I might quit another game (and, with that GM) because that GM has a tendency to become cranky when he doesn't win.
O_o
Truly, I have not the words.
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I quit a game once during its first session. We were 5 first level character in a 3.5 game. The DM had us go up against a Fiendish/Half-Dragon Wyvern. After two of the characters were killed, he had an NPC show up that kept a Ballista in his "Hat of Holding". When the guy pulled the Ballista out of his hat, I closed my books, put them in my bag, got up, and walked out. I never went back.
A couple of years later, I found out from another person that quit the same group, that that was a typical gaming night for them. I'm so glad I didn't waste anymore of my time on "Dumbass Story Hour".
The only game I recall ever quitting was not due to a straw, but rather a bale of hay.
I was the new guy to the group, so it is to be expected that there is a learning curve for getting into a new group, but this GM kept pulling new houserules out of the hat, which was incredibly frustrating.
Then I started noticing that the GM clearly favored one player in particular. The campaign basically revolved around that player, which can be OK to some extent, but in this case the rest of us were basically extras.
Then there was the off game chatter. I am normaly fine with that, but in this case not really. Often the chatter was racist towards immigrants.
At one point I was asked to guest GM for the group. That was fine until the other GM started undermining the game.
One of the things that were the most intolerable was the GMs relation to one of the players. The GM would constantly demean and abuse that player and mostly that player just took it. Eventually the situation got too embarassing.
I really game that game a chance, which I theroughly regret today.
My advice: If your gut feeling tells you to quit, don't wait for an actual excuse. Just do it.
I left a group recently that I enjoyed gaming with, because the DM/GM kept getting upset when the creatures lost and when a player would come up with a ingenuous way to do something that was supported by the game rules and he would rule against it.
I probably shouldn't say due to my feelings on them, but lemme put it this way: If I want to play DBZ d20, I'll play DBZ d20, not the Tome Rules. The only difference is Saiyans and Namekkians aren't in Tome Rules (that I know of :P).He was also a Tome Rules fanatic (while I'm pretty much an anti-Tome Rules fanatic, which probably isn't much better).What are these Tome Rules? I have heard them referenced before, but could not find a decent explanation of the term.
I'm feeling a little jargon-overloaded myself. What are we talking about again?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I've mentioned in another thread or two, the two-headed dwarf character my friend Michelle and I were playing, several years ago. It started out as wacky fun, but when "Ernest and Julio" took a couple of Barbarian levels, it suddenly occurred to the other PCs that the dwarf was actually a massive damage-per-round machine, and not so much a joke in combat.
So the DM's wife, who was playing her traditional "Chaotic Neutral" (ahem) gnome rogue, decided that "Ernest and Julio might become mind-controlled and attack the party" and so we had to be killed.
Michelle and I had a brief talk with the GM, decided that neither of us wanted to deal with that, and left.
My Plate Mail? Defense 4.NPC Plate Mail? Defense 12.
I could not, with a 150 point character, with a 15 STR and a 1d6+1 sword (meaning I was doing, let's see... STR min 8 on the sword, one +5 STR increment over the STR min... that raised me to 1 1/2D6 on the sword for an average of 6 points of damage with a maximum of 9), ever, in my life, hope to penetrate that armor. Ever.
Just out of curiosity: What system is that?
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He was also a Tome Rules fanatic (while I'm pretty much an anti-Tome Rules fanatic, which probably isn't much better).What are these Tome Rules? I have heard them referenced before, but could not find a decent explanation of the term.
As for when it's players that make the last straw, I remember a second time I walked out of a game now.
The module was Red Hand of Doom. Excellent adventure, me and a friend had an abortive start on it before. GM makes the mistake of telling my friends they can play an Unseelie Fey Warlock and Petal Warlock. Fourth man was some other flying creature. I was the normal guy with my Dwarf Swordsage.
We get to the part where the party lays eyes on the horde marching slowly in the direction of town. Instead of heading back to warn everyone, the three flying characters think 'lets see how much damage we can do!'
My dwarf leans against a tree, waiting and watching the eldritch blasts fly. The DM takes forever in bringing out the blue dragon on them.
I'm not sure what the final straw was, but I finally stood up from the table, said 'my dwarf goes back to town alone to warn the people who, you know, HIRED us to protect them', and took off. Maybe not the best way to handle it, but I certainly wasn't all that reasonable after an hour or so of wasted time.
GM's who railroad plots
We had one of those GMs. But the characters rocked, and we had a blast. So we pretty much let him do what he wants and just what we wanted.
Since he also didn't want characters to die and made it as obvious as you can unless you just say that characters won't die no matter what (actually, it was even more obvious to that), we decided to play with that.
