets offended when you mention this.

Also, reminds me of....

The Exalted Stunt Writer--This guy spends AT LEAST 5 minutes narrating his character's every action, down to the most minute detail. For those who don't know, in Exalted if you describe your character's action in an epic way you get a certain number of bonuses for it, depending on how epic the description was, if you used the environment, etc. This guy seems to think that droning on for 5+ minutes and boring everyone at the table will get him more dice, even though he is creating the EXACT OPPOSITE effect of what was planned with the Stunt mechanic.

[Provengreil]

Also, I admit to playing a loner in my current campaign, though that's subjective because of character development; he's been the last PC standing through 3 different encounters. I still play him more as an aloof character, so it counts i guess.

[randomhero00]

I hate the low int player who has a high int character and a insists on making all the group decisions "because I'm way smarter than you and that's how it would be".

[Firechanter]

2.The Drag Out Storytelling DM--This is the opposite of the above. Where the DM wants to actively role play out every little thing.

omg. This reminds me of one game (not D&D) where I played for a couple of sessions. The setup was like: you gather at a city near the desert, planning to accompany an expedition to some ancient ruins _in_ the desert. Expedition is bound to take off in ~5 days and will take some 3 weeks to get there.

Sounds good enough? Well, it might be, if that group (not just the GM, every other player except me) didn't insist on "playing out" _every single day_ from morning to bedtime. We advanced at a pace of about 1 day per session. My char did everything he needed to do on the first day. On the second day/session I did my best to play along and thought it would be a nice pastime to gamble in some taverns, while one of the other players got to take part in a tournament. The third day/session I practically wasn't allowed to gamble anymore because I'd won too much the session before (see below), while the other player got to win this tournament.

And still three days to go before that frigging _journey_ would even start, let alone getting to any interesting place. No scene framing, no nothing. I quit the group at that point, but only because of this reason. But also because the GM was...

The GM who strives to keep the PCs poor.
I hate this kind of GM, even in a game where money isn't really that important (as opposed to D&D). The wages/rewards are low and the prices high. Aforementioned GM offered our characters _one silver piece per WEEK_, in a setting that has prices for goods and services roughly similar to the D&D lists.
Really, what's _wrong_ with these folks? They act as if they had to pay the PCs out of their own pocket!

Bonus points if you're actually playing D&D and you never get enough gold to buy a single magic item.

[Gamer Girl]

1.The Poor World DM--I'll second this one. The Dm that does everything to keep the player characters poor. When they do find loot, it's copper coins and old boots. Even if there is treasure, it will get lost, or stolen or destroyed in the cheesiest TV manner:

DM--"The crossbow bolt hits the wizard and he falls...but just as he hits the ground his half cast fireball bead flies out of his hand and lands in the treasure chest incinerating the contents.

2.The Get a Job DM--A Poor World subtype DM who thinks all adventures must have a 'day job' to earn money, and worse it must be roll played out. So after only finding six copper coins in the Dungeon of Death, the players are now sitting around town, rolling performance checks to entertain people and make some money at the local tavern.

3.The Thief DM--A Poor World subtype DM that will always steal any money or loot the players get. They give out loot like normal, yet the players can never use it, of course. Every city and town is full of thieves that pick the pockets of every adventures about 25 times once they walk in. Every person in the world is a thief and everyone will steal from the PCs. Even worse is the cheesy way loot will be lost:

DM--"As you head back to town with your wagon load of gold......A Red Dragon swoops out of the clouds and grabs the wagon and flies off!''

OR

DM--"An Earthquake hits! And..and..your wagon full of gold falls into a sinkhole!"

OR

DM--After you return to the spot you felt the gold wagon, you find the wagon gone. Looks like Jober the wagon driver took off with your gold.

[Choco]

1.The Poor World DM--I'll second this one.

I'll third this one. Tell me again why my character is risking life and limb adventuring when he could be making 100x as much money as a bartender?

Also another variant:

The Monty Haul... NOT! DM--The DM that gives out GIGANTIC amounts of treasure. Like, your lvl 6 party just got enough treasure to make a lvl 15 party jealous. Of course, if something is too good to be true.... Before this treasure could be put to use, it is promptly lost in such a way that leaves the characters even more poor than they were before they got it. If this happens once or twice during a campaign it can be amusing, but more often than that...

[Sipex]

I can see where taking a PCs money would be fun. IE: Jober the wagon driver took your wagon load of cash.

This requires the expected followup of course.

The PCs hunt down Jober, get their cash back and exact alignment appropriate revenge.

The rest of this sounds scary.

[navar100]

if it hasn't already been mentioned....

detect-smite paladins.

a paladin who detects evil and, when found, smites it IMMEDIETLY WITHOUT ANY RECOURSE TO CONTEXT


In the most recent session the paladin player did not fall into this trap. He detects evil all the time. He doesn't attack right after detection, but he's suspicious and ready for battle. Upon meeting two NPCs he detected evil. You could tell from his body language the player was in suspicious mode but he considered the situation he was in. He followed through with the ability to study the matter for three rounds. He learned it wasn't the NPCs that were evil. They just had a lingering aura of evil because they recently left a place of evil power. The NPCs happened to be people another party member was looking for.

