| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like I've won Worst DM Idol ;)
What do I win?
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like I've won Worst DM Idol ;)
What do I win?
I believe the prize is mountains of sympathy.
I did have a sexist GM once. I won't go into the details but I did run into him years later. He ended up married to a woman who keeps him on a very short leash. She only allows him a couple hours a day of computer play time and won't let him play TTRPGs ever again. I walked away from that reunion with a bit of a smile... it felt like a bit of karmic justice.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
According to my group, I play the worst PCs.
Not because of bad roleplaying; they agree I do that well. Not because of bad builds or overoptimized builds. Not because of powergaming.
But because every single time the Tarrasque is unleashed, I either caused it or did something that forced someone else to cause it. Every. Single. Time.
I feel like I've won Worst DM Idol ;)
What do I win?
Yes, you win sympathy, and the knowledge your story will be brought up again.
I feel like I've won Worst DM Idol ;)
What do I win?
Sympathy, apologies from myself as a DM for having to deal with a DM like that (and I'm apologizing for all good DMs everywhere), and my hope that guy is no longer DMing or has grown beyond what he was.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wow. Odraude, wins.
i have a mountain of worst player stories. thing is, my Area is loaded with creepy and sickening players whom induce all sorts of sickening things, and show a blatant disregard for decency.
Aaron and Larry are two iconic examples
but yeah. when the DM puts an 'M' Rating on the Groups, he means it. because there are loads of guys like Aaron and Larry in our local gaming area.
Exceptions are rare. the Elitist Rules Lawyers with the Good Hygeine, could have potentially expanded upon Aaron's fantasies in a campaign of "Produce an Illegitimate Child on Every Port" or something like that which would heavily detract from the traditional RPG experience
hell, i could potentially fill this thread with 10 pages of Worst Player Stories and a lot of them, are toned down or borderline Aarons with the only toned down part, being they have cleaner Hygiene habits
Nah, it's not worth it. You've done your time with him.
Wow, Damien sounds awful. If nothing else as soon as he said 'cos medieval I'd have started foaming at the mouth and twitching. After actually gaming with him, knowing me, I'd probably point at him and scream, 'Agh, it's there! BURN IT WITH FIRE!' Because I never get embarrassment...
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Haha yeah. Luckily, he's in the same s~*!ty trailer park in SC and I have since moved on.
Besides, best oneupsmanship I have with him is that I took his pirate setting and made it ten times better :D
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Haha yeah. Luckily, he's in the same s&++ty trailer park in SC and I have since moved on.
Besides, best oneupsmanship I have with him is that I took his pirate setting and made it ten times better :D
I am intrigued by this Caribbean setting you keep mentioning :D
Odraude,
Thank you for your story. I am sorry to hear about your brother and for your loss.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You should. It's doubly pathetic, in that he acted all tough, and now a strong woman keeps his you-know-whats in her purse.I feel like I've won Worst DM Idol ;)
What do I win?
I believe the prize is mountains of sympathy.
I did have a sexist GM once. I won't go into the details but I did run into him years later. He ended up married to a woman who keeps him on a very short leash. She only allows him a couple hours a day of computer play time and won't let him play TTRPGs ever again. I walked away from that reunion with a bit of a smile... it felt like a bit of karmic justice.
Yeah, I would have listed him as my worst except that other GMs in your face favoritism hit me as worse. And this GM had an amazing imagination enough so that he could have made a fortune writing in Hollywood. It sort of is a shame he can't express that any more. But let me tell you about my experience in his game anyway. I was interested in one of his players so he invited me along when he went to play once. This GMs first thing he said to me was "women can't role play". So I was going to prove him wrong, and made an amazing character who was both an asset in combat and a joy to role play. When the GM saw how well I was getting along with everyone he became determined to drive me away. So he started killing my character every session. He even started making my deaths more and more brutal each time in his effort to drive me away, until the last time when he had my character brutally raped. I am not sure what changed after that maybe he realized what a dick he was being or maybe the other players said enough is enough behind my back with him but after that day he treated me ok. I even overheard him talking with another player and complimenting my role play once. Oh he was still a raging sexist, it was no longer directed at me however.
