Omg Why?

[Thaxton 76]

This is a DM's rant. Like my group of all good alignment players who were all setting in the corner dressed in black looking around menacingly for any wrong doing. They would not stop playing good guys wearing black and looking menacing. It got to the point that I had a little girl run in and go straight to them and say " please kind strangers please help me my mother always told me the moody looking guys in black setting in the corner are always the good guy". Thing is they actually got the point after that. Not to mention all the new players who want to play a Drow Ranger..... with scimitars..... and a panther. I digress does anyone else have any rants about players ( God love them) and things they have done to you the hard working DM? Like asking why shouldn't the Tarrasque be vampiric?

[danzibr]

Was this a couple sessions or... campaigns? Do they always play that?

In either case, that's pretty funny. The only complaints I have is players doing incredibly stupid things. Or having a party of goods, neutrals and evils (brought that one upon myself, first campaign I ever ran), and you can guess the kind of arguments they got into.

[KillianHawkeye]

Yeah, some people just lack originality LOL. Often times it's just a lack of experience. I was like that when I first started D&D, too.

The worst I have in my group is most of them can't stop playing themselves rather than giving their characters unique personalities.

[Grollub]

you should have made a "good party" pallies, priests, etc.. stroll into the bar, see the "bad guys" and rock em :smallcool:

[ngilop]

I have always had a thing with my players truding through the woods/badlands/whatever and getting to teh place they are at with night coming in a few hours AND then setting up camp


You know settingup camp right outside teh LBEG(little bad evil guy) base of operations is the best choice ever right?


idk why but its happened to me 5 times now.

[Ramza00]

Thing is they actually got the point after that. Not to mention all the new players who want to play a Drow Ranger..... with scimitars..... and a panther.
It could be worse, you could have a halfling character who is a mix between Thor and Belkar who throws around a big giant hammer that dazes like 8 people per round :smallwink:

[squera]

Yeah, the Drizzt archetype is quite lame... but maybe that's because you did not have the luck to see a dwarven warrior using a rapier, charging in full plate on a flying carpet. Good lord, that's awful!

[rexx1888]

We have a player in our 3.5 group who.. well, lets just say he means well. He decided he really wanted to play the white knight sorta thing, and went about building an aasimar paladin.. this in a group with a wizard, druid and psion. Thats cool, i rolled up a fighter(first ever character, didnt know what tiers even were and the DM's system mastery could use some work, but meh), we moved on and started evening out the power curve. Still, this paladin is possibly the most pathetic sword swinging man alive, but the player seems to think that lawful good honest to god means lawful stupid. He makes the worst decisions imaginable, and then pays for them in blood.

Bout 2 weeks ago, he got dead. No res in reach, and were level 7 so we cant just pop over to the local cleric an get him fixed. So, to keep him in the game the DM bends over arse backwards narratively and rezzes him, sorta(gave him a chance to move around some of his stats though, that was good). Guys the same character on paper, same memories but different guy. Some soul swapping shenanigans(where his soul got broke or somethin), sounds cool, im excited, and i didnt have to pay for his rez yay.

So, we are a little while beyond that and the player is fully aware that if this guy dies he WILL NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO GET A REZ EVER. You would think that would make a person smarter right. Oh no, i might die, i wont go first into the random room... well nuts to that says this player, im a be a dumb arse. Biggest dungeon crawl yet, im going to walk off, ON MY OWN AND TOUCH ****, WHILE THE PARTY IS OUTSIDE AND HALF A MILE AWAY. How.. What... Why O.o

Eventually he gets locked in a room with a dripping bucket, its a trap, he touches it. The DM is sitting there, gob smacked. guys going to drown, the rooms filling with water. Note, hes an elf. What does he do. He tries the door, its locked with no key hole. Ok... so the player decides hes gonna sit down an die... WUT O.o Were sitting there loooking at him like hes mad. The rooms filling slowly. He still hasnt checked the walls, just looked them over. Now, its important to note that this room has a bunch of exit options for the party. One is a secret door thats never found. The other is me, i multiclassed into warblade and use mountain hammer on any object ever. The other is both a wizard and a druid. What does the Paladin player do on his own... well, once we convince him to at least try. He decides to beat his way through the stone door with his flaming bastard sword. hardness 7, 90 hp... something like 10 rounds till he drowns... He just barely manages it on the last round.. just barely.. and the player is sitting there with this stupid grin on his face like he'd done the utter impossible and he'd meant it all along.. i mean seriously WUT!!!

O.O gives me a headache just thinking about it :\

[Phelix-Mu]

I have always had a thing with my players truding through the woods/badlands/whatever and getting to teh place they are at with night coming in a few hours AND then setting up camp


You know settingup camp right outside teh LBEG(little bad evil guy) base of operations is the best choice ever right?


idk why but its happened to me 5 times now.

Omg, I know this one. Or, basically, they take all day doing something not so dangerous, arrive at the danger bit right before night, and decide to get some rest before confronting the danger. Rhymes with "ambush." Anyone? Right, the answer is "AMBUSH."

My rant is about players turning the tables on me. Just when I thought I had someone typed, knew what to expect, he goes and plays something rather thoughtful, not smart, but well-thought-out, a more complicated character with room to grow. This coming from the guy that was previously all anarchists, pyros, and misanthropes. Now he's got his character doing whacky stuff like being brave, proceeding logically, taking responsibility for her actions...oh, well, not quite that far.

It's not a terrible problem, to be sure, and I would normally give my eye teeth for him to play this way. It's just...NOW I CAN'T KILL HER AND NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT IT...well, I can, it just might jeopardize his growth as a player, that and all the evil laughter that I just can't seem to suppress....

[RolandDeschain]

yep

the lawful stupid paladin and the the menacing, conflicted rogue drive me a little crazy

[Thaxton 76]

I had a Ninja who was danm good at sneaking and hiding in shadows. I also had one guy who when we were rolling the random magical item they found at the end of the adventure got a weapon. The bastard would not stop rolling 00. I made him change dice three TIMES and still 00 or 99. It had like 8 difrent enchantments on it. So after a random goddess of magic swooped down from the sky and scolded them for even touching the thing and taking it back with her she left them with a deck of many things. The aforementioned Ninja got the lvl 4 fighter. So I cackled psychotically and gave him one. The fighter he got had 19 STR 19 DEX 19 CON 19 CHR. ....7 INT 7 WIS. The fighter also had no concept of volume control when speaking. He was how ever loyal and subservient to the ninja and always answered with a slightly retarded YES MASTER! (oh yeah with enthusiasm) to the ninjas every command. The Ninja went sneaking off and makes lots of good sneak rolls when he looks up and sees his loyal servant right there. The ninja is very close to the bad guys. Then ninja looks over and says SHHHHHH to the fighter who replies YES MASTER! Sorry dont know why I related this little scene other than a DM's rant.

[Averis Vol]

My party, in every game we have played, has earned the title "Bad Company". This was brought up in our first game. they were a small squad of the military who:

Walked willingly into an ambush and got half of their supplies destroyed
Set a friendly village on fire during another ambush
Left their mushroom addicted captain in a rainstorm, while they took a pair of wagons and continued on without him. They remembered that they left him stoned and alone with a broken leg six days later.
Decided to mistrust an old hermit seeking to shelter them for the night, but instead chose to trust the blatantly chaotic evil werewolf/chosen of the beast lord malar.


Other encounters from different games include them unleashing a bound demon because it is the only person who said please before asking them for something, broke into the mayors room and held him over a balcony by his shirt because they thought he was a member of a cult with no reliable information (They asked a bipolar beggar to get their lead) and finally Shot a housecleaner because they got attacked three nights in a row and were wound so tight any contact would spring them loose.

[sambouchah]

A friend in our group plays the same three characters in EVERY campaign we play. I mean, I play quite a few druids but they aren't all named "X", with the same Prestige class, base class, back story, mannerisms, race, etc. His diversity level is 0%. Always a Stonechild(Full RHD and LA rather than racial progression), Barbarian/Dervish or Rogue/Shadowdancer, usually a loner type who doesn't take help from others. When help is received(DFI, buffs the party casters, etc) he gets the biggest stupid grin like he did that by himself. He doesn't realize that without the Bard, Wizard, Cleric and whatever else we have he would suck. A LOT.

Today in fact, playing his same old character, he decides at level 8 he is gonna solo an 18th level druid with an insane animal companion. He had somehow become a vampire and thought Gaseous Form means "You can't touch me, you can't see me, good luck finding me." He was destroyed in one round, and only when our Face stepped in was he spared from being completely erased.

Just... Ugh!:smallyuk:

[Starchild7309]

We had a guest player one time, a friend of one of our players come by, brought his character from another campaign. (We were looking for help anyway for a dangerous mission.) This dope Dm's his own campaign, so we assumed he had a grasp of the rules. We are fighting of of the BBEG's generals, a mage; something like 17th lvl. The dope readies a spell in case the BBEG casts something offensive. There goes the BBEG...spellcraft Finger of Death. Our dope casts create water over his head. When our DM rolls a concentration check just to make the dope happy, the dope flips out saying there is no way he could make that check cause it spell lvl plus 1 for every gallon of water dumped on his head. And he could create 30+ gallons of water and he just kept going on and on. So just to make him happy our DM rolls the check again, this time in the open and kills it rolls like a 19 and has some ungodly + to concentration. The dope jumps up, screams something we couldn't understand and storms off and went home.

[Greenish]

Other encounters from different games include them unleashing a bound demon because it is the only person who said please before asking them for somethingThat's a perfectly valid reason. It's the magic word, don'tcha know.

[Bullet06320]

Yeah, some people just lack originality LOL. Often times it's just a lack of experience. I was like that when I first started D&D, too.

The worst I have in my group is most of them can't stop playing themselves rather than giving their characters unique personalities.

I used this concept for a game, I had all my players roll themselves up as characters, using modernd20 rules, everyone was to base their characters as themselves in highschool, 16-17 years old, wat hobbies, wat studies, wat u thought of yourself, wat u wanted to do, how u visioned yourself.
I had just finished watching all the season of sliders and used that for sum inspiration, with alternate selves and wat not, and ending up in the forgotten realms running through the avatar series of adventures, was one of the best campaigns I ever ran

[Slipperychicken]

I had a Ninja who was danm good at sneaking and hiding in shadows. I also had one guy who when we were rolling the random magical item they found at the end of the adventure got a weapon. The bastard would not stop rolling 00. I made him change dice three TIMES and still 00 or 99. It had like 8 difrent enchantments on it.

Dude, you should have let him keep that thing.. and then try to fend off all the people who would want such a badass artifact-level sword :smallbiggrin:

Also, if you don't want people to get treasure like that, then pre-roll it. Nothing says you have to roll treasure at the table. This also helps you avoid things like "goblins attack with garbage non-masterwork clubs... they have a +5 Flaming longsword in their backpack"

[MonochromeTiger]

I had a Ninja who was danm good at sneaking and hiding in shadows. I also had one guy who when we were rolling the random magical item they found at the end of the adventure got a weapon. The bastard would not stop rolling 00. I made him change dice three TIMES and still 00 or 99. It had like 8 difrent enchantments on it. So after a random goddess of magic swooped down from the sky and scolded them for even touching the thing and taking it back with her she left them with a deck of many things. The aforementioned Ninja got the lvl 4 fighter. So I cackled psychotically and gave him one. The fighter he got had 19 STR 19 DEX 19 CON 19 CHR. ....7 INT 7 WIS. The fighter also had no concept of volume control when speaking. He was how ever loyal and subservient to the ninja and always answered with a slightly retarded YES MASTER! (oh yeah with enthusiasm) to the ninjas every command. The Ninja went sneaking off and makes lots of good sneak rolls when he looks up and sees his loyal servant right there. The ninja is very close to the bad guys. Then ninja looks over and says SHHHHHH to the fighter who replies YES MASTER! Sorry dont know why I related this little scene other than a DM's rant.

so... you used a loot system that has a chance of giving an astoundingly good item...then take it away AND spite the player's main playstyle because they were lucky enough to get one... I can't possibly see why your players would do things to annoy you, not revenge at all..

my biggest recurring annoyance is when the group I usually have to DM in gets friends of the other players to sit in for a campaign.. they usually know nothing of the rules, can't be bothered to RP or even remember what they did in previous sessions, and will ignore all plot progression that the other players are listening to in order to kick down another door.... and of course they're all drow named drrzrr't or similar names, suffice to say it is now a rule in that group that if you're a dual wielding drow ranger with a panther pet you have to pass a handle animal check every round not to have your panther brutally maim you while every NPC around points and laughs...

[Fates]

My players love intra-party conflict. It seems like in my games, the commonly-held view is that the best way to resolve disputes or to establish control is to beat one's party members senseless, or sometimes to death.

There was one case, where the players had just burned down a city (a good act, you see, because the city was a military city, at least 65% evil, and also controlled by an institution the players are sworn to destroy). The warlock, who had been the one to start the fire, was killed by a guard there who's wife and children had died in the fire, which he did explain to the warlock before killing her- she did feel bad about it afterwards, though, which totally makes up for it.

Anyway, the rest of the party was not aware that she had died, and was regrouping outside the city walls. Knowing that the surviving guard would soon be on their collective tails, the barbarian suggested the party leave immediately. The ninja, who was an elf, refused to abandon the warlock because she was also an elf, and the elves in this particular campaign are a bit racist. Of course, that's not the excuse he used- he said that he simply didn't want to abandon a comrade, but everyone knew that's what he meant, and he had proven his disdain for his non-elven party members in the past. This lead to the barbarian punching the ninja in the face (he didn't have improved unarmed strike, so it wasn't that big a deal.) The ninja responded by attacking him with a pair of kamas, doing considerable damage. Two other members of the party managed to grapple the agitators into submission, and they agreed not to fight. A few minutes later, when the party was preparing to leave, the ninja attacked the barbarian again, this time doing sudden strike damage, and killing him. The rest of the party didn't much care at that point, as the bard had just found the warlock's remains, and so the group was going to be searching for someone with resurrection spells anyway.

Mind you, most of the members of this group are TN or LN.

[Sir Chuckles]

General rant time? General rant time!

Now I have a player who does do the "sit int eh corner all broody" thing, and he's even a Drow sometimes. His last character was a Warlock. However, the Drow Rogue? Nope, no scimitars. Dual Bastard Swords, and he Lawful Evil. Played the "Drug Cartel" leader perfectly.

On the other hand, I have a player who likes basically the same things as Mr. Lawful Evil up there. Except he's significantly more Munchkin.
His first character was a Drow Sorcerer that he said "was friends with Player A's character". Player A never fully agreed to this, and treated his character and the player with disdain. This Sorcerer died to a group of Goblins at Lv2, when he refused to cast spells, and instead attempted to fight in melee using gauntlets, a few rounds after he tried to throw a javelin by punching it (As in tossing the javelin into the air and punching the butt end).
He got mad that he wasn't killing the Goblins that way, and wasn't killing everything everywhere as a Sorcerer with gauntlets.

His next character was a bog-standard Ranger, imitating another of my players who likes Scouts and Rangers. He thought the fact that he could shoot two or three arrows a round was the greatest thing ever, and when his character fell faaar behind in damage (he spent his money of Panic Buttons of Escape, so his normal Longbow was neither magical nor Masterwork, at Lv7), he retired the character and was unable to play for awhile. When he came back, everyone was at an average of Lv18 (Yeah, he was gone for quite a long time). During this time he was away, he was spamming my Facebook inbox with "Can I make this character in DnD?" and links to youtube videos of Final Fantasy trailers and animes that nobody ever heard of.

When he did come back, he had a character named Ragnarok already written up. With pre-rolled stats, meaning he had 18 in Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma, and Dexterity. With a 16 in Intelligence, cuz ya know, he had to be believable. It was a Lizardfolk Fighter 9/Cleric 9 wielding a Large Warhammer that he named "Oppai" (a Japanese? word meaning "large breasts").

