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Choco
2011-03-23, 12:15 PM
I was just thinking about what makes a fun session IMO, and found it was easier to list the things that kill off the fun I am having. So figured I would share and we could all pitch in, have a good vent, and make a list of the minor and major things that kill our fun. Here are mine so far:

1) DM who puts the game on pause for 10+ minutes at a time to look through the rules instead of making a judgment call (my rule of thumb is if I can't find the rule in 1 minute I just call it, with all the player's agreement, and carry on the game, and I NEVER consult the rules during a dramatic moment).

2) Players/DM's who take FOREVER taking their turns. At our table you have 1 minute to determine what you do, if you can't then you skip your turn. If performing your action itself takes 10 minutes that's fine (AKA making 10 attacks, each with different/stacking modifiers to take into account, etc.).

3) Players/DM's who insist on always hogging the spotlight. Everyone needs their time in the spotlight, so when it's shining on you feel free to ham it up. However, when you feel the need to always be the one in the spotlight, we have a problem.

4) DM's who completely ignore some aspect of my character that I invested points into. Those same DM's then have a habit of getting annoyed that everyone only invests in things that make them better in combat.

5) High-CHA-PC-having players that never let any other PC talk to anyone else. You want to talk to your own mother? Better have Mr. High-CHA do it else you might mess it up!

6) Low-CHA-PC-having players that insist on impulsively trying to do delicate negotiations without consulting anyone in the party. Of course once they screw everything up, they look to Mr. High-CHA and say "you have all the charisma and social skills, why don't you talk to him?"

7) Chaotic Stupid (often directly related to #6) and Lawful Anal PC's/players.

8) People who are in general not team players. The game is all about them and they will walk all over everyone else to get what they want, but God forbid someone does it back to them (or even tries to stop them from doing it). This applies to players and DM's.

9) DM's who pull Diablos-Ex-Machina out of left field just because your plan is going too well. I don't mind complications to even almost perfect plans, except when it is obvious the DM threw them in there just specifically to not make it too easy for you. At least try to hide it!

10) Players who don't bother cracking open a rulebook outside of the game, and thus do all their shopping/lvling decisions during our bi-weekly session. Of course it takes up the whole session, doing nothing but wasting my time since I obviously need not have bothered showing up. This is especially infuriating when the DM specifically tells them to do this between sessions and they ignore him.

11) When the party splits and they take so long doing their individual things that I don't even get to play during the session and am nothing but a spectator. I could have surfed the web for 6 hours on my laptop at home without having to drive half an hour :smallannoyed:.

Vladislav
2011-03-23, 12:32 PM
Our group generally doesn't do any of those things, except ...


10) Players who don't bother cracking open a rulebook outside of the game, and thus do all their shopping/lvling decisions during our bi-weekly session. Of course it takes up the whole session, doing nothing but wasting my time since I obviously need not have bothered showing up. This is especially infuriating when the DM specifically tells them to do this between sessions and they ignore him.

This. Oh my god, this. I swear, if I ever see anyone allocating skill points during play, I am going to eviscerate them. And I'm not even sure what "eviscerate" means, but I'll do it anyway.

The Big Dice
2011-03-23, 12:38 PM
This. Oh my god, this. I swear, if I ever see anyone allocating skill points during play, I am going to eviscerate them. And I'm not even sure what "eviscerate" means, but I'll do it anyway.

It's what Mr Scruffy does here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0780.html). Though that could also be classed as a disembowelment.

randomhero00
2011-03-23, 12:41 PM
yes, yes, yes to all the time wasting parts. Its terrible. And I'll add one. At least one person ALWAYS shows up late. By the time we're done ordering food and eating its 2 hours past the time we were supposed to start playing. No joke. This happens like everytime.

Choco
2011-03-23, 12:47 PM
yes, yes, yes to all the time wasting parts. Its terrible. And I'll add one. At least one person ALWAYS shows up late. By the time we're done ordering food and eating its 2 hours past the time we were supposed to start playing. No joke. This happens like everytime.

Dude I totally forgot to add that! Probably because the person that always did this left the group over a year ago, and it has only been a rare issue since, but DAMN did that piss me off. Said person was also the ride for 2 other people. And he had the habit of being completely unreachable, and calling 3 HOURS into the session to tell us he can't make it (if we were lucky and he called at all).

Tyndmyr
2011-03-23, 12:59 PM
yes, yes, yes to all the time wasting parts. Its terrible. And I'll add one. At least one person ALWAYS shows up late. By the time we're done ordering food and eating its 2 hours past the time we were supposed to start playing. No joke. This happens like everytime.

That person annoys the hell out of me. I know him all to well.

If you're not gonna show up on time...or at least pretty close to on time, at least have the decency to call. Preferably in advance. Just randomly showing up two hours late screws up everything.

randomhero00
2011-03-23, 01:01 PM
That person annoys the hell out of me. I know him all to well.

If you're not gonna show up on time...or at least pretty close to on time, at least have the decency to call. Preferably in advance. Just randomly showing up two hours late screws up everything.

Agreed. Even worse? He's canceled 30 minutes before for the game was to start. I was nearly in my car when I got the text. So so rude.

Mystic Muse
2011-03-23, 01:05 PM
We have a player in our group who shows up late, but luckily it's about 15 minutes later at most.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-23, 01:08 PM
Agreed. Even worse? He's canceled 30 minutes before for the game was to start. I was nearly in my car when I got the text. So so rude.

What, he NOTIFIES you he's not gonna show? In ADVANCE?

My dude just shows up whenever he feels like it. Sometimes, not at all.

Vladislav
2011-03-23, 01:17 PM
Agreed. Even worse? He's canceled 30 minutes before for the game was to start. I was nearly in my car when I got the text. So so rude.Dure, you're lucky. 30 minutes before?! Try 90 minutes after. Or try not calling at all, making an off-hand comment about how he was busy when you run into him two days later.
Luckily, doesn't happen much in our current group. (fingers crossed)

Seerow
2011-03-23, 01:19 PM
"Is the Dragon dead yet?"




I think that one question alone showing up in a session should speak volumes.

Rankar
2011-03-23, 01:31 PM
Adding to the list

Player bossing other players around about how to play their character.
Player telling others to not metagame but can't seem to stop doing it himself.

Player attempting to take over the GM's job of describing the world and things that are happening.

randomhero00
2011-03-23, 01:36 PM
Oh sorry if this has been mentioned, but I have to rant here:

A backseat DM. SOOOO freaking annoying. Always slowing the game down to look up rules and for some reason thinks he has a right to see your character sheet and judge it.

The "everyone is cheating but me" dude. He's paranoid. He thinks everyone is fudging dice rolls, doing illegal character builds, etc. Very similar to the one above. edit: BUT ironically he seems to roll the most nat 20s...

Yukitsu
2011-03-23, 01:50 PM
I've been told a lot of the rest of the party gets this sick, sinking feeling when I say "All according to plan!" then cackle maniacally. Usually happens once every 2 months or so.

Choco
2011-03-23, 02:32 PM
Adding to the list

Player bossing other players around about how to play their character.


Related, but opposite of that:

Player(s) who, in a group where everyone is at the same level of optimization/tier, do not play their character like they built it and then complain that your character is overpowered. Then when you point out that the only reason it appears this way is because they are using their magic/bow specialized character in melee all the time, they get mad because you are telling them how to play their character.

Delwugor
2011-03-23, 02:50 PM
Adding to the list

Player bossing other players around about how to play their character.
Player telling others to not metagame but can't seem to stop doing it himself.

Player attempting to take over the GM's job of describing the world and things that are happening.

Had one of those players join in my group for a while. He kept getting into arguments with me about my Enchantress character not having a war horse. Things with him did not end well at all.

A GM that doesn't pay attention to the players and wont listen when suggestions are made. Damn we are a group of role-players not a TV audience.

Players that don't pay attention to the game. Just because you are not the spotlight doesn't mean you surf, text or read.

Stopping play to look up rules.

And finally being told "You can't do that". I don't mind failing every single time because my character doesn't have the ability but that doesn't mean I can't try.

Aurion
2011-03-23, 03:03 PM
I had the worst of those people showing up late problems. Back in our first learning to play, our DM had a nasty habit of being late to sessions. As we got furhter into the campaign, sometimes he wouldn't show up altogether and he would never call whether he would be late or not showing up so we would be left out in the cold. We got tired of this and I took over DMing.... but Moradin was that annoying

Tengu_temp
2011-03-23, 03:09 PM
Related, but opposite of that:

Player(s) who, in a group where everyone is at the same level of optimization/tier, do not play their character like they built it and then complain that your character is overpowered. Then when you point out that the only reason it appears this way is because they are using their magic/bow specialized character in melee all the time, they get mad because you are telling them how to play their character.

Amen to that. Bonus points if they start yelling that you're all munchkins and not real roleplayers afterwards.

The guy who purposely builds an underpowered character and then does everything described above is a similar case.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-23, 03:11 PM
A GM that doesn't pay attention to the players and wont listen when suggestions are made. Damn we are a group of role-players not a TV audience.

Players that don't pay attention to the game. Just because you are not the spotlight doesn't mean you surf, text or read.

These two are huge. I think if people show up on time and avoid these two, we can make at least a pretty decent game happen.

Tal_Akaan
2011-03-23, 04:49 PM
Firstly:

I absolutly loath the guy that doesn't pay attention. Paying attention is the most minimal thing you have to do to be part of an RPG...

...And their not even doing it.

Secondly:

The guy with the mind set of "We're heroes we need a 9 million point buy for stats, because we're the heroes not just regular people."

Sadly, though this is usually the same guy that thinks they are always supposed to win at everything. Gods ofrbid you, as a GM, put him in a situation that he has to roll someting higher than a 4 to succeed at. This is also the one person at the table that either gets mad or mopes when something negative happens to their character, then makes the whole table listen to how unfair it is. (from my experiance the action that triggerd the negative thing is usually at the fault of that person.

CAN I GET AN AMEN BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

EDIT: I figured I could condensce this down a bit...

...Poeple that want you, as GM, to narrate the story of their awesomeness, and have them make attack rolls.

Mystic Muse
2011-03-23, 04:58 PM
The guy with the mind set of "We're heroes we need a 9 million point buy for stats, because we're the heroes not just regular people."


Well, I don't need to play like this but I like to.

Dsurion
2011-03-23, 05:30 PM
What really annoys me is people who don't show up with their character sheets that were just created during the last session, and we specifically took two hours of game time to deal with. MULTIPLE TIMES.

I eventually started making backup digital copies, but it's still an annoyance.

ScottishDragon
2011-03-23, 07:40 PM
I have a dnd group and mostly for everyone but me this is their first group(I made it up of my friends) We used herolab for everything and so EVERY time we start,we waste 1 hr to print out character sheets for those that forgot theirs, and to level everyone up.

Choco
2011-03-24, 09:05 AM
Got a few more here:


DM's that out of the blue say things like "you know, I thought we would do <x> today (where <x> is not necessarily even RP related) instead of play the game" at the beginning of the session. You couldn't have told us this BEFORE we showed up? I am all for hanging out with my friends, but quite often <x> is something I do not enjoy in the slightest and would have appreciated the warning so I could do something fun at home instead.


DM's that put the session on hold for HALF AN HOUR or more to take a non-emergency phone call. Multiple times during the session... Next time the DM pauses the game to do phone tech support for one of his relatives as opposed to telling them he is busy I am just gonna up and leave for the night.

Vulaas
2011-03-24, 09:22 AM
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.

Has a DMPC. I know in theory it can work, but in actuality I've never seen it end up as anything more than "I love this character of mine I made in this old game, so I'm going to keep playing them in this one and you can be along for the ride."

When players...

Can't make serious characters when you let them know in advance that you're planning on having this be a survival horror kind of game. Because an Aasimar Warlock named Edward with "sparkling, almost luminescent skin" is not the sort of thing I was looking for :smallmad:.

Deliberately cause conflict in the first session when you're trying to get them together with other party members. I know nobody likes hearing the train whistle, but sometimes for conveniences sake, just assume that you'll be willing to work with other people to clear the rats out of the tavern basement.

Vladislav
2011-03-24, 09:23 AM
The guy with the mind set of "We're heroes we need a 9 million point buy for stats, because we're the heroes not just regular people."
Wait, I'm confused here. How possibly can having 9 million point buy kill fun in a session? I was always thinking of stats as "the more the merrier" :smallbiggrin:

Choco
2011-03-24, 09:32 AM
When players...

Can't make serious characters when you let them know in advance that you're planning on having this be a survival horror kind of game. Because an Aasimar Warlock named Edward with "sparkling, almost luminescent skin" is not the sort of thing I was looking for :smallmad:.

Deliberately cause conflict in the first session when you're trying to get them together with other party members. I know nobody likes hearing the train whistle, but sometimes for conveniences sake, just assume that you'll be willing to work with other people to clear the rats out of the tavern basement.

OMG, that reminded me of....


Players who, RIGHT AFTER you tell them that you plan on your next campaign being serious, dark, and/or gritty, come to you with a joke character like a deaf/mute bard with ranks in Perform[interpretive dance] and Perform[mime]. When they notice you giving them the evil eye, they simply say "every dark story needs comic relief!" :smallfurious: (Luckily, and hilariously, this one sorted itself out: One of the other PC's got fed up and killed the annoying character :smallbiggrin:)


Players who deliberately provoke PvP (usually by means of stealing, backstabbing, insulting everything the character holds dear, etc., of course using the "but that's what my character would do!" excuse) in what is supposed to be a non-PvP, cooperative game. Then of course when you attack them for it, they cry foul because this is supposed to be a non-PvP game, and don't think it's funny when you say "that's what my character would do!".

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 09:35 AM
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.


This is why my group smokes WHILE playing. Whoever heard of stopping something fun to do something that you could do while playing?

Amnestic
2011-03-24, 09:46 AM
This is why my group smokes WHILE playing. Whoever heard of stopping something fun to do something that you could do while playing?

People who don't play outside and don't want the stench of smoke in their house? My brother - who lived/s on his own - steps outside to smoke for just that very reason.

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 09:49 AM
People who don't play outside and don't want the stench of smoke in their house? My brother - who lived/s on his own - steps outside to smoke for just that very reason.

But dude, it's a simple matter of ventilation. Unless you're playing in a basement (unlikely in this day and age) an open window and an electric fan should take care of those problems.

Also, a chunk of charcoal. Yes, my methods are arcane.

Choco
2011-03-24, 09:56 AM
But dude, it's a simple matter of ventilation. Unless you're playing in a basement (unlikely in this day and age) an open window and an electric fan should take care of those problems.

Also, a chunk of charcoal. Yes, my methods are arcane.

Ya know what is also common in this day and age though? People who are militant about others smoking in THEIR OWN HOMES, let alone anywhere near them. You only need one person like that in the group...

Of course, a solution is to make sure your group is comprised entirely of smokers and you hold the game in a place where smoking inside is OK.

Also, back on topic:


Players who always play the same character. Every game, even completely different systems and settings, they go out of their way to make their one pet character concept work. Bonus points if said concept was annoying as hell to everyone the first time.

Zanatos777
2011-03-24, 10:01 AM
Players who always play the same character. Every game, even completely different systems and settings, they go out of their way to make their one pet character concept work. Bonus points if said concept was annoying as hell to everyone the first time.


Ooo I've got one of these, sort of. He tells me that if I kill his character (a lightning shooting cowboy with a bland mercenary personality) then his next character will be a lightning shooting pirate with a bland mercenary personality.

Malevolence
2011-03-24, 10:02 AM
I don't allow anyone to smoke in my house. If you want to kill yourself, you are welcome to do so. You will not take us with you. This rule is non negotiable. Yes, I have had problems with pushy smokers before a few times.

If the game is not being held at my house, I still don't want to deal with that. So suppose I'm one of those militant sorts the ninja there describes.

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 10:03 AM
Players who always play the same character. Every game, even completely different systems and settings, they go out of their way to make their one pet character concept work. Bonus points if said concept was annoying as hell to everyone the first time.

Hmm, I dunno. If it's a weird concept like "WIZARD WHO SHOOTS BULLETS OF FORCE OUT OF HIS LEFT NOSTRIL" I'd draw the line, but whenever I play vanilla I always roll a Fighter or Paladin (we usually play low-level games), for example, and in DH games I have a friend who always rolls the group firepower specialist.

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 10:04 AM
I don't allow anyone to smoke in my house. If you want to kill yourself, you are welcome to do so. You will not take us with you. This rule is non negotiable. Yes, I have had problems with pushy smokers before a few times.

Eh. Smoking's not really a big problem for anyone where I'm from. Non-smokers just have to deal with it, because hey, they're your friends. I love lax laws on smoking and low regulation on tobacco.

Zanatos777
2011-03-24, 10:06 AM
Eh. Smoking's not really a big problem for anyone where I'm from. Non-smokers just have to deal with it, because hey, they're your friends. I love lax laws on smoking and low regulation on tobacco.

Personally I just hate the smell. Also the smoke makes me feel sick.

Choco
2011-03-24, 10:10 AM
Hmm, I dunno. If it's a weird concept like "WIZARD WHO SHOOTS BULLETS OF FORCE OUT OF HIS LEFT NOSTRIL" I'd draw the line, but whenever I play vanilla I always roll a Fighter or Paladin (we usually play low-level games), for example, and in DH games I have a friend who always rolls the group firepower specialist.

Oh I don't mean always playing the same type of character, I mean THE SAME CHARACTER. Abilities are always around the same, flavor is always the same, personality is the same, name is the same, backstory is the same... Hell, sometimes class will even change if the player can find one that better suits the character.

manyslayer
2011-03-24, 10:17 AM
What really annoys me is people who don't show up with their character sheets that were just created during the last session, and we specifically took two hours of game time to deal with. MULTIPLE TIMES.

I eventually started making backup digital copies, but it's still an annoyance.

Had a DM that collected Character sheets at the end of each session for this very reason.


Players that don't pay attention to the game. Just because you are not the spotlight doesn't mean you surf, text or read.

Had one player like that years ago (turned out it wasn't entirely his fault, undiagnosed diabetes and narcolepsy). I was GM and they were up against a door. Very difficult trap/lock mechanism requiring three checks to bypass. Rogue (actually cleric of Mask but the closest they had) had completed two of the three. Mr. No-Attention asks what's going on and is told that there is a locked door. He immediately says I kick it open (dwarven berserker). literally planting his boot right beside the priest's head as he is eye level with the trap. Luckily the last one to be disarmed was the alarm, the deadly one was already undone.

Apophis775
2011-03-24, 10:38 AM
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Choco is probably a player more often than a DM.

Counterarguements:

1. Sometimes 1 or more players WANTS to know the rule. I have 2 people in my group, 1 a Rules lawyer, and 1 a rules-lawyer in training. For this reason, I have purchased the rule compendium, but sometimes if they want to use an obscure rule, we have to look it up because if I rule for it, and it's not used that way I get complaints, and if I rule against it, I get complaints because they know the rules and one of my primary rules is "If someone owns the book you can use anything from the book (pending approval)".

2. Yes, players who take a LONG time can be distracting and stop a session in it's tracks, but not all players are as strong as others. Some players need that extra time to think. Just because you have a good group now doesn't mean you won't have a good group in 5 or 10 years if your still playing.

3. First, how can a DM hog the spotlight? Your playing is his fraking world. If a DM doesn't seem like a spotlight hog, I'd think he's not doing a good job getting the story across and is more of a referee for combat than someone who is promoting a good playing experience. Second, some players just seem to naturally try and take the lead. Occasionally my group has issues with players like this, but I have many ways of resolving it.