You should. It's doubly pathetic, in that he acted all tough, and now a strong woman keeps his you-know-whats in her purse.I feel like I've won Worst DM Idol ;)
What do I win?
I believe the prize is mountains of sympathy.
I did have a sexist GM once. I won't go into the details but I did run into him years later. He ended up married to a woman who keeps him on a very short leash. She only allows him a couple hours a day of computer play time and won't let him play TTRPGs ever again. I walked away from that reunion with a bit of a smile... it felt like a bit of karmic justice.
Yeah, I would have listed him as my worst except that other GMs in your face favoritism hit me as worse. And this GM had an amazing imagination enough so that he could have made a fortune writing in Hollywood. It sort of is a shame he can't express that any more. But let me tell you about my experience in his game anyway. I was interested in one of his players so he invited me along when he went to play once. This GMs first thing he said to me was "women can't role play". So I was going to prove him wrong, and made an amazing character who was both an asset in combat and a joy to role play. When the GM saw how well I was getting along with everyone he became determined to drive me away. So he started killing my character every session. He even started making my deaths more and more brutal each time in his effort to drive me away, until the last time when he had my character brutally raped. I am not sure what changed after that maybe he realized what a dick he was being or maybe the other players said enough is enough behind my back with him but after that day he treated me ok. I even overheard him talking with another player and complimenting my role play once. Oh he was still a raging sexist, it was no longer directed at me however.
Sometimes all you need to stop some bigotry is to let a bigot realize exactly what they're doing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am intrigued by this Caribbean setting you keep mentioning :DHaha yeah. Luckily, he's in the same s&++ty trailer park in SC and I have since moved on.
Besides, best oneupsmanship I have with him is that I took his pirate setting and made it ten times better :D
One day, I plan on compiling all my notes and posting it. Maybe I could publish it, though if I do publish I'd obviously be hesitant to divulge more about it.
That said, if you keep up with the [ur;=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pkzw?Arcadia-Resources-Brainstorming]Arcadia thread[/url], I and others will be throwing up some monsters from the New World. I'll probably bring up the monsters that I've already made for my setting and post them up soon.
I've never had a bad DM, but I've had a comical one and players.
Mage player 5th addition. I cast burning hands on the goblin
DM: roll
Me: attention mage player and DM, buring hands is an autohit 3d6 damage, saving throw for half.
DM and Mage player. you sure.
Me: ask Ryan.
Ryan an experienced DM dming another sesssion. Yep 3d6 autohit. Mage player who has played D&D for at least 10 years didn't know that.
Me: I don't know as much about D&d as the others but I pretty much memorized all the autohits because the dice are out to get me sometimes, which is how I knew that.
Ryan: what setting you guys in.
DM: brush
Ryan: that all catches fire
later on
Mage player: I cast ray of frost to put out the fire (which is about 10 feet wide by 20 feet long.
DM: roll. Mage player rolls high
DM: you put out the fire, but now there is a sheet of ice and you almost hit the goblin.
My thoughts, well that is a pretty powerful ray of frost, considering it is basically an at will level 0 spell.
later on
Battle ended, Mage player, I cast predistation to light the campfire, the campfire is something I put out by accident by grabbing a goblin and throwing him into the fire, I rolled 18 and my strength was 16, so yes it happend.
DM: roll. Mage rolls low
Me and Mage player after the game: No, predisatiton does not require a roll. The DM is being unique.
DM: you light the fire and it explodes everyone flies back and takes 2 damage. the campfire is lit.
other stuff
another mage player. I make a dragon sound with minor illusion.
DM, sure I'll let you do it but roll. 14, dm describes a weak sound. Me saying to the other mage player who is new, add your int modifier. New mage player actually 16. The DM describes a loud Dragon sound and all have to roll including the goblins to see if you are intimidated.