And encounter or two later, after we had all explained to him that a Lv9 Cleric does not get 9th level spells (He was getting mad because he couldn't cast Implosion), he retired this character, stating "He goes back to his family, because he needs to take care of and protect them."

I don't even remember what character he had next, I killed it instantly with the BBEG, before he even wrote it up (He never has a character sheet unless someone else brings him one, or is prewritten by someone else). So he brought back Ragnarok, who died in the final battle with the BBEG (Along with all but two other players, Player A and a guy that I have never killed because it just...it...doesn't. It just does not.), and proceeded to get angry because I had the gall to kill two of his character.
I have another player who I've killed 11 times. He used to make really weird and off-the-wall (But not in a good way) characters that were functionally broken. He now makes moderately flavorful and well-built ones.

Now, today, he exclusively uses a character sheet app on his phone, plays character that always have two 18s or more, rolls nothing but 15+, and if it's not a throw-away character that he all but jumps into shark infested water, it's another copy-paste from a video game or anime.

Character names he's had:
Ragnarok
Excalibur (Vetoed. Hard.)
Dayve "Boomer" Shyn
(Straight up copied name I can't remember)
Umbra Bloodstone
Aerith Magus
...and the list goes on....

The icing on the cake? He role plays every single character the same, no matter the alignment on the paper. Lawful Neutral Monk? He kicks in the door, lights a puppy on fire, and kidnaps the party's Cleric. Chaotic Neutral arse Fighter? Well, he's an extremist Chaotic Evil now.

Cherry on that icing?
Even though myself and 4/7(Well...2/4. Player A up there hasn't been able to play, one moved away, and one forgot to take his meds before showing up and said some irrevocable things) of my other players agree that he's a genuine problem, one doesn't care and the other is non-confrontational to point where he refuses to let us kick him out (Re-inviting him to every session, leaving the room if we bring it up, etc.)

[Hytheter]

Dual Bastard Swords
That sounds feat intensive, sub-optimal and totally badass.

[Totema]

As long as we're ranting about our players, let me just say... in my current campaign, I pretty much have to lead my players around by the nose just to do anything. I'll grant that they're all new players, but even when I was new I was willing to experiment and see what I could get away with. These guys, though... if I don't have some extremely obvious path laid out for them, they'll pretty much do nothing.

It has been getting better in the past couple of sessions, I'm glad to say. The party cleric sort of slipped into the role of the face, and ends up doing the most interaction with NPCs. But, for the most part, everyone else stares blankly until I say something happens to their character. I'd love to find a way to get everyone involved during roleplaying scenes.

[Squirrel_Dude]

So this happened once:
Summer before the game started
Male Player (MP): I'm going to play a female gunslinger named Blondie.
Me (DM): Are you sure?
MP: Yeah
Me: Alright. I trust you, just don't do anything too stupid or awkward.

First session
MP: I go up to try and get in the Palace
Me: The guard asks for a form granting admittance
MP: We don't have one.
Me: Uh huh. You can't get in.
MP: I flash mah big bewbs at him!
Me: :smalleek: :smallannoyed:

[the_david]

Kitchensink players. You know them, the ones that always want to play something totally out of place.

Something about a hellbred knight in Dragonlance when at that period only humans where allowed to become knights of Ansalon...

[Evandar]

One of my players basically played Wulfgar in every campaign for two years, another played the haunted ex-special forces rogue for every game, and our third player constantly churned out guys with no RP, minimal combat prowess although he assured us his build would be totally unstoppable by like, level 20. (We always start at like, level 1 and wrap up by level 5 due to boredom or people starting classes -- not that we minded.)

[Gwazi Magnum]

The first one is really mechanics fault (Not D&D mechanics though).

-When a Player ramps up a skill so high at the start like Speech that it's outright impossible to have any NPC compete with them or have a chance of beating them without the NPC being the biggest sweet talker in the Galaxy.

The second is basically when players mix really well.

-My first time DM'ing or playing table top ever. I was reading from a star wars adventure booklet to get used to the game and DM'ing. The adventure was made for 4 players... only 2 players are in and were skilled enough I didn't bother lowering the difficulty.

Basically, they hit a point that's meant to be a long and drawn out battle with the empire to get some much needed goods for the rebellion. The two of them through genius planning destroyed the entire patrol before they even had time to react... And no they weren't force sensitive.

[Vortenger]

That sounds feat intensive, sub-optimal and totally badass.

Lesser Sun Sword from Return to Ravenloft. Costs 3k and can be wielded as though a short sword. Probably not what they were talking about, but absolutely do-able.

[Eonir]

My party, in every game we have played, has earned the title "Bad Company". This was brought up in our first game. they were a small squad of the military who:

Walked willingly into an ambush and got half of their supplies destroyed
Set a friendly village on fire during another ambush
Left their mushroom addicted captain in a rainstorm, while they took a pair of wagons and continued on without him. They remembered that they left him stoned and alone with a broken leg six days later.
Decided to mistrust an old hermit seeking to shelter them for the night, but instead chose to trust the blatantly chaotic evil werewolf/chosen of the beast lord malar.


Other encounters from different games include them unleashing a bound demon because it is the only person who said please before asking them for something, broke into the mayors room and held him over a balcony by his shirt because they thought he was a member of a cult with no reliable information (They asked a bipolar beggar to get their lead) and finally Shot a housecleaner because they got attacked three nights in a row and were wound so tight any contact would spring them loose.

In your player's defense, all that sounds like a seriously awesome game. And isn't that the whole point, to have the best time you can?

[theIrkin]

a player with a psion/wizard theurge cannot get over how broken my human factotum is. and oh god, the one time i rolled with a swordsage for a few weeks, he just about banned me (we play at his apartment). like, really?

but really, i'm just holding a grudge. he's gotten a better grasp of my classes, and doesn't bug me much. he still cannot see why his character should be toned back though...

[SowZ]

Yeah, some people just lack originality LOL. Often times it's just a lack of experience. I was like that when I first started D&D, too.

The worst I have in my group is most of them can't stop playing themselves rather than giving their characters unique personalities.

Playing themselves as a fantasy character is still a lot better than playing Drizz't Do'Urden.

Played a sci-fi super game once. One player took time travelling/dimension hopping powers and spent all his resource points on two things. One, a sassy scottish cohort and two, a handheld gizmo that was a super-computer/ultimate electronic lockpick rolled into one with a point and click design.

About fifteen minutes into his introductory session one of the other players shouts out, "Wait a minute!"

[Totema]

Playing themselves as a fantasy character is still a lot better than playing Drizz't Do'Urden.

Played a sci-fi super game once. One player took time travelling/dimension hopping powers and spent all his resource points on two things. One, a sassy scottish cohort and two, a handheld gizmo that was a super-computer/ultimate electronic lockpick rolled into one with a point and click design.

About fifteen minutes into his introductory session one of the other players shouts out, "Wait a minute!"
Please don't tell me he also got regenerating powers.

[TuggyNE]

In your player's defense, all that sounds like a seriously awesome game. And isn't that the whole point, to have the best time you can?

What are you talking about (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeriousBusiness)? That's clearly not the point at all (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys).

For example, we all know that the proper way to deal with overpowered 3.x spellcasters is to ruthlessly cut back on their effectiveness in every possible way, paying no heed to their cries of destroyed fun. (Yes, only yesterday I saw an apparently serious argument to this effect.)

Edit:

Please don't tell me he also got regenerating powers.

:thog: OK, Thog not tell you.

[Averis Vol]

Kitchensink players. You know them, the ones that always want to play something totally out of place.

Something about a hellbred knight in Dragonlance when at that period only humans where allowed to become knights of Ansalon...

Thats the awesome thing about hellbred (Sorry to directly object to what you said) is that yea, maybe at that time he could not have been allowed to become a knight because of his form, but when he still lived his first life, he was easily able to become one, it was just a cruel turn of fate that he got turned to the corrupt side and died with a tag of pure evil. When he was brought back, he may not be allowed to be a knight of common days, but he still retained the knowledge and training of all those years ago.

Hellbred are ****ing awesome.

[AstralFire]

I have never once had a player who invoked Drizzt as anything but parody and and several who have no idea who he is, to the point that I literally cannot remember the last time I made a joke about him.

[BWR]

In one game I'm running one of the PCs is the heir to a kingdom (ignoring how he gave almost no detail and basically told me to do what I wanted with the kingdom, then got kind of annoyed that it was not as big as he envisioned it). Long story short, the kingdom is now sat on by a big black dragon.
Since the kingdom is part of the Alphatian Empire, the PC wants to make sure her legal right as ruler is acknowledged, and wants to meet with the Empress.
Fair enough, I suppose.

She also wants to get married to someone of political and hopefully military might, or more likely the child of one, to help take back her kingdom. Er, ok, but who is going to want to marry someone and risk life and limb killing off a giant dragon in order to help someone else? What guarentees does she have for success, what do they get out of it other than a relatively unimportant ruler as a distant ally (different continent, in most of the cases)?
No reply except a lot of sighing and inability to say anything specific.

Next session, it's clarified that what the player meant was she wants someone to help back her claim once she's kicked out the dragon.
Also fine. But again, why would anyone help her? What do they get out of it?
No real response other than a lot of sighing and hemming and hawing and mumbled comments about how it's useful.

The player just doesn't seem to understand is why no one thinks she's a decent match. As it stands the PC has a legal claim to something she doesn't have control over, has at present no real prospects of regaining it, has no guarentee that marrying her will bring any sort of advantage to the family whose son she marries.
I've pointed this out both IC and OOC, and he just gets pissy that he can't get anything worthwhile.
On top of that, the one NPC who pointed out bluntly what her problems were and what she should do to fix it (which I had to say, literally, "I'm giving you a plot hook here" because he didn't get it), the PC assumes the NPC is being too hostile because he wants to get her married into his family and take over the country and oust her. The one NPC that didn't just politely give her attention or ignore her but actually gave decent advice was the one she didn't trust.

All of this after the player wondered why no one wanted to marry his character and basically get a country to run because she wouldn't do much of it.


I like this player. He's a great guy but sometimes I just do not understand his reasoning. Miscommunication happens a lot, really, because what he says and what I hear are apparantly two different things, then after a lot of frustration and weirdness he says what he is trying to do is very different from what he said earlier. It doesn't help that he has little ability to put into words what he wants to do.

[cakellene]

Playing themselves as a fantasy character is still a lot better than playing Drizz't Do'Urden.

Played a sci-fi super game once. One player took time travelling/dimension hopping powers and spent all his resource points on two things. One, a sassy scottish cohort and two, a handheld gizmo that was a super-computer/ultimate electronic lockpick rolled into one with a point and click design.

About fifteen minutes into his introductory session one of the other players shouts out, "Wait a minute!"

I don't get the reference.

[BWR]

Doctor Who. Amy and nuWho sonic screwdriver.

[cakellene]

Doctor Who. Amy and nuWho sonic screwdriver.

Ah, never saw any of Doctor Who.

[Sith_Happens]

But again, why would anyone help her? What do they get out of it?

They get her. Surely there's at least one relatively well-placed noble who's sufficiently succeptible to eyelash-batting for this plan to work.

[Averis Vol]

They get her. Surely there's at least one relatively well-placed noble who's sufficiently succeptible to eyelash-batting for this plan to work.

They could also get good trade access to anything unique or special about the land. Granted, I don't know what the country has, but even if it has forests or a small mountain range, that could be access to cheap stone, ore and lumber, along with access to any cheap produce which comes from the country.

It could also gain them a dowry in the form of, say, 30% of the dragons horde.

Tons of stuff that could be useful, and probably something someone would be eager to jump at. Sure, it's a gamble, but it's pretty high risk high reward, gotta be someone that respects that.

[Totema]

*Lots of words*
Honestly, this sounds really sad to me. It seems like this player wants to do something interesting with the game but isn't sure how it would work, setting and/or mechanic-wise. I think you should sit down with him and discuss it at length, and try to get an understanding of what he wants and how he can get it.

[BWR]

Sure, a sorcereress with 28 Charisma and a 33 Diplomacy modifier.
She did use her charms to devestating effect on one of her potentional partners, from the one kingdom that could probably do most to help her.
And the player totally ignored the guy in favor of his father and did absolutely nothing to capitalize on the issue, like seducing the kid and getting him to convice his father.
That would have a much higher chance of succeeding than trying to convince people to help her for no real gain. Instead she just talks to daddy and plays off a "oh, just dropping by" routine rather than actually trying to make a deal.

[SowZ]

Please don't tell me he also got regenerating powers.

It was a few sessions until he had the XP to buy it, but yes, by the end of the campaign he had regeneration. Not high level wounds close up in combat style regeneration but a lower level version where if his body is not destroyed after he is killed, it slowly knits itself back together.

I decided to limit it by saying his appearance stat gets docked every time he used it. It worked with the way he fluffed the power and yet it still discouraged him from over relying on it. (Which the way he fluffed it was actually kind of funny. If he loses a body part or some skin or something, he just steals it from a healthy, alternate reality version of himself in some other timeline who is walking around normally then goes 'Hey, what?')

((To be fair to the player, he regretted his reference and fairly soon made his character have a personality and moral code different than the Doctors, and his backstory was completely different than the Doctors. And we actually worked it in in a way that was pretty interesting to the story if you could look past the reference. But still.))



Point being, people playing themselves is not the worst thing a new person can do.

[Greenish]

I have never once had a player who invoked Drizzt as anything but parody and and several who have no idea who he is, to the point that I literally cannot remember the last time I made a joke about him.Now I want to make a DFI bard with Leadership, with all of my followers being CG drow TWFing scimitars. I shall call it, "the legion of lone hunters".

[Doorhandle]

Yeah, the Drizzt archetype is quite lame... but maybe that's because you did not have the luck to see a dwarven warrior using a rapier, charging in full plate on a flying carpet. Good lord, that's awful!

Is it wrong that the last part sounds awesome to me?

[theIrkin]

No, a dwarf wielding a rapier in full plate charging in on a flying carpet is certifiably awesome. I contend that it is simply so mind-numbingly awesome that, had someone presented it to you at the table instead of in this watered down format, your head would have exploded. You would be catatonic and thereby convinced that something was lame instead of understanding how it was composed of pure win.

[Sith_Happens]

It could also gain them a dowry in the form of, say, 30% of the dragons horde.

Ooh, that's a good one too.


Sure, a sorcereress with 28 Charisma and a 33 Diplomacy modifier.

You know, I'm pretty sure that being high enough level to have a 28 ability score in the first place it itself an incredibly desirable trait.


She did use her charms to devestating effect on one of her potentional partners, from the one kingdom that could probably do most to help her.
And the player totally ignored the guy in favor of his father and did absolutely nothing to capitalize on the issue, like seducing the kid and getting him to convice his father.
That would have a much higher chance of succeeding than trying to convince people to help her for no real gain. Instead she just talks to daddy and plays off a "oh, just dropping by" routine rather than actually trying to make a deal.

...But of course, all of the marriageable qualities in the world are going to do squat if you ignore your suitors and/or don't actually get how the whole "political marriage" thing works.

In fact, you might want to make sure that your player isn't somehow under the impression that one has to score the current throne-holder specifically rather than literally anyone in their close-ish family.

[Red Fel]

Doctor Who. Amy and nuWho sonic screwdriver.

Jamie McCrimmon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_McCrimmon) would like to have a word with you.

More on point, here's mine, and it's more a case of sympathy for the DM than personal frustration as one.

I was in an evil campaign. The only evil campaign I ever played as a player. I've played evil characters before - and well, and enjoyed it - but this was the one time I was supposed to be in an entire party of evil characters. It was going to be fun, so I thought.

There was my character, a CE male succubus whose class I don't even remember; there was a CN (insane) Forsaker; there was a CN/CE Rogue; the most non-evil Red Wizard I've ever met, and one other guy who manages to play the heroic swordsman no matter what our campaign is. We're being employed by the Thayans.