First, just like in Real life, if your meeting someone for a contract, they are going to talk to the person who seems the most likely to talk back intelligently, so my NPCs address the higher-charisma characters usually (mostly the character who tries to take charge that has the highest charisma)

Second, and this happened in a game I was playing, the guy who had been "leading" our group got very aggressive and forced an actual vote, in which he was turned down as the leader and I was voted as the leader. Voting for a party leader can be a very effective way to determine who interacts with NPCS the most and who leads the group. Also, if someone else really wants to be in the spotlight, have them manage the loot, just make sure they aren't a rogue.

4. As a DM I usually get complained at for this: "why don't I have more opportunities to use profession X or Skill Y" And thats because I don't tell people what is in the campaign first, so if they have a character that specializes in say, shapeshifting and they end up in a dungeon, then the burden is on THEM to try and effectivly use their powers. A DM does not have to alter a campaign just to give someone who specialized in one aspect a better time, especially if it takes away from the rest of the campaign. You just have to be more creative.

5/6: Some people take this to too much of an extent, so I agree here.

7: Chaotic characters are chaotic. I currently have a chaotic neutral character who uses either a 6 sided die or the good/evil coin from fable to determine his actions. One of my favorite quotes reguarding chaotic neutral is "Might save your life, might steal your car". As for good/evil, it varies. Chaotic good might be the doctor from Doctor Who, and chaotic Evil might be the creepy-guy from clockwork orange. You have to let chaotic characters be chaotic if your the DM. That gives the group a bit more control, because then the chaotic characters actions have consequences that effect everyone, and the group will try and keep a handle on them (OMG BELKAR).

8. Agreed, this can be a problem

9. Sometimes it's difficult to hide a change that is necessary because a party or character is too powerful. For example, in my current campaign a warforged has a +2dr from a feat he spent on armor. Well, they are lvl 1. Almost everything does 2-4 damage, so when they run into goblins who just happen to have hit a vein of adamantium and used it to tip their crossbow bolts, well, it's obvious why it's there.

10. Some players don't have access to the books or the time to read the books. I DM, but I NEVER have time to look at books when we aren't in session (except when I'm prepping for the campaign). I work 2 jobs and take 17 credit hours of classes. There just sometimes isn't time for people.

11. This sometimes happens. Especially in towns, it's sometimes an unavoidable part of dnd

CONCLUSION:

Quit being pretentious. Your complaints seem petty and small. If I had a player who posted something like this in my group and I read this forum I'd not be happy. You seem to have a case of thinking beggars CAN be choosers. If you want to change something you don't like, then run your own game with rules.

And maybe if don't bring a laptop you could encourage your group to "hurry up" with some out-of-game comments. I've seen too many players sit behind a laptop screen instead of mentioning something to anyone, so noone thinks anything is wrong when the party takes 4 hours to wander town each doing their own thing. Our group has a STRICT no-laptop rule with one exception. The rules lawyer (who i trust as he is dedicated to rules as written, even when it screws the party) has his macbook for rule-reference (usually when I say "look this up on SRD").

Most of the issues you seem to have are petty at best.

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 10:46 AM
3. First, how can a DM hog the spotlight? Your playing is his fraking world. If a DM doesn't seem like a spotlight hog, I'd think he's not doing a good job getting the story across and is more of a referee for combat than someone who is promoting a good playing experience. Second, some players just seem to naturally try and take the lead. Occasionally my group has issues with players like this, but I have many ways of resolving it.


Some players prefer to have their DMs basically just be the computer, playing the NPCs and the Monsters and whatnot. As a DM, I'd want more out of the experience, otherwise I'd be tempted to just go ape**** on them with a tribe of kobolds.

CakeTown
2011-03-24, 10:47 AM
Just had a session last night, and there were definitely a few annoying habits I noticed.

The player of one of our paladins was playing Pokemon on her laptop throughout the entire session. This included her getting angry at the game, and disrupting other people's turns.


The player of the other paladin was playing Flash games on his laptop for the first little bit of the session. This is more understandable, because he wasn't in combat with the rest of us. No idea if he continued to play after he was teleported to the battle.


This didn't exactly happen too much last night, but our group generally speaks excessively out of character. Pop culture references, idle conversation, whatever. It's been so bad some nights that we didn't even get to fight anything.


Lateness/not showing up. Not so much lateness of people to the game, but lateness of the session actually starting. We meet at 10pm, but sometimes we don't start playing until an hour later. And we've had a new player miss the last two sessions.

Apophis775
2011-03-24, 10:50 AM
Some players prefer to have their DMs basically just be the computer, playing the NPCs and the Monsters and whatnot. As a DM, I'd want more out of the experience, otherwise I'd be tempted to just go ape**** on them with a tribe of kobolds.

Exactly. Having the DM just run things without much interaction detracts from the game.

I'm actually developing a theory on something like this that draws it's base from a semi-recent experience in minecraft on a server.

Basically, one of the players said "I don't want to be near anyone else. Just teleport me far away so I can't see their stuff or them".
My response was "Then just play single-player"

It's sort of like that. Whats the point of me DMing if I can be replaced by a computer? You may as well play neverwinter nights 2 online.

Malevolence
2011-03-24, 10:53 AM
Eh. Smoking's not really a big problem for anyone where I'm from. Non-smokers just have to deal with it, because hey, they're your friends. I love lax laws on smoking and low regulation on tobacco.

That's fine for you. I have personally dealt with multiple family members who quite literally have smoked themselves to death. I understandably refuse to deal with it whenever possible. And being a friend doesn't give you a free pass to do things I don't like. I will still call you on those things. I can't stop people from smoking, but I certainly can stop them from doing so around me. If that means making them step outside or leave my home, that's fine. If it means me leaving someone else's home, that's fine too.

Firechanter
2011-03-24, 10:54 AM
Oh, a DM can _so_ hog the spotlight. He can be more annoying at this than any player ever could be. He will have your PCs to be water-carriers to his Uber-NPC, and generously let you watch as said NPC saves the world.
Not even talking about DMPCs, while those can be annoying as hell too, but at least they are of the same level. The Uber-NPC is usually of higher level than you and could sniff the whole party into his left nostril.

Edit:
And on the player side, "That's what my character would do" is in 90% of all cases a telltale sign that the player in question is a douchebag. Don't play with douchebags.

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 10:57 AM
That's fine for you. I have personally dealt with multiple family members who quite literally have smoked themselves to death. I understandably refuse to deal with it whenever possible. And being a friend doesn't give you a free pass to do things I don't like. I will still call you on those things. I can't stop people from smoking, but I certainly can stop them from doing so around me. If that means making them step outside or leave my home, that's fine. If it means me leaving someone else's home, that's fine too.

No no, I agree, but I was just pointing out a big cultural or social difference (whatevs) here.

Like I said, where I'm from, anywhere you go you're probably going to walk into a cloud of cigarette smoke, unless you're at a Church, a school, or a University. Or inside an office building, for example.

Apophis775
2011-03-24, 10:58 AM
Oh, a DM can _so_ hog the spotlight. He can be more annoying at this than any player ever could be. He will have your PCs to be water-carriers to his Uber-NPC, and generously let you watch as said NPC saves the world.
Not even talking about DMPCs, while those can be annoying as hell too, but at least they are of the same level. The Uber-NPC is usually of higher level than you and could sniff the whole party into his left nostril.

Then he's not "hogging the spotlight". He's playing the game without you and I would suggest you leave.

That, or maybe your just missing what he wants you to do? For example, years back I was in a campaign and we lost maybe 5 characters in a session. We were all prisoners and about to be executed for unjust crimes, and instead of resisting, we expected the DM to stop the execution the last minute. Instead, he had wanted us to try and escape. 5 characters were killed before we decided to take our chances (which started a great running and hiding sequence which we all survived)

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-24, 11:00 AM
That, or maybe your just missing what he wants you to do?

Most players would object to this, as it implies railroading, and from my experience, players HATE (obvious) railroading. The trick is to keep it subtle. ;)

Pentachoron
2011-03-24, 11:04 AM
OMG, that reminded me of....


Players who, RIGHT AFTER you tell them that you plan on your next campaign being serious, dark, and/or gritty, come to you with a joke character like a deaf/mute bard with ranks in Perform[interpretive dance] and Perform[mime]. When they notice you giving them the evil eye, they simply say "every dark story needs comic relief!" :smallfurious: (Luckily, and hilariously, this one sorted itself out: One of the other PC's got fed up and killed the annoying character :smallbiggrin:)


Players who deliberately provoke PvP (usually by means of stealing, backstabbing, insulting everything the character holds dear, etc., of course using the "but that's what my character would do!" excuse) in what is supposed to be a non-PvP, cooperative game. Then of course when you attack them for it, they cry foul because this is supposed to be a non-PvP game, and don't think it's funny when you say "that's what my character would do!".


An addendum: Players who knowingly make a character that isn't going to work with other players characters.

Real example: "You know I'm thinking of playing a Kel-Dor" "You're going to have to change your character, I'm making a wookie that violently hates Kel-Dor"

dsmiles
2011-03-24, 11:08 AM
So, it may or may not have already been said, but the player who answers a non-emergency phone call, and then stays at the table! I mean, we're there to game, and answering a non-emergency phone call is irritating, but staying at the table, talking on the phone, while somebody else is trying to do something is just plain rude.

And I know this one has been mentioned, but I believe it bears repeating:

Rules discussions. If it takes more than two minutes, you're getting a GM ruling, and it stands until the end of the session when we're not "in play" and we have time to discuss it. If it changes what would have happened (i.e. character not dying v. character dying) the player usually gets to choose which result they got (and yes, I've had players choose to take the already decided result, even when it wasn't in their favor).

Firechanter
2011-03-24, 11:29 AM
Then he's not "hogging the spotlight". He's playing the game without you and I would suggest you leave.

Yeah. Comes down to that.
BTW, what would you say if I told you there is a commercially successful RPG in which many released modules _include_ Uber-NPCs for which all the cool stuff is reserved? In D&D terms, imagine the party finding the location of the MacGuffin and then Drizzt teleports in, thanks you with a wet handshake, takes the Macguffin and uses it to kick the BBEG's ass. In "The Dark Eye", stuff like this happens _all the frickin time_. (And no, I don't play that game, among other things for this reason)


That, or maybe your just missing what he wants you to do? For example, years back I was in a campaign [...]

In such a case, I would advise the DM: your players are not psychics. They cannot read your mind. You might think the necessary course of action is blindingly obvious, but if your players don't see it, you are simply mistaken. It won't kill you to take a time-out and OOC tell your players what you are having in mind.

BadJuJu
2011-03-24, 11:29 AM
The player who never knows what their to hit is. Seriously, you are a fighter, that's the ONE THING you do. Write your bonus down, its not that hard.

Also the person who hates combat and want's to role play more, then wont say two words the whole freaking game. Annoying.

Malevolence
2011-03-24, 11:37 AM
No no, I agree, but I was just pointing out a big cultural or social difference (whatevs) here.

Like I said, where I'm from, anywhere you go you're probably going to walk into a cloud of cigarette smoke, unless you're at a Church, a school, or a University. Or inside an office building, for example.

In a public place, this is to be expected. In which case I simply avoid the smoking areas. I don't play in public spaces, I play in my own home or someone else's. We were discussing smoking in the context of gaming, so getting into whether it is or is not socially acceptable in general is off topic, and not something I'm particularly interested in discussing.

Vladislav
2011-03-24, 11:40 AM
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Choco is probably a player more often than a DM.

Counterarguements:
<stuff>

CONCLUSION:

<stuff>
I am mostly a DM (but also a part-time player), and I agree the issues outlined are extremely annoying (luckily, not that many apply to my group, but if they did, I guess I'd be quite miffed as well).

I find your (over)reaction mostly uncalled for.

Choco
2011-03-24, 11:43 AM
CONCLUSION:

Quit being pretentious. Your complaints seem petty and small. If I had a player who posted something like this in my group and I read this forum I'd not be happy. You seem to have a case of thinking beggars CAN be choosers. If you want to change something you don't like, then run your own game with rules.

And maybe if don't bring a laptop you could encourage your group to "hurry up" with some out-of-game comments. I've seen too many players sit behind a laptop screen instead of mentioning something to anyone, so noone thinks anything is wrong when the party takes 4 hours to wander town each doing their own thing. Our group has a STRICT no-laptop rule with one exception. The rules lawyer (who i trust as he is dedicated to rules as written, even when it screws the party) has his macbook for rule-reference (usually when I say "look this up on SRD").

Most of the issues you seem to have are petty at best.

Gonna go out on a limb here and say that you missed the entire point of this thread. I am well aware that different people have different pet peeves (which is why I will not bother counter-arguing your counter-arguments), and I started this thread for people to vent and talk about theirs. I for one don't agree with many of your counter-arguments and view them as you being pretentious and petty, but I am not going to personally rip them apart just because *I* don't see things the same way you do. A simple "I don't view most of what you posted as problems, but here is what personally ruins my fun:..." would seriously have sufficed.


The player who never knows what their to hit is. Seriously, you are a fighter, that's the ONE THING you do. Write your bonus down, its not that hard.

Also the person who hates combat and want's to role play more, then wont say two words the whole freaking game. Annoying.

Oh man, I totally forgot about that one too. I am sitting in the back grinding my teeth every time the same person has to look up their hit, damage, AC, or anything else that they have had to use AT LEAST 5 times in the past hour.

potatocubed
2011-03-24, 12:09 PM
Oh man, I totally forgot about that one too. I am sitting in the back grinding my teeth every time the same person has to look up their hit, damage, AC, or anything else that they have had to use AT LEAST 5 times in the past hour.

I played in a game with a player like that once. In the end I just started tracking his stats for him and telling him how many dice to roll once he'd decided what he was doing. (Champions)

Apophis775
2011-03-24, 12:23 PM
I am mostly a DM (but also a part-time player), and I agree the issues outlined are extremely annoying (luckily, not that many apply to my group, but if they did, I guess I'd be quite miffed as well).

I find your (over)reaction mostly uncalled for.


I'm mostly a DM as well, and I run into issues like many of the ones he talked about, but they are either easily solved, bypassed, or just something unavoidable.

He's just whining to whine, and when someone makes a big long post about all the stuff they think someone is doing wrong because they know that person probably won't ever see the post, that seems just wrong. Especially since they are such small issues.

manyslayer
2011-03-24, 12:52 PM
An addendum: Players who knowingly make a character that isn't going to work with other players characters.

Real example: "You know I'm thinking of playing a Kel-Dor" "You're going to have to change your character, I'm making a wookie that violently hates Kel-Dor"

Unless you're playing Battlelords of the 23rd century, then every PC race seems to have a pathological hatred of at least one other PC race.

Ytaker
2011-03-24, 12:52 PM
1,2 agree

3. First, how can a DM hog the spotlight? Your playing is his fraking world. If a DM doesn't seem like a spotlight hog, I'd think he's not doing a good job getting the story across and is more of a referee for combat than someone who is promoting a good playing experience. Second, some players just seem to naturally try and take the lead. Occasionally my group has issues with players like this, but I have many ways of resolving it.

With DM mary sues who the plot resolves around. They can get really annoying when you feel you never have the spotlight unless you're helping them.


4. As a DM I usually get complained at for this: "why don't I have more opportunities to use profession X or Skill Y" And thats because I don't tell people what is in the campaign first, so if they have a character that specializes in say, shapeshifting and they end up in a dungeon, then the burden is on THEM to try and effectivly use their powers. A DM does not have to alter a campaign just to give someone who specialized in one aspect a better time, especially if it takes away from the rest of the campaign. You just have to be more creative.

You're talking about shapeshifting. Likely the most powerful core ability in all of D&D. There will always be a use for it. This complaint is more about a character who takes skill levels in swim and never encounters water. Unless the DM actually tries to work with them there's no reason why they would ever need that skill. Or someone who takes skill points in intimidate and never finds it useful because that would mess up the DM's story.

If one character gets no spotlight for their skills and another gets regular spotlight, say one who invested in spot, a common situation, it's not taking away from the campaign if you give the other character some spotlight.

5-8 Agree.


9. Sometimes it's difficult to hide a change that is necessary because a party or character is too powerful. For example, in my current campaign a warforged has a +2dr from a feat he spent on armor. Well, they are lvl 1. Almost everything does 2-4 damage, so when they run into goblins who just happen to have hit a vein of adamantium and used it to tip their crossbow bolts, well, it's obvious why it's there.


If you didn't intend to let your character have any advantage from their ability you should have veto'd the choice rather than put him in the obviously frustrating knowledge that he wasted a feat because you didn't like him.

10-11 agree.

MickJay
2011-03-24, 01:06 PM
In such a case, I would advise the DM: your players are not psychics. They cannot read your mind. You might think the necessary course of action is blindingly obvious, but if your players don't see it, you are simply mistaken. It won't kill you to take a time-out and OOC tell your players what you are having in mind.

See, for me, that's a perfect example of players getting killed because they metagame too much. If you were thrown in a prison, awaiting execution, wouldn't you at least try escaping? DM simply went with the most straightforward and open-ended approach (left everything up to the players). Yes, the DM might have had something dramatically appropriate coming, but that's not a reason to stop trying to act in character. If you're going completely against what DM's planned, he (or she) can always stop you and put you back on tracks. If you're expecting the rails, but are left to your own devices, you can't really complain, huh? :smallbiggrin:

Habits that kill fun... I know one player whose characters keep getting into trouble (because he's stupidly impulsive and impatient), and then keeps complaining and interrupting with questions like "do I wake up yet?" after he's just fallen under the table from drinking too much (for example). He'll try killing everything he can, gets bored if there's no combat for more than twenty minutes (even in games which aren't even supposed to have much combat), and so forth.

Jerthanis
2011-03-24, 01:32 PM
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.

I'd agree, but I have the good fortune to have played with a group where the smokers took a break together and made a separate scene out of it while we nonsmokers roleplayed out a scene inside. The action of the DM and half the group getting up and moving around stimulated a dynamic feel, and having solid play time away from the eyes of the DM made for interesting surprises we could spring.

I almost miss the fact that all but one of our group has quit smoking... other than the whole, "Dying horribly of lung cancer" thing that they were headed towards.

Firechanter
2011-03-24, 01:36 PM
See, for me, that's a perfect example of players getting killed because they metagame too much. If you were thrown in a prison, awaiting execution, wouldn't you at least try escaping?

Well, this example is rather extreme. But the basic idea applies all the time. There will ALWAYS be metagaming, simply because the whole environment is created and managed by a single person, and thus will always be influenced by this person's views or expectations. It would be folly to deny this. Sometimes you as DM have an entirely different idea what's supposed to happen than your players, and when you see that happening, it's better to cut your losses and limit the damage than go through with a stubborn routine.

BRC
2011-03-24, 01:48 PM
Players, especially casters, who don't even try to decide what they are doing before their turn.
My old group was big, usually 8 players a session, one of them always played a wizard.
Anyway, everybody would take their turn, and he would always take a long time looking over his spell list, trying to decide what to do. In a smaller group where combat moved faster, I could understand this, but he had plenty of time between turns to have a decent idea of what was on his spell list and what the situation was.

BadJuJu
2011-03-24, 01:56 PM
"New Blackberry Guy" The dude with the new gadgets who play with them the whole time,

"My **** is Bigger Than Yours" The guy who tries to argue the brokenness of his sword and board 18th lvl fighter, then says you're power cracked cause he can't keep up.