By "Mage player" do you mean "person playing a Wizard/Sorcerer/other arcane caster class" or "person who plays Mage (the White Wolf product)"?
By "Mage player" do you mean "person playing a Wizard/Sorcerer/other arcane caster class" or "person who plays Mage (the White Wolf product)"?
They mean Mage, as in the DnD 5E class.
Basically, 5E is going back to 2E on the wizard/sorcerer/whatever divisions, where there weren't wizards; they were mages. Only, they're using it as a branch class for wizards, sorcerers, psions, wild mages, etc.
By "Mage player" do you mean "person playing a Wizard/Sorcerer/other arcane caster class" or "person who plays Mage (the White Wolf product)"?
In D&D next or 5th addition, there is no sorceror, wizard, etc. There are only 10 total classes (bard, barbarain, cleric, druid, fighter, mage, monk, ranger, rogue, paladin) and all Arcana have been simplified to Mage. D&D next was made so beginners can understand it, the feats are also OP, but there are very few of them and you gain them less often. Alert +5 init, cannot be surprised in combat, perception is now a class skill if it isn't already.
For skills, there are only 18 of them. Perception is one of them.
Wow, reading this I'm glad I was never this unlucky.
Worst PC: Not really that bad, our wizard who was just a bit reckless with the spells in our first game. Once he threw a fireball into a room with test subjects for some bad guys experiments, hoping to kill the bad guy. Yea, room wasn't that big so he just killed 3-4 innocent guys. (GM rules they were already dead so he could continue, though our characters were pretty sick of her recklesness with magic testified against her).
Another time (took place before the first story) my character won initiative and charged right at a vampire we were fighting, seeing he had a thing for elven blood and I was playing an elf who he had just pissed off. Well, then our wizard decides to tag the vampire with a lightning bolt... with me and one other PC in between him and the vampire. And of course I get unlucky, fail my and take full damage. Had I succeeded and taken no damage (Evasion) I'd have let it go without a word.
After we beat the vampire and another bad guy, I think my character would be pretty pissed about being fried with lightning, so I throw a few unarmed strikes. Hitting only did 1d3+1 nonlethal damage so no harm done, just knocking some sens into his character. So how does he retort? Fry me with another lightning bolt. Yep, 5d6 (I think we were level 5) lethal damage on purpose. This almost escalated into a PVP fight to the death. However, after a few rules hickups, we retcon that the fight never went to lethal damage and our characters just exchanged insults in our native lagnuages so the other didn't understand.
I hold no grudge and he's a regular in my group, just used to be a bit reckless with the arcane magics.
Worst GM: This was my first session outside a convention where I used a premade one. I didn't know any groups in my area so I tried some pick-up group in Roll20 to play online. I had created a character and was really excited to play.
First sign was before the session started. One player had done his character with the GM, but said he wasn't quite finished with his sheet so I decided to assist with my minor experience. I saw several errors in the sheet, though I can't remember what they were. I figured the GM had just misunderstood some rules, so I just helped him fix the sheet and notified the GM about it. He seemed little pissed, but the session got started. There were 3 or 4 players, can't remember, was we played via Skype and the Roll20 online system. GM says we should gather XP and loot in some places before going after the main quest. I had no experience, so I thought this was okay. So we get to our first dungeon. Not too long after, we run into a few skeletons. I had watched Counter Monkey (a web show about roleplaying) so I had some knowledge of this and carried a club just for such case.
This is where things break down. GM thinks DR5/Bludgeoning means the skeleton takes reduced damage from bludgeoning and normal damage form piercing and slashing. This turns into an argument where everyone but him says how the rule is and he just refuses to back down. We link him the rule, argue how it makes more sense to hit a bone with a club instead of a bladed weapon. Here I also learn he has never GMd or even played before this game. Eventually he does back down and I just say "You should just accept help and understand sometimes others know better than you" without sarcasm or insulting tone. This seemed to be the last straw as he quit the game and removed all his planned sessions.