Now, I admit, I kind of provoked. At the time, I was a bit of an immature player. So I thought it would be amusing and in character for a CE demon to walk around the castle with no pants on, purely to shock (and possibly seduce) the mortals inside. (The DM asked me to roll a check to see how "impressive" my display was. I got a critical success. He was not amused.) The Forsaker spent his time eagerly smashing anything that so much as looked magical. The Red Wizard PC was a sweet little angel. It was surreal.

We stopped in at an inn. It was a dive, and my CE character said so. Made a lot of disparaging remarks, and apparently cheesed off the innkeeper. So the DM decided to have the innkeeper retaliate in a rather unorthodox manner.

The innkeeper paid three burly orcs to go upstairs, to violate my character in an intimate and forceful manner, to subsequently beat him unconscious, and then to put him in a chastity belt. I can't help but feel that the lattermost step was the DM's revenge for my earlier crit success.
My character wakes up in the morning, feeling sore, violated, and extremely angry, and proceeds to go downstairs to torture the crap out of the innkeeper. Chaotic Evil demon, remember? Not to mention that, earlier in the evening, my character had made no secret that he was working for the Thayans, and we were still in Thayan-ruled lands. So there were going to be some consequences.

The other members of my "evil" party stopped me. Even when I reminded them that this person knowingly acted against an agent of the Thayan government. Even when I informed them of what this guy did. Even when I pointed out that my character was a fricking demon. No, they said, it would be wrongful to torture him.

What.

So our "evil" party departed the inn, went off into the woods, and I committed suicide-by-Lammasu as soon as possible. Campaign dematerialized very shortly thereafter.

The "Omg Why" here is this: Why would a player play in an evil campaign if they had no willingness to do evil? Yes, my character was over the top - I realize that now - but you'd think that at least one of the other players would have enjoyed watching a demonic torture session in action.

Go fig.

[PraxisVetli]

We were epic, maybe 25-27, and we were in a jam.
It was us vs Bane, Lloth, and Besheba.
Team was
Druid/Catlord (foribly healer
Cleric/Telepath (healbot/moron)
Sorcerer/archmage (evo spec'd)
Fighter/Sorc (twf)
Ranger/Fighter (bow)
Bard/Auspician
Bard/Assin
Assassin/Rouge,
Druid
(first campaign, so of course the Players Handbook has all the best classes/feats/spells in the game, that's why they got published first. duhhhh)
Bane crapped out like nine avatars, which the Sorcerer (me), the Fighter, The Ranger, and the assassin promptly engage. The two bards engage Besheba, and The Duids were on Lloth.
Healbots healin.
Things were actually going well, the managed to take out Besheba, which of course made things much easier. Bane was down to 6 avi's, and was personally looking kinda hurt.
Druids were lightning raining elemental ripping zoofisting Lloth, so that was good.
Fun day, you know? then.....
OMG 'RASQUE!!!!!!!
One of Bane's caster avatars gets killed, begins to sizzle, and a bunch of SUPER DEATH-SMELLY UBERMEGA EVIL artifacts pour out. Our cleric, intent of destroying evil, promptly runs over to the artifact pile. Then casts "Shatter"* *
*for this DM, when magicy things break, multispell wild surge happens.
* She was fully aware.
* PILE OF ARTIFACTS
we stare at her dumbfounded, try to convince her that this is a terrible idea, and will kill the group. She insists, saying that is absolutely what her character would do. DM argues in an effort to save the group, saying the character was plenty smart enough to know that magic beeing sundered goes boom, she'd seen it before, almost been killed by it plenty of times, and that she was standing in front of like, 7 epic evil artifacts.
She doesn't care, refuses to listen to reason or back down, starts bawling/screaming "Shatter!"
GETOUTTADODGE.JPG
ArcaneNuclearKaPloohey.gif
So we all through various means leave the area immediately.
In later scrying attempts, all anyone can find is a super crater, and clerics of all three gods are suddenly either very respectful, or very hostile.

[Grayson01]

I had a Ninja who was danm good at sneaking and hiding in shadows. I also had one guy who when we were rolling the random magical item they found at the end of the adventure got a weapon. The bastard would not stop rolling 00. I made him change dice three TIMES and still 00 or 99. It had like 8 difrent enchantments on it. So after a random goddess of magic swooped down from the sky and scolded them for even touching the thing and taking it back with her she left them with a deck of many things. The aforementioned Ninja got the lvl 4 fighter. So I cackled psychotically and gave him one. The fighter he got had 19 STR 19 DEX 19 CON 19 CHR. ....7 INT 7 WIS. The fighter also had no concept of volume control when speaking. He was how ever loyal and subservient to the ninja and always answered with a slightly retarded YES MASTER! (oh yeah with enthusiasm) to the ninjas every command. The Ninja went sneaking off and makes lots of good sneak rolls when he looks up and sees his loyal servant right there. The ninja is very close to the bad guys. Then ninja looks over and says SHHHHHH to the fighter who replies YES MASTER! Sorry dont know why I related this little scene other than a DM's rant.

Why would you do that?

[00dlez]

Have them falsely arrested the next time they are in a major city because they match the description of members of a major crime ring?

Could actually become a legit story arc as they try to clear their names... at very least it would make them reconsider their appearance for a session or two as they "disguise" themselves.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Jamie McCrimmon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_McCrimmon) Words.

Dude seriously maybe your character was a bit risque but that DM had a "magical realm" vibe going on

[Faily]

I can relate to the "player who will always play something that is technically out of place".

Got one player I know who is perhaps the best optimizer in the group.

In an Elf-campaign, where everyone played elves fighting to regain their homelands and such (and rooting out enemies of the elven race). First opportunity, he brought in a Human character.

Will play a Cleric, but only because Cleric is one of the most powerful classes. Screw religion, mysticism, spirituality or divinity.
Almost makes me wish there were rules about how a Cleric must put ranks in Knowledge: Religion and actually be pious. :P


I have plenty of stories of players making Bad Decisions when I gamemaster L5R, but since this is the d20 forum, I'll keep it for some other time. ;)





Stuff

Said character also hasn't offered anything in return for those she would want to ally with her. No offer of special trade agreements, magic items, slaves, treasure, etc...
The only offer seem to be "your son will be married to me".

[BWR]

Jamie McCrimmon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_McCrimmon) would like to have a word with you.


I wouldn't describe James Robert McCrimmon as 'sassy'. And the sonic screwdriver was just a screwdriver back then.
Jaime happens to be one of my favorite companions (vying for that honor with Romana and Leela)



...But of course, all of the marriageable qualities in the world are going to do squat if you ignore your suitors and/or don't actually get how the whole "political marriage" thing works.

In fact, you might want to make sure that your player isn't somehow under the impression that one has to score the current throne-holder specifically rather than literally anyone in their close-ish family.
Oh he knows. I gave him a list of potential mates and noted most of them were not in the line of succession or otherwise undesirable.
And it isn't that the player can't do intrigue or politics - he ran quite possibly the best game I've ever played in, a V:tM game high on backstabbing and politics and intrigue, and he's done a lot of similar good stuff in Ars Magica.

But for some reason this one situation just does not compute. If he usually had problems with this sort of stuff I would have a better idea how to handle it but normally he does well.

[Slipperychicken]

She could do it the Crusader Kings way: Marry into the family, and then assassinate everyone else who has a claim. Then when succession falls to her, then she inherits the throne.



Next session, it's clarified that what the player meant was she wants someone to help back her claim once she's kicked out the dragon.
Also fine. But again, why would anyone help her? What do they get out of it?

You guys could take a night and watch Game of Thrones together. In addition to being totally awesome, it illustrates the difference between de jure (in law) and de facto (in reality) claims.

[Harlot]

It could be worse, you could have a halfling character who is a mix between Thor and Belkar who throws around a big giant hammer that dazes like 8 people per round
OMG made me laugh so hard, that is pretty much my first character ever right there! Only it was a gnome with a greataxe, but close enough!

Anyway, one of my players has this odd principle of never surrendering his weapons. I don't think he even knows that he does it (he is, frankly, not a very smart guy IRL), but it's a surefire thing: If you want him dead, just let the group meet some superior force that wants them alive, thus asking them to surrender and hand over their weapons. He'll surrender allright, but always insists he keeps his weapon. The group and the DM goes 'WTF, not AGAIN' and he will be slain on spot, since ofcourse they wont let him.

So actually it is sort of a challenge to capture the group without him killing himself every time.

[Legendxp]

I had a DM who, just to prove me wrong, invented an entirely new armor system. He thought you could wear leather armor underneath half-plate to gain the AC of both. I showed him in the book where armor bonuses don't stack and he said two things.

1). He's the DM, he can rule whatever he wants (Which is true, but if you make something new every time someone quotes the rules, people aren't going to know what is or isn't allowed)

2). "It doesn't say you can't" wear more than one armor at the same time.

*facepalm*

[Scow2]

Your DM is more right than you, sort of.

[Faily]

Well, yes, he is correct that there is no rule against wearing more than one armor. Though again, the rules point out that the bonus of armor do not stack. You are however quite free to take the Armor Check penalties for both armors, not to mention the weight of them both too. And don't forget, if both are enchanted, only one will take effect at any time. Just like wearing two cloaks, or more than two rings, or wearing a magical helmet over your magical hat. :smallbiggrin:



Another player from the table:

Player who thinks he's an optimizer, but actually does not really have a solid grasp of the rules. Or just ignores them.
Made a Lawful Good Half-Celestial Aasimar, who was also a Mindbender.
GM points out "uhm, you can't be Lawful Good AND be a Mindbender. The prestige class says as a requirement that it's Any Non-Good alignment."
Player responds "yeah, but I just ignored that, because alignment-restrictions are silly."

Without, you know, asking the GM if he had any opinions on alignment-restrictions in his game world.

In general, he's the type that likes to play something with so much LA that he's barely a first level character when everyone else is 5-7...

[MonochromeTiger]

What are you talking about (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeriousBusiness)? That's clearly not the point at all (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys).

For example, we all know that the proper way to deal with overpowered 3.x spellcasters is to ruthlessly cut back on their effectiveness in every possible way, paying no heed to their cries of destroyed fun. (Yes, only yesterday I saw an apparently serious argument to this effect.)

Edit:


:thog: OK, Thog not tell you.

...tuggy you make me smile...that is probably a bad sign.

[TheCrowing1432]

Had a bunch of neutrals decide to go evil.

The girl they were supposed to rescue, they decided to extort more money from the people paying for her return, then kill her anyway, then for kicks the cleric raise dead'd her and uses her as a pack mule.

[Thaxton 76]

It is ok people said Ninja did not die and one of the players gave up his character just to play the ninjas minion. He called him Domas ( pronounced dumba**) and was one of the more popular characters in the game. I would like to point out that if you do feel sorry for the Ninja then you are vastly underestimating him. He was brilliant in using his minion even when it was played by another player.

As for why I let the players roll loot? It's fun for them, they feel involved and there is no complaining about what they get cause they rolled it. And yes as DM I sometimes have to take something away but I talk to the group and explain why and generally speaking they respect that.

[MonochromeTiger]

Oh he knows. I gave him a list of potential mates and noted most of them were not in the line of succession or otherwise undesirable.
And it isn't that the player can't do intrigue or politics - he ran quite possibly the best game I've ever played in, a V:tM game high on backstabbing and politics and intrigue, and he's done a lot of similar good stuff in Ars Magica.

But for some reason this one situation just does not compute. If he usually had problems with this sort of stuff I would have a better idea how to handle it but normally he does well.

well..I can kind of see where he's going by talking to the heads of family instead of the interested suitors, he's attempting to get the actual power in the family involved instead of expecting the son to be capable of helping...which isn't the brightest plan since the head of the family is far more likely to think tactically if approached by a noble who is obviously in a weak position than if they are approached by their loved and protected son and his new bride.

on the not having anything to give thing I think my wife summed it up when she heard about this. "she's an adventurer and a noble, that's plenty. if she goes adventuring and finds treasure her cut is split by the marriage to partially supplement the family, also no one needs to dote on her every need or worry about her too much unless they need her to pop out an heir or a fun night in the castle. if she dies on an adventure the noble is free to marry someone else with no blame on him and he can have all the flings he wants while she's away"......she's a bit weird on that whole love and trust thing but it does make a bit of sense.

[Threadnaught]

I referred to a 30th level Elven Generalist Wizard as "a Wizard of death", my Druid player (that ******* Druid) immediately decided that his character had to kill this Wizard, who had just the day before, taken in the other player's Wizard as his apprentice. The Wizard had learned a Spell from this character and is set to learn a few more, they both know this.

Reason t*D wanted to kill the Elf? Because the only time anyone ever refers to a Wizard as being a "Wizard of death" is when they're a Necromancer and Druids oppose Necromancers so violently that they just have to kill any Necromancer they meet, no matter what alignment the Necromancer is or how much more powerful they are than the Druid. The Druid decided that he'd like to murder the Elf in his sleep since he enjoyed winning a fight that the Elf had started to test each of them, which he only won because the Elf decided to stop dominating him and just give him the opportunity to actually fight back. So really the Druid lost. And only won later because a Wizard was fighting a Druid in an AMF.

Also the Elf is a god, he'd just regenerate later and cutscene t*D to death as a warning not to mess with him.


I'm going to let the t*D wear his Dragon Hide armour in front of the 30th level Dragonborn Dragonwrought Kobold Druid (also a god) who has just, as in only just. Threatened to kill t*D if he sees them wearing the hide of a Dragon again. Of course, the Kobold might have some issues with it. :smallamused:

[molten_dragon]

My two biggest pet peeves when DM'ing are:

The guy who insists on playing a low-op character in a high-op game, refuses any help in optimizing his character, and whines because everyone else is more powerful than him.

The guy who plays the exact same character in every game, regardless of whether it's appropriate.

[Slipperychicken]

Had a bunch of neutrals decide to go evil.

The girl they were supposed to rescue, they decided to extort more money from the people paying for her return, then kill her anyway, then for kicks the cleric raise dead'd her and uses her as a pack mule.

Yup. It's time for them to get ganked by adventurers who would consider them a CR-appropriate encounter.

[Susano-wo]

Jamie McCrimmon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_McCrimmon) would like to have a word with you.

More on point, here's mine, and it's more a case of sympathy for the DM than personal frustration as one.

I was in an evil campaign. The only evil campaign I ever played as a player. I've played evil characters before - and well, and enjoyed it - but this was the one time I was supposed to be in an entire party of evil characters. It was going to be fun, so I thought.

There was my character, a CE male succubus whose class I don't even remember; there was a CN (insane) Forsaker; there was a CN/CE Rogue; the most non-evil Red Wizard I've ever met, and one other guy who manages to play the heroic swordsman no matter what our campaign is. We're being employed by the Thayans.

Now, I admit, I kind of provoked. At the time, I was a bit of an immature player. So I thought it would be amusing and in character for a CE demon to walk around the castle with no pants on, purely to shock (and possibly seduce) the mortals inside. (The DM asked me to roll a check to see how "impressive" my display was. I got a critical success. He was not amused.) The Forsaker spent his time eagerly smashing anything that so much as looked magical. The Red Wizard PC was a sweet little angel. It was surreal.

We stopped in at an inn. It was a dive, and my CE character said so. Made a lot of disparaging remarks, and apparently cheesed off the innkeeper. So the DM decided to have the innkeeper retaliate in a rather unorthodox manner.

The innkeeper paid three burly orcs to go upstairs, to violate my character in an intimate and forceful manner, to subsequently beat him unconscious, and then to put him in a chastity belt. I can't help but feel that the lattermost step was the DM's revenge for my earlier crit success.
My character wakes up in the morning, feeling sore, violated, and extremely angry, and proceeds to go downstairs to torture the crap out of the innkeeper. Chaotic Evil demon, remember? Not to mention that, earlier in the evening, my character had made no secret that he was working for the Thayans, and we were still in Thayan-ruled lands. So there were going to be some consequences.