[Hiro Protagonest]

if it hasn't already been mentioned....

detect-smite paladins.

a paladin who detects evil and, when found, smites it IMMEDIETLY WITHOUT ANY RECOURSE TO CONTEXT

Two words: Miko Miyazaki.

[navar100]

The Gold Nazi "No gold for you"!

Similar to the Poor World DM, in this case the party is in a dungeon where they come across a great treasure hoard of some kind - thousands of gold pieces, a really large and heavy gem, a powerful magic item stuck in something, etc. Whatever it is, the party has no means to transport it, it takes too long to gather because Something must be Done, it would slow the party down holding it, or otherwise the party can have it but they just can't take it with them now. The treasure is left behind with the intention of the party going back to retrieve it once they are done with their current mission and have all the time in the world to get it and move it. Of course, the party never does this. The dungeon collapses, the party is teleported away, the party has to retreat fast because of a big nasty thing chasing them, the realy large and heavy gem is a key that disappears once it's used to open a lock. The Great Treasure is only there to mock the players.

[Provengreil]

related to the poor world DM: The Super Rich DM

marginally more fun than the poor world dm, there are three subtypes:

-The Mega treasure DM: he'll roll off the charts rather than customize loot, but then give you double treasure to compensate for the sell value. then the town will happen to be having a sale. then the bandits that mug you on your way out of town will have items that make you drool. you'll spend so much time accounting and changing your character sheets to accommodate all the new items you get that your Party will consider full party vow of poverty just so you can get to the actual game part.

-The Artifact DM: now don't get me wrong, a well inserted artifact, often as a macguffin, can enhance a game quite well, and something one-time like a deck of many things can lead to some amusing shadenfreude. but this DM has everyone pick an artifact weapon they'd like, and then focus the campaign on a cabal that controls 3 spheres on annihilation. normal magic items are usually unaffected but are also questionably worthwile in the face of what you're already holding.

-The (Homebrew) Epic DM:Easily the worst of the lot, with this guy your character's carefully weighed and selected items, skills, feats, and racial choices won't mean anything. I've had this DM, so the best way to tell this is by example.

I was a rogue. we had a couple battles, and the DM decided they weren't epic enough. so he railroaded us to the elves, who sent us back in time to when artifacts were made, threw away our entire inventories, and gave us new stuff. my "gifts" were:
-a ring making me immune to ability damage and drain(this was to offset the next thing)
-The Imaskari Black Bow and accompanying quiver(google it)
-psychoactive skin giving me +50 to hide, move silently, and 10 AC with no check penalties, and flying
-bracers of permanent haste
-and a bundle of smaller items basically amounting to a survival pouch

Also, i got the least stuff. barbarian, for instance, got a Black Blade of Disaster, as described in the spell, but doesn't allow spell resistance, and that was just his weapon.that campaign ended when barbarian decided we looked fun to squish.

When re rerolled I was a paladin. I got a warhammer with an ability list 2 pages long, which basically had +18 equivalent, intelligence, spells per day that looked like a 16th level clerics spell list. OH, and miracle. at will. and no XP cost. He then sent us into one of the planes of hell and had us fight 400 dretches, 12 vrocks, and something we failed our knowledge checks on.

[Gamer Girl]

1.The Lame Homebrew Player--Homebrewing is an art. And a lot like art, not everyone can do it. Worse, everyone thinks they can. And much, much worse is the lame homebrew they come up with.

Example--"My magic staff lets me cast 100 spell levels of spells per round as a free action.''
Example--"My sword is only +5, but has the special property of 'can cut through anything'.''
Example--"My shield can absorb all magic''

2.The I Won't Use It Player--Inspired my anime. This player wants to have some type of homebrewed ultra powerful ability or item, but the promise not to use it all the time. They just want to have it as an option, but not use it 'all the time''.

Example--"When my character gets mad they can shoot out 100d100 lighting bolts...but, um, my character must be really, really mad. So...um...it will only happen about two or three times a game.

Example--"My character has the Sword of Oblivion, but will normally fight with my dull, broken bronze sword. Unless there is real, real danger or trouble, then my character will draw the Sword of Oblivion.

3.The Cute Trap Player--More anime crap. The player wants to be something like ''A 9 year old girl''(or at least look like one but have full adult stats, of course). And have an awesome Nuke power too(as per above).

DM--"The Orc charges at Cuteys-Tootsie!"
Player--"She sings a play full song and kills the orc with her Jump-rope of Enemy Obliteration!"

[AsteriskAmp]

DM--"The Orc charges at Cuteys-Tootsie!"
Player--"She sings a play full song and kills the orc with her Jump-rope of Enemy Obliteration!"
I find this more entertaining than annoying, try being a Barabarian Pixie, invisible rage, add in pink hair, assured fun.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I find this more entertaining than annoying, try being a Barabarian Pixie, invisible rage, add in pink hair, assured fun.

So like your avatar, but with a greataxe instead of a rapier. :smalltongue:

[AsteriskAmp]

So like your avatar, but with a greataxe instead of a rapier. :smalltongue:
Yes. Only it would be screaming and charging with it overhead, and probably would be male.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The Monty Haul XP DM: this is the guy who gives out tons of XP.