We went into the biggest city in the area, filled to the brim with epic defenders (we weren't anywhere near epic) and started slaughtering people at random.
We all got out! :D
Edit: The thing is: It was a bit of a "fun" (i.e. be evil and do crazy evil stuff) campaign from the start, we weren't there for an epic story or anything, so it was alright.
If it had happened in a campaign where we expected story and characters interacting properly with the world, We would probably have told the GM to just stop and let someone else try his hand at running a game.
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I've mentioned in another thread or two, the two-headed dwarf character my friend Michelle and I were playing, several years ago. It started out as wacky fun, but when "Ernest and Julio" took a couple of Barbarian levels, it suddenly occurred to the other PCs that the dwarf was actually a massive damage-per-round machine, and not so much a joke in combat.
So the DM's wife, who was playing her traditional "Chaotic Neutral" (ahem) gnome rogue, decided that "Ernest and Julio might become mind-controlled and attack the party" and so we had to be killed.
Michelle and I had a brief talk with the GM, decided that neither of us wanted to deal with that, and left.
Weird.
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Just out of curiosity: What system is that?
My Plate Mail? Defense 4.NPC Plate Mail? Defense 12.
I could not, with a 150 point character, with a 15 STR and a 1d6+1 sword (meaning I was doing, let's see... STR min 8 on the sword, one +5 STR increment over the STR min... that raised me to 1 1/2D6 on the sword for an average of 6 points of damage with a maximum of 9), ever, in my life, hope to penetrate that armor. Ever.
Sounds like Hero System, with swords doing killing damage and armor acting as resistant defense. So no chance of doing more than STUN damage through the armor.
I also find it strange that the DM is always the bad guy.
Well, this is a "when did you walk away from the game" thread, not a "when did you kick the jerk out of your game" thread.
Weird.I've mentioned in another thread or two, the two-headed dwarf character my friend Michelle and I were playing, several years ago. It started out as wacky fun, but when "Ernest and Julio" took a couple of Barbarian levels, it suddenly occurred to the other PCs that the dwarf was actually a massive damage-per-round machine, and not so much a joke in combat.
So the DM's wife, who was playing her traditional "Chaotic Neutral" (ahem) gnome rogue, decided that "Ernest and Julio might become mind-controlled and attack the party" and so we had to be killed.
Michelle and I had a brief talk with the GM, decided that neither of us wanted to deal with that, and left.
Not really. What the player really meant was "these guys are cutting intop my spotlight time, and I don't like that." As she was the DM's wife, I would imagine this was not going to be something he could easily pull her up on. I think the players made the right choice.
I might quit another game (and, with that GM) because that GM has a tendency to become cranky when he doesn't win.O_o
Truly, I have not the words.
To elaborate: Sometimes, we just go through enemies like a warm knife through butter. I'm sure you know the phenomenon: GM think the encounter will be hard, but it turns out the players won't even break a sweat.
Normally, you shrug it off and adjust your perception of their power upward.
He sometimes gets annoyed. And then he might go into an adversarial mode where he will even try to bend rules and go for cheap shots (which can be okay, not really when you bend the rules).
When the party still prevails, he sometimes throws a tantrum.
He might not intentionally set out to win, but it can feel like this.
Plus, you start feeling guilty about performing well. I caught myself thinking about missing great opportunities (stuff where you can pull off a neat combo or exploit the circumstances to be quite effective) to avoid a campaign crash.
If it happens again, I'll probably stop playing, because I don't want to feel uneasy on the gaming table.
Sounds like Hero System, with swords doing killing damage and armor acting as resistant defense. So no chance of doing more than STUN damage through the armor.Just out of curiosity: What system is that?
My Plate Mail? Defense 4.NPC Plate Mail? Defense 12.
I could not, with a 150 point character, with a 15 STR and a 1d6+1 sword (meaning I was doing, let's see... STR min 8 on the sword, one +5 STR increment over the STR min... that raised me to 1 1/2D6 on the sword for an average of 6 points of damage with a maximum of 9), ever, in my life, hope to penetrate that armor. Ever.
You are correct, sir.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned that in my original post, but no doubt it got lost in the shuffle.
This would be the original Fantasy HERO genre book, printed at roughly the same time as HERO v2/v3 rules. Back when the idea of a "Core Rulebook with supporting rules-light genre books" was just catching on.
But yeah. There was no way in the Nine-Hells we could have ever penetrated the typical suit of Plate Mail worn by opposing NPC's. Most grunts wore DEF 8 Chainmail, while our PC's were limited to DEF 3 armor of the same name.