"The Pickpocket". The rogue wants to run around and be an ass for like an hour at a time. Soaks up a whole lot of time.

The Shopper. Want's to argue what should be at the shop, and often insists on role playing shopping in game.

obliged_salmon
2011-03-24, 02:35 PM
The biggest one I know of is people who never push their characters to take any risks. They never compromise, they never accept hard choices. They just stubbornly refuse to risk anything important to the character. They make backstories with everyone they ever loved already dead.

Also, railroading. If I say "I charge Orcus. I don't care that I'm level 12." Then I want the DM to say "Uh...okay. Let me roll damage....yeah, you die." Not "Too late, he disappears before you can move."

BadJuJu
2011-03-24, 02:47 PM
I do one that's bad. I get tired of characters at the drop of a hat and change.

Pentachoron
2011-03-25, 06:29 AM
He's just whining to whine, and when someone makes a big long post about all the stuff they think someone is doing wrong because they know that person probably won't ever see the post, that seems just wrong. Especially since they are such small issues.

Or, you could just not post in threads you dislike.

Pigkappa
2011-03-25, 06:34 AM
In a smaller group where combat moved faster, I could understand this, but he had plenty of time between turns to have a decent idea of what was on his spell list and what the situation was.

When this happens, I usually start counting out load (as of "5... 4... 3...") and if I reach 0 they lose their action.

The reason is that in game your turn lasts 6 seconds and since the character has to decide quickly, within 6 seconds at most, the player shouldn't think about it for 5 minutes.

This works quite well; I've never reached 0 up to now...

Tech Boy
2011-03-25, 07:54 AM
My group always has two people, the same people every time, that don't care to level their characters outside of game. It takes an hour to get them around because they refuse to use their PDF copies of the books. They "Need" to use the paper copy, which they don't own.

These same two people take at least 5 minutes deciding what to do in combat. My buddy and I always get on our lappys and ad hoc a game. Haha.

Firechanter
2011-03-25, 08:11 AM
re Players failing to level their chars between session: I _would_ say tough beans for them, let them play with their non-leveled chars until they learn, if that didn't also mean punishing the rest of the group because some niches are not filled efficiently.

Choco
2011-03-25, 10:03 AM
I do one that's bad. I get tired of characters at the drop of a hat and change.

I'll admit to that one myself. Though I usually only do that during the less serious games where no one has anything invested in the character anyway. Or at the beginning of the campaign when I realize the character is not a good fit for the playstyle of the group.

Here's one I encounter every once in a while:


DM's who punish you for investing in defenses by upping the corresponding attacks of enemies so they still hit you just as often as before. For instance once I actually put effort into my AC and made it good, so the DM just sent things at me that would still hit 2/3 of the time, as opposed to targeting some of my weaknesses (will save anyone? mine was a 6). No better way to tell your players that they should not have bothered wasting all that money and feats :smallannoyed:.

Sipex
2011-03-25, 10:43 AM
I'm a 4e DM and here's what really gets me. Many of these are re-iterated but ranting it out helps me deal:

1) Players who don't know their rolls for older powers. You have powers and weapons, most of them have the same set up across the board or it's spelt out on the card. WHY DO YOU NOT KNOW YOUR BONUSES?! Also, piggybacking off this, when your bonuses are written down and you roll a D20 and just tell me what you rolled. Really, I need the full value, I don't know your bonuses off hand. Second piggyback, also tell me what defense it targets, please.

2) Players who don't plan ahead during battle. We implemented a 30 second egg timer where you have to declare your entire turn aloud before it runs out. We handle rolls after but I want a basic "I'm moving to X, doing Y." This is 4th edition AND we bought power cards. THIS SHOULD BE EASY.

3) Players who whine about being ineffective after speccing a certain way and not using their advantages. Our fighter constantly whines about how the rogue is so effective and she's not yet she doesn't seem to understand that when your feats are all into dual wielding blades you should not be using a long spear! (or you should at least understand that it's going to be less effective)

4) Players who get testy about their characters actually having a chance at dying. Really. Unless it's an unfair death you'll have to deal. It's called RISK guys.

5) Players who need absolute quiet to do stuff. The rogue and the warlock can quote memes while we do this little roleplay scene, it's okay. They're not included, everyone who is included is paying attention. You don't need to bore them with this.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-25, 10:56 AM
DM's who punish you for investing in defenses by upping the corresponding attacks of enemies so they still hit you just as often as before. For instance once I actually put effort into my AC and made it good, so the DM just sent things at me that would still hit 2/3 of the time, as opposed to targeting some of my weaknesses (will save anyone? mine was a 6). No better way to tell your players that they should not have bothered wasting all that money and feats :smallannoyed:.


Oh yes, that's a particularly bad one.

There's a few in here I hate, tho.

Pisha
2011-03-25, 02:02 PM
Yeah, side-chatter and time-wasting are my biggest 2 pet peeves. I mean, yes, obviously we're there to have fun. No one's saying you shouldn't joke around. But when I can't hear the GM over you, it's time to rein it in a
little.

Same thing goes with people getting distracted. I understand liking combat better than social stuff. I can put up with a player getting bored or even walking out of the room during social encounters (I like the social game, but I get that it's not for everyone), but when the same player does the same thing during combat, it gets really frustrating!

I think many of these feed into each other, actually. Like, if one character takes too long figuring out their combat turn, other players will get bored waiting for them. They get distracted or wander off or start talking or playing on the laptop, and then they're not ready for their turn, and the cycle continues. Not sure how to break out of it once it starts though...

For the most part, though, reading these makes me REALLY grateful for my current group! We're not perfect but it's nice to know there's stuff we get right...

dsmiles
2011-03-25, 05:55 PM
When this happens, I usually start counting out load (as of "5... 4... 3...") and if I reach 0 they lose their action.

The reason is that in game your turn lasts 6 seconds and since the character has to decide quickly, within 6 seconds at most, the player shouldn't think about it for 5 minutes.

This works quite well; I've never reached 0 up to now...

I use a 1-minute egg timer. Buzzer goes off, you're either rolling dice or skipping your turn.

Aricandor
2011-03-25, 06:31 PM
Players who don't know the capabilities of their own character.

Players who vocally complain and rage when they fail a die roll, no matter its difficulty and their respective skills. Fine to show some frustration, bu really, it's a game and it's no fun if there's no chance you'll fail. :smalltongue:

Players who make new characters each week.

Players who won't accept enemies that know them occasionally targetting their weaknesses. Really, I'm no vindictive GM by any stretch, but if you constantly fall for even DC 15 Will saves forced by the same NPC, perhaps it's time you start shoring it up or figure out something new. :smalltongue:

navar100
2011-03-25, 07:07 PM
4. As a DM I usually get complained at for this: "why don't I have more opportunities to use profession X or Skill Y" And thats because I don't tell people what is in the campaign first, so if they have a character that specializes in say, shapeshifting and they end up in a dungeon, then the burden is on THEM to try and effectivly use their powers. A DM does not have to alter a campaign just to give someone who specialized in one aspect a better time, especially if it takes away from the rest of the campaign. You just have to be more creative.



Fred will play an Enchanter with opposing schools of Necromancy and Evocation.

Bob will play a Rogue wielding two short swords so he can use sneak attack a lot. He intends on taking Improved Feint feat.

Alice will play a Bard emphasizing social skills. She wants to be a famous singer in the world at some high level point.

First session via NPCs you tell them they are going to be fighting lots of undead which is an ongoing problem while hunting the BBEG lich behind it all. Just their tough luck, eh?

Pisha
2011-03-25, 07:16 PM
Fred will play an Enchanter with opposing schools of Necromancy and Evocation.

Bob will play a Rogue wielding two short swords so he can use sneak attack a lot. He intends on taking Improved Feint feat.

Alice will play a Bard emphasizing social skills. She wants to be a famous singer in the world at some high level point.

First session via NPCs you tell them they are going to be fighting lots of undead which is an ongoing problem while hunting the BBEG lich behind it all. Just their tough luck, eh?

THIS.

There HAS to be a give-and-take between DM and player. You don't want to give away too much of your campaign in advance, fine. But if someone's making a character statted out for a certain type of game, that's a sure clue that they want to play that kind of game. If you know you're not running what they're looking for, it's only fair to sit them down and talk it over. Maybe give them a hint as to what kind of character they may find more fun. If they don't listen, that's their look-out, but at least try. (Or, better yet, try to adapt your adventure so they'll have fun playing in it.)

navar100
2011-03-25, 07:22 PM
DM giving different amount of XP to each player when everyone was in every session and equally roleplayed. My DM started doing this when before he didn't. Naturally I'm getting the least, and now I'm behind a level.

In the last session there were two simultaneous combats, one involving ogres the other involving ghouls as the party got split. The ogres we knew about, as we ended the previous game just before that combat was going to start. The ghouls were out of the blue something new he tacked on. Those who were up front to face the ogres previous session didn't know in character those in the back were being attacked by ghouls, hence the separate simultaneous combats. My character was in the middle and was able to know in character about both combats. Those facing the ogres were doing alright so I chose to help out in the ghoul combat since one character got paralyzed. End result: those who were in the ogre combat got 1,000 more XP! The people in the back got XP punished for the audacity of being in the back and the DM decided to throw ghouls at them. I got XP punished for choosing to help them because they were down a person due to paralyzation.

archon_huskie
2011-03-25, 07:28 PM
Fred will play an Enchanter with opposing schools of Necromancy and Evocation.

Bob will play a Rogue wielding two short swords so he can use sneak attack a lot. He intends on taking Improved Feint feat.

Alice will play a Bard emphasizing social skills. She wants to be a famous singer in the world at some high level point.

First session via NPCs you tell them they are going to be fighting lots of undead which is an ongoing problem while hunting the BBEG lich behind it all. Just their tough luck, eh?
That could be fun. Like you are just a regular Joe hanging out in a tavern when there is a zombie appocalypse. In those scenarios, no one is really prepared before hand. But I would still give my players a chance to regroup after surviving the first wave. Then find the effective way to deal with the monsters.

Firechanter
2011-03-25, 07:51 PM
if someone's making a character statted out for a certain type of game, that's a sure clue that they want to play that kind of game.

Q.F.T.

With one caveat: if a character is made to be really good at some defensive stat, that doesn't necessarily mean that the player wants to get tested on that stat a lot. For instance, I often try to make my chars magic-resistant (depending on the system) not because I want to have spells casted at me a lot, but because I _don't_ want to bother with being enchanted etc.

Apart from that, yes, looking at a player's char sheet gives you a pretty good idea what game that player wants to play.

toysailor
2011-03-25, 08:18 PM
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that Choco is probably a player more often than a DM.

Counterarguements:

<Stuff>

CONCLUSION:

Quit being pretentious. Your complaints seem petty and small. If I had a player who posted something like this in my group and I read this forum I'd not be happy. You seem to have a case of thinking beggars CAN be choosers. If you want to change something you don't like, then run your own game with rules.

Most of the issues you seem to have are petty at best.

I disagree strongly. Please enlighten us what's so pretentious about sharing pet peeves that most folks here seem to have similar problems with? You may not realize it but your so-called counterarguments are just personal opinions and not facts. This topic is mostly subjective anyway so I'm not sure why are you having such a huge negative reaction over choco's experiences.

More importantly, you could have made your point without the excessive name calling (e.g. pretentious, petty and small, beggars can't be choosers). Please learn to be civil.

ON TOPIC

1. Players who keep "body counts" and would at every opportunity they have remind the party that they "killed the most monsters".

2. Players who not only skulk safely behind when everybody is in the thick of combat, but makes sarcastic/snide remarks when the party gets owned.

3. Players who sulk when the DM disallows their potentially game-breaking builds.

4. Players who just want to eldritch blast everything even when it is clearly not in the party's interest to do so.

Frozen_Feet
2011-03-25, 08:27 PM
What really annoys me is people who don't show up with their character sheets that were just created during the last session, and we specifically took two hours of game time to deal with. MULTIPLE TIMES.

I eventually started making backup digital copies, but it's still an annoyance.

Why don't you just store the sheets in a neat little folder and keep it in the most common playing locale, or with the GM, from the start?

Dsurion
2011-03-25, 09:18 PM
Why don't you just store the sheets in a neat little folder and keep it in the most common playing locale, or with the GM, from the start?Eventually, we did. The problem at first with that was having no established place to game. Too many small children to interrupt play. I've got a ~year old nephew who happens to be here at seemingly the most inconvenient times, one player had a six year old brother, another has a five year old sister, and with the other player, his dogs were super rambunctious. So a space being available was pretty hard to come by, especially with no one having any real transportation. Well, that and we hate playing in public areas where there are likewise too many distractions.

Eventually I learned to just suck it up and keep my D&D binder on me wherever we went. If that turned out to be bad, like I said, digital copies on my netbook.

Amnestic
2011-03-25, 09:36 PM
I'd keep digital copies updated once every 2-3 levels, and players get stuck using those - complete with the level drop and gear drop - if they can't remember to bring their character sheets with them.

Vladislav
2011-03-25, 09:37 PM
ON TOPIC

1. Players who keep "body counts" and would at every opportunity they have remind the party that they "killed the most monsters".

I don't mind this one. It's a time-honored tradition since Gimli and Legolas. "I'll have no pointy-ear outscoring me!"

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-25, 09:38 PM
I don't mind this one. It's a time-honored tradition since Gimli and Legolas. "I'll have no pointy-ear outscoring me!"

Yeah, I'm okay with that if it's in-character.

huttj509
2011-03-25, 09:54 PM
I don't mind this one. It's a time-honored tradition since Gimli and Legolas. "I'll have no pointy-ear outscoring me!"

It also makes a difference if it's in character banter between TWO or more characters. Though even if in character with just one it's the character being a jerk :-)

Gamer Girl
2011-03-25, 09:55 PM
1.The New Character-When a player comes up with a new character almost every week. The player spends their time online or reading through the books and comes up with a new character just about every week. The worst is when you in a campaign and the player wants to ''oh my old character just wanders away and my new character just wanders over and oh, he is best friends with all the other characters too''.

2.Each Character knows what the player knows-Along with #1, when the new character knows everything that the old character knew. When the player say-"I walk over to the tree and dig up the treasure'' and the DM has to jump in-"But your character is Eloi the enchanter, it was Blag the fighter that buried the treasure there". Then the player will back peddle with-''Oh, Blag told Eloi all about it."

3.Extreme Characters-The player must always play an extreme character, again based of #1. The new character must always be some sort of crazy build. The character can't be 'just an elf', it must be a 'half-elf/half-orc spellscared something or other'.

4.One Trick Pony Characters-The player makes a character with a build so that can only do one thing. Then the player whines and complains that 'all the time' in the game that they are at a disadvantage.

5.The Artist-The player that is obsessed with art, during the game. They are always distracted drawing a new picture of their character or a monster.

Korivan
2011-03-25, 09:58 PM
People that spend more time texting on thier phone then paying attention. I get it that you have a life besides DnD, we all do, but to hear you whine about some chick blowing up your phone and CONSTANTLY talking about her and how she's messing with you, THEN always asking what you missed...Grrrrrr, you sir would not be missed next session.

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-25, 10:03 PM
People that spend more time texting on thier phone then paying attention. I get it that you have a life besides DnD, we all do, but to hear you whine about some chick blowing up your phone and CONSTANTLY talking about her and how she's messing with you, THEN always asking what you missed...Grrrrrr, you sir would not be missed next session.

This is why, except online, for the most part I play with people I know.

Because then I know what the drama is about, at least.

Silus
2011-03-25, 10:36 PM
4.One Trick Pony Characters-The player makes a character with a build so that can only do one thing. Then the player whines and complains that 'all the time' in the game that they are at a disadvantage.

God this ticks me off. Guy in my last group was like this with Rogues. All but refused to play anything else. Even his Clerics and Dread Necromancers ( the only other two things he ever dipped into) had maxed ranks in Hide and Move Silently. It's like, "dude, try something different".

20+ mod in hide at lvl 4? Hahaha, yeah, munchkin.

senrath
2011-03-26, 01:09 AM
God this ticks me off. Guy in my last group was like this with Rogues. All but refused to play anything else. Even his Clerics and Dread Necromancers ( the only other two things he ever dipped into) had maxed ranks in Hide and Move Silently. It's like, "dude, try something different".

20+ mod in hide at lvl 4? Hahaha, yeah, munchkin.

That, um, that's not really hard to do without lots of cheese. A Kobold using the web enhancement with Dex 18 and max ranks of hide at level 1 will have a +16 to hide.


Anyway, more on topic, I don't mind One Trick Ponies so much, provided their player knows and accepts that sometimes they will be useless. The whiny ones annoy me, though.

toysailor
2011-03-26, 01:39 AM
I don't mind this one. It's a time-honored tradition since Gimli and Legolas. "I'll have no pointy-ear outscoring me!"

Healthy, in-character competition is ok. But when said player continues with his little rivalries when it is clear nobody is interested, he needs a reality check. Imagine:

Legolas: No Gimli, for the last time I didn't keep track of my kills and I wouldn't care to know how many you have done in.
Gimli: Nevermind... Hey Aragon how many have you killed so far!?
Aragon: Dammit Gimli, we're kinda like, in the middle of trying to Diplo-check our way into King Theoden's court now. Can't we do this later?
Gimli: Jeez... you guys are no fun *sulks* Its ok, at least I know I killed more than all the prissy hobbits combined.

Of course, it doesn't help that the player happens to do all 1+2+3 on my list...

Aragon: Damn! Boromir is at -8. I can't reach him in time. Is anyone able to stabilize him?
Legolas: Guys I'm at -2 myself. Only up cos of Diehard. Will provoke 4 more AOOs to get to Boromir.
Aragon: Damn! Continue your full-defense. I'll get to you in awhile. Where are the hobbits?
Merry/Pippin: We're being grappled by orcs.
Sam/Frodo: Not in this encounter sorry.
Gimli: *guffaws from a safe distance away, mockingly shaking his head at the party's plight*

And of course:

Gimli: Why can't the DM let me be a malconvoker? I wanna build my character to summon solars and balors in the same round!
Aragon: Gimli... you are in Middle-Earth, there are no malconvokers here.
Gimli: You guys are just stopping me from having fun!

FreelanceAngel
2011-03-26, 08:35 AM
All of the gripes listed I've lived through and, when DMing, beaten players for.

However, my all-time #1 pet peeve is:

Players who spend four hours comparing character classes and races, designing a character's build from level 1 to 20 and then, due to poor role-playing and unfortunate dice rolls, spend the ENTIRE game- every single session, no matter how badly anyone else gets brutalized- complaining that they should've chosen a different class/race because they picked the "wussie" one.

I have seen half-orc fighters with a Str 18, Con 18 do this. They picked the "wussie" race/class. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

dsmiles
2011-03-26, 08:38 AM
I have seen half-orc fighters with a Str 18, Con 18 do this. They picked the "wussie" race/class. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...
To be fair, fighters do suck pretty hard.

Gamer Girl
2011-03-26, 12:08 PM
Couples-Where one is a gamer and the other is not, and the other tags along to the game. Naturally, the non-gamer other is bored. Every couple minutes they try to distract the game, interrupt the game, or even stop the game. I don't know why couples do this.

One of my worst examples was with a married DM with a young baby. We all meet over his house and are all set to game. With the non-gaming wife and baby at the table, of course. Wife and baby are a distraction to say the least. We were in the basement, so the wife and baby had the whole house to themselves. Yet their only goal for the night was to ruin the game.

Worse is--DM-"You enter the dark cave and---", DM Wife-"Oh honey did you call Chuck yet and ask him if he had any blue paint?" Screech, game stops.