Example:

DM: "You slay the goblin, gain 400 experience."

I heard about this guy from two friends of mine, when I was DMing my first session ever. They were talking about the first time DMing when one of them said "Remember that one guy who gave out a ton of experience?" and the other replied "Yeah, we got to level 20 in about ten sessions.".

[Provengreil]

The Monty Haul XP DM: this is the guy who gives out tons of XP.

Example:

DM: "You slay the goblin, gain 400 experience."

I heard about this guy from two friends of mine, when I was DMing my first session ever. They were talking about the first time DMing when one of them said "Remember that one guy who gave out a ton of experience?" and the other replied "Yeah, we got to level 20 in about ten sessions.".

that happened to me, but it was because our DM kept throwing over CRed oozes at us and i kept freezing them with no effort.

[Choco]

Example--"My sword is only +5, but has the special property of 'can cut through anything'.''

Funny thing, I created basically that exact item as an artifact in a game I ran once. It was an axe that belonged to the god that the PC's were trying to free from his prison, and basically all attacks with it were touch attacks and it ignored all DR and hardness. It was the last quest of the campaign, fetching said axe as it was the only thing that could break the prison. I even let the Paladin use it for the 2 sessions or so he had it.

Also...

The DM Who Picks Favorites--We all know this guy, the one who has a favorite player (usually the (often already taken) girl he has a crush on), and said player has a free pass to do the things that get the rest of us chewed out.

[big teej]

The GM who strives to keep the PCs poor.
I hate this kind of GM, even in a game where money isn't really that important (as opposed to D&D). The wages/rewards are low and the prices high. Aforementioned GM offered our characters _one silver piece per WEEK_, in a setting that has prices for goods and services roughly similar to the D&D lists.
Really, what's _wrong_ with these folks? They act as if they had to pay the PCs out of their own pocket!

Bonus points if you're actually playing D&D and you never get enough gold to buy a single magic item.

I had an experience with this, thankfully the campaign turned belly up in one session.

Warhammer: Dark Heresy.

having recently read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels (as well as Scourge the Heretic and Innocence Proves Nothing) I was super excited about the idea of hunting down cultists and daemons, lasrifle and bolt pistol in tow.

so we make it through creation, and somebody (admittedly, probably me. and I doubt I'd pull this again.) said something about "you know, an inquisitorial task force should really be better equipped than this."

this was after managing to cojole the GM into letting us have basics such as....
MREs
lamp-packs
inquisitorial rosettes
lasweapons
rebreathers
other survival type gear. (I don't feellike listing everything)

so I pointed out the whole "better equipped" thing.
and he's like "hey, shut up, I was GOING to start you guys off with flintlocks"

and I couldn't suppress a reaction of "wtf?"

I mean, it was an understood given that part of the whole lure of this idea was all of us wanted to wage battle with the weapons our armies were using.

and honestly.... even though I didn't exactly enjoy that session.

flintlockes?

yea, no thanks.

see also - DM doesn't want you to have anything nice/powerful/reason you play the game.



Two words: Miko Miyazaki.

5 points for swiftmongoose.
had I known of the character at the time (before I became a playgrounder) I most certainly would have pegged them as such.

[Claudius Maximus]

Funny thing, I created basically that exact item as an artifact in a game I ran once. It was an axe that belonged to the god that the PC's were trying to free from his prison, and basically all attacks with it were touch attacks and it ignored all DR and hardness. It was the last quest of the campaign, fetching said axe as it was the only thing that could break the prison. I even let the Paladin use it for the 2 sessions or so he had it.

I did too (the black sword to the left). I didn't realize it was apparently such a terrible example of homebrew.

[Choco]

I did too (the black sword to the left). I didn't realize it was apparently such a terrible example of homebrew.

I think that only applies if someone honestly thinks it is balanced in any way. I threw in said overpowered artifact knowing how overpowered it was, at the very end of a campaign.

The Grudge Holder--This is the guy who will remember every single slight any of your characters ever did against any of his, and not only will he never let you hear the end of it but from the very first one on all his characters will "seek revenge" (which of course leads to more issues as you keep winning...). Bonus points if he started it and you just happened to win.

I am not kidding, I had a guy once who tried to assassinate my character in his sleep, but was unaware that I was immune to critical hits (I love warshapers). I woke up after his attempted coup-de-grace and proceeded to tear him apart. From that moment on he kept referring to me as a party killer, always bringing up that I killed his favorite character when I could have just forgiven him and let him live, and of course all his future characters had mysterious grudges against mine.

I would have been mad/annoyed if it wasn't so funny. I knew his characters would constantly try to kill mine, so I made it a minigame to outsmart him and keep killing him over and over every time he tried, until he got so mad he left the group :smallwink:.

[Lemonus]

if it hasn't already been mentioned....

detect-smite paladins.

a paladin who detects evil and, when found, smites it IMMEDIETLY WITHOUT ANY RECOURSE TO CONTEXT

Solution to that: Said Paladin, upon detect-smiting, immediately becomes female, (if they weren't already) and their name is changed to Miko Miyazaki.