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What are these Tome Rules?They can be found here.
Ah...I recognize the alignment section from the old WotC boards. I actually liked the discussion of different views on what "evil" means in the game. The rest of it seems...I dunno. A little Frankish.
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I have a last straw situation. I'll start off, I'm always the GM. My group of players for whatever reason NEVER want to GM, or in the few times they've GM'd I know why they didn't.
We're running a primarily homespum campaign which was based heavily on the lore in the Book of Nine Swords. We'd been playing weekly for about 2 months. They're in the ravenloft adventure werewolf style, in the forest at night.
They're attacked by werewolves of all things, when the lead antagonist player pitches a fit that
1) Werewolves, whom they're warned about by villagers already have silver DR and he didn't have a way of beating it other than large amounts of damage.
2) the werewolf rangers were shooting him from concealment, and he had the murky eyed feat and had no way of manuevering through the cover effectively since he didn't have the nature walk ability that druids and rangers get.
He pitched a huge fit that I as a GM was making it impossible for him to play his character solely focused on melee (Other party members were archer fighter, cleric, and diplomacy bard, and an NPC paladin they decided to bring along from town) That if I didn't remove the concealment/difficult terrain a forest grants that he wasn't going to play anymore and we all could go home. That further if the werewolves are shooting from concealment into the clearing the players walked through, he should get concealment from them.
After arguing, showing rules, and listening to him whine for literally 2 hours. I packed up my books, told the other players if we ever found another location to game, I'd be more than happy to GM for them and left.
A year later, I got a decent sized apartment, and we're gaming again without that player and in the longest campaign we've ever run most credit given to the fact that captain drama is no longer with us. That was 2 years ago now.
I particularly remember one GM who liked to put the players in an impossible situation, and then have deux ex machina save them at the last minute.
Been there !
I'm mostly GMing, but, as a player, I played in a game where the PCs were often overwhelmed by opposing forces and put in jail/prison only to find all their gears 5 minutes laters and start killing all the bad guys who captured them. What's the point of the whole ''inevitable capture'' scenario if it doesn't have any real consequences ? It's ok if that kind of situation happens once in a while, but when it happens almost at every sessions...
Sry for double post. :\
I've never had a last straw, but the youngest of my players has had several "That's it!" issues recently. I house rule for the sake of balance and he's an optimizer; you do the math. Add to that the fact that he came to D&D with a WoW background, so he doesn't realize how much a part of D&D house rules are.
Several times recently he's quit, and then changed his mind between sessions, so I told him he's sitting out for our current adventure. His most recent email said "I'm quitting to find another D&D group." One of the other players replied with "Good luck with that; I've been looking for a group for ten years." I'm thinking of booting him permanently, if only so his sister stops apologizing for him.
I had another incident that I'm hoping others will help me understand. I've been inviting other students at the local college to a D&D game on Friday. One of them, a young woman who's never played before, but who has a bf who likes OD&D, asked me "Are you going to make us roll to open doors?" Not thinking diplomatically at that moment (I was hungry), I said "Nah, nobody does that." 'Cause really, unless it's locked or something, or you're in the middle of combat, you can either open a door or you can't. I've had DMs make me roll just to open random doors, and I don't get it.
Anyway, the guy sitting next to her--not her bf, just some guy--piped in with "If I don't have to roll to open doors, I don't play." I had a momentary impulse to round kick him. (Like I said, I was hungry.) I was so dumbfounded by such random questions and statements, and blown away by the petty statement, and I was hungry, so all I did was repeat my invitation and leave to eat. I mean seriously, I know neither of them are in a D&D game, so clearly they lack either the skill or desire to DM themselves. Then someone comes along offering to DM, and all they can do is demand to roll dice to open doors. Maybe they're just not into D&D that much, but then why have such strong opinions about it?
We had a GM that had a campaign that he was sure was "like a novel," and our first warning sign was that when we were making our characters, we had to choose our "role," one of us being the Prince, his Bodyguard, the Royal Spy, and some other role I never quite got because that was the only person that more or less got to make their character the way they wanted.
The Prince had to be an arcane caster, the spy had to be a rogue, and my character, the Bodyguard, had to be "a bodyguard."
I wanted to make a swashbuckler that was up on court gossip and the like. He told me that wasn't what the bodyguard was like . . . grr. Essentially I got to pick from either a fighter or a paladin. Knowing how railroady CHARACTER CREATION was, I was pretty sure I didn't want a paladin.
After several adventures, I had found a suit of armor and a greatsword, both magical, was pretty happy with how well I could defend my charge, even if I couldn't freaking play my swashbuckler bodyguard type.