The other members of my "evil" party stopped me. Even when I reminded them that this person knowingly acted against an agent of the Thayan government. Even when I informed them of what this guy did. Even when I pointed out that my character was a fricking demon. No, they said, it would be wrongful to torture him.

What.

So our "evil" party departed the inn, went off into the woods, and I committed suicide-by-Lammasu as soon as possible. Campaign dematerialized very shortly thereafter.

The "Omg Why" here is this: Why would a player play in an evil campaign if they had no willingness to do evil? Yes, my character was over the top - I realize that now - but you'd think that at least one of the other players would have enjoyed watching a demonic torture session in action.

Go fig.

Wow, that is mind boggling. must have been RPing in Bizarro world. But, aside from Rape being just not something I'm ok with happening during RP(just one of those off the table things for me), I would be seriously pissed, barring anything you left out, that you didn't even WAKE THE HELL UP during any point of this! Since, y'know, you have various powers and spell-likes just innate to succubus that might help you(not to mentioning just turning the tables and energy draining them)

[Averis Vol]

My two biggest pet peeves when DM'ing are:

The guy who insists on playing a low-op character in a high-op game, refuses any help in optimizing his character, and whines because everyone else is more powerful than him.

The guy who plays the exact same character in every game, regardless of whether it's appropriate.

I feel like the guy who picks a high op build off the internet is jsut as much of a nuisance in a lower op group.

Like the guy who plays the Eternal Archer build in a group with a fighter/cleric (buff)/barbarian/rogue party.

or a greenbound ashbound summoning stealth bomber druid in a similar party*

*Yea, I've got that guy who does that every game. Refuses to build his own character and follows a strict as is build path (I don't even run games that require a build like that, they're like High-low op; just hard enough where you need to be self sufficient, but not enough to dominate encounters three to four CR ahead of the required by yourself...all day long.

[Slipperychicken]

I referred to a 30th level Elven Generalist Wizard as "a Wizard of death", my Druid player (that ******* Druid) immediately decided that his character had to kill this Wizard, who had just the day before, taken in the other player's Wizard as his apprentice. The Wizard had learned a Spell from this character and is set to learn a few more, they both know this.

The Druid's player is metagaming really hard. If I was there, I'd have just said "Your character don't know whether mine is a necromancer or not, so he wouldn't do that. Quit metagaming."

[molten_dragon]

I feel like the guy who picks a high op build off the internet is jsut as much of a nuisance in a lower op group.

That's a problem too, but it's got an easier solution. Just don't allow the overpowered build. At least that's been my experience. Most of the powergamers I've played with were okay if I told them they needed to tone it down a little.

Short of making his character for him and saying "You have to play this now", there's not a good solution to whiny low-op guy in a high-op party.

[Con_Brio1993]

I played in a game that had 5-6 players regularly each week, not including the DM. One week, only 3 of the players (including me) showed up. The DM ran the game for us anyway despite half the party missing. Cue an encounter that was clearly beyond our capabilities, resulting in a TPK. The other players and I complained (fleeing was not an option since the battle took place on a pirate ship in the middle of the ocean) and the DM apologized and said that he had planned the encounter for 5-6 player characters.

I asked why he didn't alter it on the fly to be a winnable encounter for 3 players and he just shrugged and said he had planned it for 6 in advance and couldn't do anything about it. He got super mad when I pointed out that he is a human being capable of altering the game on the fly, and not a computer programmed with only one possible outcome.

[TuggyNE]

...tuggy you make me smile...that is probably a bad sign.

Bad for you or for me? :smallconfused:

[MonochromeTiger]

Bad for you or for me? :smallconfused:

morally speaking, probably both.

having had a recent session I have another thing to list here.. the times your players know you're offering a really good reward and try to ignore any plot hooks until they get something even better. somehow all logic abandoned a player in the group I DM for and she spent 20 minutes absolutely refusing a (for the group) fairly large amount of gold and a chance at a magic item for the OOC reason of "well the greatsword's nice and all but if we hold off I bet we can get a few caster items too". the group eventually agreed it was getting annoying, beat her character to 0 hp, tied her up and dragged her off to the quest.

[Totema]

(fleeing was not an option since the battle took place on a pirate ship in the middle of the ocean)
I don't mean to pry, but did no one have any options for flight? Or maybe efficient swimming? That sort of seems like an oversight in a marine adventure.

[Hytheter]

I don't mean to pry, but did no one have any options for flight? Or maybe efficient swimming? That sort of seems like an oversight in a marine adventure.

A single Pirate ship battle doesn't necessarily mean Marine Adventure though

It could just be the obligatory ship-ride-level to another continent

[Legendxp]

I remember the first game I played, with a half-orc barbarian with a scythe as a weapon (I was very inexperienced). I wanted to do something after listening to plot for a half-an-hour so I started a brawl fight (Probably something I shouldn't have done but it was my first time playing, cut me a break). Well, the DM didn't like that so he made the human sailors I had been insulting, into level 14 fighters. Our party was level 7. Well, I managed to deal a fair bit of damage with a lucky crit but still died in 1 round before my party could even enter the same room. The DM absolutely refused to bring me back unless I could convince someone playing at a different table (and thus a different campaign) to use their resurrection scroll they had been saving. So I ended up sitting for the rest of the night and early into morning without getting to play. (Did I mention that it took me like four hours to make my character) This was at an overnight event at the public library.

[Mopeds42]

Oh man, so I am Dming for my group, We play in a homebrew setting of my design. And boy do I have some rants, as there are three players of varying degrees of frustrating.

I was the last person to join the group, but I am also the most experienced player, and the group consists of my friends and girlfriend, who I all think are great people out of game (well, except one guy) but in game a few of them can be irritating.

The first player, after several years of playing, is still awkward with the rules. Mostly with calculating attack bonuses, spell dcs, and skill points on his characters, and forgets vital things all the time, and very often roles the wrong dice. His characters also end up accidentally OP when compared to the rest of the group (we don't optimize builds). He had a druid with great ability scores, an pet snake that was better at fighting than most of the party, and of course druids spells+wildshape are always strong. He now is a warforged barbarian that has an absurd amount of HP for a level 6, who combined with his ability to not tire after raging and raging for a very long time (due to very high constitution) can spend most of an encounter raging (and not giving at a single **** about his low AC). The OP characters aren't his fault, and he roleplays and is always enthusiastic, so I really can't get frustrated with him.

My group consists of a player who is a massive attention hog, to the point where he will disrupt the groups interests just to do things that he thinks will get his character the most attention (good or bad) from me and the other players. His character is a half-elf artificer 5/Favored Soul 1, a devotee to the god of creation. He spends an absurd amount of time making craft checks to create all sorts of random **** that I have to come up with rules for on the spot (all he says is "I try to make a bomb" or "I try to make a clockwork bird") and he spends a good deal of his characters gold buying materials (he has an entire cart full of stuff) to make things with. While this is certainly obnoxious and can get in the way of play, he at least roleplays, doesn't metagame, knows the rules well enough to optimize but doesn't out of respect for the other members of the group, and stays focused on the game.

My other problem player is a handful. He plays the same personality of character every single time (a self-serving loner badass who he names "Sam Axe" or "Deadpool" and will refuse to take another name) He constantly loses his character sheet and I swear his characters get higher ability scores each he writes a new one. This current campaign he has decided to not play his stereotypical character by playing the exact same character but then saying "no I don't do that actually, cause my character is good" (he wants to get a prestige class that requires you to be good-even though I don't use the standard alignment system and am waving alignment prerequisites). Finally, he also will never stop shopping for magic items, despite me repeatedly telling him that you can't just buy any item you want in any town, wasting time and irritating the other players (this has been solved because now he just pesters the parties' artificer, who usually tells him "I can't make that yet" or "only if you pay me") and finally, on a personal note, he makes inappropriate and lewd comments about/to my girlfriend while we are playing.

The last two players are fine, one guy is sort of the party leader, always pay close attention and roleplays and builds his characters in an interesting way (he is always a drow and his characters are never the same) and my girlfriend, who doesn't always have the best grasp on the rules (is new to 3.5 as she played AD&D before joining group) but is easily the best roleplayer.

[Telok]

Complete failure of the PCs to follow written instructions.

My campaign has some old, retired, wizards in it. They were pretty tough when they were young and did some impressive things but they're a bit slower and less active now that they are in the 'venerable' age category. So sometimes they ask bands of young adventurers to do things for them.

The first time they were given written instructions on how to bypass a major death trap in a magic research lab. Which went all right, until on the way out two of them wondered what would happen if they didn't follow the instructions. Half the party sprinted for the exit before the trap was activated. The dread necromancer, his minions, and the artificer were in the room when it activated. The artificer survived because he was a warforged (the poisonous gasses, asphyixiation, nausea, and inhaled acid mist didn't affect him) and could fake having exactly the right spells to save himself. He did squae though with only single digit hit points though. The DN and minions were reduced to ash and melted metal bits encased in cube of obsidian 25 feet on a side.

The second time there was a Pit Fiend trapped in an Iron Flask (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#ironFlask). The party was given written instructions on how to bypass the defenders (Invisible Stalkers and Iron Golems), sneak into the secure tower, and told to cut the flask open and kill the devil. They didn't. They camped by an open lava pit a mile away from the secure tower and fought three or four encounters of Stalkers all while trying to "rest." Only one of them died that night before they retreated to a safe area. Sixteen hours later the reduced party assaults the secure tower in force (no sneaking here!) and activates the Golems and the remaining Stalkers. Several of them get beaten to a pulp while inflicting about 12 points of damage to one Golem and the druid cuts off the Iron Flask and pedestal it was glued to and steals it. They retreat under invisibility to the previous safe spot.

The druid's player couldn't make the next session so he leaves the bottle and pedestal with the party and goes to "commune with nature." An hour later, while the cleric is resting to regain her spells (all of them) the warblade and psychic warrior, without preparation went into another room and opened the bottle. They did this at the same time that I had scheduled the Invisible Stalkers (who can track) to lead the Iron Golems over to the party in an attempt to get the Iron Flask back. There was a short, nasty, 3-way fight until the Pit Fiend dropped Blasphemy and teleported out. The Stalkers and Golems wandered off searching for a major devil to attack while the PCs were paralyzed. The PCs have literally added Invisible Stalkers and Iron Golems to the random encounter tables in that area in addition to releasing a major fiend.

It's ok though. They have a Rod of Wonder now, soon they'll kill themselves with that. One person is already bright orange and another is growing palm leaves instead of body hair.

[Slipperychicken]

My campaign has some old, retired, wizards in it. They were pretty tough when they were young and did some impressive things but they're a bit slower and less active now that they are in the 'venerable' age category. So sometimes they ask bands of young adventurers to do things for them.


It makes one wonder why they keep asking the PCs to do stuff for them.

[pso_zeldaphreak]

Kitchensink players. You know them, the ones that always want to play something totally out of place.

Like a halfling wizard that took feats in Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Whips and TWF so he could use a bunch of lengths of rope, throw/animate rope them towards/at people and entangle them?

I have strange friends o.o

[ZeroSpace9000]

Oh man, so I am Dming for my group, We play in a homebrew setting of my design. And boy do I have some rants, as there are three players of varying degrees of frustrating.

I was the last person to join the group, but I am also the most experienced player, and the group consists of my friends and girlfriend, who I all think are great people out of game (well, except one guy) but in game a few of them can be irritating.

The first player, after several years of playing, is still awkward with the rules. Mostly with calculating attack bonuses, spell dcs, and skill points on his characters, and forgets vital things all the time, and very often roles the wrong dice. His characters also end up accidentally OP when compared to the rest of the group (we don't optimize builds). He had a druid with great ability scores, an pet snake that was better at fighting than most of the party, and of course druids spells+wildshape are always strong. He now is a warforged barbarian that has an absurd amount of HP for a level 6, who combined with his ability to not tire after raging and raging for a very long time (due to very high constitution) can spend most of an encounter raging (and not giving at a single **** about his low AC). The OP characters aren't his fault, and he roleplays and is always enthusiastic, so I really can't get frustrated with him.

My group consists of a player who is a massive attention hog, to the point where he will disrupt the groups interests just to do things that he thinks will get his character the most attention (good or bad) from me and the other players. His character is a half-elf artificer 5/Favored Soul 1, a devotee to the god of creation. He spends an absurd amount of time making craft checks to create all sorts of random **** that I have to come up with rules for on the spot (all he says is "I try to make a bomb" or "I try to make a clockwork bird") and he spends a good deal of his characters gold buying materials (he has an entire cart full of stuff) to make things with. While this is certainly obnoxious and can get in the way of play, he at least roleplays, doesn't metagame, knows the rules well enough to optimize but doesn't out of respect for the other members of the group, and stays focused on the game.

My other problem player is a handful. He plays the same personality of character every single time (a self-serving loner badass who he names "Sam Axe" or "Deadpool" and will refuse to take another name) He constantly loses his character sheet and I swear his characters get higher ability scores each he writes a new one. This current campaign he has decided to not play his stereotypical character by playing the exact same character but then saying "no I don't do that actually, cause my character is good" (he wants to get a prestige class that requires you to be good-even though I don't use the standard alignment system and am waving alignment prerequisites). Finally, he also will never stop shopping for magic items, despite me repeatedly telling him that you can't just buy any item you want in any town, wasting time and irritating the other players (this has been solved because now he just pesters the parties' artificer, who usually tells him "I can't make that yet" or "only if you pay me") and finally, on a personal note, he makes inappropriate and lewd comments about/to my girlfriend while we are playing.

The last two players are fine, one guy is sort of the party leader, always pay close attention and roleplays and builds his characters in an interesting way (he is always a drow and his characters are never the same) and my girlfriend, who doesn't always have the best grasp on the rules (is new to 3.5 as she played AD&D before joining group) but is easily the best roleplayer.

For the first player you listed, some people just don't have a great head for numbers. You may need to accept that this player will always be a little awkward in that area. Ultimately, not a big deal.

Number 2, the attention hog, again some people are like that. Maybe explain to him that you as DM need to engage all the players present, not just him. If he's reasonable agreeable, he should reign it in a little.

Your third problem player, as I see it, is a genuine problem. I don't know exactly how bad the comments are, but if you're posting them someplace like this, it's likely something you consider a concern. Tell him, in no uncertain terms, to stop it. If it continues, boot him. Unless the player in question is 13 or so, he should know what isn't and appropriate.

[MonochromeTiger]

Like a halfling wizard that took feats in Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Whips and TWF so he could use a bunch of lengths of rope, throw/animate rope them towards/at people and entangle them?

I have strange friends o.o

well, aside from taking a feat for whips to do that trick I've seen it happen before so not TOO strange :P

[SowZ]

The third player? Hmmm. The char sheet thing is easy, just keep a copy yourself and check over stats. As for being the loner BA, whatever, there's one in every group. The only thing I, as a DM, would care about is the inappropriate comments. It's my job to make sure everyone is in a socially safe environment so an awkward confrontation is necessary.

[pso_zeldaphreak]

well, aside from taking a feat for whips to do that trick I've seen it happen before so not TOO strange :P

But... that was all he did. He only took spells that he could use to manipulate ropes in some fashion.

And I think spiderclimb for some sort of rope spider nonsense.

I dunno, I just laughed when he was eaten by a swarm of rats <_<

[MonochromeTiger]

But... that was all he did. He only took spells that he could use to manipulate ropes in some fashion.

And I think spiderclimb for some sort of rope spider nonsense.

I dunno, I just laughed when he was eaten by a swarm of rats <_<

friends don't let friends taste delicious to swarms of flesh eating rodents...they instead let them be tasty to dragons, that way if the dragon chokes to death on them the loot is better.

[Legendxp]

His characters also end up accidentally OP when compared to the rest of the group.

My god I can't stop laughing. This totally resembles one of the players in my campaign. He would always score a critical or natural 20 a save or something at exactly the right time. He is literally the luckiest player I have ever seen. Here's a few examples of how lucky he is:

Scored three confirmed criticals in a row (with a 19-20 crit range)

Accidentally found a secret room I had placed for the boss to enter after they completed a quest, by destroying a random wall (He wanted to try to find secret passages. Well, he found one :smallbiggrin: lol).