Even worse was caring for the baby, where the wife Demanded that the husband feed, clean, dress and read the baby a story. Not that I'm against a husband doing that sort of stuff, but when your husband has guests over that is an exception.

Anxe
2011-03-26, 12:43 PM
This doesn't seem like a fun list thread like some of the other ones. Much more negative vibe I got from the first post. Then I just skimmed the other posts cause I'm lazy. Then I posted this because I assume you guys read the posts that I didn't.

*hides in shame*

grimbold
2011-03-26, 01:06 PM
Adding to the list

Player bossing other players around about how to play their character.
Player telling others to not metagame but can't seem to stop doing it himself.

Player attempting to take over the GM's job of describing the world and things that are happening.


that last one is really annoying
also annoying is
the player who keeps trying to break the rules by saying 'oh its okay because my character is special' even though they do not even have a backstory

Tyndmyr
2011-03-26, 01:49 PM
I have seen half-orc fighters with a Str 18, Con 18 do this. They picked the "wussie" race/class. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

Not only is fighter not exactly among the top classes, half orc is a pretty sub par race.

If after that, they only got to dual 18s, Im unsurprised they're complaining at being ineffective.

Choco
2011-03-26, 02:06 PM
Not only is fighter not exactly among the top classes, half orc is a pretty sub par race.

If after that, they only got to dual 18s, Im unsurprised they're complaining at being ineffective.

To be fair, if this was lvls 1-2, I could see where a half-orc fighter with those stats would be overpowering.


Worse is--DM-"You enter the dark cave and---", DM Wife-"Oh honey did you call Chuck yet and ask him if he had any blue paint?" Screech, game stops.

Even worse was caring for the baby, where the wife Demanded that the husband feed, clean, dress and read the baby a story. Not that I'm against a husband doing that sort of stuff, but when your husband has guests over that is an exception.

Wow, that sounds like a very unpleasant relationship. I don't know how long I could deal with my significant other obviously trying to sabotage my fun.

Another one:


DM's who think they are Tolkien and talk at you for half an hour or more at a time, spend 5+ minutes describing one tree in a noble's garden, etc. The funny thing is I normally like getting in-depth, colorful descriptions of the game world, but sometimes people take this WAY too far. If 4 out of the 5 hours the game is on is spent listening to the DM narrate, something went terribly wrong.

Surrealistik
2011-03-26, 02:15 PM
Healthy, in-character competition is ok. But when said player continues with his little rivalries when it is clear nobody is interested, he needs a reality check. Imagine:

Legolas: No Gimli, for the last time I didn't keep track of my kills and I wouldn't care to know how many you have done in.
Gimli: Nevermind... Hey Aragon how many have you killed so far!?
Aragon: Dammit Gimli, we're kinda like, in the middle of trying to Diplo-check our way into King Theoden's court now. Can't we do this later?
Gimli: Jeez... you guys are no fun *sulks* Its ok, at least I know I killed more than all the prissy hobbits combined.

Of course, it doesn't help that the player happens to do all 1+2+3 on my list...

Aragon: Damn! Boromir is at -8. I can't reach him in time. Is anyone able to stabilize him?
Legolas: Guys I'm at -2 myself. Only up cos of Diehard. Will provoke 4 more AOOs to get to Boromir.
Aragon: Damn! Continue your full-defense. I'll get to you in awhile. Where are the hobbits?
Merry/Pippin: We're being grappled by orcs.
Sam/Frodo: Not in this encounter sorry.
Gimli: *guffaws from a safe distance away, mockingly shaking his head at the party's plight*

And of course:

Gimli: Why can't the DM let me be a malconvoker? I wanna build my character to summon solars and balors in the same round!
Aragon: Gimli... you are in Middle-Earth, there are no malconvokers here.
Gimli: You guys are just stopping me from having fun!

Why'd you have to make Gimli the superdick? He's the coolest one of them all.

Firechanter
2011-03-26, 02:27 PM
Yeah, it's clearly Legolas who is the ****.

`If Gandalf would go before us with a bright flame, he might melt a path for you,' said Legolas. The storm had troubled him little, and he alone of the Company remained still light of heart.
`If Elves could fly over mountains, they might fetch the Sun to save us,' answered Gandalf.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-26, 02:37 PM
If you haven't read it yet, google DM of the Ring. It's a worthwhile comic.

Dsurion
2011-03-26, 02:40 PM
DM's who think they are Tolkien and talk at you for half an hour or more at a time, spend 5+ minutes describing one tree in a noble's garden, etc. The funny thing is I normally like getting in-depth, colorful descriptions of the game world, but sometimes people take this WAY too far. If 4 out of the 5 hours the game is on is spent listening to the DM narrate, something went terribly wrong.
In general, I prefer the less is more approach. Not a bland description, but two sentences on a single scene until closer examined is generally enough for me.

soir8
2011-03-26, 02:52 PM
The DM ALWAYS having a bit where we're hopelessly outnumbered/facing impossible odds, and a powerful NPC turns up and saves the players. Eventually we just started optimizing our characters to the point where the army that's suddenly surrounding us is in serious trouble. And then the DM started complaining that our characters were overpowered... Well then, throw something at us other than another big bag of hit points that we'll nuke into oblivion in 2 rounds!

Jay R
2011-03-26, 03:39 PM
Players who complain about the DM or other players.

navar100
2011-03-26, 04:07 PM
The DM ALWAYS having a bit where we're hopelessly outnumbered/facing impossible odds, and a powerful NPC turns up and saves the players. Eventually we just started optimizing our characters to the point where the army that's suddenly surrounding us is in serious trouble. And then the DM started complaining that our characters were overpowered... Well then, throw something at us other than another big bag of hit points that we'll nuke into oblivion in 2 rounds!

My DM does this constantly, stepping it up a notch last campaign. So far this campaign it hasn't happened. We're still outnumbered, but the party takes care of it. Still, there was that time we had to cross a narrow bridge across a chasm, and the DM had to bring in a druid we met earlier at the last minute to reinforce the bridge with some made up spell just so the cavalier could bring his horse along.

navar100
2011-03-26, 04:08 PM
Players who complain about the DM or other players.

DMs who complain about their players being stupid.

Mordar
2011-03-26, 04:53 PM
Most players would object to this, as it implies railroading, and from my experience, players HATE (obvious) railroading. The trick is to keep it subtle. ;)

I know this gets bandied about a lot...but I have to say that I freely accept a little of what many call railroading. It's always wonderful to have a great improvisational DM for scenes that come out of the blue or to respond to character actions that go in a completely unexpected direction...but I view the improvisation as the spice that adds flavor to the meal. If a DM has a campaign/adventure/session planned (that does allow for some flexability), it will often be much more enjoyable than scrambling to come up with something on the fly. An illustration:


GM describes the small town in which we've just arrived, adding enough color to make it feel "real" without entering Exposition Mode. After a few minutes of exploration, it becomes clear that the village is experiencing a trade interruption, and basic supplies not grown in the neighboring fields are exorbitantly priced. Rumor has it that a maurading band/tribe/group of [INSERT APPROPRIATE BADGUYS HERE] is intercepting caravans.

Now, we could easily move on, heading for the big city where we can spend our phat lewts on nifty magic gizmos...or we can stick around and investigate the issue at hand. I am almost always for staying and following the obvious hook. Now, if we want to investigate why one merchant seems to be rolling in the coin while the others struggle instead of rushing out to find the monsters in the forest (even if the GM anticipated/planned the monsters and not the merchant), that should be something the GM can improvise/handle. GM's should adjust to playstyle and investigative bent with improvisation, and Players should adjust to hooks - that'll maximize fun in my experience. Of course, if it's a hook you hate, mention that away from the table so you don't have to see it again (e.g. You wake up to find all your gear is missing and you have been imprisoned by BigBadThing)

I guess this is more fishing than railroading, since you can always choose to take the bait or swim away, but I hope I made my point.


The player who never knows what their to hit is. Seriously, you are a fighter, that's the ONE THING you do. Write your bonus down, its not that hard.


My group always has two people, the same people every time, that don't care to level their characters outside of game. It takes an hour to get them around because they refuse to use their PDF copies of the books. They "Need" to use the paper copy, which they don't own.

Very much so this/these. Often a similar person...if you can't be bothered to spend 15 minutes of time during the entire week to update your character, how can you justify spending 15 minutes of everyone's time to do it at the table? Especially if I know you spend 27 hours grinding on your MMO? If you are new to the game or have a lot of questions for discussion, I get it. If you've been playing for years, it's just kind of selfish.

Similarly, is it really that hard to do simple arithmatic and write down your standard numbers? Heck, most sheets do it for you. Not too tough. If you can't be bothered, we probably can't be bothered to continue to accomodate you. ASIDE: Played with one person who was really a pretty good roleplayer and generally a nice person. She had the very annoying habit of feigned ignorance, though, and appearantly thought it cute/endearing to never remember what dice/number of dice to roll or target number. Always seemed to know the specific damage of a spell, capacity of a firearm or the name of the third peon from the left in the movie from last week though...

Note: Both of these are only a problem if chronic. Everyone forgets things now and again, or has something come up during the time they were planning to update.


THIS.

There HAS to be a give-and-take between DM and player. You don't want to give away too much of your campaign in advance, fine. But if someone's making a character statted out for a certain type of game, that's a sure clue that they want to play that kind of game. If you know you're not running what they're looking for, it's only fair to sit them down and talk it over. Maybe give them a hint as to what kind of character they may find more fun. If they don't listen, that's their look-out, but at least try. (Or, better yet, try to adapt your adventure so they'll have fun playing in it.)

Alternatively, embrace the "flexible first few sessions" ideology:

GM: Having just arrived on the island of YouStartHere, you are struck by the number of damaged vessels in port. The Pirate King Greenbeard has clearly chosen this chain of islands as his hunting ground.
Player: Um, I'd like to reconsider my desert-dwelling hunter with a overwhelming fear of water...

Okay, goofy example and that should have been corrected during character creation. More to the point, perhaps allowing the character who invested heavily in mercantile skills or urban flavor to re-distribute the ranks/points to better fit your "exploring the uncharted frontier" story - perhaps recommending they keep some ability in case you want to have a Marco Polo element, but allowing a few more story-beneficial skills to be added will enhance everyone's experience. Better yet, during the first session the players discover that they all share a common interest/enemy type/desire...except for one. Maybe they're all well set to hunt the undead except for the rogue/bard, or maybe they're a group of religious zealots except for the kid in the corner. With a little fine-tuning, the characters could fit nicely and practically give the GM a campaign theme that works for everyone on a platter.

Long story short, no sense in having an accidental incongruity between theme and character derail the experience - especially if a little advanced info or flexability can fix the issue!

One of my own (though many have danced around it) is the Pink Ninja. You know, the player who has a character that has a flaw designed to do little more than invalidate what they're supposed to be able to do: The evoker that won't hurt anyone. The half-orc barbarian coward pacifist. The tank that only will wear cloth/leather armor. The ranger without any ranger-y skills. Or, that aforementioned deaf/mute bard with a low charisma and penchant for mime.

- M

Gamer Girl
2011-03-27, 11:31 AM
Tired People-They just worked a 12-16 hour shift and then came to game. They are tired and irritable to say the least. And they can't game for more then a couple hours, before they start to fall asleep. Worse is then they 'pause' their character and go crash on the sofa.

Early Birds-They must get up at 4 am, so that means the game the night before must end by 6 pm. And worse, they will refuse to game any earlier.

Distracted People-The ones that can't put their life on hold to game for a couple hours. The 'I gotta take this call from Chuck as I'm trying to get him to sell me a car'. Important, maybe...but why can't this be done at any other point during the week?

Jamin
2011-03-27, 11:52 AM
People who play on their ds/gameboy though the session forcing me to explain everything 2 times, once for everyone playing attention and once for them.

Every single one of my players does this but people who have no backstory :smallfrown: it just bugs me

Firechanter
2011-03-27, 06:46 PM
If you haven't read it yet, google DM of the Ring. It's a worthwhile comic.

Ha, I've read that twice already "cover to cover", it is pure awesome.

Ontopic:
mobile phones at the table, and people texting. In one game I actually went as far as to confiscate all mobiles for the duration of the session. You might think you game with adults, then you understand how silly that idea was. >:

Katana_Geldar
2011-03-27, 07:16 PM
People who play on their ds/gameboy though the session forcing me to explain everything 2 times, once for everyone playing attention and once for them.


Add to this:

* People who listen to an iPod during the game
* People who make calls, answer calls or text during a game. I once had a DM who spoke to his girlfriend mid-encounter.

AsteriskAmp
2011-03-27, 08:29 PM
Out-of-Character conflict:
This breaks games. Specially bad when even when the character that started the grudge dies, the next one mysteriously has a hate of the character he's opposed to. (Damned be also the lack of players in my are/age group)

Players being idiots (both IC and OOC):
If you are the idiot who normally rushes and gets the party killed, and out of character makes a mess of the gaming space, don't complain when another player kills you IC or beats you up OOC and the DM does nothing, you had it coming.

Choco
2011-03-27, 08:40 PM
If you are the idiot who normally rushes and gets the party killed ... don't complain when another player kills you IC.

Amen.

Related:


If you are the idiot who normally rushes and gets the party killed, and/or like to start fights with otherwise friendly NPC's, don't complain when the rest of the party leaves you to die alone either by running away or just standing and watching. Yeah we get you are chaotic and "only doing what your character would do", but it gets old after a while and eventually OUR characters get sick of it and decide it is not worth it to keep you around.


And since me and a few others have mentioned it already, but it isn't an official list item yet:


Players who use the "but this is what my character would do!" excuse to do something that screws over the entire party, and then expect to be forgiven since they were only acting in character (nevermind that us killing them on the spot for that betrayal/idiocy is what OUR characters would do). Bonus points if you have already linked them This (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html) (the Decide to React Differently section) and they still keep it up.

Gamer Girl
2011-03-27, 10:43 PM
The One Plan DM--This is typical where the DM has seen a movie, TV show, read a book or watched another game and they want to 'recreate' that exact scene. It looked great when they saw it, and they want it exact. So when the players do something that does not fit the original script, the DM will get all bent out of shape and sad and upset and depressed and even mad.


The overly Complicated Character Actions--This is where the player has a cool and complicated character and feels that everything they do must be 'awesome'.

For example there are three orcs guarding a door...it should take the group about 30 seconds to kill them. Yet this player will want to make some crazy move and do all sorts of things like 'bull rush and trip' to get the orcs on the ground just so they can use their Coup De Gracie special trick.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-27, 11:01 PM
I know this gets bandied about a lot...but I have to say that I freely accept a little of what many call railroading. It's always wonderful to have a great improvisational DM for scenes that come out of the blue or to respond to character actions that go in a completely unexpected direction...but I view the improvisation as the spice that adds flavor to the meal. If a DM has a campaign/adventure/session planned (that does allow for some flexability), it will often be much more enjoyable than scrambling to come up with something on the fly. An illustration:


GM describes the small town in which we've just arrived, adding enough color to make it feel "real" without entering Exposition Mode. After a few minutes of exploration, it becomes clear that the village is experiencing a trade interruption, and basic supplies not grown in the neighboring fields are exorbitantly priced. Rumor has it that a maurading band/tribe/group of [INSERT APPROPRIATE BADGUYS HERE] is intercepting caravans.

Now, we could easily move on, heading for the big city where we can spend our phat lewts on nifty magic gizmos...or we can stick around and investigate the issue at hand. I am almost always for staying and following the obvious hook. Now, if we want to investigate why one merchant seems to be rolling in the coin while the others struggle instead of rushing out to find the monsters in the forest (even if the GM anticipated/planned the monsters and not the merchant), that should be something the GM can improvise/handle. GM's should adjust to playstyle and investigative bent with improvisation, and Players should adjust to hooks - that'll maximize fun in my experience. Of course, if it's a hook you hate, mention that away from the table so you don't have to see it again (e.g. You wake up to find all your gear is missing and you have been imprisoned by BigBadThing)

I guess this is more fishing than railroading, since you can always choose to take the bait or swim away, but I hope I made my point.

If you can choose, it ain't railroading. Railroading is when you try to go to the big city, then get attacked by marauding x. Then you teleport to the city, and it fails, randomly dropping you back to fight the marauding x, and so on.

Vladislav
2011-03-27, 11:14 PM
If you can choose, it ain't railroading. Railroading is when you try to go to the big city, then get attacked by marauding x.Well, up to here, still reasonable. If there are bandits on the road, being attacked by bandits while going on the road is only natural.

Then you teleport to the city, and it fails, randomly dropping you back to fight the marauding x, and so on.I hope you meant this as hyperbole, as I find it hard to believe anyone would actually do that.

Railroading would be if, after defeating the bandits, the PCs intend to continue on their way, and an even bigger force of bandits arrives, takes them prisoners, and ... <plot unfolds>.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-28, 08:31 AM
People do, sadly, do such things. Not hyperbole in the slightest. I've encountered far more overt railroading before. Things like "your character wouldn't possibly go away and ignore <plot hook>".

Vladislav
2011-03-28, 08:44 AM
People do, sadly, do such things. Not hyperbole in the slightest. I've encountered far more overt railroading before. Things like "your character wouldn't possibly go away and ignore <plot hook>".What can I say, condolences. This is really bad. I guess I can consider myself lucky for not being aware such DMs exist.

Choco
2011-03-28, 08:49 AM
People who, when you offer basic tactical advice (for example, "You could shift here before you attack and we would both get a flanking bonus!") or otherwise try to get some teamwork going on, get all snippy and tell you to stop telling them how to play their character. These same players then whine that we always have such a hard time fighting organized foes.

BadJuJu
2011-03-28, 09:01 AM
We have a guy in our group that constantly bitches about the casters. Our 1st wizard was basically Batman, and the dude bitched about him banning evocation. Every fight. He would comment about how much easier the fight would have been with an evoker, ignoring the fact that of the 6 monsters, 2 were blind, two were greased, one was blind, and the other got raped by the hasted party. Then, that character was scrapped because the wizard player got tired of it, and I made a psion, and he bitched cause I focused on direct damage and didn't have enough control. yeah.

Jan Mattys
2011-03-28, 09:29 AM
Tired People-They just worked a 12-16 hour shift and then came to game. They are tired and irritable to say the least. And they can't game for more then a couple hours, before they start to fall asleep. Worse is then they 'pause' their character and go crash on the sofa.

Early Birds-They must get up at 4 am, so that means the game the night before must end by 6 pm. And worse, they will refuse to game any earlier.

Distracted People-The ones that can't put their life on hold to game for a couple hours. The 'I gotta take this call from Chuck as I'm trying to get him to sell me a car'. Important, maybe...but why can't this be done at any other point during the week?

I really, really understand your points. Still, sounds like you could use a little more flexibility in dealing with people (friends?) who, even when they work 14 hours straight, still find the energies to try and game, even if they fail their COS check and fall asleep mid session.

There's jerks who ruin the fun, and there's people who honestly do their best to game and rate sub-par as gamers because, frankly, they would need 4 coffees just to keep standing.

Hating the first is right and just, hating to have to deal with the second at your gaming table is... well, let's just say "particularly unforgiving".

Tyndmyr
2011-03-28, 09:35 AM
We have a guy in our group that constantly bitches about the casters. Our 1st wizard was basically Batman, and the dude bitched about him banning evocation. Every fight. He would comment about how much easier the fight would have been with an evoker, ignoring the fact that of the 6 monsters, 2 were blind, two were greased, one was blind, and the other got raped by the hasted party. Then, that character was scrapped because the wizard player got tired of it, and I made a psion, and he bitched cause I focused on direct damage and didn't have enough control. yeah.