I guess one player knew him since he said the guy had bipolar issues. After 10 minutes or so healos PMs me, yelling and saying it was my fault his game broke down.
Afterwards I never played with random people online again. Good thing I now got a stable group that plays once a week.
|
Ok, Odraude's story breaks any notion that my prior GMs were bad...
Worst PC: Really I've been lucky. Beyond quirky ideas, nothing extreme.
Worst GM: Moved towns and was looking for a gaming group. This is the leadup to all bad GM stories, by the way. Sat with a GM who declared we're all prisoners in an arena and we'll have to fight our way to freedom. Good enough, I bring my halfling rogue to the table only to discover "fight our way to freedom" involved the GM opening the Monster Manual and beginning with the letter "A." I thought it was a joke until Aarakocra showed up. I asked if this was for real and he said the arena rules required every monster in the MM (tarrasque included) to be defeated before freedom was earned. Walked out.
Worst GM #2: This was not my GM but one of my female player's GM. He was sexist, declared women had no rights in his sci-fi setting, and didn't like the thought of a man daring to bring his wife to the gaming table. So, he started the campaign by creating an airlock that trapped the female character while the men went out adventuring on the ship. No rhyme, no reason, just getting her out of the way. She refused to roleplay for a few years afterwards and was adamant when she joined my table no sci-fi. A bad GM can really ruin things for players.
I was in a game where the paladin almost raped another PC. Game ended shortly after that. The worst part of it was that when he was called out on it, he played the victim.
I was in a game where the paladin almost raped another PC. Game ended shortly after that. The worst part of it was that when he was called out on it, he played the victim.
Probably thought he was bestowing his holiness on her.
Where do these people come from?
Their mothers have something to answer for...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ohhhh, I loved that Damien story, thank you. He actually sounds like one of my first real introductions to D&D, a DM who was completely insane.
This guy was a black minister who hung around the local nerd store because he was a nerd like the rest of us. He was also evil and hated by the store customers(and store owner) his own age, so he mainly ran games for us kids because we didn't know any better.
I need to explain something about this guy's own head, how his mind operated. He was a minister, and I guess he was a Christian by default, but that's like shoving lettuce in a tiger's mouth and saying it's an herbivore. This dude had a real admiration for the way Hitler did things in WW2, had a soft spot for the Nazis in general, and hated all Japanese over what happened in Pearl Harbor. I and others would point out that this doesn't make sense given the whole Axis thing, and he would completely agree with us. He was really smart, vastly intelligent and quite well-read. I mean, this guy knew the books he brought with him by heart, would only occasionally have to leaf through to job his memory. He also would attribute bonuses or minuses to us based on our heritages or ethnicities or what have you.
Now these were random games ran without any planning, ran for preteens who didn't really play the game aside from his, but they were still insane. We would step from dimension to dimension, kind of like Planescape mixed with Sliders, mixed with Quantum Leap, mixed with racism.
Lots of the other players, being kids, were also power hungry and were more interested in munchkining than actually playing real characters, and this DM fed that. You could become an overpowered god in his game so easily, but it didn't matter because his games were like a Tomb of Horrors specifically for OP munchkins. One highlight was one character pissing off Pinhead(You know, the Cenobite), who used that character to raise his tower on some planet or realm that we were visiting. So we saw a giant spiked, bladed Tower of misery and hell erupt from this characters anus, with his corpse remaining there years later, partially rotting and still with that glassy look of horror on its face.
So much insanity in his games. Another highlight was me becoming some sort of superhero, traveling back in time, and fighting an aerial battle in Pearl Harbor, with Sakura from Street Fighter, who for some reason could fly. I kicked her so hard in the groin that her pelvis snapped, and then I moved on to my real goal, which I forget what that was. There was always some underlying plot, but it never mattered. Oh, and I did better than most players, because I never asked for power, I never actually kissed his actual ring on his actual finger, I never got him McDonalds or any of that crap, I just played the game to do my own random stuff by myself. It's like prison, you just keep your head down and don't get involved in the politics.