Natural 20'd two saves against an Epic Spellcaster (He was level 4 and he wasn't supposed to succeed :smallsigh:).

Non D&D:

Found the Gull Dagger in a random chest on the first Act of Diablo II. For those of you who don't know what this is, people have been known to grind against the last boss of the act on the second hardest difficulty repeatedly, just for a chance to get it. (And he found it in a random locked chest :smallbiggrin: lol!)

[pso_zeldaphreak]

friends don't let friends taste delicious to swarms of flesh eating rodents...they instead let them be tasty to dragons, that way if the dragon chokes to death on them the loot is better.

It was a part of my very first D&D... and of course the other 3 players were all mundane... And our then-DM was pretty obviously ignorant on how swarms worked. Lol.

We tried to save him by drowning the rats but it was too late.

[Legendxp]

My second character, a diplomancer ironically, also died from a swarm of rats. He was a level seven with like 12 health. In fact, that same swarm killed the entire party (the party was suffering from some pretty horrendous rolls).

[Telok]

It makes one wonder why they keep asking the PCs to do stuff for them.

Heh, they don't. One of those old wizards is the king's advisor and he's now advising the king to hire a different adventuring group to do a mission with a six figure reward.

[Red Fel]

Wow, that is mind boggling. must have been RPing in Bizarro world. But, aside from Rape being just not something I'm ok with happening during RP(just one of those off the table things for me), I would be seriously pissed, barring anything you left out, that you didn't even WAKE THE HELL UP during any point of this! Since, y'know, you have various powers and spell-likes just innate to succubus that might help you(not to mentioning just turning the tables and energy draining them)

Oh, no. My character was awake. I was just informed that there were three burly orcs using force and there was nothing I could do, handwaved past the scene, and told what had happened in retrospect.

This from a DM who had complained that one of his worst experiences RPing was during a Big Eyes Small Mouth campaign where he had taken the third-level attractiveness flaw, and the DM ruled that one night he was "visited," forcibly, by the entire military platoon he was leading. You'd think that, after an experience like that, he'd avoid doing the same thing to his players. Nope.

[Con_Brio1993]

I don't mean to pry, but did no one have any options for flight? Or maybe efficient swimming? That sort of seems like an oversight in a marine adventure.

Not high enough level for fly spells yet.

edit: The main thing is him openly admitting that even though he ran the game for 3 players, he still ran everything as if there were 6 players because he had preplanned everything in advance...

[Zombulian]

The worst I deal with regularly is a player who consistently insists on being the party face, but RP's atrociously. It's hard to make his 50 to Diplomacy work when what he said feels like it should give a negative result.

[luthais]

I admit to having given some thought to running a drizz't type character in my first game. And was summarily shot down by the DM, thank the gods. Rolled a fighter, TWF: dwarven waraxes. Had some decent stats, not that I can remember specifically right now. DM takes the group to an arena so we can enter the fights for loot and xp. I was level 4, enter the arena to find myself face to face with a five headed hydra. I won initiative, and go full attack. Got a couple decent hits in. Just before the hydra does a simple bite, the DM realizes he is using stats for a 5 person party encounter, not one on one. One turn of fast healing and five seperate bite attacks, and one claw attack, I'm dead. When asked why he didn't dumb down the fight, he blatantly said he didn't like my character, and wanted him gone. No reasons why, just cause. I did, however, get some payback. One of the other players had huge experience with high op builds, so we rolled a ninja/ghost faced killer that was pretty much unstoppable. Gave the DM plenty of headaches trying to kill him off as well, which never happened.

[DSmaster21]

One of my players had a drizz't build in that he is an elf ranger with dual scimitars and a panther companion (A leopard that he said is a panther). I had thought all along he knew who drizz't was and was trying to copy him without using a drow (Playing PF and Drow have 14 RP which is a rather large amount I think (Been a while since I read up on races and race points on the srd)) which would have put everyone else up a level on him. (At least I think I told him that when we were building and he said he was going to be a ranger with dual scims. His confusion about my sudden interest in non-core races is explained below)

I asked him about and he has never heard of D. He chose elf just because he wanted bonus to DEX because he was running a Finesse-TWF build with a bit of archery too and wanted it for the AC bonus. He picked dual scims because He thought TWF and Dervish Dance is the best combo ever. He thought panthers are cool.

He later built a near duplicate in Bones McSteel (Everytime I try to change his character names on his sheets he "fixes" them, yes he names all his characters ridiculous action hero sounding crap.) the Human Fighter who took feats and spent money and magic exclusively on his TWF Scimitar build until I sundered them.

[Zombulian]

I admit to having given some thought to running a drizz't type character in my first game. And was summarily shot down by the DM, thank the gods. Rolled a fighter, TWF: dwarven waraxes. Had some decent stats, not that I can remember specifically right now. DM takes the group to an arena so we can enter the fights for loot and xp. I was level 4, enter the arena to find myself face to face with a five headed hydra. I won initiative, and go full attack. Got a couple decent hits in. Just before the hydra does a simple bite, the DM realizes he is using stats for a 5 person party encounter, not one on one. One turn of fast healing and five seperate bite attacks, and one claw attack, I'm dead. When asked why he didn't dumb down the fight, he blatantly said he didn't like my character, and wanted him gone. No reasons why, just cause. I did, however, get some payback. One of the other players had huge experience with high op builds, so we rolled a ninja/ghost faced killer that was pretty much unstoppable. Gave the DM plenty of headaches trying to kill him off as well, which never happened.

>experience in high OP
>rolls a ghost faced killer

But yeah nice that you got payback I guess.

[luthais]

The character wasn't unkillable, I meant he was VERY good at his role, being completely invisible until he sticks a nice pointy blade in your back.

[Zombulian]

The character wasn't unkillable, I meant he was VERY good at his role, being completely invisible until he sticks a nice pointy blade in your back.

Point was more that Ghost Faced Killer is downright awful. Though anything with full BAB can be made to do tons of damage. Frightful Attack is hilarious.

[BWR]

The worst I deal with regularly is a player who consistently insists on being the party face, but RP's atrociously. It's hard to make his 50 to Diplomacy work when what he said feels like it should give a negative result.

I have experienced that too. One just has to handwave it away as someone who's charisma and delivery just makes people accept it for some reason.
Those skills should be good for something, after all.

[Red Fel]

I have experienced that too. One just has to handwave it away as someone who's charisma and delivery just makes people accept it for some reason.
Those skills should be good for something, after all.

Or force him to get a die with only ones on every side (http://grandline3point5.thecomicseries.com/comics/282/) for purposes of diplomacy. (Warning: Link contains naughty language.)

[Slipperychicken]

The worst I deal with regularly is a player who consistently insists on being the party face, but RP's atrociously. It's hard to make his 50 to Diplomacy work when what he said feels like it should give a negative result.

That sort of thing probably shouldn't be resolved with conversation then. Just have him say stuff like "I convince the guy to do [whatever it was]", and then determine the outcome based on the roll.

It's just like how few groups make their players give them a blow-by-blow narration of their PCs approaches to lock-picking, guitar-playing, or riding. The PCs don't take penalties for their players not knowing how to pick locks, and the same should apply to social skills too.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Ok so I have a few.

One player who always plays the loner, silent, "Neutral" silent type. Always self-absorbed and doesn't give to copper pieces for the party and is only in the party because its a party game. Doesn't help that he's the DM's little pet, so he gets all kinds of nifty magic toys that are OP, gets to do things blatantly against the rules.

A general trend for my group to play Drow, all the time. Seriously all the time. One player only plays Drow because "Thats what I know the best" even in the game where the DM said "Play something you don't normally play." Makes group play annoying. A group of mostly Drow? Eventual backstabs everywhere, starting with non-Drow (IE: me) and then an eventually near-TPK (and the game ends because the last Drow alive isn't interested in the main plot anyways). Single Drow (rare as it is)? Single Drow manages to back stab one person before being ousted from the party (usually violently with negative HP) only to reroll ANOTHER Drow who's basically a carbon copy of the previous one. Who the party agrees to not trust for obvious IC reasons and the player bitching that we won't let her play what she likes. Of course we don't because what you like makes the game annoying for everyone else!

Another player who only plays Evil characters, even in games where we are supposed to be heroic heroes of all righteousness. "Oh I'm not Evil, see it says Neutral on Alignment! Neutral characters can still kill in cold blood, shut up!"

Not to mention the general lack of RP, which would be fine on its own, but then they complain that I don't RP when I'm the one always playing the Face. Then complaining when I don't Face the way they want and I tell them "If you want the face to say something else, invest in social skills and speak up!" That shuts them up... at least till next session.

[Rogue Shadows]

Me, 2 weeks before first session: Guys, we've been doing this for years, it's time we did the Tomb of Horrors.
Players: What's that?
Me: It is a dungeon of legendary proportions in D&D. Created by E. Gary Gygax himself, the master of "You die, no save," the dungeon has practically no monsters, and is instead almost entirely built around traps.
Players: Sounds fun!
Me: Also, it's been awhile since we've played just normal D&D. So how about instead of plunging headlong into the Tomb, we give Red Hand of Doom a go?
Players: Fine by us!
Me: Okay! Roll up some 1st-level characters! We'll do some adventuring to get back into the feel of D&D, do the Red Hand, and then into the Tomb!
Players: Okay!
Me: :smallsmile:

Two weeks later

Me: Okay, so let's see what you've rolled up...
Player 1: A monk!
Player 2: Another monk!
Player 3: An invoker!
Player 4: A paladin!
Player 5: A bard!
Me: Okay! ...er, wait. A monk, another monk, an invoker, a paladin, and a bard.
Players: Yup!
Me: Uh, guys...you don't really have a healer. Or a, um. Rogue. For traps.
Players: So?
Me: Guys, this campaign is going to finish with the Tomb of Horrors.
Players: Yeah, but we can deal with it!
Me: Without a trapfinder.
Players: How hard can it be?
Me: :smallannoyed:

A few weeks into the campaign...

Me: Okay, sorry, monk 2, but you died. Guess you'll have to roll up a new character.
Player: That's okay. I wanted to give the samurai a shot.
Me: Um.
Player: The Oriental Adventures version!
Me: Oh thank God. Still, it's a weak class either way. Let's just gestalt the OA and CW versions together.
Player: Can I still have iaijutsu focus?
Me: Tell you what, let's build it into the class so you don't have to waste skill points.
Player: Awesome!
Me: ...wait, samurai? Not rogue?
Player: Yeah.
Me: But...the Tomb. You're going into the Tomb. With traps.
Player: Ah, I'll be fine.
Me: :smallfrown:

A few more weeks pass...

Player: Argh, my invoker died.
Me: Was kind of obliterated, yeah. No body, so no staff of life. Sorry.
Player: That's okay. I want to play a druid/rouge who specializes in bows now anyway.
Me: ...you mean a ranger. Possibly wildshape variant.
Player: No, a druid/rogue specializing in bows.
Me: ...but you'll suck as both a druid and a rogue. And I'm really happy that we're gonna have a rogue going into the tomb, but...
Player: I just want to try it.
Me: Your character, I guess...:smallsigh:

End of the first Session in the Tomb...

Me: Okay...so, the samurai, monk, and paladin have been teleported into an oubliette by the mists. The rogue/druid and bard remain in front of the mists and, as far as they can tell, touching the mists results in instant death.
Bard Player: Hmm, this isn't working. Maybe we should see what's through that green statue's mouth instead.
Me: :smalleek:

[rexx1888]

Me, 2 weeks before first session: Guys, we've been doing this for years, it's time we did the Tomb of Horrors.
Players: What's that?
Me: It is a dungeon of legendary proportions in D&D. Created by E. Gary Gygax himself, the master of "You die, no save," the dungeon has practically no monsters, and is instead almost entirely built around traps.
Players: Sounds fun!
Me: Also, it's been awhile since we've played just normal D&D. So how about instead of plunging headlong into the Tomb, we give Red Hand of Doom a go?
Players: Fine by us!
Me: Okay! Roll up some 1st-level characters! We'll do some adventuring to get back into the feel of D&D, do the Red Hand, and then into the Tomb!
Players: Okay!
Me: :smallsmile:

Two weeks later

Me: Okay, so let's see what you've rolled up...
Player 1: A monk!
Player 2: Another monk!
Player 3: An invoker!
Player 4: A paladin!
Player 5: A bard!
Me: Okay! ...er, wait. A monk, another monk, an invoker, a paladin, and a bard.
Players: Yup!
Me: Uh, guys...you don't really have a healer. Or a, um. Rogue. For traps.
Players: So?
Me: Guys, this campaign is going to finish with the Tomb of Horrors.
Players: Yeah, but we can deal with it!
Me: Without a trapfinder.
Players: How hard can it be?
Me: :smallannoyed:

A few weeks into the campaign...

Me: Okay, sorry, monk 2, but you died. Guess you'll have to roll up a new character.
Player: That's okay. I wanted to give the samurai a shot.
Me: Um.
Player: The Oriental Adventures version!
Me: Oh thank God. Still, it's a weak class either way. Let's just gestalt the OA and CW versions together.
Player: Can I still have iaijutsu focus?
Me: Tell you what, let's build it into the class so you don't have to waste skill points.
Player: Awesome!
Me: ...wait, samurai? Not rogue?
Player: Yeah.
Me: But...the Tomb. You're going into the Tomb. With traps.
Player: Ah, I'll be fine.
Me: :smallfrown:

A few more weeks pass...

Player: Argh, my invoker died.
Me: Was kind of obliterated, yeah. No body, so no staff of life. Sorry.
Player: That's okay. I want to play a druid/rouge who specializes in bows now anyway.
Me: ...you mean a ranger. Possibly wildshape variant.
Player: No, a druid/rogue specializing in bows.
Me: ...but you'll suck as both a druid and a rogue. And I'm really happy that we're gonna have a rogue going into the tomb, but...
Player: I just want to try it.
Me: Your character, I guess...:smallsigh:

End of the first Session in the Tomb...

Me: Okay...so, the samurai, monk, and paladin have been teleported into an oubliette by the mists. The rogue/druid and bard remain in front of the mists and, as far as they can tell, touching the mists results in instant death.
Bard Player: Hmm, this isn't working. Maybe we should see what's through that green statue's mouth instead.
Me: :smalleek:

uhhh.. none of that is your players problem, your simply shouldnt have run the Tomb.

1st, its a piss poor excuse for game design that only people with a bucket on their head think is well designed :\

2nd, you do not, ever, run a dungeon that is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to murder kill any and everything that enters it for a party in a campaign. Ever, AT ALL, unless you want to lose your friends.

to clarify point one, the goal of good design is to have fun and be challenging, there by helping players feel like they achieved something. ToH* changes the goal post of its design to "kill everything and be a jerk about it". So, at least with that in mind maybe it is good design, but its not a nice thing to run for your friends. ESPECIALLY if they want to role play and have a good time. Hell, the Tomb even breaks specific rules built into the system like "elves can auto search for doors.. except in the tomb, for this particular set of doors.. because i said so..."

*caveat, im assuming your talking about 3.5 Tomb, not Pathfinder. Apparently PF was changed to be nicer.. nicer, not nice

EDIT: grammar

[Mutazoia]

Sadly most of my stories come from one player. We'll call him "X". X has this thing where his characters have these intricate love affairs with female NPC's...and he forces our (male) DM to rp them right up to the "camera pan over to the fireplace" moment. Every character...every campaign. I mean I understand that this is probably the closest he's ever going to get to actual romantic entanglement but...