Wait, he WANTED you to be pun-pun, basically? Sounds like the sort of guy that needs to be told to play a wizard himself.

manyslayer
2011-03-28, 11:48 AM
If you haven't read it yet, google DM of the Ring. It's a worthwhile comic.

Damn you! Now I won't get anything done at work today:smallbiggrin:.

MechaKingGhidra
2011-03-28, 02:03 PM
"But that's what my character would do!"

I have been a player in multiple games in which this inevitably led to party-wide combat. One time it actually worked out, though, as we had to choose sides in that it was more of a (self-censored) p***ing contest as no one had lethal weapons at the time.

We split up and basically had to pull through together as a team in the end, having gotten it out of our systems. The GM basically had trapped us in a cavern and wanted us to go cannibalistic on one another since he didn't think we'd survive.

Showed him that just because he wanted to kill us doesn't mean he actually could without resorting to 'it just HAPPENS to be that...' and then make up a fiendish colossal centipede or something of the like just because we chose not to kill and eat one another.

The only time that I have *personally* used the excuse of 'but that's what my character would do' is in situations like investigating a cult as a mercenary lacking any sense of social grace or refusing to build a fire on a mountaintop as it would attract wild beasts. That sort of thing.

Example: It's night and we have broken into a low-ranking cultist's household while pretty much the whole town is at a sacrificial ritual at the town square. We were supposed to find out who or what is organizing the townsfolk and, with weapon in-hand, we step into the living room only for a cat to try to take a slash across my face.

Being the sort of character I am, I promptly one-shot it with my spiked chain. My partner is furious as he goes to find something to clean the blood and tells me to dispose of the body. I ask where I'm supposed to put the carcass. He says to toss it out the back. I then pick up the cat and proceed to walk through the length of the house towards the back, in the process, staining the carpets with blood still leaking out from the cat.

He stops me, clearly fed up, and tells me to wait. He goes to the kitchen and finds a pot for me to put the cat into. He has not ever, even during this, stated WHY he wanted me to use the pot. My character is a fighter, a mercenary who was hired for bodyguard work as he (a wizard) does most of the actual investigation.

So, I head out through the back and return...with no pot. He asks about it and I tell him I threw it over the fence. What, the cat's gone so what's the problem, right?

So he tells me to wait downstairs while he checks out the bedrooms upstairs and since he's taking a while with his search, our GM just quickly asks me what I'm doing while this is happening. I answer that I just quietly wait and I offhandedly mention that out of boredom I am twirling the end of my spiked chain around (which is still covered in cat blood).

My partner gets back downstairs and feels compelled to clean up, and I quote, "yet another one of your messes".

I wasn't even *trying* to be difficult, that's just simply how I described my actions to our GM because I was not thinking ahead to the logistical consequences just like how my character wouldn't.

Sipex
2011-03-28, 02:06 PM
I think "What my character would do" is more based around the intentions of the player too.

"I'm being a jerk because I can blame it on my character's personality." is different than "I'm playing a jerk because it's an interesting idea. I'm not going to actually try to be a jerk to my friends."

Firechanter
2011-03-28, 02:30 PM
Yeah, I don't know if I mentioned "But that's what my character would do" in this thread already, but in 90% of cases it's a telltale sign of the respective player being a douche. Usually when it comes to the uttering of this sentence, the conflict and debate between the players has already started. And in most of these cases, "what my character would do" involves shafting his fellow PCs.

MechaKingGhidra
2011-03-28, 02:37 PM
Yeah, I don't know if I mentioned "But that's what my character would do" in this thread already, but in 90% of cases it's a telltale sign of the respective player being a douche. Usually when it comes to the uttering of this sentence, the conflict and debate between the players has already started. And in most of these cases, "what my character would do" involves shafting his fellow PCs.

Well, yeah, if they're going out of their way to not co-operate within reasonable boundaries to how PC and NPC interaction can play out, *then* they're being bloody buggers who I wouldn't want to play with.

But sometimes it is difficult to read a person or they really are that oblivious to one thing or another (like how my story was).

(By the way, love the avatar. I cannot for the life of me remember the artist's name so I'd be greatly appreciative if you'd let me know where you found the pic.)

Totally Guy
2011-03-28, 05:04 PM
I hate it when a player rolls without explaining what they are doing or what they are trying to do.

"I rolled a 2 on my athletics roll, what happens?"

Silus
2011-03-28, 05:09 PM
I hate it when a player rolls without explaining what they are doing or what they are trying to do.

"I rolled a 2 on my athletics roll, what happens?"

On a related note, I hate it when a player will not tell anyone what they are doing while trying to get one over on the DM.

Like one guy in my group wouldn't tell anyone what spell he was casting (it was Phantasmal Killer) when the person had that Retribution feat/skill/thing up and needed to know if it was an attack spell being cast.

Firechanter
2011-03-28, 05:17 PM
@Mecha: well sure, sometimes you need to pull the "what would my character do" card when your DM tries to hedge you in a certain direction.


(By the way, love the avatar. I cannot for the life of me remember the artist's name so I'd be greatly appreciative if you'd let me know where you found the pic.)

No problem, the artist's pseudonym is Humon, and the characters are from Scandinavia And The World (http://satwcomic.com/).

navar100
2011-03-28, 06:45 PM
If a PC is secretly charmed or dominated, sure, DM passes a note so that the other players don't know. However:

DM and a player passing secret notes to each other that aren't about anything in order to convey to those not receiving notes something is up. Of course, it's always only one person who passes/receives notes.

Related note: DM and player purposely setting up that the player's PC is a spy working for the BBEG ready to betray the party at the most opportune time.

Thanatos 51-50
2011-03-28, 06:55 PM
The PC, who, having been told the DM approves of appropriate PvP decides to bribe a group of orcs with no concept of currency to murder a character in his/her sleep, but fusses when said character leaves his character to be devoured by bears half an hour later, because he was busy fighting another one.

When these two characters have a history of conflict with one another

When one Character (The guy Not trying to turn orcs into assassins) Has the entire rest of the party in his pocket.


This HAS, indeed happened to me! Why do you ask? (For the record, I was Has-the-Party-in-his-pocket-Guy [And also manipulating the hell out of every last one of them. I was a rogue. They didn't even know our employer was the mafia.] Also, the OTHER guy was one of my room-mates.)

137beth
2011-03-28, 06:57 PM
A player who insists they are better at battle strategy than everyone else. They insist on deciding what every PC does in combat, along with friendly NPCs (who might eventually become hostile if the PC remains power-demanding).
Of course these players occasionally fall back on "it's what my character would do", but it's usually a clear case of "I'm playing a jerk because I can blame it on my character".

Katana_Geldar
2011-03-28, 06:59 PM
DM and a player passing secret notes to each other that aren't about anything in order to convey to those not receiving notes something is up. Of course, it's always only one person who passes/receives notes.


1. That's always okay in Paranoia, I often hand out dummy notes with instructions on them.
2. We did this to the DM once, passed a note around the table about a "plan" just to mess with his head.

Sipex
2011-03-29, 12:25 PM
I have another one.

The player in your D&D circle who goads about how they usually play more complex and less known systems. Like they're somehow superior to us because we've only played D&D.

archon_huskie
2011-03-29, 05:12 PM
The fifty year old player who brags about gaming while the rest of us were in diapers but makes the dumbest actions possible.

Provengreil
2011-03-29, 06:08 PM
Havent read the whole thread yet, but what grates me is players who don't know their own character sheets and refuse to properly create them, followed by a two minute searching session while the fighter figures out what his damn attack bonus is. (Edit: this is not much of a problem unless it happens every turn, which is why i bring it up

this has officially happened to all but two of our group now (total of about 7 players), one of which is me. the worst was this girl who hit just about everything in this thread aside from lateness, though suddenly not coming is on the list. i think she was only there because of her boyfriend, and i'm frankly glad she's gone.

the most recent is a ranger with lots of effects that kill undead; favored enemy, holy shortswords, some feat or other, and a couple others. last session he swings at an undead for thefirst time...and takes 10 minutes hunting down his new attack and damage bonus.

Seerow
2011-03-29, 06:30 PM
this has officially happened to all but two of our group now (total of about 7 players), one of which is me. the worst was this girl who hit just about everything in this thread aside from lateness, though suddenly not coming is on the list. i think she was only there because of her boyfriend, and i'm frankly glad she's gone.


That's another one that ranks on the list somewhere, the player who continues coming only because their boyfriend plays, and they don't want to have a day apart from them.

On the other hand, we have had a few players who have evolved from the "only here to sit next to my boyfriend and do what he says to" to actually playing, so you never know...

Tanngrisnir
2011-03-29, 10:03 PM
Whinny Partner

Related to the girlfriend/couple one, it really really annoys me when the DM's girlfriend, whenever her character gets attacked, complains that the bad guy shouldn't be attacking her, that if he loved her it would attack someone else.



[B]The overly Complicated Character Actions--This is where the player has a cool and complicated character and feels that everything they do must be 'awesome'.

For example there are three orcs guarding a door...it should take the group about 30 seconds to kill them. Yet this player will want to make some crazy move and do all sorts of things like 'bull rush and trip' to get the orcs on the ground just so they can use their Coup De Gracie special trick.

I don't really have a problem with this. The character would do that because it is clearly the best way they fight. Why would they risk letting three unknown orcs kill them if they can, through their skill and abilities, turn the fight more in their own favour? Sure, the players may know the orcs are not much of a threat, but the character doesn't and shouldn't act like he does.

The group I play with, at least, find combat boring if it can be solved by simply walking up and hitting things. We like strategy.

Foeofthelance
2011-03-29, 10:09 PM
It also makes a difference if it's in character banter between TWO or more characters. Though even if in character with just one it's the character being a jerk :-)

Not necessarily. My Sorcerer/Paladin would take the heads from big kills and carry them around in a bag for proof when bragging to NPCs. Actually came in handy once, when we were accused of being flunkies of the BBEG. I just tossed the bag containing the heads of real flunkies at the feet of the guy barking questions, flashed him my holy symbol, and cleared everything up in a matter of moments.

My two current peeves:

OoC: Players who incessantly quote not just some pop culture trivia or meme, but who quote the same meme over and over again. It was funny the first time, cute the third time, but by the fortieth time I hear "Like a boss!" tossed onto to someone's accomplishment for no reason I start to give my dentist worry over all the teeth grinding.

IC: Rogues who steal from the party. Its one thing to introduce yourself by picking the warlord's pocket. That pocketful of gold you swipe in the dungeon is entirely another, especially when the party has:

1) Accidentally sold your soul to BBEG, incurring penalties on you any time you steal from the party.
2) Sworn, in character, to cut your hands off if they catch you doing it again.
3) Recently acquired a powerful artifact that gives a huge bonus to Sense Motive checks to the Warlord who not only outranks your bluff skill already, but is the one who determines whether you've violated the contract with the BBEG.

Just...why? It gains you absolutely nothing except grief, both in character and out, as the rest of us realize we can't trust you.

Katana_Geldar
2011-03-29, 11:01 PM
In my group, the monk tried to pick pocket the rogue. I said he succeeded but only found a purse full of wooden nickels.

Pisha
2011-03-29, 11:59 PM
Whinny Partner

Related to the girlfriend/couple one, it really really annoys me when the DM's girlfriend, whenever her character gets attacked, complains that the bad guy shouldn't be attacking her, that if he loved her it would attack someone else.



Wait, what?? Who does that? Look, just as a general rule, if you have a closer relationship with the GM than the rest of the players, expect to be attacked more often! (It's... it's a compliment. Yeah. Means he pays more attention to you. And your sheet. ...And your weaknesses. I mean - compliment. Yeah. Compliment.)

When it comes to significant others and gaming, the only one that REALLY got to me was a friend's girlfriend. Every game night, without fail, she would smile and say it was totally ok for him to go out and hang with his friends. And then every time, without fail, she would call him about an hour and a half into the gaming session (usually mid-combat, where we really needed his combat-heavy character) and demand that he come home to deal with some minor emergency. Once or twice? Understandable. Every time??? Seriously, if you don't want your man leaving you to game, say so. (And be prepared for the backlash.) But don't pull this passive-aggressive nonsense week after week. (He eventually convinced her to join the game with him. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work out.)

Dsurion
2011-03-30, 12:59 AM
When it comes to significant others and gaming, the only one that REALLY got to me was a friend's girlfriend. Every game night, without fail, she would smile and say it was totally ok for him to go out and hang with his friends. And then every time, without fail, she would call him about an hour and a half into the gaming session (usually mid-combat, where we really needed his combat-heavy character) and demand that he come home to deal with some minor emergency. Once or twice? Understandable. Every time??? Seriously, if you don't want your man leaving you to game, say so. (And be prepared for the backlash.) But don't pull this passive-aggressive nonsense week after week. (He eventually convinced her to join the game with him. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work out.)UGH. I used to have a significant other who did the same thing. It annoyed me to no end.

Actually, we had another player who had it worse. I remember the first time we gamed with him, he told his girlfriend he'd be occupied for the next four hours and that he wasn't likely to respond to texts or calls. He checked his phone later and saw he had 40 text messages from her, most of which were complaining that he was ignoring her for no apparent reason :smallsigh:

soir8
2011-03-30, 06:42 AM
Players who use the "but this is what my character would do!" excuse to do something that screws over the entire party, and then expect to be forgiven since they were only acting in character (nevermind that us killing them on the spot for that betrayal/idiocy is what OUR characters would do). Bonus points if you have already linked them This (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html) (the Decide to React Differently section) and they still keep it up.


I've been on both sides of this. As a DM, I've had to question lawful characters poisoning random NPCs drinks they "don't like them", neutral characters using torture and blackmail without blinking and then insisting they're not evil ("you are evil and a whore!"), and chaotic characters trying to slight-of-hand babies from their mothers (thankfully failed, or the party barbarian who had started off CN and slowly developed into CG, coming to see himself as the personal protector of the town, would have violenced him). As a player, I've had neutral party members try and kill my character minutes after meeting him for bullying a shopkeeper (the DM was in full fledged "whatever you try and get, it turns out ****" mode).

Gamer Girl
2011-03-30, 12:51 PM
1.The 'Other' Group Person-This person has another gaming group, or at least used too. And their other group was the best every. Their other group was and is awesome at everything. They are lowering themselves to play with your group. And they let you know this every couple of minutes.

And that leads to:

2.The Other Group Story Teller-It's not so bad at first, everyone can hear a good/funny/interesting D&D story or two. But when the person has to stop the game, for the 37th time on their initiative in the combat round and tell yet another story, it gets annoying.

And then the:

3.The Crazy Storyteller-As if the constant stories were not bad enough, A great many of them are crazy to say the least. Disclaimer-everyone can play the game however they want, but when you tell a story it will be judged by the only thing everyone has in common:the core rules.

So the person tells you how, at only second level, they robbed a great wyrm red dragons horde...buy throwing pepper on it's nose and then grabbing the loot while it sneezed. Or how many gods their old character killed. Or how they once had a sword +10. You just shrug and say that is nice. You are not awed or impresed and don't give them the reaction they wanted. They after all want you to be amazed at how great they were in the other game.

The worst are the ones who think they are special as they once killed a great wyrm at 3rd level with a silver spoon and a 'super duper' sneak attack.

And that leads too:

4.Homebrew Officials-Generally this person has only gamed with one DM. And like most DM, that one had a couple of homebrew rules. But the trick is that the player only knows the rules of that one DMs game. So they think all the Homebrew rules are official 'in the book' rules. And they are shocked to learn otherwise.

And

5.The Home brewer-this person has spent some time going over the rules. and they can make a super, uber class killer combo......if only you, the DM, would let them change or ignore one or two rules.

A recent example was a player who wanted to be a 'double Gestalt'. his idea was that if 'one' class could gestalt into two, then he should be able to gestalt two classes into four.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-30, 01:03 PM
5.The Home brewer-this person has spent some time going over the rules. and they can make a super, uber class killer combo......if only you, the DM, would let them change or ignore one or two rules.

A recent example was a player who wanted to be a 'double Gestalt'. his idea was that if 'one' class could gestalt into two, then he should be able to gestalt two classes into four.

I've met this guy. If you ever hear words like "block any spell with my sword", run away. Run fast. Double Gestalt sounds like an excellent reason to flee.

The above is not intended to be aimed at all homebrewers...some people can actually make good, balanced, interesting rules. Such people are fairly rare.

dps
2011-03-30, 01:42 PM
That's another one that ranks on the list somewhere, the player who continues coming only because their boyfriend plays, and they don't want to have a day apart from them.

On the other hand, we have had a few players who have evolved from the "only here to sit next to my boyfriend and do what he says to" to actually playing, so you never know...

Can't get too upset about that. In general, anything that brings in new players is good. If they're not really interested in gaming, and they never get into it, they'll quit coming eventually, and as long as they don't do anything to disrupt the game or lessen other players' fun, I don't see a problem with it.

However, things that do help kill fun:

A player that hogs the refreshments.

A player that is only there for the free refreshments. (I have to admit, I've been that guy, but OTOH, I had joined a campaign that my brother was playing in. I wanted to play a NG character, but they wouldn't let me, saying that they only allowed LG PCs in that campaign. That would have been OK, except that they saw nothing wrong with torturing and mutilating captured NPCs just for personal amusement, or as anything that wasn't appropriate for LG characters.)

Players who insist on playing music during game sessions, and turn up the volume to the point that the players and DM can't hear each other.

Caphi
2011-03-30, 02:04 PM
If they're not really interested in gaming, and they never get into it, they'll quit coming eventually

No. They might make the SO, who is actually a good player, stop coming too. It's happened.

Gamer Girl
2011-03-31, 01:06 PM
The Crazy Dice Person-They generally have 20 or so set of dice, a whole duffel bag full. And they insist on using certain, special dice for each action. Do they need to roll a crit, they must use their black skull dice. Make a diplomacy check, they need their blue crystal dice. And so on and so on.

This can get very annoying when they stop the whole game to look through their bag f dice for a single d20 of the right color.

RndmNumGen
2011-03-31, 01:18 PM
Hm... I don't see any problem with people that just have tons of dice, but when they need to use a special set of dice and don't keep them separate? Yeah, that's annoying.

Pisha
2011-03-31, 02:04 PM
Seriously. At start of game (or at least the first time you need to make a roll), pull out your dice and set them up. You know which ones you're likely to need during a game. Have them close at hand.

Sipex
2011-03-31, 02:15 PM
Yeah, I have a lot of players who are guilty of that, I think I'll start making that a normal thing alongside 'roll initiative'

Malevolence
2011-03-31, 02:26 PM
{Scrubbed}

Velaryon
2011-03-31, 03:27 PM
A lot of these make me think back to old campaigns I've been in and say to myself "Yeah, I remember that guy. I hated that too." But then some of the things posted here also make me appreciate my own current group a lot more. So that's good, right?


Anyway, a few of mine (some were mentioned before by others):

-The guy who, despite having been a gamer for years now, STILL can't read his own character sheet, let alone make the character himself or even level him up.

-The player who misses more than half the gaming sessions. Even if they're always for good reasons, why would you join a D&D game if you're not going to be able to make it most of the time?

-"Chronic backstabber syndrome" - this player is always trying to be the one secretly working for the bad guys, and planning to betray the party at the most opportune time. Or even when they haven't been planning this, sometimes they'll just randomly ally themselves with the BBEG for no good reason.