Of course, only do this if the player has detect-smited a lot.

[The Big Dice]

Solution to that: Said Paladin, upon detect-smiting, immediately becomes female, (if they weren't already) and their name is changed to Miko Miyazaki.

Of course, only do this if the player has detect-smited a lot.

Or, let them run out of Smites on feeble villagers that are more about giving short change or serving up food that has been spat on. Then the vampire/fiend/uber gribley of doom (tm) makes his presence known. Because there's nothing quite as frustrating for a player as realising you wasted your cool stuff on things that you didn't need to, then being confronted by something on which you could have used that power to good effect.

[Dsurion]

1.The Poor World DM--I'll second this one. The Dm that does everything to keep the player characters poor. When they do find loot, it's copper coins and old boots. Even if there is treasure, it will get lost, or stolen or destroyed in the cheesiest TV manner:I get the feeling most people on this board (or at least in this thread) would HATE to play by the suggested Conan d20 rule of high living:

Every week, all characters will spend a minimum of 50% of their current wealth on high living, if that wealth is currently over 50 silver pieces.

[The Glyphstone]

I get the feeling most people on this board (or at least in this thread) would HATE to play by the suggested Conan d20 rule of high living:

Every week, all characters will spend a minimum of 50% of their current wealth on high living, if that wealth is currently over 50 silver pieces.

well, ConanD20 also doesn't feature concepts like WBL, where a character is required to have a certain investment in magical equipment in order to be capable of fighting threats of his level. Conan's High Living rule works great for Conan's world, not so much for other settings.

[HalfDragonCube]

I agree. My DMPCs have been Scott, retired adventurer who travels with the party giving them advice and carrying a stolen keg of Dwarven spirits until they're strong enough to recover his home village from invading spark sprites. Only once been in combat and that was against the PCs when they tried to drug him. I've also got Dhema the Chronicler, Spellstitched Ghast, who has handled an encounter after one PC decided to run into the swarm with another party member strapped to him (killing said PC in the process, the guy on his back died of swarm damage), but won't leave the library he was undeadified to protect and is only really helpful against swarms and mummies anyway. Both more powerful than the party, but they take a backseat. Scott is retired and Dhema's spell-likes need to last, so neither is really going to step in unless it's really necessary (i.e. I screwed up as DM).

Guess who was 'the guy on his back'?:smallbiggrin:

You didn't screw up, it was the 'I run into the swarm with my squishy spellcaster backpack' guy that screwed up. Dhema played the valuable role of letting the party flee.

[Firechanter]

I played Conan D20 for years, and wealth was always easy come, easy go. The beauty in those rules is that you don't _need_ treasure or gear to function mechanically. The High Living rule is supposed to be enforced only if the players try to hoard their money _without particular goals to save up for_. So if you say "I want to save up for a master work plate armour" that's fine and you may do so unpenalized. But just sitting on your silver for the hell of it is discouraged - if mainly to always have an easy quest hook to bite on. "After 4 weeks of orgies, ale and whores you're low on cash again. Luckily you have heard of a treasure that's supposed to be hidden in the city of ghouls..."

At least in Conan, you know that your characters are having a good time, which is a vastly different feeling than if they have to turn over every penny twice and have to live off bread and water because they can't afford anything better.

[Gamer Girl]

I did too (the black sword to the left). I didn't realize it was apparently such a terrible example of homebrew.

Any absolute is a bad idea. When you say a sword can 'cut through anything' and/or ignore hardness and DR, your asking for trouble. Most games scale, so a DR of 5 is better then a DR of 2 and the more powerful something is, the better it is. But when you have a item that ignores that every time, automatically it's too much. You effectively make other things in the game useless. For example the bag guy might take a year to make a fancy cage with a DR of 25 and such....but he just wasted his time as the 'Cutter' sword can chop through it in a round. Of course, the best example is: Do you like absolutes when they are used against you? Would you be ok with the enemy having something like 'an item that can't be destroyed' or a 'spell that always works'.


1.World Haters--This person hates a published game world with an insane passion. It's one thing to dislike the world, that is normal, but the deep, deep, hatred is just crazy. Worse is when the player will refuse to game in a published world, and when they get out voted, they just sit back with their arms crossed and complain about the setting for six or seven hours.

[Ballis]

1.World Haters--This person hates a published game world with an insane passion. It's one thing to dislike the world, that is normal, but the deep, deep, hatred is just crazy. Worse is when the player will refuse to game in a published world, and when they get out voted, they just sit back with their arms crossed and complain about the setting for six or seven hours.

My current DM does this with Eberron, it's a pain. We aren't using anything from Eberron books in our characters, but even mention Eberron and it's a 30 minute rant.

[Hiro Protagonest]

My current DM does this with Eberron, it's a pain. We aren't using anything from Eberron books in our characters, but even mention Eberron and it's a 30 minute rant.