One kid was Muslim, and another guy was Jewish who later become a born-again Christian(who was and still is a great friend of mine), and this DM really loved those players, you could tell because their characters were always targeted insanely for no reason.
All this sounds weird and creepy, I'm sure. And let me assure you, this guy never hurt us, he never did any weird molesty stuff, he never once did anything that was inappropriate. Even though he was a monster, he honestly wasn't a bad guy all things considering. But his games...oh god his games.
Another friend of mine only played in one game of his before getting out, and years later we'd laugh about this guy. And my friend put it aptly, that this DM, he was like a human Heart of Darkness. After you played in his games, they changed you forever. You could never go back to who you were before they touched your soul. You could pretend, but you knew deep down.
And he's right. God help me, I've never forgotten those games, never forgotten the horror. The moments of his self-insert god's giant phallus penetrating the orbit of one planet, preparing to destroy it in a deep and personal way. The game worlds filled with Level 30 adventurers who would decapitate an insolent character, keep him alive, and make him watch his other character get skull funked over and over, and the promise of power this guy would dangle in front of the kids like a carrot, letting them nibble before yanking it away to amuse himself.
-------------------------
See, this is why I laugh at all of those "out of control DM" threads on here, this is why I'm baffled at so many DMs demanding focused characters based on a tight cohesive game world. This is why I don't pay too much attention to the debates of what's balanced versus what isn't. And now you do as well.
God help you, now you do as well.
I feel good. I feel like a lot has been taken off my chest.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So this is nowhere near the level of horrible that anyone else has gotten into but:
Long backstory short, I'm in college and I play/run games through my school's club. Last year, this friend of a club member who didn't come to our school came in and swept away all the potential players with his diatribes about how he's, let's call him Alex, was super experienced and has all the books and yatta yatta while I'd only been GMing for a short time in comparison.
I didn't get to run PF then, but I was able to run another game online with a fix of college and highschool friends (who would ping it via Skype).
Now, about halfway through the semester, Alex decides we should have a GM Game. You know, a game for everyone that has to run games and doesn't get to play! It'll be great! and we can have Sara (who has never GMd before) run it for us!
While everyone else (which included 7 people—the first sign of trouble) planned out characters, Alex took it upon himself to "help Sara" create the adventure. 12th level with 110,000gp seemed like "enough" to him, and it was slightly above WBL so I was happy.
Little did we know Alex wanted to play at that exact level and GP value because that's the exact minimum he needed to play his broken-as-balls Magus-dipped Human Wizard with a sentient magic item that allowed him to cast almost unlimited numbers of maximized lightening bolts that could deal any type of energy damage on the fly.
I was playing a Dirge Bard, so regardless of what happened I still felt like I could contribute, but he was basically one-shotting all of the bosses HE HELPED PICK while the rest of the party tried to amuse themselves hitting skeletons. I was playign a Dirge Bard, so I at least felt like I was SORT OF contributing, but everything I did was virtually unnecessary in the wake of Alex's wizard. My role was basically keeping him from getting flanked by skeletons while he obliterated everything so hard there wasn't even anything left for me to animated afterward.
I felt so terrible for the poor martials that managed to get on the scene just in time to see everything was already dead.
Why did you keep him from getting flanked at that point, though?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've had some serious disagreements and bouts with DM's and other players in the past, but I'm hard pressed to find a "worst" out of them. So, my examples might be kind of weak compared to what else we've read thus far.
Player: We have a player, whom used to constantly kill other PC's, steal from other PC's, and was always off on his own solo adventures while the rest of the party were playing the actual adventure.
What complicated things, was that outside of the game, he's one of the best friends you could ask for. The guy is loyal like a pit bull(which is a LOT), and always had our backs. Otherwise, we would've just booted him from the table ages ago. I practically consider him family.