-Constantly taking non-emergency phone calls and/or texts during the game. I've nearly thrown people out of my campaign for this, especially if they're frequently long calls that result in the player being absent for half an hour or more when we're waiting on them. How hard is it to just say "I'm busy right now, I'll call you back later" and just leave it at that?

-People who can't create an original character to save their life. Every character is a blatant knockoff of a someone from their favorite anime, or the latest book they've read, or a video game they've played recently. Bonus points if they don't even try to change the name or appearance.

^Strangely enough, I've never ever run into a Drizzt clone, a problem that it seems like many gaming groups have had to deal with (if I'm to believe what I read on message boards all the time). However, I have run into numerous Naruto characters, Sephiroth clones, Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri clones, and plenty of others that I can't think of right now.

big teej
2011-03-31, 03:35 PM
at the risk of having been ninja'd (not through catching up to the thread)

RE: railroading

railroading is not saying "there's a wall there"

railroading is saying "there's a wall everywhere BUT there"

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-31, 03:36 PM
at the risk of having been ninja'd (not through catching up to the thread)

RE: railroading

railroading is not saying "there's a wall there"

railroading is saying "there's a wall everywhere BUT there"

And the wall is made out of indestructitanium.

And it's reflective.

big teej
2011-03-31, 03:55 PM
And the wall is made out of indestructitanium.

And it's reflective.

tis a given naturally.

navar100
2011-03-31, 05:57 PM
I still remember a D&D session where the DM had a crush on a girl trying out roleplaying for the first time. O! M! G! He treated her like a goddess. No matter what she did or what she said, the DM would point out how brilliant it was, complimenting her on everything she did, reassuring her that she completely understands how the game is played. Whatever she attempted was successful.

Yukitsu
2011-03-31, 05:59 PM
I still remember a D&D session where the DM had a crush on a girl trying out roleplaying for the first time. O! M! G! He treated her like a goddess. No matter what she did or what she said, the DM would point out how brilliant it was, complimenting her on everything she did, reassuring her that she completely understands how the game is played. Whatever she attempted was successful.

He's going to make an excellent husband one of these days.

big teej
2011-03-31, 06:19 PM
I'd like to take a moment to gloat off topic.

my girlfriend took up dnd because, and I quote.

"I wanna try it, because our tastes are so similar. and you love it so much, I think I'll enjoy it"

she now plays a barbarian in my campaign and a fighter in another.

she is in love with barbarians. (she also plays this evil fairy thingy in savage worlds)

on topic
I've had players fall asleep while I was DMing. and I must confess, I LOST it.

that player is no longer with us

Amnestic
2011-03-31, 07:59 PM
He's going to make an excellent doormat one of these days.

Fixed :smallcool:

Yukitsu
2011-03-31, 08:04 PM
Similar concept ideally.

archon_huskie
2011-04-01, 07:00 AM
on topic
I've had players fall asleep while I was DMing. and I must confess, I LOST it.

that player is no longer with us

I've been DMing and fallen asleep on the players. Their fault really. On a side note, turn off the TV when you game.

Choco
2011-04-01, 08:48 AM
I've been DMing and fallen asleep on the players. Their fault really.

Ha, I was thinking the same thing! They spent like 4 HOURS making up some convoluted plan, and I was already tired that day... I think they didn't bother to wake me on purpose so I wouldn't hear their plan.

And I'll add one to the list that I myself have been guilty of:


Players who show up to the (relatively serious) game completely hammered. I admit I did this one time, but I still say it's the DM's fault for being late :smalltongue:. We were sitting around waiting for the DM, when the friend who's house it was decided to show off his latest brew. One thing lead to another and by the time the DM showed up about an hour late, half of us were quite drunk. This also lead to sleeping during the session...

Sipex
2011-04-01, 08:54 AM
Sleeping doesn't bother me too much given the proper limits.

1) The player in question doesn't have control over why they're so sleepy. IE: They had to work overnight, they have insomnia, etc. If they spent the night playing video games then I have no pity.

2) It's not a frequent occurance.

Ghost6442
2011-04-01, 09:48 AM
The total info you get off the DM to make your back story of is "gonna be undead heavy" and then runs the game like the characters never existed before the time they started adventuring.

on the flip side no info campaign are really awesome when you can work with the DM to create background info for example:

DM: the ring is mystirios and shiny, it is likely magical, are you going to put it on?
Player: No I think I'll take it to that magic shop I always shop at, the one that doubles as a fence for my guild.
DM: oh you mean the bow and ribbon magical antiquities? (makes it up on the spot)
Player: yes that's the one!
DM: when you enter the store the owner, who you know as MR Grapefruit greets you by name a asks "not in trouble again my boy" with a sly smile.
(this was the DM's first time and we had put them on the spot)

To me that is just epic

oh and annoying character names, players who have to look at their character sheets to remember the name and then can't pronounce it. the uncreative names are just as bad, though my rogue named Thief was lols

YouLostMe
2011-04-01, 11:31 AM
Fixed :smallcool:

I nearly died, that was so funny.

If you don't mind me taking this conversation on a slight tangent, does anyone know how to deal with players who want to text/sleep/play Plants v. Zombies during combat? I assume combat needs to be more engaging for them, which either means making it faster or... I really dunno, giving them some storytelling capabilities, I guess?

Sarco_Phage
2011-04-01, 11:34 AM
I nearly died, that was so funny.

If you don't mind me taking this conversation on a slight tangent, does anyone know how to deal with players who want to text/sleep/play Plants v. Zombies during combat? I assume combat needs to be more engaging for them, which either means making it faster or... I really dunno, giving them some storytelling capabilities, I guess?

I've never really had that problem during live games, since I usually play with my friends and I'm the only one using a laptop (as a DM screen and a dice roller/stat tracker). I guess you'd need to catch their attention? You need to be a fairly good storyteller to make DnD combat seem interesting.

bloodtide
2011-04-01, 12:39 PM
Players that don't pay Attention--The classic here is the player that care only about combat. Anything else that they just space out. They don't care about anything else in the game. Until it effects them, of course. Then they whine and cry and say how unfair it is and 'how are they expected to know these things' and how 'the DM should just automatically tell us everything''.

Example-Through role playing the group knows of two magic shops in town. Shop A has high prices, but is fair and good; Shop B has low prices, but often sells cheap and fake items as well as cursed ones. So later when an attention-less player goes to buy a potion he just randomly picks shop B(''It does not matter where I shop dude, lets just get to the dungeon so I can kill some monsters'). And later they find that the potion they bought was fake or not effective or such.

The 'That Guy/Place/Thing'--The players that refuse to play attention or listen, but then still want to be treated as if they did. ''We go back to that guy in that place and get the stuff'' and so forth. Is it really so hard to remember a couple names? And lets not forget:

The Never Writes Anything Down Player--This is so simple. You meet a friendly druid. You take all of three seconds to write down ''Dost-friendly druid''. And then you know and remember that fact, forever. Instead too many players just sit back in their chair and close their eyes and just go 'whatever'.


All together this can kill the fun for a DM that has spent time creating a fantasy world, that the characters don't care about.

Seerow
2011-04-01, 01:11 PM
The Never Writes Anything Down Player--This is so simple. You meet a friendly druid. You take all of three seconds to write down ''Dost-friendly druid''. And then you know and remember that fact, forever. Instead too many players just sit back in their chair and close their eyes and just go 'whatever'.


Hey, I spent good build points on the "Photographic Memory" quality, the least you can do is let me use it by answering me when I ask questions rather than expecting me to write everything down :p

Ghost6442
2011-04-01, 04:05 PM
I nearly died, that was so funny.

If you don't mind me taking this conversation on a slight tangent, does anyone know how to deal with players who want to text/sleep/play Plants v. Zombies during combat? I assume combat needs to be more engaging for them, which either means making it faster or... I really dunno, giving them some storytelling capabilities, I guess?

Texting: get a mobile phone jammer, and watch them go WTF? when they suddenly lose all their phone reception when the game starts.

Sleep: this is a perfect moment to sleight of hand their coin purse and run for the hills, alternatively they can wake up to find their character has been turned into a sheep and is about to be sacrificed to the dragon. but likely the best thing to do is to take them a side after the game and talk to them about it.

Plants vs zombies: undead shambling masses FTW. and give them fire resistance for lols. but yeah again talking to them after game is likely your best option

TheCountAlucard
2011-04-01, 04:12 PM
Texting: get a mobile phone jammer, and watch them go WTF? when they suddenly lose all their phone reception when the game starts.I'd like to point out that these are illegal in a number of countries.

Ghost6442
2011-04-01, 04:15 PM
but Faraday cages are not, though much more expensive. and harder to install or hide. You could just confiscate phones, that is free.

Provengreil
2011-04-01, 04:22 PM
-"Chronic backstabber syndrome" - this player is always trying to be the one secretly working for the bad guys, and planning to betray the party at the most opportune time. Or even when they haven't been planning this, sometimes they'll just randomly ally themselves with the BBEG for no good reason.


of course there's no good reason, it's an evil one:smalltongue:. I know the type though.


I've never really had that problem during live games, since I usually play with my friends and I'm the only one using a laptop (as a DM screen and a dice roller/stat tracker). I guess you'd need to catch their attention? You need to be a fairly good storyteller to make DnD combat seem interesting.

there's an entire thread on this somewhere. more so than storytelling, interesting terrain seems important.

Volthawk
2011-04-01, 04:22 PM
Texting: get a mobile phone jammer, and watch them go WTF? when they suddenly lose all their phone reception when the game starts.

Wait, you can buy phone jammers?

TheCountAlucard
2011-04-01, 04:23 PM
Wait, you can buy phone jammers?In some countries, yes, but in many, it's illegal to even advertise them, let alone buy, own, or operate one - heck, here in the States, you can be fined over a hundred thousand dollars for doing so.

Amnestic
2011-04-01, 04:41 PM
I wouldn't recommend phone jammers anyway in cases of emergency (The house is on fire! Wait while I find and turn off the phone jammer before calling the fire brigade.), just ask people not to play with their phones during the game and consider taking it away from them if they do not agree. You're all here to play a game after all.

archon_huskie
2011-04-01, 04:46 PM
The total info you get off the DM to make your back story of is "gonna be undead heavy" and then runs the game like the characters never existed before the time they started adventuring.

on the flip side no info campaign are really awesome when you can work with the DM to create background info for example:

DM: the ring is mystirios and shiny, it is likely magical, are you going to put it on?
Player: No I think I'll take it to that magic shop I always shop at, the one that doubles as a fence for my guild.
DM: oh you mean the bow and ribbon magical antiquities? (makes it up on the spot)
Player: yes that's the one!
DM: when you enter the store the owner, who you know as MR Grapefruit greets you by name a asks "not in trouble again my boy" with a sly smile.
(this was the DM's first time and we had put them on the spot)

To me that is just epic

oh and annoying character names, players who have to look at their character sheets to remember the name and then can't pronounce it. the uncreative names are just as bad, though my rogue named Thief was lols

Like Sally in Darths and Driods

Ghost6442
2011-04-01, 06:03 PM
a phone jammer doesn't have to be a device that spews forth white noise on the same band as mobile phones in order to eliminate connectivity (these are the commonly illegal ones, I don't advise to use or make them) instead it can be a RF shielded room, which is a passive device (Faraday cage), then I.C.E. install a land line, this kind of signal jammer is completely legal and used by many hospitals, to shield from out side interference to delicate machinery that is keeping people alive. A metal shed can be easily, and cheaply converted into one of these. But it's likely now worth the bother. Confiscating phones for using them with out a damn good reason is the best path.

but that is away from the point of this thread

Trolls, not the ones you have to burn to stop them regenerating but the players who's sole purpose of being at the game is to annoy/troll the DM

Provengreil
2011-04-01, 06:18 PM
a phone jammer doesn't have to be a device that spews forth white noise on the same band as mobile phones in order to eliminate connectivity (these are the commonly illegal ones, I don't advise to use or make them) instead it can be a RF shielded room, which is a passive device (Faraday cage), then I.C.E. install a land line, this kind of signal jammer is completely legal and used by many hospitals, to shield from out side interference to delicate machinery that is keeping people alive. A metal shed can be easily, and cheaply converted into one of these. But it's likely now worth the bother. Confiscating phones for using them with out a damn good reason is the best path.

but that is away from the point of this thread

Trolls, not the ones you have to burn to stop them regenerating but the players who's sole purpose of being at the game is to annoy/troll the DM

Read the slayer's guide to DMs, it has some great tips.

Another habit is when one PC is a great, or at least decent, optimizer and the others....arent. this is happening in my campaign now; i'm a sorceror with some carefully selected class, feat, and spell options. our cleric got his head bit off by a famine spirit and he rolls up a natural wererat ranger to join our half dragon knight and me. now I have to look at the field and work with the DM to make the game not about me beating everything while they watch. It's boring for me cause i have to play my character badly on purpose, it's boring for them because they know I'm holding back, and unnecessarily hard on the DM to balance encounters for us. probably gonna pocket the sorc and bring in a rogue....

Pigkappa
2011-04-01, 06:48 PM
It's boring for me cause i have to play my character badly on purpose, it's boring for them because they know I'm holding back, and unnecessarily hard on the DM to balance encounters for us. probably gonna pocket the sorc and bring in a rogue....

Suggested solution (for the next character): build the character badly on purpose, then play it as good as you can.

You know what the best spells are, but fluffwise your character doesn't really know if it will be more useful to make a friend so angry that he's much better at fighting (the awful Rage spell) or to make the party faster (the decent Haste spell).

Provengreil
2011-04-01, 06:57 PM
Suggested solution (for the next character): build the character badly on purpose, then play it as good as you can.

You know what the best spells are, but fluffwise your character doesn't really know if it will be more useful to make a friend so angry that he's much better at fighting (the awful Rage spell) or to make the party faster (the decent Haste spell).

that's more or less the plan.

as for spell selection, it's not that I take the best spells, except for real standouts like the heavy damage disintegrate and the awesome wings of cover. it's more that i'm too creative for my own good sometimes. i beat the famine spirit that bit off cleric's head by stone shaping a pit into the floor, filling it with my money(it was an expensive victory, but i was out of more conventional ideas), then used metal melt on the pile of coins, sticking its feet into a 100 pound block of gold, silver, and copper alloy. knight and I retreated and just kinda left it there.

Grendus
2011-04-02, 08:40 AM
The homebrew addict: They have access to more books than you do, yet every session they bring pages upon pages of homebrew classes they want to try. If you're lucky, they have them organized in order of which one they want to play first. And 90% of them make the spell/power erudite look like a lightweight.

The dice borrower: he has dice... somewhere, but dude, yours are so much shinier. Can I just borrow some of yours? Aww man, you already took the lucky d12 with the nuke... can I have it? It's for my barbarian... yea, I know you use it for Belker Claw. C'mon!

The newbie: we were all new, once, but this guy just makes an art form out of it. He's been there six sessions, and he still hasn't learned a thing. He still rolls damage before attack, he can't figure out if it's a hide check or a reflex save to duck behind a wall, and he always takes feats without meeting the prereqs. Usually wants to play a monk, then ask you about his class abilities every five seconds.

dsmiles
2011-04-02, 08:48 AM
The newbie: we were all new, once, but this guy just makes an art form out of it. He's been there six sessions, and he still hasn't learned a thing. He still rolls damage before attack, he can't figure out if it's a hide check or a reflex save to duck behind a wall, and he always takes feats without meeting the prereqs. Usually wants to play a monk, then ask you about his class abilities every five seconds.
Wait...you guys don't roll them at the same time? It really speeds things up in combat. (Of course, I have my players on an egg timer, as well. They get one minute to decide what they're going to do.)

TheCountAlucard
2011-04-02, 09:00 AM
sticking its feet into a 100 pound block of gold, silver, and copper alloyAs strong as this powerful is, a hundred pounds of such soft metals as gold, silver, and copper shouldn't inhibit it too much; I imagine it'd only need one standard action to free itself.

ryu
2011-04-02, 10:32 AM
Depends on how far into the cube his feet were embedded. Soft metal or not leverage is a factor wouldn't you agree?

Daftendirekt
2011-04-02, 12:16 PM
When the DM has a DMPC. I know in theory it can work, but in actuality I've never seen it end up as anything more than "I love this character of mine I made in this old game, so I'm going to keep playing them in this one and you can be along for the ride."


I think this might be a DM specific thing. My DMs DMPCs have been such:

Warforged Artificer. Disappears (we say "Stay here and watch the wagon!") during fights. Makes us a few magic items when we get enough gold. In town, he's just at the library 24/7 (literally. he doesn't need to sleep) until we go find him and tell him we're ready to head out.

In our psionic campaign, his guy was just the synad psychic warrior tank. Didn't say much, went with what the other synad (one of the PCs) said.

ScionoftheVoid
2011-04-02, 12:40 PM
I think this might be a DM specific thing. My DMs DMPCs have been such:

Warforged Artificer. Disappears (we say "Stay here and watch the wagon!") during fights. Makes us a few magic items when we get enough gold. In town, he's just at the library 24/7 (literally. he doesn't need to sleep) until we go find him and tell him we're ready to head out.

In our psionic campaign, his guy was just the synad psychic warrior tank. Didn't say much, went with what the other synad (one of the PCs) said.

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).

Glass Mouse
2011-04-02, 02:32 PM
Adding to the list

Player bossing other players around about how to play their character.


Graarh! THIS.

Also: GMs telling players how to play their character. My character is the only thing I control in this game; if I can't have that, then why am I here? Paws off!

It's been mentioned already, but spotlight-hogging players (or GMs) and OoC conflict finding its way into the game are very high on the list, too. Thankfully I only play with friends these days, so I avoid the jerks and drama :smallsmile:

As a GM, I both love and hate metagaming. On one hand, having the players go "oh, it's a plot hook, we'd better go there!" saves me a lot of work, but on the other hand, it kinda destroys the story we're trying to build. But then again, I'm one of those silly roleplayers who put way too much emphasis on characters, anyway.

Oh yeah, rules lawyering. Almost forgot that one.

Pigkappa
2011-04-02, 02:46 PM
As a GM, I both love and hate metagaming. On one hand, having the players go "oh, it's a plot hook, we'd better go there!" saves me a lot of work, but on the other hand, it kinda destroys the story we're trying to build.

Much better than "oh, that woman is going to give us a quest and my character is a psychopath at least as I am, let's kill her when the other characters aren't watching." True story. :smallfurious:

Grendus
2011-04-02, 04:40 PM
I have seen DMPC's done well, but they usually have to be played to minimum capacity. For example, in one campaign a player dropped and the DM picked up her character (archivist), but most of what she does is just full attack and use dark knowledge. I think she may have cast a spell... once, but I can't remember what it was.

soir8
2011-04-02, 06:14 PM
I have seen DMPC's done well, but they usually have to be played to minimum capacity. For example, in one campaign a player dropped and the DM picked up her character (archivist), but most of what she does is just full attack and use dark knowledge. I think she may have cast a spell... once, but I can't remember what it was.

The time the DM was making it difficult for my character to do anything (you want to buy a mule? ok, he sells you a mule that's old and crippled. You're offended and kill the mule (CE character)? Well, now the guy's pissed off and attacks you. You intimidate him into submission (to keep from disrupting things further, instead of just killing him like a CE character may well be expected to)? He's so scared he ****s all over you) his DMPC then goes to the other party member "this Kobold's being a ****, I think we should kill him". The guy's a very good friend of mine, but he is an abysmal DM. Whenever you see me complaining about a DM on this forum, it's him.

