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The end of the year is a good time to look back on your life and see what might have gone better, so open up, you're among friends here.
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
I'll start:
I DM'ed a group of players that killed Asmodeus (1E version) in about a half-hour adventure. I let the party gate right into his throne room, neglected to have any minions around, forgot about magic resistance and let them strangle him with Bigby's Crushing Hand.
Oh boy, I've a ton of these :P. I'll only include those I can think of off the top of my head though:
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
I used "rocks fall, you die" once a couple years ago. First - and only - time I'd done it too. It was a problem player - he was on a streak of dead characters (all of which can be blamed squarely on his poor tactical decisions - he ruined more than a few well laid out plans because he insisted on doing things his way instead of going along with the other PCs) at the time, and so he decided to create an unkillable character. At the time, we were doing 3.5 gestalt, so he chose an Elan Psion/Druid, and worked his way up to taking the feat that lets him ignore all damage he takes at the cost of a couple of power points.
I told him I wasn't allowing that feat, because it was ridiculous, so he should choose a new one (admittedly, this was mid session - I hadn't noticed he'd taken this before, as I'm not in the habit of reading over my player's choices every level.) He threw a temper tantrum and said no. I kept trying to just get him to move on, but he wouldn't, and kept saying he wasn't taking damage.
I lost my patience with him, told him flat out "fine, then you just die" and turned to my other players and kept playing with them.
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
Hmm... 3rd edition game. Male human LE Blackguard 20/Ex-Paladin 10. I don't actually remember the specifics, but he got pretty ludicrous. I think I talked the DM into letting me have an unholy version of the holy avenger.
He was, of course, nothing compared to the CE human Evoker15-Archmage5-Red Wizard 10 my friend was running. Using 3.0 haste and multispell, he could get out about a half dozen spells in a single round.
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
I plagiarize all of the time. I added an entire race/religion to one of our homebrews based on the fremen of Dune. Oh and I also wrote a science fantasy setting for D&D based around the Butlerian Jihad...
Look, I don't just steal from Dune. I've run games based on the Sword of Truth series, too :P.
Oh I also played a spymaster once whose first persona had a snooty British accent, pompous attitude, very much an effeminate coward, and was a xenobiologist named Wesley Wyndham-Price.
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*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
Hm. This would probably be based on a ranger I played who had an intense hatred for gnomes. There was a little backstory to this, but after a relatively short time of playing the character it became an unreasonable thing so that whenever he would see a gnome he would find a way to do something terrible to them.
Wasn't necessarily something violent, but while the character was good in other respects, his gnome based behavior put him pretty squarely in neutral since he wasn't afraid to steal or lie to ruin a gnomes day. At one point we were at some sort of festival and were preparing to leave the town for good, so he decided that it was time to make a gnome that was performing for an audience of children suffer some humiliation, since even if people saw him do it the worst that would happen would be getting chased out of town, where the group was going anyway.
The gnome had been described as having this absurdly fanciful beard pulled out in different strands and decorated like part of his costume, and I slipped the DM a note saying I was going slip up behind the gnome, grab him, and cut off his beard. Something distracting happened as I moved up and the DM had me roll for it, presumably to see if the gnome slipped free. I rolled a 1, then treating it like an attack roll(we used fumble rules) rolled another 1 backing it.
The DM just looked at the dice, looked at me then turned towards the others, describing how I snuck up behind the gnome, grabbed him and slit his throat showering blood over the watching children. The children weren't the only ones shocked at the players looked at me in horror too. Damn slip of the wrist.
I was going to take a stab at some of these other questions, but I have probably already been too wordy.
* 5' Step as part of move action... That made a mess of the 5' step!
* Used the name Murbella for a Sacred Prostitute PC
* This is also probably one of my favorite characters I have ever run. The fact that she went from a two dimensional joke to a fully developed character that actually drove a lot of the campaign she was in!
* (A recent one) Forgot to account for the Shadow Dancer's Shadow pet while designing an adventure: Basically the incorporeal, inelligent pet could "poke it's head in" and spot every single room and was untouchable by 95% of the bad guys... Basically the quest went like this: "Desmond go kill everyone and hurry back to us if anyone can hit you."
* (Many years ago) Once actually got physical at a table. Bad Bad news. However, lesson learned-it made me focus on *why* I game, and after that there is nothing that can happen at a table that will result in anything more than "Screw you, I am leaving" Gaming should be fun and not stressful, or temper-igniting!
GNOME
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* Used the name Murbella for a Sacred Prostitute PC
* This is also probably one of my favorite characters I have ever run. The fact that she went from a two dimensional joke to a fully developed character that actually drove a lot of the campaign she was in!
I've seen that myself. It's awesome that it happens so often!
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
- Raped a chick (in game play), after she cast a love spell on me. I was a barbarian and in love what do you want?