But eberron's awesome! It's the only campaign setting where orcs are the stewards of nature and elves rampage across the land in destructive hordes. :smallcool:

[Grendus]

In all fairness, Eberron is probably my least favorite of the three main settings (Eberron, Faerun, and Greyhawk). The crapsack afterlife and general lack of divine meddling feels less swords and sorcery to me than other settings. Though I do love the magitech, beats steampunk any day.

On topic:
The Prude: The guy with no sense of humor, or with an egotistical view of humor, who can't find anything vaguely immature funny. I'm not talking about three hours of fart jokes, but when a character does something genuinely funny but kind of crude, like peeing on a fire elemental to hurt it, gets all offended.

Mr. Goofoff: Polar opposite of the prude. Thinks everything is funny, and if you didn't laugh the first eight times, you must have missed it. If you did laugh the first time, then it's instant laughter and must be repeated until the joke is worn so thin that you seriously consider breaking your "no PK" rule.

[AsteriskAmp]

On topic:
The Prude: The guy with no sense of humor, or with an egotistical view of humor, who can't find anything vaguely immature funny. I'm not talking about three hours of fart jokes, but when a character does something genuinely funny but kind of crude, like peeing on a fire elemental to hurt it, gets all offended.


Different people have different views on humour, what is funny to some will not be for others. While a sadist may find to dismember the enemy funny and laugh all the way, he may find crude humour unfunny. I find overdone humour worse than someone who is not particularly fond of a type of humour. Also, vaguely immature humour can in fact evolve into a Goofooff if reinforced by the party.

Finally, peeing on a fire elemental to hurt it goes beyond the definition of vaguely immature IMO.

[stainboy]

The Snowflake- The player who always wants to play something that doesn't work in your campaign or system. This is the guy who wants to play an talking animal in D&D, but doesn't like Mouse Guard because everyone has to play mice. Show them Star Wars and they whine that all the Force users have to be Jedi; show them Serenity RPG and they want a laser sword. The particulars don't matter, as long it can't work without an inelegant mechanics hack.


I get the feeling most people on this board (or at least in this thread) would HATE to play by the suggested Conan d20 rule of high living:


Yep, I hate it. I'd hate it extra in D&D, but I'm pretty sure I'd even hate it in Conan d20.

[dsmiles]

I get the feeling most people on this board (or at least in this thread) would HATE to play by the suggested Conan d20 rule of high living:

Every week, all characters will spend a minimum of 50% of their current wealth on high living, if that wealth is currently over 50 silver pieces.

That's awesome!! I'm going to start spending all my DnD gold on hookers and booze!! :smallbiggrin:

Wait...:smallconfused:

...I already do that!! :smallcool:

[Hiro Protagonest]

The Snowflake- The player who always wants to play something that doesn't work in your campaign or system. This is the guy who wants to play an talking animal in D&D, but doesn't like Mouse Guard because everyone has to play mice. Show them Star Wars and they whine that all the Force users have to be Jedi; show them Serenity RPG and they want a laser sword. The particulars don't matter, as long it can't work without an inelegant mechanics hack.

You wanna play a talking animal? here you (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10398111#post10398111) go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7280367&postcount=972).

[Amnestic]

You wanna play a talking animal? here you (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10398111#post10398111) go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7280367&postcount=972).

Hengeyokai and Tibbits work too, and aren't homebrew :smallcool:

Not that I've got anything against Bhu's work of course. I like it.

[stainboy]

Druids work too, but all you guys are doing is killing the Snowflake's interest in talking animals. He's moved on to wanting to play a god trapped in mortal form or something.

[Gamer Girl]

The Snowflake--Oh yes, all the time.

Some variants:

1.The Poser Snowflake--This player find some class, ability or such with a drawback, often, but not always, a role-playing drawback. They will whine and cry that they can 'role-play it good', and when the DM lets them do so...they just forget about the drawback. The paladin is a classic example here:

Player:--"I cut off everyone's heads and drink all their blood!"
DM:--"Um, your a paladin"

Or a being something tied to an environment, like aquatic, but just ignoring that.

DM--"Hey, your character Float the Sea Elf has been walking through the desert for three days!?!"

2.The Only Advantageous to Me Snowflake--This is where the snowflake wants all the good and none of the bad of their snowflake pick. The classic example is a drow: They want NPC's to be scared of them and not attack, or worse give them good deals(''Oh here is a sword+5 for free drow!), but they don't want the negative side(''The shopkeeper slams his door closed as you approach".


3.The Changer Snowflake--Not only does this player want to be some type of Snowflake, but worse, they found a Snowflake something that they just want to tweak or change a bit. Again, often a role-playing bit, but it can be mechanics. They want to be a evil assassin type in a all good game, and somehow be a 'good assassin' that eats souls.

Now, this can be fun to do...but note the Changer Snowflake won't even try to play it out, they just want to change the thing they don't like and then forget about it.

[stainboy]

3.The Changer Snowflake--Not only does this player want to be some type of Snowflake, but worse, they found a Snowflake something that they just want to tweak or change a bit. Again, often a role-playing bit, but it can be mechanics. They want to be a evil assassin type in a all good game, and somehow be a 'good assassin' that eats souls.


Anything where I have to have an argument about alignment before letting it into the game goes on my list. And it takes a lot to make me care about alignment. I usually respond to alignment questions with disinterested grunting.