X was the only player allowed (in his eyes) to play the "A-moral bastard who is only looking out for number one." type of character. His characters would hang the rest of the party out to dry almost like clock work. But if anybody else made a character.... well for instance: We were playing Iron Heros. It became rather apparent (to the rest of us) that with the way our campaign was set up and the fact that IH is a no magic setting, that money was pretty much going to be pretty easy to accumulate (no need to buy magic items) so one player had his rouge keeping a little extra loot aside for him self when he found some. No big deal. It was the 2nd session, our characters didn't know each other that well (forced to stick together by destiny kind of thing) and it was small stuff and honestly purely RP inspired. X tried having "secret" talks with the rest of us to kick that player out of the group (we had been gaming together for a few years now by this time) because he was stealing from the party....

X also seems to know everything about everything and get's very upset when his intricate plans fail...like the time he tried creating a false identity for his character in a Shadowrun game by simply adding a set of false records into one system. His reason for this working was "thats how it works today so that's how it works in Shadowrun."

Or how X pours on the melodrama anytime something bad happens to his characters. Such as in a game of D6 Star Wars, when the party was cut off from their ship by local security. As the ship was HIS, we were treated to a half hour whine session about how his character should just commit suicide right then and there because "[local security] would immediately yank the hyperdrive and disable the main engines, and now [X's character] can't pay back the money he owe's to the loan shark so there's going to be a huge bounty on his head." Or the sob fest when his L5R character got one measley point of taint....and it simply wasn't his character any more....(oh the humanity).

Or how X would hate to lose at board games. We had another player we'll call Y. Y is a statistician and plays by counting cards (or other such pieces) and mentally calculating the odds that they'll turn up at a given time. Y wins frequently and everybody (but X) is fine with this because we all have fun playing and hanging out. Now....as I said X hates to lose and will has fallen into the habit of taking so long with his turn that Y will eventually offer him advice (to which X will promptly say "Yeah I was thinking of doing that" and then do it). This results in Y basically playing 2 positions in the game...but God help us if Y offers any advice to anybody else...because that's suddenly not fair and cheating. Now eventually X will start falling behind and start making more and more hap-hazard moves...and fall even further behind...at which point he will simply quit. Right in the middle of the game. He get's up, says "I quit" and goes home, leaving the rest of us to either finish a game with his pieces still in play or scrap the last few hours of play and start a new game.

This REALLY was entertaining during a rare game of Talisman. Allow me to set the scene. The board game group that night had the usual 6 players (with X and Y) plus a guest player. Now as we all lived in different parts of town, and half the group either worked or took classes at the local University, we would meet in one of the common halls of said University (which was almost always packed with people studying or eating or engaged in some other group activity). So here we are playing Talisman on one side of the room surrounded by total strangers. Now if you've ever played Talisman you know that in order to have a shot at winning the game you have to have, you guessed it..a TALISMAN. Now there aren't enough said Talisman's (Talismen? :smallwink:) for everybody. Once they are all in play the only way to get one is to attack another player and take his (if you win). SO....late in the game two players are navigating the inner ring on their way to the center, everybody else (with the exception of X) is in the second ring trying to either catch up or just have some fun until the game ends. One player, we'll call him Z, rolls and decides he has enough movement to land on the same space as X, which he does. He then proceeds to fight X and, winning, takes his Talisman. X quite literally exploded. Cursing at the top of his lungs (in a public venue I remind you), THROWS his drink in the general direction of the trash can (still shouting four letter words at top volume) and storms out of the room.

[Seerow]

uhhh.. none of that is your players problem, your simply shouldnt have run the Tomb.

1st, its a piss poor excuse for game design that only people with a bucket on their head think is well designed :\

2nd, you do not, ever, run a dungeon that is SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to murder kill any and everything that enters it for a party in a campaign. Ever, AT ALL, unless you want to lose your friends.

to clarify point one, the goal of good design is to have fun and be challenging, their by helping players feel like they achieved something. ToH* changes the goal post of its design to "kill everything and be a jerk about it". So, at least with that inmind maybe it is good design, but its not a nice thing to run for your friends. ESPECIALLY if they want to role play and have a good time. Hell, the Tomb even breaks specific rules built into the system like "elves can auto search for doors.. except in the tomb, for this particular set of doors.. because i said so..."

*caveat, im assuming your talking about 3.5 Tomb, not Pathfinder. Apparently PF was changed to be nicer.. nicer, not nice

Um... how is he at fault here? He said up front that's what was going to be run, spelt out what that meant, and the group agreed with it and said they thought it'd be fun. Given that information, he as the DM is perfectly justified to facepalm as the group doesn't seem to take it seriously at all and goes in with an utterly unprepared group. But then, half the fun of those kinds of games is rolling up a half dozen new characters before you finish.

Regardless, you're really coming off strongly as "Stop having fun in a way I don't like!" in your post.

[Rogue Shadows]

Um... how is he at fault here? He said up front that's what was going to be run, spelt out what that meant, and the group agreed with it and said they thought it'd be fun. Given that information, he as the DM is perfectly justified to facepalm as the group doesn't seem to take it seriously at all and goes in with an utterly unprepared group. But then, half the fun of those kinds of games is rolling up a half dozen new characters before you finish.

Agreed. Plus, if the Red Hand of Doom thing doesn't make it clear enough, I'm running the 3.5 Revised (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a) version of the Tomb, not the original version. The Revised version isn't NEARLY as harsh, since every single trap except the teleporting ones can be saved against (and are balanced for the expected level, which is 9th), and the teleporting ones never outright harm a character (though they do have a tendency to strip them naked and deposit them at the entrance).


But then, half the fun of those kinds of games is rolling up a half dozen new characters before you finish.

Also, and though I know it makes me no friends on this forum, I believe that if the DM isn't being at least a little sadistic, then he isn't doing his job.

Just a smidge.

Every now and then.

[rexx1888]

Regardless, you're really coming off strongly as "Stop having fun in a way I don't like!" in your post.

i dont care how you have fun, the tomb isnt fun, its not meant to be fun, its designed to be mean. If you like heists or cowboys or making brutally hard challenges for players, fine. If you like to optimize like Tippy, go your hardest, but dont pretend that the Tomb is fun for anyone except maybe those sadistic DM's that just hate their players. It has specific traps that simply cant be solved without meta gaming. As in, it tells players to do that thing that we always tell them not to do, because why not. It runs with riddles that you arent allowed to solve using character stats. As in, that 22 INT character you rolled up, smarter than any normal man ever, still cant figure out the simple riddle unless you the player know the answer, because ToH. The Tomb is not fun. Maybe the revised edition fixes that, but if you fix it it isnt the Tomb, its something else.

As to informing the players, which i havent quoted because i have less problem with it. Honestly, thats a fair point and i probably over reacted in my post a bit, because the existence of the Tomb just flat out pisses me off. You might as well just tell your players You're going to waste their time as run it. Makes me angry.

I know nothing of the Red Hand or any of that, but putting myself in that position id be annoyed. At first id be fine, because i assume no one just reads the ToH unless theyre Dm's, so its like a hard core curve ball. they play a normal campaign wee. Some people die, story goes on. An then BAM ToH kills half of them in the first five minutes.. wuh. As a player i would be so very very mad. Hell, i was very very mad when my entire party TPK'd in a pit of lava in ToH, and for us it wasnt a camapaign(just a one shot that took three weeks :\). A jerk pit no less, that rather than just actually kill everyone is apparently designed so feather fall just cannot work, even though thats blatantly stupid. Hell, that one room can be better designed just by making the door slam shut an cave in. Boom, wizard feather falls, then dies anyway because they cant get out and the rooms a thousand degrees. Anyway, sorry if i was a bit harsh, the Tomb just makes me angry from a design stand point.

[Phelix-Mu]

Also, and though I know it makes me no friends on this forum, I believe that if the DM isn't being at least a little sadistic, then he isn't doing his job.

Just a smidge.

Every now and then.

Wait, being sadistic is not a job qualification for being a DM?

*blink blink*

Oh, right, what was I thinking...hahahahaha. Me, sadistic? Of course not. You must have me confused with someone else.:smalltongue:

[Rogue Shadows]

Oh, right, what was I thinking...hahahahaha. Me, sadistic? Of course not. You must have me confused with someone else.:smalltongue:

:smalltongue:

I'm not saying anything terrible...just, for example. My players consistently have a problem dealing with invisible enemies. They're never ready for them and never have a means to counter invisible enemies at the ready.

And I know this.

So they run into the occasional invisible stalker, or goblin with an invisibility potion, or the like, which I know will be far more challenging than its ECL would suggest simply due to the fact that my players are never prepared for it.

It's not my fault that they've yet to learn to carry, I dunno, a bag of flour, at the very least. It's not like I starve them for equipment; I often allow them to go to "the magic mart," but they never seem to buy anything to deal with invisible enemies.

[rexx1888]

sadism is fine.. hell its an accepted bedroom thing now days and if its ok near peoples sensitive bits we should give up the ghost of it an just say its ok. The Tomb though.. thats less bed room play and more abuse. The original Tomb is just a mean mess, that will even if you manage to get to the end still crotch punch you. I mean, look at the construct at the end of it. There is nothing a high OP 9th level party could do to dent that thing(please let some super optimiser come in here an prove me wrong, it will be amazing) Its just... straight out school yard bully mean. Its like a dm that runs it is actually trying to make his players leave.. its a module that just makes me really sad that it exists :(

[Rogue Shadows]

I mean, look at the construct at the end of it. There is nothing a high OP 9th level party could do to dent that thing

Are you talking about the original, or the 3.5 remake? Because I'm pretty sure the original had Acererak himself, not the construct, but then I dunno, I've never played the original.

But the 3.5 Demilich consturct? He has DR 20/keen or vorpal. Obviously vorpal will be hard to get at 9th level, but keen shouldn't be.

So...9th level Fighter of your choice with your choice of keen weapon. Pick a build you like. The thing only has 49 hp so it'll die to just about anything except something built around tripping, since it has a perfect fly speed.

[Seerow]

i dont care how you have fun, the tomb isnt fun, its not meant to be fun, its designed to be mean.

And right about here is where I stopped reading your rant. Sorry.

The tomb was intended to be fun. And for a lot of people? It was fun. It is a very different mindset from current games, but that doesn't make it not fun. Just something very different from what most of us are used to.

I admit, I'm among that group. I tend to prefer my PCs to be generally successful when I play, and instant death traps annoy me as much as the next guy. But it is something I would be willing to try for a change of pace given the opportunity. I would just walk into it fully expecting to die a dozen times, and likely have two dozen backup character sheets just in case. I would then proceed to have fun finding all of the various possible ways to die in this crazy dungeon, and probably go out of my way coming up with a few new creative ones while I was at it.

Saying that something is not intended to be fun, and cannot ever be fun in any situation except for a sadist who enjoys watching other people suffer is extremely close minded. You may want to take a step back and reconsider your position here.

[Rogue Shadows]

The Tomb is probably best approached as being like a Mario or Sonic game, where you have X many lives to complete a given level. When you die, you just start over, wiser for the experience.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Okay, we get it. You don't like the tomb of horrors or, by the sound of it, the merciless meat-grinder style of play in general. That's fine. No one says you have to like that style of game.

Some of us do, however, enjoy a game where coming to the session with several backup character sheets is absolutely necessary. They can be hilarious if the group is made of people that can laugh at themselves and each other when really horrible things happen to the pc's.

Just because you don't get it doesn't mean no one could possibly enjoy it. I did.

[Averis Vol]

i dont care how you have fun, the tomb isnt fun, its not meant to be fun, its designed to be mean. If you like heists or cowboys or making brutally hard challenges for players, fine. If you like to optimize like Tippy, go your hardest, but dont pretend that the Tomb is fun for anyone except maybe those sadistic DM's that just hate their players.

1)Yea, actually you do, and yea it is.

2)You can't really dictate what someone enjoys, which is exactly what you're doing. I've played Tomb, and I thought it was great. If you go into it thinking its a serious adventure path, that's your bad. I went into it with 10 pre generated characters and still had to make more, and I had a blast.

you may have been wronged by the module, but don't push your opinion as fact.

[Threadnaught]

The Druid's player is metagaming really hard. If I was there, I'd have just said "Your character don't know whether mine is a necromancer or not, so he wouldn't do that. Quit metagaming."

Oh I told him a short time later, in character that I'm taking away the armour that he spent most of his gold to commission the Wild Enhancement on. Funny that, he's wearing a Monk's Belt with a Wilding Clasp attached, he still wants his dragonhide armour.
I'm not even taking it away to punish him, I'm just taking away his ability to ever feel safe if he dares to use it by allowing a fellow Druid to kill him if he decides it's a good idea to wear it around said Druid. Dragonborn are touchy like that. :smallamused:

I did tell him that there was no way his character would know the Elf was a Necromancer or not, he was still considering killing the Elf as a serious course of action. I had to tell him.

This guy is level 30, a god and he beat you with a single spell. Do you really want to provoke him into a fight? Not only would he regenerate to kill you later if you don't kill his followers, like the Kraken did, but he could before you get the chance to do anything. Dimension Door away to a safe location, regenerate the Spellslots he blew testing your mastery of magic and if you think that just gives you time to rest, then oh boy, sure, okay. I'm a very kind DM, I'll do that. Once you have also rested, prepared your Spells and maybe run off to [Elf City] for help, he'll come swooping in, kill you, any Elves who help you and sort out that Grey Elf Psion problem you're struggling with in just a couple of rounds. [Wizard Player]'s Wizard may be allowed to live if he doesn't attempt to intervene.

Yeah, all that.

Also their characters are very well known. Wizard is nicknamed Fireball, guess what his favourite Spell is. Druid is nicknamed Storm Raptor, guess what his favourite Spell and Wildshape form are.
Spell that disabled him was Black Tentacles, the rest of the fight was to allow the Druid to actually do something. He now prepares Freedom of Movement. :smallamused:
The Wizard lost to Mirror Image, Project Image, Greater Invisibilty and Unarmed Strike. There was a Sonic Ball included just to speed it up. He spent the whole time getting his ass kicked, while doing his hardest to learn from it. He's interested in learning and using Black Tentacles. :smallamused:

I taught t*D to prepare Death Ward at 11th level after I sicked both players against a the Kraken and it's four 17th level Cleric high priests (one by one). The first one they fought got in close to the Druid and used Energy Drain. Oh boy he was pretty mad at me. Now he uses protection. :smallamused:

I think they're looking to me for advice, they rarely try out new tricks unless I mention/use them against them.

And they're still holding onto their remaining Wish Stones. :smallmad:
I must get some Devils to try killing the Druid for signing the Infernal half of the contract. Maybe when he offends the Dragonborn Druid. :smallbiggrin:


The worst I deal with regularly is a player who consistently insists on being the party face, but RP's atrociously. It's hard to make his 50 to Diplomacy work when what he said feels like it should give a negative result.

I use Rich Burlew's Diplomacy Fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9606632&postcount=2) and whenever t*D speaks, it usually gives the full +10 modifier for Horrible Reward and knocks the relationship down a notch making each subsequent attempt harder.
I considered giving the majority of NPCs who know of their characters a Special Relationship modifier, always set at Nemesis +10 for the purpose of Diplomacy rolls. Based on their reputation for making really bad deals. Sadly they haven't made a single roll the entire campaign, I'm disappointed.

Use this and you can't stress enough how you only need a skeleton of an argument. It's usually the more fleshed out version that increases the DC.

Funny story.

One time they were at a "farm" after being sent there by a drug dealer, they were surrounded by armed men, had some "product" samples on them and I'd told them before that they recognized it as a narcotic. Using his Bard (before he started the Druid), t*D decided to roll Diplomacy, his offer was basically "Give me all your drugs for less than it costs to make and I'll sell them at market."
How are people supposed to react to that? :smallconfused:
Even worse, he either rolled a 1 or a 2. I ruled at the time, that it failed so badly, it had the effect of a CL3 Hideous Laughter on anyone (besides the PCs) who heard the offer.
His fault really for building a Diplomancer, after I showed him the above nerf which prevented that playstyle and warned him it would be in effect whenever I DMed.