He's also responsible for "your adamantine great maul can't break through the 3-ft thick nonmagical stone door because I don't think it should", and a CR 12 green dragon immediately after a bunch of lizardmen and wyrmlings when the party was lvl 9 (he expected us to use an unidentifiable magic ring we'd found 2 sessions earlier to control the dragon. Eventually he had to actually say to us "maybe you should have a look at that ring you found"), and during the fight I had to argue with him to let my Kobold, after several rounds of debuffing and a lucky d20 roll, intimidate the dragon because, again, "I don't think a Kobold should be able to intimidate a dragon". Yeah, there are plenty of things that make it really difficult, which is why it was so hard to do, so LET ME DO IT!

Then, when we were lvl 12, there was the fight against a medusa with wizard lvls and a great wyrm blue dragon. Again, he expected us to use some miscellaneous magic item to summon a powerful NPC to win the fight for us, but we managed to use suggestion and rope trick to beat the encounter anyway. He actually got pissed off that we had thwarted him and had the dragon bury us under the ruins of the temple we were in, then fly off and destroy the nearest town.

Seriously, he complained about our characters being broken... because we had to find ridiculous ways of beating the ridiculously high CR encounters he kept throwing at us! And he never learned. If the Frenzied Berserker has built his character to take down big bags of hp and armour in seconds, because he has to to beat your goddamn great wyrm dragons, try using something else, and stop being so shocked when the big monster dies in 2 rounds!

I could go on and on, but for the sake of sanity I will stop.

Ezeze
2011-04-02, 07:30 PM
Another habit is when one PC is a great, or at least decent, optimizer and the others....arent.

I'm kinda surprised it took 7 pages for this to be mentioned as it's the only huge, re-occurring problem I've ever had.

One guy had access to all the most esoteric rule books and dragon magazines. He would make ridiculous characters every time I tried to DM. I got fed up and made someone else do it, then he got fed up and passed it to a third person...

It didn't help at all that he would refuse to follow any plot anyone set in front of him, killing characters that were supposed to give him information or be talked to.

Finally we came to the conclusion that the one power gamer would have to DM all the time because no one else would DM for him. He'd make ridiculous fights, never ever let us rest even between the most horrible encounters, and the entire time mocked us for being unable to defeat these "easy" monsters.

Eventually we had to stop playing with him. It upset me, because he had been my friend for a very long time, but he just got worse and worse no matter how many times we tried to talk to him.

soir8
2011-04-02, 07:58 PM
I'm kinda surprised it took 7 pages for this to be mentioned as it's the only huge, re-occurring problem I've ever had.

One guy had access to all the most esoteric rule books and dragon magazines. He would make ridiculous characters every time I tried to DM. I got fed up and made someone else do it, then he got fed up and passed it to a third person...

It didn't help at all that he would refuse to follow any plot anyone set in front of him, killing characters that were supposed to give him information or be talked to.

Finally we came to the conclusion that the one power gamer would have to DM all the time because no one else would DM for him. He'd make ridiculous fights, never ever let us rest even between the most horrible encounters, and the entire time mocked us for being unable to defeat these "easy" monsters.

Eventually we had to stop playing with him. It upset me, because he had been my friend for a very long time, but he just got worse and worse no matter how many times we tried to talk to him.

I feel for ya bro. It's sad when the guy who's hardest to play with is someone you really want to be able to play with. I haven't reached this stage with my friend, but I have decided to never ask him to DM again. As a player, he's prone to being chaotic stupid, but just give him a room full of monsters to incinerate and a few barmaids to seduce and he's fine. Just so long as he's not let anywhere near anything that has sleight of hand as a class skill...

Provengreil
2011-04-02, 08:58 PM
Depends on how far into the cube his feet were embedded. Soft metal or not leverage is a factor wouldn't you agree?

bout a foot and a half deep, by our reckoning. but famine spirits are only STR 16, it takes more than that to free yourself from a block of metal in any sort of quick fashion.

Now that i actually look at the entry, it seems they can use ethereal jaunt too, but i think the DM was letting us off...we were level 10 at the time, so i have no idea why he considered this an appropriate encounter in the first place. I may have gotten points for doing something he never would have thought of, too.

Edited for bad spelling.

ryu
2011-04-02, 09:49 PM
Maybe it had already used its jaunt to set up said encounter and that was the dms justification for it not getting out. Maybe he expected you to pull some obscure trick and get out okay which you kinda did. I've seen a halfling seduce a medusa so... yeah there really aren't any limits are there?

Pisha
2011-04-03, 01:03 AM
Another habit is when one PC is a great, or at least decent, optimizer and the others....arent.

Yeah, this situation is no fun from either side. A good friend of mine LOVES to cheese out his characters. Which is great - there's nothing wrong with optimization. Except that he's the only optimizer in our group. The rest of us, while of course we want our characters to be good at what they do, are more concerned with story and personality and all that fluff, instead of sheer prowess. (Before I bring the wrath down upon my head, I'm not being elitist here. Both styles of play are equally valid; it's a matter of preference, and of the general feel of a given game.)

It's not a good match. He's dissatisfied; the other players are dissatisfied; the GM is near to tearing his hair out trying to balance encounters so that they'll be challenging to Mr. Optimizer while still being within the range of possibility for the rest of us. And it's nobody's fault! No one is doing anything wrong, but playstyles are not meshing. Ideally he'd find another group that fit his style better... except that he's a good friend, and with schedules as they are, sometimes we can't even get together outside of game, so no one really wants him to leave. (Note: this is not a major problem in our games; we do make a solid effort to compromise. But it does rear its ugly head from time to time.)

navar100
2011-04-03, 11:05 AM
Yeah, this situation is no fun from either side. A good friend of mine LOVES to cheese out his characters. Which is great - there's nothing wrong with optimization. Except that he's the only optimizer in our group. The rest of us, while of course we want our characters to be good at what they do, are more concerned with story and personality and all that fluff, instead of sheer prowess. (Before I bring the wrath down upon my head, I'm not being elitist here. Both styles of play are equally valid; it's a matter of preference, and of the general feel of a given game.)

It's not a good match. He's dissatisfied; the other players are dissatisfied; the GM is near to tearing his hair out trying to balance encounters so that they'll be challenging to Mr. Optimizer while still being within the range of possibility for the rest of us. And it's nobody's fault! No one is doing anything wrong, but playstyles are not meshing. Ideally he'd find another group that fit his style better... except that he's a good friend, and with schedules as they are, sometimes we can't even get together outside of game, so no one really wants him to leave. (Note: this is not a major problem in our games; we do make a solid effort to compromise. But it does rear its ugly head from time to time.)

Not a beat down, but a wet noodle: :smallsmile:

It's not either/or. It's not either be an optimizer or be concerned with story, personality, and fluff. You can do both. Mr. Optimizer probably isn't into fluff. You are probably not into optimizing. Ok. Just saying they are not mutually exclusive.

Try teaching each other. Let him help you make your character awesome bad-ass. Take some of his advice on feats and abilities. Help him get into the story fluff. Have NPCs react to his reputation of being the Hero of the People defeating all those BBEGs, both supportive tavern customers buying him drinks and opposition other BBEGs singling him out in soliloquies.

Provengreil
2011-04-03, 11:52 AM
Not a beat down, but a wet noodle: :smallsmile:

It's not either/or. It's not either be an optimizer or be concerned with story, personality, and fluff. You can do both. Mr. Optimizer probably isn't into fluff. You are probably not into optimizing. Ok. Just saying they are not mutually exclusive.

Try teaching each other. Let him help you make your character awesome bad-ass. Take some of his advice on feats and abilities. Help him get into the story fluff. Have NPCs react to his reputation of being the Hero of the People defeating all those BBEGs, both supportive tavern customers buying him drinks and opposition other BBEGs singling him out in soliloquies.

i think the usual problem with fluff vs. optimization is that not all fluff can be optimized without some house ruling. for instance, if I want to use crossbows, i've got to deal with the fact that ranged physical damage is simply not up to par with melee, aside from that throwing class from ToB maybe. splitting, rapid shot, etc can make it certainly not weak or useless, but it won't beat a good charger. now if you house rule that manyshot can work with crossbows and then give me shot on the run we can have some real run-and-gun schadenfreude. optimized? still no, but we've effectively let me full attack while moving. i'm still not power attacking or even getting damage bonuses from stats, getting attacks of opportunity, or anything a axeman gets, but i get to have the dnd version of a chopper.

The Glyphstone
2011-04-03, 02:15 PM
It's possible to make a decent ranged character - though it almost invariably involves the Force Bow from the D&D Cartoon Handbook, which gives its wielder Power Attack Shot.

There's also the Deadeye Fighter variant from Dragon (half Dex to damage at range), the Crossbow Sniper feat (Dex to damage w/ crossbows, better SA range), and often SA damage - this setup works fairly well with crossbows, even without the Power Shot ability...I build a Thri-Keen gunslinger whose entire shtick was quad-wielding hand crossbows and adding Dex*1.5 to every shot. Much fun.

DarkEternal
2011-04-03, 06:56 PM
As a DM:

-Players who give each other advices out of character during combat. Not just advices, but reminding them to cast something, to use something, that they will provoke AOO and so on. I was lenient with this when we started, but after countless warnings and ten levels or so, I started giving penalties such as skipping their turns when they do it.

-Players who don't pay attention when stuff is happening that doesn't concern their characters-their characters are not being talked to. This does not include stuff like shopping, walking around the town and marvelling, but it does involve when the king of the sodding country talks to your party and has an interesting chat with one of your party members, in a room that your character also is in, and you go to the other room to see what's up on Facebook.

-Players who take their damn time over every bloody thing. I remember once, during combat, the wizard read the Monster Manual for a polymorph spell for some odd 40+ minutes to decide what he would turn himself into. Mind you, he's now strong enough for Shapechange. Oh, joy!

-Players who are never happy, no matter what you do for them. To "balance" things out between wizards-clerics-druids and the fighting classes(our group composes of a wizard, two clerics, of which one is DMM and all the shenanigans that come with it, a fighter and a ranger), I gave the fighter/ranger maneuvers-disciplines(we didn't play with Tome of Battle before because, frankly, we didn't know of it before and I know those two players would never, ever read said book, since they fall under the category of never doing anything DnD related until it's time to DnD...which I understand, since times are busy), homebrewed some for the ranger(from this forum actually, the Phoenix Feather discipline, I believe), gave them epic destinies(also homebrewed some, though to be fair, I gave epic destinies to everyone in the party), and still the ranger constantly whines how the fighter is better then him, how I hate him for some reason, how his maneuvers are much worse then the fighter's(mind you, there are no ranged disciplines in any official source book, as previously mentioned) and so on and so on. I'll be the first to admit that it was my first time DM-ing when we started, and I didn't, and still don't know how and when to use certain skills of those(things like Hide during combat, Listen-spot outside of combat still elude me for the best and most practical way of using them), and we are all friends, but I admit, sometimes it pisses me off.

-Munchkins. I know this is a taboo theme on forums, but I don't care, I can recognise one a mile away, and I don't care about what excuse he has about how he(learned it) along the way. However, I game with reasonable people, the said cleric said himself he doesn't like his overpowered character because he doesn't have a character. He has a bot, walking around destroying worlds with absolutely no substance to him.

-Cheaters. People who "forget" how their skills-attacks work(don't get me wrong, I blame myself for this for trusting them enough and not checking every spell they cast, every move they make myself to see if it works the way they say it works, but I can't be arsed to do that alongside everything else). I still don't check if their dies are ever "modified", since some of them sit on the opposite side of the room, not everyone huddled around the table. Me, I roll the dice as a DM in front of them all, so they can see there are no smudges...and if there are, they are universally for their benefit if the dice gods did not favor the party what so ever that night.

Gripes my players probably have with me, some of which were mentioned in this thread:

--Checking the rules ever so often. Even though this group roleplays on, more or less, a weekly basis for over a year now, I still consider myself a fairly newby DM and I have to check a lot of stuff, and a lot of rules out when necessary, which is every time, at least once.

---Out of game discussions: They occur. Sometimes by me, sometimes by players, but they can go on and on and on.

-Arguments: Does Disjunction work like that, does it pass through walls, does his Arcane eye see the glyph if it's written behind the tile on the floor, and not on it, how to spot invisibile creatures, and so on and so on, arguments that last for an eternity, seemingly.

Ezeze
2011-04-03, 07:29 PM
A good friend of mine LOVES to cheese out his characters. Which is great - there's nothing wrong with optimization.

I sort of feel like I have to defend my statements about my group's optimizer now. It was a problem. His featured characters included a Paladin that was immune to every type of damage but Acid and Fire and had resistance 40 to Acid and Fire, a Cleric with a permanent spell that gave him +2 to strength every time anything died in a mile radius of him (in the only evil campaign I ever ran. He ended most days with 60+ strength), and a Warmage he cracked out to do more damage than the rest of the party combined.

I don't make sub-par characters. Neither did anyone else in my group. We just don't make crazy-butt game ruining ones, where as he did.

@v Well the first he combined a feat chain (orc blooded, or something?) that made all non Acid or Fire damage subdual, then added some levels of an undead-biased class that made him immune to subdual damage, then just got magic items for the resistances.

The Cleric, like I said, made permanent and extended a spell that gave him +2 strength every time something near him died - he knew in advance it was going to be an Evil campaign based on mass slaughter.

For the last he picked up a feat and a magic item that stacked to give him a ridiculous amount of bonus damage to ranged touch attacks, then picked up another magic item that made all of his ranged spells touch attacks.

Most of it's from Dragon Magazine or really obscure source books, and as many times as I got mad at him for it all of his characters were still RAW-legal.

Sarco_Phage
2011-04-03, 08:02 PM
I sort of feel like I have to defend my statements about my group's optimizer now. It was a problem. His featured characters included a Paladin that was immune to every type of damage but Acid and Fire and had resistance 40 to Acid and Fire, a Cleric with a permanent spell that gave him +2 to strength every time anything died in a mile radius of him (in the only evil campaign I ever ran. He ended most days with 60+ strength), and a Warmage he cracked out to do more damage than the rest of the party combined.[/I]

Jesus. I want to either punch this guy or ask him how he managed those.

ryu
2011-04-03, 08:15 PM
First one then the other is what I'd do.

navar100
2011-04-03, 08:37 PM
As a DM:

-Players who give each other advices out of character during combat. Not just advices, but reminding them to cast something, to use something, that they will provoke AOO and so on. I was lenient with this when we started, but after countless warnings and ten levels or so, I started giving penalties such as skipping their turns when they do it.


That's not quite being fair. As the DM, you are one individual mind controlling all the bad guys. You can coordinate all their movements and actions in harmony. The party is made up of many individual minds trying to interact with each other and their foes. One player won't necessarily realize something another player does by virtue of his independent thinking and perspective. Players need to talk to each other to give their side the semblance of unity you automatically provide for the bad guys. Certainly the players should know the rules too. They should know what provokes AoO, what abilities they have, what their abilities do, etc. However, keep in mind this is just a game. Taking away their turns is devastatingly harsh. You can kill a PC that way for no reason other than the party is not played by one person.

DarkEternal
2011-04-03, 08:40 PM
That's not quite being fair. As the DM, you are one individual mind controlling all the bad guys. You can coordinate all their movements and actions in harmony. The party is made up of many individual minds trying to interact with each other and their foes. One player won't necessarily realize something another player does by virtue of his independent thinking and perspective. Players need to talk to each other to give their side the semblance of unity you automatically provide for the bad guys. Certainly the players should know the rules too. They should know what provokes AoO, what abilities they have, what their abilities do, etc. However, keep in mind this is just a game. Taking away their turns is devastatingly harsh. You can kill a PC that way for no reason other than the party is not played by one person.

Perhaps, and I would agree with you were this inexperienced players, but this group is already a living organism, working together in the same setup with the same characters for over a year, and as such I want more focus. The penalties are dire, I agree, but rarely executed. Also, mind you, talking is a "No-action" move, someone can scream during battle "Look out when you snipe that huge golem, he can probably maul you" or something like that. If it's in character, they can converse...to a reasonable degree, of course.

navar100
2011-04-03, 08:42 PM
I sort of feel like I have to defend my statements about my group's optimizer now. It was a problem. His featured characters included a Paladin that was immune to every type of damage but Acid and Fire and had resistance 40 to Acid and Fire, a Cleric with a permanent spell that gave him +2 to strength every time anything died in a mile radius of him (in the only evil campaign I ever ran. He ended most days with 60+ strength), and a Warmage he cracked out to do more damage than the rest of the party combined.

I don't make sub-par characters. Neither did anyone else in my group. We just don't make crazy-butt game ruining ones, where as he did.


It is a fair point to say that while optimization is not mutually exclusive to engaging in the fluff, the player still has the responsibility not to optimize in such a way to Win D&D. The fluff equivalent is the drama queen who monopolizes time interacting with NPCs such as bargaining with merchants for every copper piece and/or purposely creates a character that is detrimental to adventuring in its game mechanics.

Tael
2011-04-03, 09:03 PM
I sort of feel like I have to defend my statements about my group's optimizer now. It was a problem. His featured characters included a Paladin that was immune to every type of damage but Acid and Fire and had resistance 40 to Acid and Fire, a Cleric with a permanent spell that gave him +2 to strength every time anything died in a mile radius of him (in the only evil campaign I ever ran. He ended most days with 60+ strength), and a Warmage he cracked out to do more damage than the rest of the party combined.

I don't make sub-par characters. Neither did anyone else in my group. We just don't make crazy-butt game ruining ones, where as he did.

@v Well the first he combined a feat chain (orc blooded, or something?) that made all non Acid or Fire damage subdual, then added some levels of an undead-biased class that made him immune to subdual damage, then just got magic items for the resistances.

The Cleric, like I said, made permanent and extended a spell that gave him +2 strength every time something near him died - he knew in advance it was going to be an Evil campaign based on mass slaughter.

For the last he picked up a feat and a magic item that stacked to give him a ridiculous amount of bonus damage to ranged touch attacks, then picked up another magic item that made all of his ranged spells touch attacks.

Most of it's from Dragon Magazine or really obscure source books, and as many times as I got mad at him for it all of his characters were still RAW-legal.

Unfortunately, a lot of "really good optimizers" people complain about on these boards are actually cheaters. I would bet a lot of money that many of his tricks were actually not rules legal. Go through every step of his combos, and read all the stuff he quotes from.

Claudius Maximus
2011-04-03, 09:41 PM
Those examples sound similar to some things I know are in fact legal though, so he may well be simply optimizing.

Anyway since the optimizer is the odd one out in these examples, the DM or the group as a whole should simply tell him that he has to tone it down. You're not obligated to countenance any of this cheese you know. And if he refuses, and you guys don't want to optimize upwards to keep up, he should probably get the boot, because it's a jerk move to refuse to stop doing something that's disruptive to the game.

Tael
2011-04-03, 10:28 PM
Those examples sound similar to some things I know are in fact legal though, so he may well be simply optimizing.

Anyway since the optimizer is the odd one out in these examples, the DM or the group as a whole should simply tell him that he has to tone it down. You're not obligated to countenance any of this cheese you know. And if he refuses, and you guys don't want to optimize upwards to keep up, he should probably get the boot, because it's a jerk move to refuse to stop doing something that's disruptive to the game.

The only way I know of to get kind of crazy damage immunity on a paladin is through massive template stacking, which I'm pretty sure the DM would disallow. The huge Death Knell/Consumptive Field effect could be exaggerated, but as he currently describes it, I'm pretty sure there isn't any way to magnify it's area that much. The Warmage sounds pretty legit though.