Player: "I want to be a lawful good paladin/dread necromancer aiming for the Soul Reaver of Orcus prestige class!"
Me: "ugh."
Player: "Come on, isn't that awesome?"
Me: "ugggh."
Player: "I don't know why you don't want me to be creative-"
Me: "ugggggh!"

[archon_huskie]

Snowflake - girl in an oWoD dark ages game.
"I want to play a Nosferatu with one point of Appearance"

Appearance is an Attribute that indicates how a character is percieved. 5 is beautiful beyond all measure. Normal/average appearance is 2. Nosferatu automatically have 0. They are supernaturally ugly. 1 is still ugly.

So for some reason, she was building her character around the concept that she was just a little less hideous than the rest of her clan of vampires.

[stainboy]

There's a flaw for caitiff in Revised that does basically that. Your sire was a nosferatu, but didn't stick around long enough for the imprinting to take so you never lost the last point of appearance.

(In other news, you don't get the nosferatu curse by being vampirized by a nosferatu, you get the curse because he/she sticks around for a few days afterward. Huh?)

[Provengreil]

The Snowflake--Oh yes, all the time.

Some variants:

1.The Poser Snowflake--This player find some class, ability or such with a drawback, often, but not always, a role-playing drawback. They will whine and cry that they can 'role-play it good', and when the DM lets them do so...they just forget about the drawback. The paladin is a classic example here:

Player:--"I cut off everyone's heads and drink all their blood!"
DM:--"Um, your a paladin"

Or a being something tied to an environment, like aquatic, but just ignoring that.

DM--"Hey, your character Float the Sea Elf has been walking through the desert for three days!?!"

2.The Only Advantageous to Me Snowflake--This is where the snowflake wants all the good and none of the bad of their snowflake pick. The classic example is a drow: They want NPC's to be scared of them and not attack, or worse give them good deals(''Oh here is a sword+5 for free drow!), but they don't want the negative side(''The shopkeeper slams his door closed as you approach".


3.The Changer Snowflake--Not only does this player want to be some type of Snowflake, but worse, they found a Snowflake something that they just want to tweak or change a bit. Again, often a role-playing bit, but it can be mechanics. They want to be a evil assassin type in a all good game, and somehow be a 'good assassin' that eats souls.

Now, this can be fun to do...but note the Changer Snowflake won't even try to play it out, they just want to change the thing they don't like and then forget about it.

to be fair, these(#2 especially) should not be confused with light homebrew; it's possible to make a good assassin if you give certain roleplaying restrictions to it, depending on the mindset of your group. the biggest problems tend to occur when your group asks "what is evil anyway?"

this happened to me, and it took a full hour before i finally managed to convince them that the arbitrary system was necessary for defining the mechanics of pretty much all alignment based abilities, of which there are many. simplified game mechanics are simply sometimes necessary.

[Ezeze]

He's moved on to wanting to play a god trapped in mortal form or something.

An Elan or a Deva, depending on which edition you are playing.

I bend over backwards and kiss the floor to make sure my players love their characters. It's probably why I had such a huge problem with that optimizer I mentioned a few pages back, but that's the only problem I've had with it. Most of the time it turns out amazing :smallsmile:

[stainboy]

An Elan or a Deva, depending on which edition you are playing.

For some reason the Snowflake doesn't like those options. :smalltongue: He now has BoED open to Apostle of Peace, and wants to play one but evil and with a different spell list. It's going to be a long night.



I bend over backwards and kiss the floor to make sure my players love their characters. It's probably why I had such a huge problem with that optimizer I mentioned a few pages back, but that's the only problem I've had with it. Most of the time it turns out amazing.

Different players, I guess. My prime Snowflake offender resented anyone he perceived as having creative authority over him. It's a power thing. If the DM said no, he got to argue that his creativity was being restricted, which he hoped would undermine the DM's authority. If the DM said yes, he'd play a one-dimensional gimmick that kept the spotlight on him for a few sessions, then he'd get bored of it and the game would fall apart.

Thing was, if the DM could short-circuit this and get him to make a real character, he'd usually get into the spirit of the game and have fun.

[senrath]

Any absolute is a bad idea. When you say a sword can 'cut through anything' and/or ignore hardness and DR, your asking for trouble. Most games scale, so a DR of 5 is better then a DR of 2 and the more powerful something is, the better it is. But when you have a item that ignores that every time, automatically it's too much. You effectively make other things in the game useless. For example the bag guy might take a year to make a fancy cage with a DR of 25 and such....but he just wasted his time as the 'Cutter' sword can chop through it in a round. Of course, the best example is: Do you like absolutes when they are used against you? Would you be ok with the enemy having something like 'an item that can't be destroyed' or a 'spell that always works'.

As long as the object in question is an artifact? It's probably fine. It's not balanced, but artifacts aren't really intended to be. There's a reason they can't be made by players and have no listed purchase price.

[Claudius Maximus]

She must really hate Stone Dragon.

Edit: Or better yet, the Angelwing Razor, which is a sword in an actual book that does this.

[AsteriskAmp]

The Snowflake--Oh yes, all the time.