Then the "plot twists" hit. The guy playing the Prince had to replace his character with a half-dragon, as he had been kidnapped or wandered off or something. First I had my armor and sword destroyed by "rust monster dust," then we were captured, and I wasn't allowed to pick up a rock and use it as an improvised weapon, because our GM was converting 1st edition adventures that required you to do something else to come up with improvised weapons.
He house ruled that fireballs destroyed all treasure within their range. He constantly shifted between made up 1st edition rulings, 3.0 and 3.5 rules. Often times in the middle of a fight. "You fight an iron golem." "I'm going to use my +1 adamantine sword on him." "That won't work, you need a +3 sword." "Why?" "I just think you should have to have a higher plus weapon to hurt them."
Finally, we fought a vampire. I was finally got my hands on armor and weapons again. I actually hit the bastard pretty hard, and we killed it, but I took some negative levels. He was making the map up as we went along, at least the scale . . . and he basically placed the nearest city ONE DAY too far away for me to avoid permanently loosing two levels.
Given that for a significant portion of the campaign I was only useful to get in between the party and whatever was going to do damage, I figured that loosing two levels was pretty much a deal breaker, and that killed it for me.
We had a GM that had a campaign that he was sure was "like a novel," and our first warning sign was that when we were making our characters, we had to choose our "role," one of us being the Prince, his Bodyguard, the Royal Spy, and some other role I never quite got because that was the only person that more or less got to make their character the way they wanted.
The Prince had to be an arcane caster, the spy had to be a rogue, and my character, the Bodyguard, had to be "a bodyguard."
I wanted to make a swashbuckler that was up on court gossip and the like. He told me that wasn't what the bodyguard was like . . . grr. Essentially I got to pick from either a fighter or a paladin. Knowing how railroady CHARACTER CREATION was, I was pretty sure I didn't want a paladin.
After several adventures, I had found a suit of armor and a greatsword, both magical, was pretty happy with how well I could defend my charge, even if I couldn't freaking play my swashbuckler bodyguard type.
Then the "plot twists" hit. The guy playing the Prince had to replace his character with a half-dragon, as he had been kidnapped or wandered off or something. First I had my armor and sword destroyed by "rust monster dust," then we were captured, and I wasn't allowed to pick up a rock and use it as an improvised weapon, because our GM was converting 1st edition adventures that required you to do something else to come up with improvised weapons.
He house ruled that fireballs destroyed all treasure within their range. He constantly shifted between made up 1st edition rulings, 3.0 and 3.5 rules. Often times in the middle of a fight. "You fight an iron golem." "I'm going to use my +1 adamantine sword on him." "That won't work, you need a +3 sword." "Why?" "I just think you should have to have a higher plus weapon to hurt them."
Finally, we fought a vampire. I was finally got my hands on armor and weapons again. I actually hit the bastard pretty hard, and we killed it, but I took some negative levels. He was making the...
Tell that guy, "dude. Too much like real life. What's the point?"
I have never walked out on a game as a player. As a DM I have only had to tell one player he wasn't welcome at my next game.
For the past bit I've been living in Korea, and was able to get together a small gaming group. We started up a Star Wars SAGA game and had been playing for about 5 months by this point. One thing to note is Korean Architecture. My apartment was one bedroom, the largest room and where we played, a second room right beside it, the bathroom that was at a 90 degree from that second room, and the kitched that connected it all, that was small enough to touch both walls at the same time. For a single Korean apt. this is actually pretty big, but it's still tiny, small enough to twist yourself and see pretty much any other part of the apartment.
So I'm out one night and I meet a new guy, We'll call him Droid, Droid's just moved to good ol' SK, and we bond over a few beers and a love of the Song of Ice and Fire. through the night I invite him to join the game.
The next day we get him up to speed on the plot, group of ragtag Jedi refugees are pulling together various factions into a new Rebellion, combat yes, but still lots of RPing, intrigue and what not.
He makes a Droid, very HK-47ish. I repeat that combat is often not a strong part of this game. He says that's ok.
So the first part is a prison break, he has some fun. the next part is a clandestine meeting between one of the Jedi and the CEO of a Starship Production company. The CEO is a good man, but worries for his family. Sadly the Jedi fails his diplomacy check. So just as our jedi tries to get his stuff together to turn this guy back to his side...
Droid: I shoot him.
Me: wha?
Droid: I shoot him.
Jedi: You do what now?!
Droid: I shoot him... in the head.
Me: But... why?!
Droid: *shrugs* I don't think this is going anywhere.