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?[
- Only because the DM didn't know his gaming system, an alchemist, if i went first i killed almost everything.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
- back in good old 2e days we where informed by someone that a wizard could cast spells from his spellbook, like he had them memorized.... hilarity ensued... no one bothered to double check his facts until much later.
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
- putting up with other people s#$& mostly, gaming is about fun.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
When I switched to 3.0, I misinterpreted so many DOZENS and DOZENS of rules, there are too many candidates for me to choose from them.
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
As other posters have pointed out, plagiarism is a skill to be PROUD of in roleplaying. And if no one else at the table can get the reference, they're obviously not familiar with the original and, 99% likely, wouldn't be interested. So I'm sorry, but plagiarism doesn't count as a confession.
But these non-answers I'm giving are not my reason for posting.
* 5' Step as part of move action... That made a mess of the 5' step!
Yep, I was guilty of that one too, among dozens of others.
* (A recent one) Forgot to account for the Shadow Dancer's Shadow pet while designing an adventure: Basically the incorporeal, inelligent pet could "poke it's head in" and spot every single room and was untouchable by 95% of the bad guys... Basically the quest went like this: "Desmond go kill everyone and hurry back to us if anyone can hit you."
In my view, that's not a mistake. I think a GM should allow the players to make good use of their abilities to make an adventure easier. It's fun, and it's the reason they give their PCs those abilities.
* (Many years ago) Once actually got physical at a table. Bad Bad news. However, lesson learned-it made me focus on *why* I game, and after that there is nothing that can happen at a table that will result in anything more than "Screw you, I am leaving" Gaming should be fun and not stressful, or temper-igniting!GNOME
Ah, nostalgia strikes me. Now I have to tell a story (only tangentially relevant.)
When I started GMing, my players were all perfectly calm. Then I GMed for a group in high school which was quite a rowdy bunch. At one point, I had an NPC spy on the party, and I rolled for the NPC's ability to hide from the party. The players had a fit. "What did you just roll for?" they demanded. I followed some gaming manual's advice of just smiling and saying nothing. One of the players again demanded "What did you just roll for?!?" while grabbing my neck and shaking me back and forth by my neck. It was amazing! It was great! I had never imagined that players could care so much about a game!
Years later, while I was driving, I noticed a bumper sticker on another car, which said:
CARPE DM
SEIZE THE DUNGEON MASTER
...and got warm fuzzy memories.
This isn't game-related, but I really like oatmeal raisin cookies.
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
Athos, a true neutral conjurer that would make any GM pull their hair out in frustration.
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
The above character was killed in the 1st round of combat despite all the defensive preparation. I threw his character sheet in frustration. We had a laugh afterward as that character was deemed too powerful to exist.
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
Athos wasn't based off any D&D characters, but a fire emblem character of the same name.
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I once got so involved in roleplaying my character that I had her start an argument with another PC over a political difference, and almost caused that player to retire his character and make a new one. He hadn't been playing that character long. I felt really stupid for making him feel so uncomfortable about playing his character that he wanted to change characters, as well as for getting so heated about an imaginary political situation. That's the reason I don't discuss politics in real life!
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
Took bribes for character buffs in a heavy pvp type group.
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
I tend to gm, so munchkin-ed gmpcs are more my thing.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
We dont misinterpret rules. We houserule.
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
Pride? Caution to the point of inaction? Decision paralysis? Needing to know what you're facing before you make your dude so your dude will be ideally suited to the challenge.
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
Never done a drizzt clone. I have had a Frank Dux though.
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
I have no shame
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
A couple years back, when I had first started running my Age of Worms game, one of my new players was being a real pain in the ass. To paraphrase a certain sci-fi film, she was unpredictable--she ran when she should have fought, fought when she should have dealt, and it made me a little twitchy. In order to help with getting her (and, to an extent, the rest of my players) to stop wreaking havoc on the countryside and start trying to save the world, I brought in a friend of mine as a co-DM. And then he promptly derailed the game. It got silly. The players were trying to save the world now, though, and they were having fun. I gracefully bowed out (though I did come back to play as a PC in the last session of the campaign).
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
When Dragon #321 came out, I fell in love with the Infused Warrior prestige class. I asked my DM at the time if I could design my own version of the class based on one of the celestials from his homebrew game, and, stupidly, he said yes. One of the class' abilities allows for a certain number of uses of a spell-like ability at 7th level or so, and I saw that most of them were 4th-level spells. I believe my thought process was something along the lines of, "hey, isn't flame strike a 4th-level Druid spell?" You can imagine what happened after that.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
For nearly the entirety of the aforementioned Age of Worms game, I had converted the adventures from 3.5 to Pathfinder, and missed a few things in the conversion. Namely, that the Toughness feat can only be taken once and doesn't stack with itself. I only realized the error when I noticed that the party's sorcerer had upwards of 200 hit points at around level 12 (about a year and a half into the campaign), and went back and checked the Core Rulebook.