Some variants:

1.The Poser Snowflake--This player find some class, ability or such with a drawback, often, but not always, a role-playing drawback. They will whine and cry that they can 'role-play it good', and when the DM lets them do so...they just forget about the drawback. The paladin is a classic example here:

Player:--"I cut off everyone's heads and drink all their blood!"
DM:--"Um, your a paladin"

He would break the paladin code, ergo, fall. He would probably then whine, but there is in fact a mechanic pushing the RPing requirements at least in this case.


Or a being something tied to an environment, like aquatic, but just ignoring that.

DM--"Hey, your character Float the Sea Elf has been walking through the desert for three days!?!"

There is a book called sandstorm, there you will find the proper mechanics for characters toiling through the dessert, I suspect there is a mechanic for this situation as well.


2.The Only Advantageous to Me Snowflake--This is where the snowflake wants all the good and none of the bad of their snowflake pick. The classic example is a drow: They want NPC's to be scared of them and not attack, or worse give them good deals(''Oh here is a sword+5 for free drow!), but they don't want the negative side(''The shopkeeper slams his door closed as you approach".

And then the PC breaks the door and gets whatever is inside anyway or gets killed anyway. As for NPC reactions, the DM handles it, not the PC, and the DM is in all faculty to cut the problem from its root by making the NPCs treat the drow like a tanned elf.



3.The Changer Snowflake--Not only does this player want to be some type of Snowflake, but worse, they found a Snowflake something that they just want to tweak or change a bit. Again, often a role-playing bit, but it can be mechanics. They want to be a evil assassin type in a all good game, and somehow be a 'good assassin' that eats souls.

Now, this can be fun to do...but note the Changer Snowflake won't even try to play it out, they just want to change the thing they don't like and then forget about it.
Why take assassin when there is the perfectly legal option of the Avenger, Which also serves as a statement of the utter stupidity of some alignment restrictions, a system which to begin with isn't that well defined anyway and tends more towards maniqueism than an accurate representation of a character's track sheet.

[Glass Mouse]

Whenever I game with this friend of mine, I rediscover a new pet peeve. That's... kinda bad.

1. The babysitter. The GM apparantly doesn't trust us to do a good job, so he sends along an NPC to keep tabs on us. This includes critisizing our plans, punishing annoying PCs, belittling when plans go wrong, dragging us away from loot because "we have to go now!", etc.
The plans thing is the worst. There's no worse buzzkill than discussing for 30 minutes, deciding on a plan, then hearing the GM's mouthpiece go "no, that won't work!"... y'know, I'd rather just crash and burn on my own, thank you very much.

2. The "I'm in charge" NPCs. Now, every now and again, NPCs will be in a position of authority. This is fine. However, when the majority of NPCs want to (and can) utterly control the us, it gets annoying.
In my current campaign, we have interacted with 12 named NPCs. Of these 12, only 3 didn't explicitly claim some kind of superiority over us (I just realized, two of those are the campaign's only women... huh).
Ship captain: "You will shut up when I speak!"
Chef: "You! Over here! Do that, do this!"
Collegue: "I don't take a night shift, because I've been working here longer than you!" x2
Butler: You WILL treat me with respect!"
Etc.
The one character who resents authority got his ass horribly whooped when he refused to acknowledge the butler's authority (apparantly, the butler was a skilled fighter... he even won a battle for us later that session).

Related,
3. The interrupter. I admit, I'm much more of a ROLEplayer than most other people, but this grievance isn't about rolling dice, it's about not being allowed to roleplay at all. The interrupter GM will stop the tiniest sign of interparty conflict, his NPCs will jump right into PC conversations and interrupt or belittle what's being said. This is especially annoying in a group that HAS been proved to run to maximum enjoyment when characters are allowed to interact (another campaign), and when everyone has made backstories and fleshed-out personalities.
Example:
[after battle]
AR: So, are all you guys alright?
FB: Yes, the graces of my gods kept me safe.
AR: You keep mentioning gods. What are they anyway?
FB: My gods are beings of order and beauty, [stuff about meditation, drugs and AR not understanding the complexities of FB's faith]
AR: So, that sugar you eat is -
NPC (with authority): What the **** are you talking about?!!
FB: Uh.
AR: ...
FB: ...buh.


This dude is pretty new to GMing, and most of these things just concern his need to keep us in a tight leash. Hopefully, they'll get better with time and/or friendly advice.
Well, that or I'm leaving. That's gonna be fun - leaving the homebrewed-system campaign of a close friend who is a player in my own campaign and already LOVES GMing. Hoo boy.
Hopefully, it won't get that far.

In any case, venting helps :smalltongue:

[Choco]

2. The "I'm in charge" NPCs. Now, every now and again, NPCs will be in a position of authority. This is fine. However, when the majority of NPCs want to (and can) utterly control the us, it gets annoying.
In my current campaign, we have interacted with 12 named NPCs. Of these 12, only 3 didn't explicitly claim some kind of superiority over us (I just realized, two of those are the campaign's only women... huh).
Ship captain: "You will shut up when I speak!"
Chef: "You! Over here! Do that, do this!"
Collegue: "I don't take a night shift, because I've been working here longer than you!" x2
Butler: You WILL treat me with respect!"
Etc.
The one character who resents authority got his ass horribly whooped when he refused to acknowledge the butler's authority (apparantly, the butler was a skilled fighter... he even won a battle for us later that session).