Me: You know you were instructed by your Master to help these guys with this Rebellion
Droid: Meh.
(The whole master thing, wasn't me trying to railroad him, he'd spent the first half of the game asking the NPC what to do)
And the icing on the cake....
Droid gets up and goes to use the can, and I hear the very distinct and not muffled-by-a-door sounds of a stream of liquid hitting the toilet bowl.
Me: Are you pissing with the door open?!
Droid: Dude... it's just D&D
me and all other players: *incredulous look of disbelief*
So the next day I sent him a msg saying that our play styles obviously did not match.
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"I'm sorry, you just pissed your spot at the table away." ;)
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"I'm sorry, you just pissed your spot at the table away." ;)
Haha, yeah really, I couldn't believe it. Up till then I kept thinking, "It's workable, its been awhile since we've have a new guy, maybe we cut him out more than I thought, maybe have a talk with him about how to fit him into the sto..."
PSSSSHHHH"Who does that?!"
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Not really. What the player really meant was "these guys are cutting intop my spotlight time, and I don't like that." As she was the DM's wife, I would imagine this was not going to be something he could easily pull her up on. I think the players made the right choice.Weird.I've mentioned in another thread or two, the two-headed dwarf character my friend Michelle and I were playing, several years ago. It started out as wacky fun, but when "Ernest and Julio" took a couple of Barbarian levels, it suddenly occurred to the other PCs that the dwarf was actually a massive damage-per-round machine, and not so much a joke in combat.
So the DM's wife, who was playing her traditional "Chaotic Neutral" (ahem) gnome rogue, decided that "Ernest and Julio might become mind-controlled and attack the party" and so we had to be killed.
Michelle and I had a brief talk with the GM, decided that neither of us wanted to deal with that, and left.
I should have specified. The only part I thought was weird, was the two-headed dwarf. LOL!
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I should have specified. The only part I thought was weird, was the two-headed dwarf. LOL!
I discuss that character elsewhere.
The first game I quit was a 2e game almost 20 years ago. I wish I had more details, but all I clearly remember is the DM lectured at us when we couldn't figure out the one correct approach to saving a princess. My friend and I were only 15 and joined this established group of 30+ year old players, and the DM was around 50. It wasn't that my buddy and I were doing immature nonsense in his grown-up game, he was practically yelling at the whole group because they couldn't come up with a way to accomplish this "simple" task.
No thanks, I don't find that fun or entertaining.
The second game I quit was more of a coup. With no game store with in store-gaming, it was kind of difficult to find folks to play in the early days of 3e. The friend from the previous example had found this group of guys back when they were playing 2e and he told me enough about there antics, mostly in-party conflicts, that I stayed clear. Once they switched over to 3e and I couldn't find a regular game, I took a risk and joined.
Their DM had just quit, and I took the reigns. The game wasn't all bad, I spent a solid 6 months learning the ins and outs of the system. My biggest complaint, was that these guys weren't there to play D&D. Well, 2 guys were, the other 4 were only there to hang out with their friends and get stoned. I stayed vigilant in my quest for other players and once we had enough for a group, we hijacked the guys that wanted to play and formed a new group. It caused some rifts in their friendships and I felt kind of bad after the fact (These guys were in their 50's and had been gaming together since the 70's). One of the guys that left with us was disinvited to another guy's wedding.
The last game I got fed up with was more recent. I had been going to a biweekly 4e LFR game at a FLGS that was more of a low priority for me, mostly do to the DM's yound children (10 and 6). They were a sometime annoyance that I tolerated in the name of a chance to play. The kicker was a new player that was a spotlight hog. He just never stopped talking, and he played an annoying female drow assassin. He would go on and on about how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
I've read a lot of DM books, and I thought I understood the player type. I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too. I was wrong. The adventure involved a lot of roleplaying and had an extensive information gathering skill challenge in which the party was split up and given a role as an instructor in some magic school. Of course, he went first, and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
The rest of the players just follow along silently as he describes his little scenario for an hour. Nevermind that this is organized play and we have about 4 hours for the adventure, and all his character really needed to do was a single roll to advance her part in the skill challenge.
I'm all for injecting more roleplaying into 4th edition. I hate players that don't describe their actions and just call out power names. For my part in the skill challenge, I described the stuffy manner in which my wizard taught the arcana class. He was strict and boring, prefering to simply lecture than engage. And it took all of 5 minutes.
So, after his chunk of time in the spotlight, I figure he's done, he'll let the rest of us do something. No, nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it. I wanted to scream, but I held my tongue and hoped the DM would handle it if something needed to be said. That wasn't happening either, though. I don't know if the DM was unaware, but it seemed like he was loving this guy's style and was actively engaging him.