[Zombulian]

That sort of thing probably shouldn't be resolved with conversation then. Just have him say stuff like "I convince the guy to do [whatever it was]", and then determine the outcome based on the roll.

It's just like how few groups make their players give them a blow-by-blow narration of their PCs approaches to lock-picking, guitar-playing, or riding. The PCs don't take penalties for their players not knowing how to pick locks, and the same should apply to social skills too.

The problem wasn't even conversation though, they would roll to talk to the person and ask them about things. I'd ask what they were going to ask. They would say something *really dumb.*

[Seerow]

Now I'm wondering: Is there a random character generator on the internet out there somewhere?

Like just push a button, and bam instant new random character pops out? Sounds like it'd be great for this sort of game. Because now you get the fun of crazy ways to die and completely off the wall builds you never would have picked to send to their death (or have unlikely and unexpected success with).

[Rogue Shadows]

Now I'm wondering: Is there a random character generator on the internet out there somewhere?

Like just push a button, and bam instant new random character pops out? Sounds like it'd be great for this sort of game. Because now you get the fun of crazy ways to die and completely off the wall builds you never would have picked to send to their death (or have unlikely and unexpected success with).

Hmm.

Well, This (http://dnd3rd.sourceforge.net/) is a place to start, anyway.

EDIT
And this (http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_npc.php) might be better, though the equipment aspect of it is probably balanced around NPC wealth rather than PC wealth, and it also doesn't actually generate equipment, just starting wealth.

Here's a sample random character:

Thorbjorn, male human Sor11: CR 11; Size M (5 ft., 9 in.
tall); HD 11d4+22; hp 50; Init +1; Spd 30 ft.; AC 11; Attack
+6 melee, or +6 ranged; SV Fort +5, Ref +6, Will +8; AL NE;
Str 13, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 13, Wis 9, Cha 18.

Languages Spoken: Common, Undercommon.


Skills and feats: Concentration +8, Hide +1, Knowledge
(Arcana) +14, Knowledge (Local) +8, Knowledge (Nature) +6.5,
Knowledge (Religion) +2, Listen -1, Move Silently +1, Open
Lock +4, Perform (Comedy) +7, Spot -1, Swim +3.5; Combat
Casting, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Scribe Scroll, Widen
Spell.

Possessions: 21,000 gp in gear.

Sorcerer Spells Known (6/7/7/7/7/4): 0th -- Arcane Mark,
Dancing Lights, Daze, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Disrupt
Undead, Light, Message, Resistance. 1st -- Charm Person,
Color Spray, Mage Armor, Obscuring Mist, Sleep. 2nd --
Bear's Endurance, Cat's Grace, Daze Monster, Gust of Wind,
Scorching Ray. 3rd -- Displacement, Flame Arrow, Gentle
Repose, Suggestion. 4th -- Charm Monster, Lesser Globe of
Invulnerability, Shout. 5th -- Mage's Faithful Hound,
Shadow Evocation.

[Sir Chuckles]

Also, and though I know it makes me no friends on this forum, I believe that if the DM isn't being at least a little sadistic, then he isn't doing his job.

Just a smidge.

Every now and then.

You are friends with me, then.

I used to kill one of my players every 2-3 sessions. Why? He never produced a character that anyone enjoyed, especially not me.
He had a hard time with the general rules until about the 7th character. He's now on the 14th (A Sneak Attack variant Fighter/Warmage, aiming for Spellwarp Sniper), and he can churn out basic characters in a heartbeat. Give him a day or two and he can turn a standard character idea into a unique one.

My group cares significantly more about flavor than power. It's never bugged me, other than that I can't throw anything "level appropriate" at them, because someone will die.

[Thaxton 76]

I once had a player who played the same character regardless of game. In a modern or futuristic setting he was a lesbian mechanic. Please note I have nothing against lesbian mechanics. In fantasy settings he played a lesbian blacksmith. Please note I have nothing against lesbian blacksmiths. It might make me a bad person but I took the reigning title of player x ( the aforementioned player) killer. He did dumb things, he hurt our brains, and often lowered the IQ of the group. I became very popular with my friends because of the things I did to his characters. Like cutting one in two with a machine gun. Beating one to death in the process of putting out the fire ( blessing vamps turns out to be bad who knew?). The only time he did not play his usual was when we played a D6 game about world war three ( we were all in the Marines and played characters loosely based on ourselves). Our GM told us to put points in parachuting ( good to have when you jump out of planes) so he did .... he put in one point. Not surprisingly he failed his check. He decided to bullet dive (limbs straight, close to the body, head down), he passed out and the chute auto deployed we heard his neck snap. He lasted literally 5 minutes into the game.

[Slipperychicken]

>Start a mage's guild campaign.
>Mage's guild is awesome, everybody's having lots of fun.
>We love the items. There's a lightning cannon which turns people into cthonic beasts, among other things.
>We love the NPCs. Several of them are group memes and we mention them even a year after that campaign ended.
>Muderhobo PC wants to leave the mage's guild.
>Wants to fake her own death and leave for the barren edge of the map where there's no plot, cool NPCs, or terrain features.
>She gets us to do it, after we fail a quest. We have to give back all out cool mage's guild gear and leave the NPCs behind.
>Complains that it isn't as much fun over there because the GM didn't prepare that part of the map.
>She's disappointed OOC because I couldn't talk her insane, unreasonable character down from the decision.

[Rogue Shadows]

My group cares significantly more about flavor than power. It's never bugged me, other than that I can't throw anything "level appropriate" at them, because someone will die.

I have added two essential rules to RPGs that supersede Rule 0.

DM Rule -1: Even when they aren't, your players are always intentionally trying to screw over both you and each other. Nothing you build will last, even if there is no good reason for it to be destroyed. They will burn that inn that you lovingly stocked full of quest-giving NPCs to the ground. And if it's supposed to be destroyed, then it will last forever.

DM Rule -2: There are more players than there are GMs; therefore, they have much more potential for innovation, luck, and are just plain likely to solve any problem you throw at them faster than you think. THEREFORE: you are never challenging them enough. Go on, toss another rancor into that pit - they will defeat the first one in one round otherwise, and besides, it serves 'em right for burning that inn to the ground.

[Legendxp]

Here's my rule,

Rule #1: PEOPLE CAN BE INCREDIBLY RETARDED.

I literally had a lever sitting in the middle of a room, designed to open a door and it took the better part of two whole hours for my group to realize what to do. EVEN AFTER I TOLD THEM WHAT THE LEVER DID!!! :smallfurious: They apparently forgot what I had told them and were trying to cut through an adamantine wall. The lever didn't even trigger any encounters, it just opened the door to the next room.

[Seerow]

Here's my rule,

Rule #1: PEOPLE CAN BE INCREDIBLY RETARDED.

I literally had a lever sitting in the middle of a room, designed to open a door and it took the better part of two whole hours for my group to realize what to do. EVEN AFTER I TOLD THEM WHAT THE LEVER DID!!! :smallfurious: They apparently forgot what I had told them and were trying to cut through an adamantine wall. The lever didn't even trigger any encounters, it just opened the door to the next room.

To be fair, I'd be avoiding that lever like the plague myself. Anything that obvious must be a trap.

[Scow2]

-Tomb Of Horrors Fun-
The big question here is... despite the party being absolutely ill-equipped for the Tomb, did they have fun doing it? They seemed to take their inevitable deaths in stride pretty well, from your recap.

[Totema]

Here's my rule,

Rule #1: PEOPLE CAN BE INCREDIBLY RETARDED.

I literally had a lever sitting in the middle of a room, designed to open a door and it took the better part of two whole hours for my group to realize what to do. EVEN AFTER I TOLD THEM WHAT THE LEVER DID!!! :smallfurious: They apparently forgot what I had told them and were trying to cut through an adamantine wall. The lever didn't even trigger any encounters, it just opened the door to the next room.

Heheh, that reminds me of the first session I ever ran with my current group (think I mentioned them on page 1.)

Their task was to clear out a raiding party of goblins from an abandoned fort. Simple, idiot-proof 1st level fare for players new to the game. When the get to the fort, they find a lowered iron portcullis blocking the entrance.

The rogue looks around for any levers or buttons on the outside walls. Nothing. Then he looks for a window to get inside. There are a few, but he failed the climb check to get in.

So then they give up. Literally - they all convened, and after a few moments of quiet debating, told me that they agreed that they can't figure out how to get in.

*facepalm*

[Rogue Shadows]

The big question here is... despite the party being absolutely ill-equipped for the Tomb, did they have fun doing it? They seemed to take their inevitable deaths in stride pretty well, from your recap.

Dunno, we haven't gone past the 1st session yet, which ended with the party split but nobody dead. They already encountered and defeated the 4-armed gargoyle, though it did reduce half the party to negative HP before going down.

So far they seem to be enjoying themselves. And I am too, because...well, it's the Tomb. It might not be fun to go through, but it is awesome to be on the other side of the DM screen.

[Sir Chuckles]

I have added two essential rules to RPGs that supersede Rule 0.

DM Rule -1: Even when they aren't, your players are always intentionally trying to screw over both you and each other. Nothing you build will last, even if there is no good reason for it to be destroyed. They will burn that inn that you lovingly stocked full of quest-giving NPCs to the ground. And if it's supposed to be destroyed, then it will last forever.

DM Rule -2: There are more players than there are GMs; therefore, they have much more potential for innovation, luck, and are just plain likely to solve any problem you throw at them faster than you think. THEREFORE: you are never challenging them enough. Go on, toss another rancor into that pit - they will defeat the first one in one round otherwise, and besides, it serves 'em right for burning that inn to the ground.

I got a TPKO minus 1 against them with a Gelatinous Cube.

They were all at least Lv12.
Only reason it was a -1 was because after everyone died, the Barbarian said "I leave the dungeon." and then left the house (He came back, but he's an eccentric role player).

It's why I can't throw any iteration of the Tomb of Horrors, despite the fact that I would love to. I'm not against killing everyone, but in some cases, such as that one, I turn it into a "You wake up dripping in cold sweat" scene.

[SowZ]

You are friends with me, then.

I used to kill one of my players every 2-3 sessions. Why? He never produced a character that anyone enjoyed, especially not me.
He had a hard time with the general rules until about the 7th character. He's now on the 14th (A Sneak Attack variant Fighter/Warmage, aiming for Spellwarp Sniper), and he can churn out basic characters in a heartbeat. Give him a day or two and he can turn a standard character idea into a unique one.

My group cares significantly more about flavor than power. It's never bugged me, other than that I can't throw anything "level appropriate" at them, because someone will die.

I think I average about a PC death about every other session, sometimes every session, though it isn't the same player at least. (And a little less than half of them are permanent, anyway.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Here's my rule,

Rule #1: PEOPLE CAN BE INCREDIBLY RETARDED.

I literally had a lever sitting in the middle of a room, designed to open a door and it took the better part of two whole hours for my group to realize what to do. EVEN AFTER I TOLD THEM WHAT THE LEVER DID!!! :smallfurious: They apparently forgot what I had told them and were trying to cut through an adamantine wall. The lever didn't even trigger any encounters, it just opened the door to the next room.


To be fair, I'd be avoiding that lever like the plague myself. Anything that obvious must be a trap.

Ditto. The lever in the middle of the room being a trap is painfully obvious unless you know the DM well enough to suspect a double bluff.

DM: "There is a lever in the middle of this otherwise unremarkable room. Opposite the door you've entered is an adamantine door set in a wall of the same material. What do you do?"

Me: well the lever is an obvious trap so I'll examine the door..... but the DM knows that such a trap would be too obvious for anyone to fall for, so maybe it -is- the door's operation mechanism ..... but the DM knows that I know that he knows that's too obvious..... crap, I don't know..... play it safe. "I examine the door. *search check*

[Sir Chuckles]

I think I average about a PC death about every other session, sometimes every session, though it isn't the same player at least. (And a little less than half of them are permanent, anyway.)

I've since stopped killing that guy repeatedly. I like his characters now. Bonus is that they're clearly not tailored to me. They're tailored to what he likes.

Let me run down my players, minus the munchkin I described earlier and the Warmage. There's only three others:
My favorite, who's most legendary character is Spoony the Bard, a Barbarian 8/Frenzied Berserker 10, who hates Bards and Elves to the point of "kill on sight". I've only killed him once. Not because favoritism, but because the dice say no. I once had him chained to wall, on fire, surrounded by 16 Lv5 guards (He was Lv8 at the time) plus a Lv10 guard, and poised for execution. When the party Paladin came to save him, he escaped (with little actual help from said Paladin), killing the Paladin in the process.
e's an excellent role player, and can easily adopt an entirely different personality or character from session to session.

There's Mr. Butthead Ranger. He doesn't always play a Ranger, but it's his default class. He's always a character who fights at some distance. The only exception was a Swashbuckler/Dread Pirate that died in the first encounter (Which, ironically, was the BBEG). The only reason he wasn't ranged-based was because I veto'd guns for that campaign.
That aside, he's a decent background players that pops in when needed. Sometimes a voice reason, especially for things that would get his usually Lawful and/or Good character killed or hunted.
He's not high OP, he kinda knows how to become powerful, and he could probably tell you how to make any moderately complex character, but he just likes his sneaky-shooty men.

Lastly, there's the Irishman. He loves flavoring his character with Irish mythos, and I love it when he does. He often plays a Druid or Fighter, but for him the names are interchangeable. He plays Druids as one would expect a Ranger to play. It makes it easier to balance encounters, however.
He role plays well and combats well, and just a touch insane.

Now my rant, to stay on topic, is that they don't mesh all that well. The Warmage, Mr. Butthead Ranger, and Irish are incredibly easy to DM for. They like light, flavorful role play as the filler during rests and shopping trips. They enjoy fierce combat with either a small number of enemies of about equal power, or a single big enemy.
The problem there, is that it leaves out Spoony, who generally rues combat if he's not specifically built for combat. And even then, he wants it over as fast as possible, so that the story can progress. I'm the only one that can exceed his character building (it's a difference in actual writing abilities, but not quality. A hotdog vs. a polish sausage. Practically the same thing, and you enjoy both)

And then it upsets my munchkin, who loves fighting 4hp Orcs at Lv10, with a few Lv3-5 Orcs thrown in so I can justify exp gains. He hates challenges, unless by "challenge" you mean "the thing can hit you for 10 damage before you kill it horribly". Which means it's unengaging for everyone else.

If I do a minion fight, again, Spoony is subjective. Maybe he's playing a Ninja and wants to buttstab something that wouldn't survive 1d6+2 anyway. Maybe he's a Bard and just going to go on Tumblr while he Inspires Courage.

If I do a pure roleplay encounter, Spoony loves it, Warmage falls in the background, and, more often than not, if Spoony stops talking for an instant, Munchkin won't shut up, putting Ranger and Irish to the sidelines, through the stage door, and on a bus to Cleveland; at least until Spoony reels it back in. I can't reel it back in unless I blatantly ignore him. Not his character, him.

So it's hard to DM for them. I love 3/5ths of them to death, and 1/5th maybe a little, but I frequently wish that Warmage wasn't the only other one who could competently DM.

[Sewercop]

He later built a near duplicate in Bones McSteel (Everytime I try to change his character names on his sheets he "fixes" them, yes he names all his characters ridiculous action hero sounding crap.) the Human Fighter who took feats and spent money and magic exclusively on his TWF Scimitar build until I sundered them.

Why are you "fixing" his name?


The worst I deal with regularly is a player who consistently insists on being the party face, but RP's atrociously. It's hard to make his 50 to Diplomacy work when what he said feels like it should give a negative result.

I will never understand why gms punish players for not eing as skilled as the characters. Of course there is a line, but do you ask the fighter to show you how he swings the sword or kick in the door?

[Rogue Shadows]

I will never understand why gms punish players for not eing as skilled as the characters. Of course there is a line, but do you ask the fighter to show you how he swings the sword or kick in the door?

There's a degree of difference between "I say, 'please please please with a cherry on top help us?' and then make puppy dog eyes [roll] 50 on my Diplomacy!"