We finally had enough, and had an "intervention" with the guy and really came down on him for his bad play habits. Basically, anything that involves any kind of aggressive interaction with other players was not okay. He could play all the evil characters he wanted, so long as he stopped attacking other players, and contributed to the group.
This was several years ago, and I'm happy to say he made a complete 180 and is one of our best overall players; he gets really into RP, plays very supportive roles, and is an overall A+ team player. He sets a pretty strong standard to follow, and makes everyone at the table better players for it.
DM: The only DM I can really say counts as a "worst DM," is a friend of mine who ran lots of games back in 3.5's heyday. He's very smart, extremely well read, and insanely creative.
But, these all kind of add up to the problem; he was so creative and intense in his world-building, he sort of forgot about the players. In his head, he had this crazy story unfolding, full of world-shaking plot twists and catastrophic events. But, none of them involved the players.
His best friend/roommate/coworker got crazy preferential treatment, while the rest of us pretty much just played on our own. He'd spend all week between sessions going over plot lines and story stuff with his best friend via online chat, and by the time our gaming session came around, he must not have felt like repeating himself. By the time we got together to game, all we got were strings of seemingly random encounters, and were just railroaded into new areas.
It got so bad, that many of us used his game as a "test server" type thing, where we just rolled up whatever crazy build combo we wanted to try out for fun. Some of us had new characters each week, just messing around and trying out feat combos, builds, etc. Having new characters come in every session had ZERO impact on the grand story unfolding in his head. He basically ran the game for his BFF, and the rest of us were hirelings.
By the time 4e came around, his 3.5 campaign ended(so he could play 4e), and I didn't go back.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is probably my single worst experience in gaming. When I was about 18 or 19, a friend invited me to a d&d campaign with a few of his other friends. I had played games with this guy for the past year and he had proven himself as an able & fair GM. I was looking forward to having a great game!
He and his friends were all in their 30s and beyond. Now I hate to stereotype people, but these guys were all a bit rough and had laddish alpha-male behaviour. The average sentence coming out of their mouths had at least 3 swearwords and they were constantly chain smoking
As a quiet, introverted sort of person who avoids any sort of conflict, I quickly became the Omega wolf of the group. Constantly being the butt of a group’s jokes is bad enough, but this bullying behaviour affected my character in-game too.
Now for the worst bit. The GM, my friend, joined in! Every NPC I spoke to was rude to me and every action my character attempted would fail in some sort of humiliating way (followed by a roar of laughter from around table).
Here’s an example:
A Dwarf PC disturbs a barmaid by squeezing her arse an asking ‘for a shag’ My Elf approaches her and apologises for the vulgarity of his companions. She then slapped me for some reason, and then her father kicked me (and only me) out the inn. *howling laughter from table*
Me: I look for another inn
GM: It’s late, they’re all closed now *laughter*
Me: Ok, I guess I’ll look for a place to sleep on the street
GM: The town guard come along and try to move you along
Me: I have nowhere else to sleep!
GM: They beat you up *rolls* take 10 damage *laughter*
Me: Fine, I’ll sleep outside of town then
GM: *rolls* you’re attacked in the night by wolves *laughter*
That sort of thing happened to my character constantly, but never to the other players.
I stupidly endured for about 5 sessions before quitting that toxic environment.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wow Josh M. your worst GM sounds just exactly like my worst GM. Enough so that I wonder if we aren't talking about the same guy.
Wow Josh M. your worst GM sounds just exactly like my worst GM. Enough so that I wonder if we aren't talking about the same guy.
Crazier things have happened. I became friends with someone on this forum after we discovered that we lived down the street from each other, literally less than 5 minutes away.
Josh and Macona
wtf. just wtf.
|
Worst Player: I had just gotten back from college having been indoctrinated into the TTRPG world. Had some awesome friends (whom I am still close with to this day) and amazing DMs. Like, why are you not selling this to people DMs...(You know who you are).
But upon returning to my home town many miles away, I have no one to play with, so I get together some of my best friends (most of whom are no longer friends of mine) and lay out a game.