I stuck around for the session, and almost lost it. Our characters have instructions not to kill, and in 4e that's as easy as saying "I knock the baddy out" when a monster drops. So, the big bad offers to surrender after his lackeys are dropped. The dwarf fighter goes next in intiative, and he takes a hold of the guy and accepts his surrender. Our tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill. I move my mini out of the room and tell the dwarf, "Your going to let her spit on your honor like that? I'm going to find any authority figure and let them know what happened."
The drow's player said the classic phrase that had me packing in my gear, "I'm just playing my character."
I responded with "Next time I'm going to just play my character and leave you at the inn. Life's too short for bad gaming." I haven't been back since.
A couple weeks later, I bumped into the dwarf's player, and he quit after the next game because of the same player.
I've had my share of good and bad gaming experiences, but not a lot of times to throw in the towel. There have been times when games fell apart because of schedule or play-style conflicts, but those were usually talked through out of game and the game just ended with no bad feelings on the part of those involved. Well, maybe a few lingering frustrations (why am I the only one interacting with the plot? being the biggest. We have too many spotlight hogs at the table for those shenanigans to fly.) But nothing that couldn't be worked out and aside from two notable exceptions there aren't any of them that I wouldn't game with again and gladly.
The first was the weirdest. About two sessions in to a new game one of the players leaves during the break to go get food and never comes back. So we call her, thinking that maybe something was wrong, worried she might have had her car break down or something. And she was fine except that she was crying about how mean we all were to her. Given that her character through sheer obnoxiousness had managed to get my character's entire family murdered that session....I wasn't feeling sympathetic. And at that point if I didn't make peace it didn't happen. All I was thinking was good riddance, and I'm only sorry we wasted so much time waiting for her to come back. Ended the session as the GM wasn't really sure how to regroup from that.
The one time that I hit my last straw was with another player from that same campaign. She was a newbie player, so got all kinds of slack starting out. It wasn't her lack of understanding of the rules that was the problem, it was her ability to accept that they weren't always going to be followed to the letter coupled with a lack of social awareness. And somehow I was supposed to talk her through all of this and make peace every time she and the GM got into it. We had so many player meetings that campaign to talk through our problems. Finally I just couldn't take it any more and told the GM that I wasn't going to play with her anymore. It's a game, for crying out loud. Not worth that much grief and stress. I'm still friends with her, but I refuse to ever play in a game with her again. And that has made for some awkward moments in the past when I actually told her that to her face. I also categorically refuse to ever be put in the position of negotiating between the GM and another player ever again.
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Though I don't quite trust my own memory on the matter, I believe I've only stepped out of one game in the 16 years that I've been roleplaying.
Dear Friends,
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that PvP is not my preferred style of play (to say the least) and I am only diminishing the fun of the other players by being in such a campaign. I believe that, at least in part, some of my unconscious acting out has been due to frustrations stemming from my incompatibility with PvP roleplaying. I wish to apologize to everyone for my behavior in recent games. Please know that I am taking steps to become a better roleplayer. To that end, I will be stepping out of Alethea's current Lands of Uldvar campaign.
I realize this means I might not see much roleplaying in the next month or two (since she is determined to focus on her campaign as much as she can before Mia is born), but that's probably for the best. I may well be regressing into this anti-social state BECAUSE I have role-played too much in past months and have not had the opportunity to properly socialize much with the outside world otherwise. I shall use the extra time to go on a few dates, visit parties, and continue to hang out with you guys in non-roleplaying functions. I believe this will allow me to get myself back on track, socially speaking, so that we can resume roleplaying together more amicably in future campaigns (such as Kingmaker).
I apologize to each and every one of you for any inconvenience this may cause to your characters or to your in-game plans. As far as any of your are concerned, Hama wondered off into the desert and has not been seen since (though she isn't necessarily dead).
Also, please know I am not leaving for anything anyone has done or said (or because of how Alethea runs her games). It is simply a personal game-style versus personality conflict. Not every game is going to be for everybody. That's just the nature of things. I still look forward to continuing and/or starting any non-PvP games that you will and/or might host in the future. You are all really stellar players, and I'm sorry for any trouble I've caused you in past games.
I have also heard a few concerns that things might have become too personal lately. I cannot stress the following enough:
Sincerely,
Juddson S. Ivines
P.S. - I obviously will not be attending Alethea's August 14th game. However, if you guys wish to invite me to some possible side event (such as dinner out, a movie, simply hanging out, or something like that) I will happily join you guys for that.