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
I'm usually OK with OOC talk at games. I play RPGs mostly to spend time with my friends, as opposed to being a "serious role-player" (though I do enjoy that aspect as well). The only time I've ever had a problem with table talk was one time when a new player in a group started b+@$@ing out a long-time member for not optimizing their character. That kind of thing bugs me.
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Drizzt clones!)
One of my favorite characters that I've ever played started out as a shameless expy of Brienne of Tarth from A Song of Ice & Fire. The character evolved somewhat, though, and I've ended up playing versions of her in several different games, both tabletop and electronic.
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
This f#&@ing guy. I was young. So young.
As a player? Played a rogue, hand picked locks, slight of handed stuff I wanted and passed on leftovers saying it was all I found. I was young and foolish and didn't realize "well my character would do it" still made me, the player, a dick.
As a GM? Railroading. Hard.
CORE WIZARD
I'm actually pretty good at this one. I guess...so...not using house rules?
See next question.
I hate this and have never done it. It's just awful. Billions of possibilities and you really have to steal someone else's? Not inspired by, no, you actually named him Conan, did you? Ugh. You sicken me.
I HAVE made mergers, and characters inspired by famous ones, but I always make sure to change them in a few major ways so they're not ripoffs.
Diplomacy focused character. Everyone at the table hated me. Actually roleplaying was worthless when you have a +27 modifier (what's the point of me talking when my character is way more eloquent than I?), and who wants to just roll a skill check every two minutes?
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Right now, I have a character (a Grippli, actually) that is based on Sir Detimus from Labyrinth, and found out that another player actually made a halfling that is Sir Detimus.
I also was making a character that was gonna be "The Mask" with a synthesizer Summoner, until it was B.A.N.N.E.D. from PFS, so he became a Celebrity Bard instead.
I recently made "Randoff Scott!"
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I once talked a GM into letting me play a monk character who was intended to eventually evolve into the Monkey King (I'm obsessed with the Monkey King). She allowed me to use the Forgotten Realms spirit folk race in Pathfinder (the Pathfinder stats for vanara hadn't been released yet). I found a 3.0 prestige class in Dragon that I liked, and she agreed to modify it to fit Pathfinder. Eventually the prestige class would have allowed the character to turn into a monkey a certain number of times per day. The GM was working on getting me a homebrew artifact quarterstaff that could be reduced to the size of a toothpick or enlarged into a tree trunk, and I planned on taking the Spider Step - Cloud Step feat progression so he could simulate flying around on a cloud.
When the campaign ended prematurely, I hadn't yet figured out how to have the party's cleric put an enchanted headband on my monk to keep him out of trouble, though.
Actually, I'd sort of like to try that concept again, using a vanara. I don't feel quite as ashamed to plagiarize a fictional character that few Americans are familiar with.
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*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
Charged a troll, at level 1. (We only survived because they have poor will saves and we missed the 1/day limit in the daze cantrip.
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
A mostly core sorcerer that could pump out 29d6 damage each turn at level 13. Killed the final boss of Eyes of the Ten in 2 turns with that.
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
A friend and I were trying to escape an assassin on a train. We snuck into the next car, decoupling the one he was in. Unfortunately, this also left behind the other player's new PC that wasn't even around long enough to introduce himself to us.
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
A Dawnflower Dervish that could get +12 from Inspire Courage by level 9.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
My whole group somehow managed to misinterpret the wizard's "two free spells every level" as "two free spells of each level he can cast every level".
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
We used to complain about combat rounds taking forever because we had seven players in addition to the GM. Now we only have three, one of whom is often kept away by work. We want our old problem back
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
A large number of my important NPCs. The Exalted game I'm prepping for already includes several characters based on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (including a Solar based on Zeppeli and an Abyssal based on Dio).
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
Can't say I'm ashamed of anything.
My whole group somehow managed to misinterpret the wizard's "two free spells every level" as "two free spells of each level he can cast every level".
Sounds pretty badass to me.
Heh. The most ridiculously-OP character I ever built was for a RIFTS game, in which the GM decided that, rather than the usual hand-to-hand skills, characters could choose martial arts styles from ninjas and superspies... AND let us pick up MULTIPLE styles for a paltry expenditure of secondary skills.
So, I ended up with Aikido, Chien-na, and Snake Style Kung Fu packed onto a Psyscape-trained Psi-Slayer. >grin< Somehow, that campaign died a swift and quiet death, and we moved on to a different system...
I confess, as much as I love Savage Worlds and that I have talked two groups into switching over, I miss Pathfinder for nostalgic reasons.
And the ability to fall 500 feet, get up, and walk away without repercussions. Or kill like 80 minions without being curb stomped when superior numbers and position give zero craps that I'm ten levels higher.