- Verses -

"I say, 'alright *******s, I hate every single one of you, and frankly I couldn't care less if you lived or died, but I need your help. So who's with me?' [roll] 50 on my Diplomacy!"

Diplomacy is also a little different since, unlike beating down a door, it specifically requires some player-DM interaction on a nongaming level. If the players don't want to have to deal with me giving them a circumstance penalty, then they should just state what they want and make the check. But if they're actually going to take the time to describe what they say and how they say it, then if it's bad, I'm going to penalize it, same as how I'd penalize attempts to break down a door if the fighter describes himself as as trying to break down the wall next to the door rather than the door itself.

[Scow2]

Heh... speaking about "People bad at playing high-CHA characters", I was in a campaign where I wish my character had actually invested in Bluff... but was a level 1 Barbarian of barely above average CHA (Catfolk!), because the Changeling Rogue face loved to talk and play out conversations, but seemed to be inflicted with a terminal case of Foot-In-Mouth disease.

[alanek2002]

Or force him to get a die with only ones on every side (http://grandline3point5.thecomicseries.com/comics/282/) for purposes of diplomacy. (Warning: Link contains naughty language.)


Thank you! I didn't know the comic was anywhere besides drunk duck!

[Ravens_cry]

This is Pathfinder. I am a fellow player in a campaign. One of the other players is playing a Witch. Witches have abilities called Hexes. One of the Hexes is the ability to put creatures to sleep for the level in rounds, with a save DC equal to casting stat (for this particular archetype, Constitution) + 1/2 level. The only limit is per target (only try once) not per day. It tends to be very effective against the right targets, but this Witch seems to insist on trying, trying mind, on hitting things with his crossbow.
The thing is, he's a very creative player at times. He did some neat things with silent image that saved our butts a couple of times, but his go to strategy seems to be, despite being a 1/2 BAB caster with no buffs beyond those the bard grants everyone when she sings, is 'I hit it with my crossbow.'

[12owlbears]

In our latest session we were in a town that was raided by bandits. When the towns people asked us to help we insisted on being paid(our party is a LN monk, a CE bard, a LN rouge, a TN ranger, me a TN fighter, and the GM's pc a CG paladin of freedom) and our GM(and his character) kept insisting that this was an evil action. In the end we abandoned the town and the GM changed all our alignments to CE. Now after a long argument we talked him out of the forced alignment change(except for the monk who used this as an excuse to multiclass to a better class :smallwink:) but the GM(and his character) keep telling us that were straddling the line between neutral and evil(and yet he still travels with us).

[Sith_Happens]

Heh, they don't. One of those old wizards is the king's advisor and he's now advising the king to hire a different adventuring group to do a mission with a six figure reward.

Is this the same group that decided to make a career out of feeding themselves to a giant squid zombie?


Ditto. The lever in the middle of the room being a trap is painfully obvious unless you know the DM well enough to suspect a double bluff.

DM: "There is a lever in the middle of this otherwise unremarkable room. Opposite the door you've entered is an adamantine door set in a wall of the same material. What do you do?"

Me: well the lever is an obvious trap so I'll examine the door..... but the DM knows that such a trap would be too obvious for anyone to fall for, so maybe it -is- the door's operation mechanism ..... but the DM knows that I know that he knows that's too obvious..... crap, I don't know..... play it safe. "I examine the door. *search check*

"While standing in the previous room, I Mage Hand the lever."


(our party is a LN monk, a CE bard, a LN rouge, a TN ranger, me a TN fighter, and the GM's pc a CG paladin of freedom)

Well there's your problem.

[Ravens_cry]

"While standing in the previous room, I Mage Hand the lever."

And if the lever weighs more than 5 pounds?

[SowZ]

And if the lever weighs more than 5 pounds?

"While standing in the previous room, I chuck the halfling at the lever."

[Sir Chuckles]

"While standing in the previous room, I chuck the halfling at the lever."

I though that's what Leadership is for...

[AstralFire]

Oh, no. My character was awake. I was just informed that there were three burly orcs using force and there was nothing I could do, handwaved past the scene, and told what had happened in retrospect.

This from a DM who had complained that one of his worst experiences RPing was during a Big Eyes Small Mouth campaign where he had taken the third-level attractiveness flaw, and the DM ruled that one night he was "visited," forcibly, by the entire military platoon he was leading. You'd think that, after an experience like that, he'd avoid doing the same thing to his players. Nope.

Please tell me that you never did anything with this person again. :smalleek:

[Telok]

Is this the same group that decided to make a career out of feeding themselves to a giant squid zombie?

Strictly speaking it was an Evolved Vampire Giant Octopus.

Controlled by a lich who researched two new and very expensive 7th levels spell-rituals to be able to make the creature. But yes, one guy was carrying about 125,000 in money and a bunch of magic loot when his favorite mace was dropped into the octopi's lake and when he went after it he let the undead mollusk grapple him so he could Hostile Empathic Transfer it.

All the other deaths were people trying to get his loot and/or splashing around in the water.

[Scow2]

Please tell me that you never did anything with this person again. :smalleek:Ehh... there's a chance that the game was *that* kind of campaign.

[Ravens_cry]

Ehh... there's a chance that the game was *that* kind of campaign.
What kind is that, one where you are shackled, nay, nailed to the seats?
The foot vote is generally available.
Even if it was a campaign where that kind of behaviour was part of the possible action space, the sheer loss of player agency and rail-roading during such a disturbing scene is itself reason to leave.

[Kelb_Panthera]

@ with happens:

If I was really concerned with throwing the lever I'd tie a line to it, set a piton in the wall for a fulcrum if necessary and pull it from the adjoining corridor. I'd be concerned with the door slamming shut in my face and blocking further progress (and to a lesser extent eating my rope) though.

[nedz]

@ with happens:

If I was really concerned with throwing the lever I'd tie a line to it, set a piton in the wall for a fulcrum if necessary and pull it from the adjoining corridor. I'd be concerned with the door slamming shut in my face and blocking further progress (and to a lesser extent eating my rope) though.

Yes, Rope or 10' poles are the traditional approach. Monster Summoning (or similar) will work too. An interlock mechanism on the doors is a old counter mind.

[Thaxton 76]

In one campaign the afore mention player x was playing a halfling lesbian blacksmith rouge.
Wait for it ..... let that sink in.
Any way after said halfling ran in to the third room with out the group and without checking anything. Oh and picking things up to look for "any cool blacksmithing stuff" the skeletons on the floor got up went for the halfling. We then closed the door to insure we did not get hurt by said undead (kinda rhymed :smallcool:). The haffling died. We rejoiced. The corpse of the halfling was then attached to a ten foot pole and was used to mop the floor in blood also springing all the traps. There was not very much left to bury. On one hand I was upset that the players had found away around my traps, on the other hand getting to describe the horrors that happened to player x's corpse filled me with joy.

[Ravens_cry]

That's . . . rather mean spirited. Yes, the player x was a bit of an ass, but such a nasty approach is just in poor taste.

[Susano-wo]

Yeah, unoriginal characters, ok. (though aside from that I'm not so sure what's so horrible about a halfling blackmith rogue) But killing his characters because you don't care for them? C'mon...

[Nagukuk]

RE: The lever in the room.

I have a player who would have switched it back and forth 5 times before you could say WTF ... making sure to leave it in the opposite direction from when it started.

He has done much more with various characters...

Burn down an inn by accident cause he didnt want to be bothered with teh local ruffians, wanted to eat his stew in peace. WEB + inside + Fire/candles/torches = Woosh crispy patrons.

Smashed an object with a thrown sword (while trying to SNEAK into a big bads lair , it was known that the big bad would easily kill the whole party with out a sweat) the barrel also released yellow mold that TPKed the party, i had to stop and redo my reaction to the event to save a few of them.

Destroyed an artifact from "hiding place" after faking the party that he was going to do it... they dove for cover then he laughed ... they relaxed and he shattered it ... I imprisoned his character for doing that, he ddnt think it was fair cause there was no 3.x rule about destroying artifacts being bad ... i dont care if there was or not, i killed him for it.
Hind sight tells me i should have killed everyone except him and let the players settle it in the parking lot :)

ETC...

[Totema]

That's . . . rather mean spirited. Yes, the player x was a bit of an ass, but such a nasty approach is just in poor taste.
Well, they often call trapfinders "corpses" for a reason. *rimshot*

[Sir Chuckles]

Any way after said halfling ran in to the third room with out the group and without checking anything. Oh and picking things up to look for "any cool blacksmithing stuff" the skeletons on the floor got up went for the halfling. We then closed the door to insure we did not get hurt by said undead (kinda rhymed :smallcool:). The haffling died. We rejoiced. The corpse of the halfling was then attached to a ten foot pole and was used to mop the floor in blood also springing all the traps. There was not very much left to bury. On one hand I was upset that the players had found away around my traps, on the other hand getting to describe the horrors that happened to player x's corpse filled me with joy.

I'm all for killing one of my players when they have a bad character, more so if not one person likes it outside of the game.
But to revel in it is...not a good sign for your mental health. :smallfrown:

And this is coming from the guy who wrote an essay on how much he doesn't like one of his players.

[Slipperychicken]

Destroyed an artifact from "hiding place" after faking the party that he was going to do it... they dove for cover then he laughed ... they relaxed and he shattered it ... I imprisoned his character for doing that, he ddnt think it was fair cause there was no 3.x rule about destroying artifacts being bad ... i dont care if there was or not, i killed him for it.
Hind sight tells me i should have killed everyone except him and let the players settle it in the parking lot :)


If it was a major artifact, destroying it should not be such an easy task.


Major Artifacts (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/artifacts.htm#majorArtifacts)
Major artifacts are unique items—only one of each such item exists. These are the most potent of magic items, capable of altering the balance of a campaign.

Unlike all other magic items, major artifacts are not easily destroyed. Each should have only a single, specific means of destruction.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, they often call trapfinders "corpses" for a reason. *rimshot*
That's what they call bad trapfinders. There be a difference.

[MonochromeTiger]

That's what they call bad trapfinders. There be a difference.

the good ones are only called "pincushion". but yeah doing all that to the halfling after they're dead seems a tad spiteful. I mean they're dead already you're really going to toss around a dead teammate's body to see if there are any pressure plates or false floors?

[Ravens_cry]

the good ones are only called "pincushion". but yeah doing all that to the halfling after they're dead seems a tad spiteful. I mean they're dead already you're really going to toss around a dead teammate's body to see if there are any pressure plates or false floors?
The DM's glee at the prospect also was distasteful.:smallyuk:

[Scow2]

the good ones are only called "pincushion". but yeah doing all that to the halfling after they're dead seems a tad spiteful. I mean they're dead already you're really going to toss around a dead teammate's body to see if there are any pressure plates or false floors?Ehh... it's already the right mass to trigger traps, and should remain the right temperature for a few hours as well. The problem is that it was done out of spite instead of slapstick.

[Nagukuk]

If it was a major artifact, destroying it should not be such an easy task.

YEP, I agree

He was a dwarf!

It was also a dwarven artifact!

It was a large crystal, (think foot ball sized)

He and the crystal were good alinement.

He tried to shatter it to injure the party on purpose.

and most importantly ...

I was tired of his ****.


also if those sets of circumstances don't add up to be volcanoey styx drowning red dragon tarrasuque crushey enough ...

did not care if he actually destroyed it or not, ... he ATTEMPTED to do so.

rar! :)

[ellindsey]

He and the crystal were good alinement.

He tried to shatter it to injure the party on purpose.


Someone doesn't grasp what "good alignment" means.

[Dalebert]

A troll in a Shadowrun game I was playing in put a dead body torso on a stick and poked it into rooms as cannon fodder to see if anything was in there. Then she kept carrying it around with us until it finally did get attacked and ripped apart and she started looking for a replacement.

[Slipperychicken]

A troll in a Shadowrun game I was playing in put a dead body torso on a stick and poked it into rooms as cannon fodder to see if anything was in there. Then she kept carrying it around with us until it finally did get attacked and ripped apart and she started looking for a replacement.

So a troll in a Shadowrun game actually has a hard time finding dead bodies?

Also, wouldn't that camera-rope item have been much better?


Someone doesn't grasp what "good alignment" means.

It means having a capital "G" written on your sheet, and it means you're the hero no matter how many babies you eat.

[Venger]

It means having a capital "G" written on your sheet, and it means you're the hero no matter how many babies you eat.

Good is evil and Evil is good. Numerous proofs exist, but this is the most expedient:


Many monstrous beings are
not tolerated by the surrounding community and must keep
their existence secret. Evil communities may tolerate the presence
of monsters that other communities would not, but
neutral and good communities are liable to drive away
monsters and those who would associate with them.

tl;dr: Racism = Good, Tolerance = Evil

[BWR]

You should totally tolerate my entire tribe's baby-eating, homicidal ways because if you don't you're racist.

[Slipperychicken]

You should totally tolerate my entire tribe's baby-eating, homicidal ways because if you don't you're racist ethnocentric.

FTFY. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentric) screwthetextminimum

[Venger]

You should totally tolerate my entire tribe's baby-eating, homicidal ways because if you don't you're racist.

It doesn't say anything about tolerating a race's practices or activities. It's referring to their mere existence.

Allowing an orc to sacrifice elves to gruumsh ≠allowing an orc to live in the city.

[Eladrinblade]

Not to mention all the new players who want to play a Drow Ranger..... with scimitars..... and a panther.

I have never, in my 12 years of D&D, had a single player ever want to play a Drizzt clone. Not once.

My cousin would often play CG drow, or half-drow, but they were usually bards or swashbucklers.

[lytokk]

Well, lessee some players I've had. Not exactly problems but things.

One player always plays a halfling. Nothing bad about that persay, but always plays a halfling rogue wielding a greataxe. Would really like her to try something different, but, she's got her comfort zone and does it well.

One player claims to be an amazing optimizer, but always falls short. Level 6, rogue 1/soulknife 5 twf build, with the vow of poverty. Went down in an instant and couldn't hit the broad side of a flatfooted giant while flanking.

Another who quickly makes characters and later has no interest in playing them. He could make it about 3 sessions before he just quits, no matter the style of the game. No clue why we kept inviting him to play, knowing he's going to leave in a few sessions.

[Debatra]

Another who quickly makes characters and later has no interest in playing them. He could make it about 3 sessions before he just quits, no matter the style of the game. No clue why we kept inviting him to play, knowing he's going to leave in a few sessions.

Do you all have fun while he's there?

[lytokk]

Do you all have fun while he's there?

I get the point your making and I do try to be the best DM or player I can be, including making sure everyone has fun. Sometimes I do roleplay a little, I guess louder would be the right word, but I do try and step out of the limelight for a while once I realize it.
Since this was a DM perspective complaint thread, I didn't feel the need to include the fact that whenever this player DMed, he'd lose interest in the games after about the same amount of time. Part of me thinks he didn't ever actually want to play or run, he was just trying to kill time. Course, he was the one that got my group together and got us all to start playing, so it seems counter productive to introduce us all to a hobby that he didn't like.

[Blackhawk748]

Well i've never had a player play Drizzt, however i did once. Like i actually followed his build on his Mini Stat card, i roleplayed him as him, even made friends with a few dwarves, however my party was both insane and stupid and at one point they tried to kill me, because "you iz drow and drow iz evul". Well about three rounds later there is a dead half orc druid, a dead human monk, and a dying halfling rogue, and im not even bloodied. BTW at this point i had only levels in fighter and hadnt snagged my first lvl in ranger, though i did have my figurine of wondrous power: onyx. I loved that panther. My DM at the time found this whole scene hysterical and did nothing to help them, though technically he did help me because i got the cooler loot because i did not anger him, that and i brought my own food to his place lol

I do need to say that that was really early in my DnD career and i thought it was just a cool concept, also this group had a tendency to be Chaotic stupid Evul stupid, so what they attempted was entirely normal, thus why i started to optimize