I am happy to announce that we are all still good friends and still roleplay with one another quite frequently.
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Though I don't quite trust my own memory on the matter, I believe I've only stepped out of one game in the 16 years that I've been roleplaying.
** spoiler omitted **...
Just curious, was this a D&D-based/PF game, or some other type of system? I cannot see how in the world you can do a PvP type of D&D game and maintain any semblance of sanity (except for the things my players do during long downtimes when I have to draw a complicated battle scene on the map and they fight each other's characters just for fun and practice).
There was one time I remember, a 3.0 Greyhawk campaign where one of the other players kicked the DM out, shouting at him to "take that BS elsewhere" and stopped the game dead after months of campaigning because one of the other PCs central to the storyline touched some horrendous ooze and was lost irrevocably.
That DM was honestly distraught but not about to just say "OK, he's not gone forever" without us at least doing something to get the PC back, but the player (whose house we were in) would have none of it and told everyone to go home and never come back. And out of the blue, it seemed. Guess that was that player's last straw.
The one time I personally had decided I'd had enough was a 3.5 campaign where, besides the DM adding about as many DMPCs to a fight as there were PCs and then having them each take 5 minutes of game time to do their initiative turns in combat, he also decided that he would never ever ever ever give us a hint as to what we were supposed to be doing.
When we wouldn't do this impossible-to-figure-out thing he would block off every role-playing or travel option to the point to where, no matter what we did, it was wrong, and we had made enemies of every faction in his world, and he refused to even give us the tiniest clue as to what we needed to do to move the story along except "you've done everything the wrong way".
How were we supposed to know we were doing anything the right way when we didn't even know what that was? We were all playing according to character motivation, background, and alignment, and each of us were seasoned enough role-players to figure out where the traps were and how to win a fight, but since we didn't fit right into the cogs of his perfectly-imagined machine he just gave us dead end after dead end until we all decided, without even speaking to each other, that none of us would show up to the next game. He must have picked up the vibe because he didn't even show up himself (this also being played at one of the PC's houses).
Thankfully, besides that things have been relatively grand.
Have only quit on two games over the 20 odd years I've been playing RPGs... early on in my gaming career [I was about 15 or something] me and my best mate went along to the local gaming club, to y'know try and be a bit more social in our new found hobby...
We were promptly given cohort style characters while the huge party of about 11 or so experienced gamers threw Hammers of the Thunderbolts, Fingers of Death and other high powered stuff around the table. We were the "rearguard" who were to mop up threats beneath the party and guard important artifacts and treasures... After 50 minutes or so of towing the line [and repeatedly being told to do so], me and my mate got very bored and went off script - we tooled up with some of the leftover treasure and went hunting for the now weakened members of their party...
We had a hoot and took down 4 of them before they rallied; they didn't see the funny side and thought we were little heathens who spoiled their game [which we probably were in hindsight] were asked to leave if we hadn't already walked out to a departing two finger salute from the pair of us!
Other game was pretty recent [2.5 years ago] - after spending a whole 3 hours chasing goblins through undulating countryside in a 3.5 revamp of Night's Dark Terror/Keep on the Borderlands only to find the exhausted goblins run straight into the DM's Maximised archer PC, myself and the other player decided enough was enough and called a quiet halt to that campaign...
BD
...an annoying female drow assassin.
...how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
...I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too.
...and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
...he describes his little scenario for an hour.
...nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it.
...tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill.
..."I'm just playing my character."
You know...
I think I know that guy. Seriously. That scenario is so very, very familiar.
...an annoying female drow assassin.
...how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
...I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too.
...and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
...he describes his little scenario for an hour.
...nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it.
...tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill.
..."I'm just playing my character."You know...
I think I know that guy. Seriously. That scenario is so very, very familiar.
You never know, you just might know them. I met someone on these very boards who happens to live a 5 minute bicycle ride from my house. Scary.
...an annoying female drow assassin.
...how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
...I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too.
...and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
...he describes his little scenario for an hour.
...nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it.
...tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill.
..."I'm just playing my character."You know...
I think I know that guy. Seriously. That scenario is so very, very familiar.
If you're friends with him in real-life, I suggest politely advising him to tone it down and recognize that D&D is a team game.
...an annoying female drow assassin.
...how diminutive she was, and how bad ass she and her giant sword were.
...I figured once he had his time, he'd let the other players do their thing too.
...and went into great detail about how his 5 foot tall sexy drow chick taught fencing to a bunch of 12 year old boys with her 6 foot long full blade!
...he describes his little scenario for an hour.
...nobody else can finish a sentence without him commenting about it.