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
Last night I watched the Canelo vs Cotto fight instead of running Council of Thieves. In my defense, I’ve been sick lately and wasn’t prepared. I’d also like to host a small real life feast to mirror one in the adventure, and I definitely wasn’t feeling up to it.
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
Most overpowered - Cousin Larry, a gnome Alchemist with Fast Bombs, Force Bombs, Rapid Shot, and the TWF feats.
Most ridiculous - Taa Mchunzi was a 3.5 Stalwart Sorcerer with Searing Spell, a +1 metamagic which bypassed fire resistance and allowed you to do half damage even against stuff which was normally immune to fire. He also had a lot of free metamagic from Arcane Thesis, and Fireball was his answer to practically every problem, even efreeti or fire elementals. Since Fireball didn’t work against golems he also had an adamantine construct bane guisarme.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
I always counted weapons with 10’ reach as threatening two squares diagonally. Of course Paizo later changed the rules to match that. I’m not sure if I have some misconceptions about grappling since Paizo hasn’t clarified how it works yet.
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
One time a DM who I was drinking with ended up falling into a trashcan he’d vomited in earlier. That wasn’t really my fault though I almost accidentally knocked him into it again later - Ah, good times!!!
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
Like Dire Elf, I’ve taken some inspiration from Chinese cinema and literature though I suspect that Monk Liu from the Water Margin is more obscure than Monkey King.
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
I never actually played a half-orc Monk named Tai-Sun, but I did think about it. There are other things I should probably be ashamed of, but really I’m not...
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The end of the year is a good time to look back on your life and see what might have gone better, so open up, you're among friends here.
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
Like worst in character thing? Worst as in 'most evil' was tricking a fighter I owed money to into beating a woman who had dirt on me to death. Worst as in 'dumbest' was probably the time I planting food on a bugbear to piss off his companion mid-combat.
The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
Only because my GM didn't really use every tool in the box..... but my CE Enchanter was nasty. My save DCs were astronomical by first level and he just kept throwing fighters at us.
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
Truthfully nothing for years - I'm too big of a rules lawyer. But it was usually spells. There are so many I could use them for a long time without realizing I've been using it wrong.
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
Really ashamed of this, but when I first started playing one of our table mates was a Chaotic "good" rogue who constantly hoarded the party pot and stole from us. I kind of mentioned to the GM how I don't really think the player was actually "good" and my frustration that I wasn't able to upgrade my gear in four levels because the Rogue had all the money. When we were about to face the big bad the GM handed loot out to everyone.....except the Rogue. And mentioned specifically the hoarding and brought a particular piece of gear I'd mentioned wanting to buy a previous session.
Oh and also ditching games last minute for a girlfriend who was honestly just terrible and there was no future with. My wife and I give each other our space for our separate hobbies and interests, but that's one of the hardest relationship lessons to learn.
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
Truthfully I plagiarize from these boards more than anything. The most egregious was a redneck witch with a pig familiar stolen whole cloth from a character concept thread.
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
Ugh, the character from my worst OOC moment - an obnoxious, self righteous Paladin with way too many names and titles to keep track of. I thought it'd be funny but it was way more annoying than anything.
The end of the year is a good time to look back on your life and see what might have gone better, so open up, you're among friends here.
*What's the worst gaming thing you've ever done?
*The most munchkin-ed PC you've run?
*Worst rule misinterpretation you went with for years?
*OOC behavior at the table that makes you cringe now?
*Shameless plagiarism you passed off as original? (I'm looking at you, Driz'zt clones!)
*Character concept you're most ashamed of?
I'll start:
I DM'ed a group of players that killed Asmodeus (1E version) in about a half-hour adventure. I let the party gate right into his throne room, neglected to have any minions around, forgot about magic resistance and let them strangle him with Bigby's Crushing Hand.
In Sequence by your points:
*Systematically destroyed other DMs campaigns by predicting plot (nothing is original, and almost anything can be broken down into tropes). Refused to be Railroaded and never backed down from an encounter, even if it would kill off the rest of the Party.
*Oracle (Dual-Cursed, Seeker) Variant Multiclass Sorcerer. Mythic 1 Hierophant (Dual Path into Archmage). Though I got no spells per day as a Sorcerer, I could cast like one thanks to Wild Arcana from Archmage. One-PC Party was the concept, and it links to my first confession as the first PC used on that personal goal of make the DM cry.
*Insisting on RAW and exploiting Wayang Spellhunter + Magical Lineage to have unlimited Level 2 "Merciful" spells.
*I played a Legolas lol -bow concept at least! Love Elves for their lifespans, hate them for their lack of testosterone. Even outright fey have more machismo.
*Abjuration-based Sorcerer who did nothing but lock down... PCs and enemies both. He said "No" a lot in all of its myriad variations.