Now I am a new DM and I want my friends to enjoy so they can play again in the future. So I put hours of time in to make stories for them and tried to cater to whatever they wanted for their characters.
WORST PLAYER 1: Tries to take all of the benefits of the classes and conveniently forget about the weaknesses. Their characters are caught by a local tribe of wanderers and rather then allow a TPK execution I Deus Ex Machinaed them to safety, and he complains that he had a plan...but he never gave me any heads up that he was doing anything. Then as I am going into the back story for this world I made, he starts throwing dice all over the place and causing the other players to ignore me completely derailing the game.
Worst Player 2: Same game, only cared about killing things. Made the darkest character he could and could not be motivated by anything in the story that did not involve his character killing anything.
I do however concede that part of this problem may have been my lack of DM experience.
Sounds like a lack of PC experience, as well. I think a lot of gamers forget that it takes experience and motivation to be a good player, as well as a good DM.
Things like not telling you they had a plan, forgetting weaknesses, these are signs of either a rookie player, or someone cheating. Super-angsty guy wanting to be dark and only wanting to kill stuff, sounds pretty green to me, as well.
Just gotta keep at it, try new things, take lots of notes. Go with your gut.
|
|
DM: The only DM I can really say counts as a "worst DM," is a friend of mine who ran lots of games back in 3.5's heyday. He's very smart, extremely well read, and insanely creative.But, these all kind of add up to the problem; he was so creative and intense in his world-building, he sort of forgot about the players. In his head, he had this crazy story unfolding, full of world-shaking plot twists and catastrophic events. But, none of them involved the players.
This is why I don't DM. I would be That Guy.
Worst PC:
That would be pretty much every PC played by one specific player. I've been playing with this person regularly for nearly 20 years, and only twice has this player put any kind of real investment into a character. Usually this player's characters have no history, no personality, not even a physical description beyond race. They are just numbers on a character sheet. The player's current character takes action in combat, but when we're not in combat the character might as well be like a figurine of wondrous power - the PC transforms into wood or something when not in use.
Worst DM:
I've been fortunate to avoid some of the awful DM personality types others have described. But I have played with a DM who could be a git on occasion. This DM liked to complain that the players didn't plan enough tactics to deal with the combats he threw at us. But 90% of our combats were situations where he had ambushed us with monsters or NPCs. We pointed out to him that it's difficult to prepare for an ambush, but he never seemed to catch the hint. Perhaps would should just have played our PCs as ridiculously overcautious and constantly scried or cast divination spells to warn us of danger. I wonder how he would have reacted to that. <evil grin>
This DM was also known to agree to a particular character build, and then seemingly go out of his way to prevent the player from using any class abilities that the DM didn't like.
We don't play with that DM any longer.
lobulusk Cheers. One of the best stories i have have ever heard, i think that will be brought up at my next gaming group.
the best we evrer had was a month long round of nut sack, you probably know how that went. it was either crit or 1 but either way wham, and then usually throw up...
as for deranged players.
a certain franchise gaming shop, where minature battles take place, this was second hand. short guy in cowboy hat, we will call him "the hat" annoying teen know it all.
Teen mouths off constantly though out game, hat tells him to "chill"
they get in each others faces.
teen flips hat off the head of "the hat"i believe several gamers and two employeess had to pull him off the beaten and bloody teen.
On another note i saw a fist in the face at a game table, member was army on leave, friend of the group. New player had some very commie pinko comments about new player and the army, ya poltics mixes well with games.
a flipped table and fist to the face, several lost teeth later i was on the floor laughing at the whole thing, the other group had fled in terror, most gamers are not known for their courage under fire, and the army guy hopped a fence and ran off down the street, that was perhaps the funniest part of the whole situation.
Is the hat story a montreal story? I realize the question is a bit out of the blue, but I think maybe I know who you are talking about, maybe (probably) not.