...tiny drow chick decides her giant sword needs more blood and attacks to kill.
..."I'm just playing my character."You know...
I think I know that guy. Seriously. That scenario is so very, very familiar.
I think we've all played with somebody like that.
It's almost stereotypical.
Well, the topic of the post is 'the last straw' that made one walk out of a game. That usually implies the GM, who after all, does control the game.
Does anyone have any accounts of other players who were so obnoxious/whatever that you left the game?
I left one where a 'weak starting character' was an 18th level magic-user (first ed. AD&D game - looonnnnng time ago). But that was because it was a large group, in which only a couple of the players got to play, the rest of us just sat around waiting to be called on.
Yeah, the only groups I ever walked out on was due to other players.
First one, there was another player who was an ass, but he was a good friend of the DM. He frequently crossed the line between friendly jests and hurtful remarks. It didn't help that the DM had some odd rules for restricting player interactions. 2nd edition, this guy was playing a ranger/mage drizzt clone. I was playing a pure human fighter. The DM wouldn't let us attack each other, but the other player could cast non-lethal spells on me all day long. I should have left before it got as bad as it did.
The second on was more subtle.
I joins a group through a friend of a friend. They were all very serious older gamers. At first everything was great, but then one of the key players left(move out of town). I didn't realize it at the time, but this guy was the big lug. The guy who just wanted to play, and didn't care what else was going on. He was the glue that held things together.
So anyway with him out of the picture, me and another player(Call him wierdo) started having a lot of friction. The problem was that I was moving in on his turf as designated group wierdo. That would have been a solvable problem if not for the interference of another player(call him Emo). Emo just wanted a purely conflict free gaming environment, and anytime there was conflict, he would intrude and try to "fix" the problem.
So the more me and Wierdo conflicted, the more Emo interfered. Emo worked so hard at making the conflict go away that Wierdo and I never had a chance to resolve anything. I finally got frustrated, and decided to take a break. A few weeks later, Wierdo left the group. I came back because I mistakenly thought he was the problem.
Everything went ok for a while, but eventually, I had friction with the DM over so rulings. I was willing to accept his rulings(In some cases I suggested some things to tone down my OP character), but I wanted a chance to make some suggestions and state my case. Once again, Emo started interjecting himself into the conversation. This ended up escalating things instead of calming them down.
That was when I realized that Emo was the problem. His inability to tolerate conflict within the group caused him to meddle, and when he meddled he usually made things worse. Since he was a long standing member of the group, I figured I was better off leaving, so I did.
"If I don't have to roll to open doors, I don't play."
What.
Given that her character through sheer obnoxiousness had managed to get my character's entire family murdered that session....Okay now I have to know.
Not as difficult as you might think. She managed to convince the commander of a battalion of enemy troops on the border that his plans were known, so he wiped out the village to keep his movements secret. The village that her character was just passing through, but my character was from. So she got back to find her parents and all twelve siblings dead, including her twin brother. There was nearly an interparty murder at that point as Dorian literally had to be held back by the rest of the group.
Before I managed to get my current Pathfinder group together, I was offered a chance to play PF with some guys I'd never met in person. I was pretty excited--I hadn't met anyone out here who played PF--and so I arrived at the GM's house with my books for character creation.
Well, only me and another player showed up at the GM's house, so he decided to put the PF game on hold, saying: "I want you all to make Dark Heresy characters, instead." I was disappointed, and had absolutely no exposure to DH, but tried to be a good sport about it. After all, it was still RPing (so I thought . . .).
The character creation process took hours; the GM just handed me and the other guy some books (and opened a DH PDF on the comp) and let us blindly make up characters for a system we had no clue about. I finally finished my character at around 11 p.m., and we were to start the following week.
First game: Only me, the GM, and the other guy show up; somebody else was coming, but he was running late (and the GM had loaned all his DH books to him, so he could make a character). After about 2 hours, the new guy showed up, and we began to play.
However, I quickly realized that this uneasy experience was turning into an alarming experience. The new guy played a mentally retarded Psyker named Duddits (after a character in Dreamcatcher). Basically, all this character did was interact with every NPC with ridiculous questions and statements--the player loudly and outlandishly roleplaying all this out--completely overshadowing me and the other guy's characters. When he wasn't doing this, he would sing (badly) some song about getting sexually assaulted and share racist jokes with the GM.
I still tried to be a good sport. At around 2 a.m., the session was over. Since then, I told the GM that I couldn't continue with the campaign because of "real-life circumstances". Last I heard, the campaign disintegrated, and the GM is looking to join a PF group.
I have politely told him that the PF game I'm running is as full as I'm comfortable with.