Heh, I played in a game where that was the case. EVERY. SINGLE. NPC. was orders of magnitude more powerful than us. It truly made me wonder why we were even needed.

The Predictable DM--This is the guy who always bases his campaigns/adventures on the latest anime/movie/TV show he saw and enjoyed. To the letter. Which I admit can work out great if no one in the group is aware of it (AND he doesn't railroad to all hell to keep things to the script...), but more often than not I have also seen the "source material", and thus know the entire adventure arc 3 months before it concludes. This of course leads to me subconsciously metagaming to prepare for challenges I know are coming a few weeks down the road...

[big teej]

Heh, I played in a game where that was the case. EVERY. SINGLE. NPC. was orders of magnitude more powerful than us. It truly made me wonder why we were even needed.

...

I've played with this guy.
I even called the DM on it "dude, everyone I meet is at LEAST 5 levels higher, why am I, a lowly level 2 fighter, taking this on by myself?"

"they're busy"

not to busy to show me up every session it seems.

[Gamer Girl]

1.The Predictable DM, Type 2 Classic--This is the DM who is rooted deep, deep in the classic mythology of the game. It's like they are living in 1980 as far as the game goes, and this has the effect of them doing the same predictable things that have been part of the game for 30 years.

Every imposter is always a Doppelganger
Every chest in a dungeon is a Mimic
Every dungeon has a Chessboard Trap
Every town has a group of bandits just outside of town

There is never a single twist or anything new, just more of the same old same old, game session after game session.


2.The Unpredictable DM--While some unpredictably is good this here is the off the wall stuff.

DM--"Ha! They are not Doppelgangers! They are Proto-orcs from the fifth demension/half under snails from the Toxic plane/part construct warlocks from the Future!''

Some twists and such are fine and fun, but everything does not need to be off the wall crazy all the time.


3.The DM with an Illogical Campaign--You want to campaign to be unique, but not off the walls crazy and making no sense. Mysteries are good, but blatant retcons are not, as is changing stuff at a whim.

DM--''The Treasure map shows the 'X' on the island of Coaw''
Player--"Coaw? That island sunk last year..."
Dm--"Yes, no, yes...um..the island is just there"
Player--"Did it sink and come back?"
DM--"No, no, it has always been there"
Player--"So it did not sink and we did not kill the coral dragon there?"
DM--"No it did and you did, and,um, you did not. The island and the dragon are still there."
Player--"What?"

[Firechanter]

Verily, I hate Uber-NPCs and the GMs that keep bringing them up. :smallmad:

One GM with whom I played only rarely was absolutely unable to accept the PCs being tougher than _anyone_, even NPCs that were _supposed_ to be weak and vulnerable and even if the players did not abuse them. I guess the cake goes to one adventure arc where the party rescued a little girl who was the sole survivor of a village raided by orcs, and wanted to take her to safety. Maybe the PCs required her to pull her weight (fetch water, make fire, stuff like that) but didn't do anything really bad to her.

Within a few sessions, the vulnerable little girl turned out to be a powerful druid that was at least on par with the party. Now while technically that _might_ have been the idea from the start (the druid having used a transmigration spell that they had in this setting), I am still convinced that this wasn't the case, and it was _supposed_ to be just a weak little girl but the GM couldn't bear one of his NPCs having to take orders from PCs.

[big teej]

I've got one I'm guilty of, so I'm going to put it up because I know it kills fun for some people.

mister "yes, I DO enforce alignment restrictions"
this is the guy who is going to insist that you play a Lawful Good Paladin, a Lawful monk, Knight, or anything else taht requires lawful. going to disallow lawful barbarisans or bards. and insist on true neutral druids.

oh, and that pesky "Paladin's code" you bet it's enforced. as is the fall.


related, but quite different.
mister "contradictory concept"
only really surfaceing when DM'd by the above, this is the guy who wants to play a paladin.... that's a dirty, underhanded fighter.

I'm guilty of the former, I have a player guilty of the latter.


just out of curiosity, how many of you have issue with running OR playing a "boss man says go here, do x" type campaign?

I can't stand it, but I have a request from a player that essentially amounts to "I want you to stick a higher level NPC in the game that bosses me around."

teej is confuzzled....

[Vladislav]

Some players just want to be pointed toward something to beat up. It's a viable playstyle.

[big teej]

Some players just want to be pointed toward something to beat up. It's a viable playstyle.

quite so, I'm one of them occaisionally, but I grew tired of being pointed at the next bag of hit points by a single 'boss man' type NPC with some overarching "plot" that didn't allow me to explore elsewhere.

in a similiar vein as a DM, I'm more than willing to run a -go here kill x- campaign, I just feel it clumsy and uninspired to have some set individual or orginization basically handing out encounters.

I like story :smalltongue:

but Ultimately I bow to the desires of my players. (up to a point...)