Claudius Maximus
2011-04-03, 10:33 PM
@v Well the first he combined a feat chain (orc blooded, or something?) that made all non Acid or Fire damage subdual, then added some levels of an undead-biased class that made him immune to subdual damage, then just got magic items for the resistances.

Troll-Blooded is an actual feat that apparently gives regeneration, so that explains that. There are a number of ways to get subdual immunity. Rings of Resist 30 and you've got the whole combo.

The ToS build Fluffy had a similar thing going, though due to restrictions it involved actually turning into a troll (and it was immune to fire and acid as well). Damage immunity is achievable through a couple other means as well.

dps
2011-04-04, 08:43 PM
I'd like to point out that these are illegal in a number of countries.

Hammers aren't. Well, actually, they probably are somewhere, but...

Tyndmyr
2011-04-05, 07:10 AM
For the last he picked up a feat and a magic item that stacked to give him a ridiculous amount of bonus damage to ranged touch attacks, then picked up another magic item that made all of his ranged spells touch attacks.


I feel like this probably involves Arcane Thesis, Ocular spell, and a metamagic rod and so on. It isn't actually that hard to get some pretty nasty damage going on with a warmage.

Last Laugh
2011-04-05, 12:21 PM
As a player: It gets on my nerves a lil when the DM doesn't fully understand the core mechanic being used in an encounter, this could be important spells, or Grapple rules for the sick half-ogre he's catapulting onto my face.

Or: Encounters where the player characters are helpless. Our DM has thrown an Avenging Execution who reduced the entire party to Cowering within a single action (by cutting down a bystander even.), then a devil which had a permanent Sanctuary effect on it (DC 22, has SR, AND dm didnt' understand the sanctuary spell very well)

The Devil itself was cool, Dunno what book it's from but he served as a collector of souls.

Silus
2011-04-05, 12:23 PM
In my experience as a player, here are two (both stemming from the previous/my first World of Darkness game):

Arguing with the DM/Storyteller: Just....this. Especially when the arguing stems from the player only half listening to what the DM/Storyteller said.

Complaining that nobody takes your character seriously: Kinda hard to take one seriously when two people are playing werewolves (A Fianna and a Get of Fenris), two are playing Mages (A Son Of Ether/Order of Hermes and a Cultist of Ecstasy/Dreamspeaker) and one is playing a lone Brujah Vampire, and you decided to play a Pooka (A catboy Pooka with a pink handgun with Hello Kitty painted on it).

Choco
2011-04-05, 04:43 PM
As a player: It gets on my nerves a lil when the DM doesn't fully understand the core mechanic being used in an encounter, this could be important spells, or Grapple rules for the sick half-ogre he's catapulting onto my face.

OMG, that one gets me too. I can understand with random encounters, but it annoys me to no end when a DM has to pause the game for about 45 minutes total throughout the session to read what the monster that he planned to pit us against can do.

When I DM I am sure to at least have a quick reference sheet for the abilities and tactics, and their corresponding rules, for everything I plan on using.

B1okHead
2011-04-05, 04:47 PM
Although not particulary fun-killing, it starts to grate on my nerves when one of my players just says I rolled a 7/14/whatever without actually saying what he is doing.

Glass Mouse
2011-04-05, 05:44 PM
Although not particulary fun-killing, it starts to grate on my nerves when one of my players just says I rolled a 7/14/whatever without actually saying what he is doing.

Haha, one of my players does that all the time! Since it's usually for very minor stuff that makes sense in context, I tend to roll with it, but sometimes we get some good laughs from the randomness.

He even once made (and admitted) a fumble like that. Good player :smallbiggrin:

RandomNPC
2011-04-05, 06:24 PM
Dunno if it's come up, that's a lot of pages to read.

People who can't organize a food schedule. I came to the last game with a burger, and let everyone know I was good for food, because I had more waiting for me at home. I had to toss in for pizza because two hours after everyone got there they ordered pizza and didn't check to see how much money they had. Seriously considering withdrawing from the game, it's the second time it's happened out of four games.

senrath
2011-04-05, 09:09 PM
Although not particulary fun-killing, it starts to grate on my nerves when one of my players just says I rolled a 7/14/whatever without actually saying what he is doing.

Similarly what annoys me is when my players, after explaining to them time and time again that on skill checks you don't automatically fail on a 1 or automatically succeed on a twenty and those are just houserules that some of the other DMs in the area use, tell me that they rolled a 1 or 20 on their check. That's nice guys, but I just want to know what your total roll is, since you could still succeed with that 1 or fail with that 20.

It also annoys me when a player tells me that they passed or failed without a number attached, unless it's an action that they've either done multiple times already recently or I've told them what the DC for the roll is, for whatever reason.

Titanium Fox
2011-04-05, 10:57 PM
What always gets on my nerves... When I get a brilliant idea.;For example "There are Orcs chasing us. Hmm... I throw a tanglefoot bag to set it as a trap." (We had received them as loot the session beforehand and the DM ruled this was okay.)

About two seconds later, simultaneously, I hear a chorus of seven voices. "ME TOO!"

Or we burst into a room and the scout declared WELL before hand that he had his bow at the ready to fire as soon as breaching occurred. And then as soon as we breach, even before the Scout makes his surprise action, there's a chorus of voices that you can barely hear yourself think over if they can have their own surprise action due to [INSERT BS REASON HERE]. No you can not, shut up.

Or like tonight, when one of our players said, OOC, to another player "I'm the Main Character, you're a sidekick!"

Grendus
2011-04-05, 11:18 PM
Or like tonight, when one of our players said, OOC, to another player "I'm the Main Character, you're a sidekick!"

Was the first player a wizard and the second player a monk?

Sarco_Phage
2011-04-05, 11:19 PM
What always gets on my nerves... When I get a brilliant idea.;For example "There are Orcs chasing us. Hmm... I throw a tanglefoot bag to set it as a trap." (We had received them as loot the session beforehand and the DM ruled this was okay.)

8 tanglefoot bags should take care of your Orc problem.

Titanium Fox
2011-04-05, 11:24 PM
Was the first player a wizard and the second player a monk?

The first character was a... ****, I don't even know what. Goliath Warforged with a Mechanical Arm that's "Theoretically" a scholar, raised by elves AND dwarves, and plays as Chaotic Stupid. The second character was either our Sorcerer or our Favored Soul, I can't remember which off hand. I just caught the tail end of the comment and the pointing finger towards that corner of the table.

Amnestic
2011-04-05, 11:25 PM
Or like tonight, when one of our players said, OOC, to another player "I'm the Main Character, you're a sidekick!"

http://videogamesheaven.net/movie-final-fantasy-xii-characters-balthier001.jpg

Approves :smalltongue:

Titanium Fox
2011-04-06, 08:09 AM
Also as a DM, I hate players that forget their character sheets, don't call if they don't show up, and players that bring up every single monster that we fight on their monster manual PDF. Seriously, are you incapable of not cheating?

Choco
2011-04-06, 08:29 AM
players that bring up every single monster that we fight on their monster manual PDF. Seriously, are you incapable of not cheating?

That's why I either completely change around MM monsters (refluff them to be roughly the same but look completely different, rename them, change abilities around for similar ones, change what elements they are immune/resistant/weak to, etc.). That's the lazy man's way of creating "homebrew" monsters that you know will be no worse balanced than the originals :smalltongue:. It seems to work nicely, especially the first 3-4 times players fireball something that is weak against fire in the MM, only to find out it is immune to fire but weak to electricity :smallwink:. If they whine, tell them it's their own fault for cheating and if they want to learn about the monster they can either roll the appropriate check or learn from experience.

And since I'm here...


DM's that ask for a detailed backstory, which I happily provide, and then proceed to run a "dungeon of the week" campaign in which there is never even any RP or social interaction in general, and said backstories never come up again.

Provengreil
2011-04-06, 10:21 AM
What always gets on my nerves... When I get a brilliant idea.;For example "There are Orcs chasing us. Hmm... I throw a tanglefoot bag to set it as a trap." (We had received them as loot the session beforehand and the DM ruled this was okay.)


god, that gets on my nerves too. it mostly happens with skill checks for me though; i'm trained in a knowledge skill and i have 11 ranks, i'll make the check, and everyone else at the table wants to help, despite the fact that they arent trained. for most other actions our abilities and inventories are a little too diverse for this to matter much.

another thing that got on my nerves was the PCs trying to discuss plans to, say, torture some innocent NPC while standing on front of the NPC, then getting mad when he ran like hell and called the guards. nobody cast telepathic bond, people, you do not have a hivemind today.

Sipex
2011-04-06, 10:40 AM
Augh, I have a player like that I DM for. She tries to do everything, most of which her character isn't good at. Knowledge checks, perception checks, arcana checks (she's a fighter), Thievery checks. We have players who have specialised in certain skills, let them have the limelight in those situations!

Actually, sad part is most of my woes come from this single player yet it's not someone we (as a group of friends) would be willing to boot from the group. We try to improve her little by little or just grin and bear it because she could be worse (she doesn't cheat, she roleplays well, she accepts DM rulings).

On that tangent, some other things:

The easily insulted mastermind - This is the person who comes up with plans that the group may not jive with 100% but gets completely offended if you don't go with their plan. Even to go as far as adapting part of their plan isn't enough usually. So this results in players doing stupid things (and knowing it) in order to stop said player from getting pissed or said player being grumpy for 30 minutes while everyone does something else.

I rolled a 14 - This player rolls a dice for a check/skill/to hit/damage and simply says what they rolled, no matter how often you prompt them with "plus what?". This usually turns into the song and dance of:
Player: I rolled a 14.
DM: On what?
Player: My dice.
DM: I mean, what are you doing?
Player: Attacking.
DM: Attacking with what?
Player: My sword?
DM: This is 4th edition, what power are you using?
Player: OH OHOH. *Looks through their powers*, this one.
DM: ...and what's your bonus to hit?
Player: Oh! *has to look it up again because they closed their binder or whatever* +14!
DM: So that's 28 to hit versus AC?
Player: Er...*again, looks it up* yes.
DM: You hit, did you roll damage?
Player: OHOHOH! No. *Rolls* I got a 5 and 6....
etc.

Mind, that sounds really harsh, please consider the following before passing final judgement:
- The player in question has been playing in this group for over two years.
- We've been using the same characters and system for the entirety of these two years. We've gone from level 1 to 11 in that time.
- The player has a specially designed sheet she created herself to help with this problem.
- The player has official D&D power cards for her character.
- This happens every time.
- Attempts to help her have been met with unkindness. She seems to feel we think she's stupid and refuses to accept help.

I kind of tangented there, sorry about that.

TheCountAlucard
2011-04-06, 11:01 AM
Hammers aren't. Well, actually, they probably are somewhere, but...That may be, but it sounds like what you intend to do with them is illegal. Plus, it likely won't make any friends in your gaming group.

Choco
2011-04-06, 11:59 AM
Here's another one, directly related to some of my previous rants:


Players who accuse you of being a munchkin and breaking the game with your T4 class character. While they are playing Druids and Clerics.


Long story short I am getting sick and tired of people who never bother looking at the rules except to level up their character (during the session I might add) effectively yelling at me for actually reading the rules. I am to the point that next time someone does this, I am going to randomly roll all my character building decisions right in front of them, and will still with a 99% chance end up being a "powergamer" simply cause I use what resources I have to maximum effect, unlike SOME people....

It doesn't help the matter that every time I try to give advice on what they can do to be more powerful than me, they snap and tell me to stop telling them how to play their characters...

Provengreil
2011-04-06, 03:22 PM
Here's another one, directly related to some of my previous rants:


Players who accuse you of being a munchkin and breaking the game with your T4 class character. While they are playing Druids and Clerics.


Long story short I am getting sick and tired of people who never bother looking at the rules except to level up their character (during the session I might add) effectively yelling at me for actually reading the rules. I am to the point that next time someone does this, I am going to randomly roll all my character building decisions right in front of them, and will still with a 99% chance end up being a "powergamer" simply cause I use what resources I have to maximum effect, unlike SOME people....

It doesn't help the matter that every time I try to give advice on what they can do to be more powerful than me, they snap and tell me to stop telling them how to play their characters...

i'm sorry your group hates that. sometimes it's the most fun part of the session for us. One time I even rolled up A mcgyver rogue whose wealth was mostly buried in 3 haversack's worth of tools rather than weapons and stuff. i couldn't fight very well but every scrape i got into was solved in a way that made the dm go "wow....ok then!"

weaponry in the form of burning tents, plans involving eversmoking bottles, a stone rope, hearthfire, and a teddy bear, sledding in a feather token swan boat...

Provengreil
2011-04-06, 03:24 PM
ignore this post, server error made me post twice

bloodtide
2011-04-06, 05:53 PM
The Player that Keeps Secrets from the DM

Goes a lot like this:

Player 1--"I stab the troll with my dagger"" rolls and hits
DM--"you hit the troll''
Player 1--"I do 72 damage!"
Dm--"what?"
Player 1--"Oh back in town I bought some oil of troll bane and rubbed it on my dagger just before I attacked"
DM-"You did not buy anything in town, you spent the whole time in town sitting by the well"
Player 1--"That is what you think..HA...but while you thought my character was sitting by the well...he was actuality doing all sorts of secret stuff that you did not see...haha"

Welknair
2011-04-06, 07:12 PM
10) Players who don't bother cracking open a rulebook outside of the game, and thus do all their shopping/lvling decisions during our bi-weekly session. Of course it takes up the whole session, doing nothing but wasting my time since I obviously need not have bothered showing up. This is especially infuriating when the DM specifically tells them to do this between sessions and they ignore him.

I have this problem as well. I have an Arcane Engineer who decides to make up all of his designs while I'm giving the exposition. Quite annoying. I tell him to work on the pricing of his magic robot before we start, but he always waits till it's least convenient...

_Zoot_
2011-04-07, 02:12 AM
The Player that Keeps Secrets from the DM

Goes a lot like this:

Player 1--"I stab the troll with my dagger"" rolls and hits
DM--"you hit the troll''
Player 1--"I do 72 damage!"
Dm--"what?"
Player 1--"Oh back in town I bought some oil of troll bane and rubbed it on my dagger just before I attacked"
DM-"You did not buy anything in town, you spent the whole time in town sitting by the well"
Player 1--"That is what you think..HA...but while you thought my character was sitting by the well...he was actuality doing all sorts of secret stuff that you did not see...haha"

That's come up in my game, the response is always the same:

"No you didn't."

If they don't tell me that they did it, then they didn't do it. I don't mind if they forget to do something that they logically would have done (buy more ammo for instance) then I'm happy for them to just subtract the correct amount of money, but if it is something strange (like getting anti armour rounds, when there was no indication that they would meet armoured vehicles), then they need to have told me. They don't need to have said it publicly, a note will be fine. But if they didn't tell me, it didn't happen.

DarkEternal
2011-04-07, 10:00 AM
Also as a DM, I hate players that forget their character sheets, don't call if they don't show up, and players that bring up every single monster that we fight on their monster manual PDF. Seriously, are you incapable of not cheating?

I forbid that when I DM. Of course, I'm the only one using the laptop then, but unless you rolled a damn high knowledge check you sure as hell won't get to see the monster and it's weakness-strength. If they did, however, I type a few lines in word about said monster and let the person that rolled it read it, depending on the score.

Of course, I can't do much about it when they are at home, but during actual play, they can't do it.

The Glyphstone
2011-04-07, 10:27 AM
I forbid that when I DM. Of course, I'm the only one using the laptop then, but unless you rolled a damn high knowledge check you sure as hell won't get to see the monster and it's weakness-strength. If they did, however, I type a few lines in word about said monster and let the person that rolled it read it, depending on the score.

Of course, I can't do much about it when they are at home, but during actual play, they can't do it.

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'.

dsmiles
2011-04-07, 10:37 AM
DMs that creatively interpret the 'useful information' clause of Knowledge checks to make them pointless.

That would really get my goat, so to speak.
http://www.popmunch.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/goat-eye-to-eye-by-tibchris.jpg
See?

Sipex
2011-04-07, 10:42 AM
Your roll of 19 for your knowledge check on the goat lets you know that it prefers to eat vegitation but can also resort to eating less edible objects, like cans and leather.

Provengreil
2011-04-07, 11:50 AM
"it splashes acidic blood in melee" can tell you two things: don't use acid, probably stick to electric an cold, really, and to tell your fighter, monk and rogue party members to be careful what they poke it with. monk's probably screwed, but fighter can stay in front of it and just total defend or something till you kill it, and rogue can resort to his bow. you've saved your party at large a lot of problems by knowing what not to do. remember, there's more than 1 player here.

soir8
2011-04-07, 12:32 PM
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).

Gamgee
2011-04-07, 12:45 PM
Firstly:

I absolutly loath the guy that doesn't pay attention. Paying attention is the most minimal thing you have to do to be part of an RPG...

...And their not even doing it.

Secondly:

The guy with the mind set of "We're heroes we need a 9 million point buy for stats, because we're the heroes not just regular people."

Sadly, though this is usually the same guy that thinks they are always supposed to win at everything. Gods ofrbid you, as a GM, put him in a situation that he has to roll someting higher than a 4 to succeed at. This is also the one person at the table that either gets mad or mopes when something negative happens to their character, then makes the whole table listen to how unfair it is. (from my experiance the action that triggerd the negative thing is usually at the fault of that person.

CAN I GET AN AMEN BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

EDIT: I figured I could condensce this down a bit...

...Poeple that want you, as GM, to narrate the story of their awesomeness, and have them make attack rolls.
I have a player like that. Very ****ing annoying. God forbid you play a GAME FOR CHALLENGE!!!!

The Glyphstone
2011-04-07, 01:28 PM
"it splashes acidic blood in melee" can tell you two things: don't use acid, probably stick to electric an cold, really, and to tell your fighter, monk and rogue party members to be careful what they poke it with. monk's probably screwed, but fighter can stay in front of it and just total defend or something till you kill it, and rogue can resort to his bow. you've saved your party at large a lot of problems by knowing what not to do. remember, there's more than 1 player here.

See, that's what I'm talking about. Rather than give me what I asked for (useful knowledge), the DM gives stuff that I couldn't care less about; as a blaster mage, the things I'd have studied most extensively about monsters would be what sort of elemental magic is best for blowing them up. If I roll high enough to run out of resistances/immunities/weaknesses vs. its HD, sure, I might remember some tidbits that the noncasters can make use of, but magic-related factoids should logically be the first stuff called to mind. Random information should come from Bardic Knowledge, not focused study via Knowledge skills.

Tyndmyr
2011-04-07, 01:29 PM
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."

Wouldn't that be the best reason ever to not trust him?

If I'm around a dude, and I suddenly find myself unable to doubt him or mistrust him at all, due to "MAGIC!", the instant I'm not around him anymore, I'll assume there's something horribly wrong with him.

soir8
2011-04-07, 01:42 PM
Wouldn't that be the best reason ever to not trust him?

If I'm around a dude, and I suddenly find myself unable to doubt him or mistrust him at all, due to "MAGIC!", the instant I'm not around him anymore, I'll assume there's something horribly wrong with him.

Exactly. We knew right from the start that he was evil, but what else could we do?

Really, the DM should've just given me the sense motive roll and said "you don't think he's lying", but instead he made it obvious he was railroading us and left us with no real choices. that's the point I'm making.

Silus
2011-04-07, 04:26 PM
May have been covered already, but here's another:

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".

archon_huskie
2011-04-07, 04:32 PM
May have been covered already, but here's another:

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".

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.