Wow lol. There's a lot here and I only read he first few, but Necromancer had a pretty crazy story. People act stupid all the time but in my experience games like these tend to draw a milder crowd. Thats one of my favorite things about the game. I'm surprised you had to deal with someone like that. Makes me wanna choke him out just reading about it. Pretty disrespectful man, sorry you had to deal with that
Odraude, wow dude
Worst Player; when I was first introduced to pathfinder the first campaign I played I played PFS. One of the players, well he didn't understand the basics of the implicit social contract, and would frequently tell us that he understood that he didn't understand correct social behavior, and that he makes no effort to understand correct social behavior. His character was a female half elf lesbian who was a bastard, and that this was the reason she used a bastard sword (this seemed a perfectly serious piece of character fluff). Now while just a bit silly and immature in and of itself it was infinitely more annoying for it's repetition, which happened several times a session. He would continue despite the GM begging him not to reiterate his back story yet again. Thankfully while all his characters were lesbians (or dwarven barbarians, but usually lesbians, and occasionally bisexual dominatrices) he didn't try really doing anything creepy.
He constantly talked. During his turn, your turn the npc's turn, while you were talking, while the npc was talking, while the GM was describing things, while we were clearing up technical issues and rules etc. all the time. Not quite literally all the time, but it was like he tried to get a week's worth of attention out of 4 hours, and he probably did.
Inappropriate jokes. Got him kicked out of places forever. Always painful to hear too. Never could get him to stop once he started, like a train wreck, then again that was true whenever he opened his mouth.
Roleplay wise he would describe his characters one way or another, then play as himself, this wouldn't have been so bad if he weren't quite so annoying.
In combat he would think that an alchemists fire was a valid choice at level 11 and insist on using them. Just bad at playing, and always expecting me to heal him constantly even though defending himself really should have been something he should have at least attempted. Completely selfish, if he wasn't the center of attention he was angry. He would endanger the party (and himself) just for some spotlight.
He engaged in name calling.
Homophobic, and had no qualms showing it.
Absolutely full of himself, claimed a IQ of like 170+, but couldn't add the bonuses to his to hit. [edit] Also convinced that his character could take on the rest of us put together (3) and constantly stated this, but PFS rules prevented his well deserved murder. (the character, not the player.)
As a GM he was just as bad, but needed hours (it felt like) to read each scene before he could continue, also if I recall correctly he needed silence during this time.
He wasn't the worst GM ever however, that prize goes to his bff, guy lectured us the first time, and basically told us we were going to be treated as bad behaving children, and that humor was not allowed. Did not understand the rules, or roleplay. At all.
I don't play with them anymore as now I have other groups.
Why did you keep him from getting flanked at that point, though?
I did WANT the party to win. If I didn't, in retrospect I could have maxed out on skeletons and swarmed him and the druid with them... but that would be DELIBERATELY causing the group to fail just because I was upset with one guy.
Worst DM I've ever had ran 3.5. But instead he ran it like 2nd edition where the story was overall more important, which is true sometimes. Now I like roleplaying, but sometimes I really want to throw some dice at monsters, after all I bought the dice for that reason. The DM also did not like giving the pc's money, any magical gear for any reason, would get mad for people using evocation spells, and encouraged working alone and splitting the party up as opposed to working as a group. All in all when you worked in a group things got done and really messed up the dm's plans. Oh and the dmpc's had plot levels of armor but when you tried to hide behind them for cover they were nowhere to be found.
The GM...lets call her Alice, tells us that she wants to run a campaign she is writing in order to flesh out some ideas for a book. A book she has been "writing" for the last six years( or so she says). That was a warning sign for me, especially since she said we were in for a treat since she would be gmpc-ing the main character. For the sake of brevity lets just say my eyes rolled so far back in my head when I heard this, that I broke the curvature of time and space, seeing the universe as it was millennia ago. She also adds that she wants us to clear our characters through her so they will fit the theme.(which I thought actually sounded reasonable at the time).
My first attempted came to me when I watched this documentary on Nostradamus(and whether or not he was in contact with angelic unicorn aliens...yay history channel). So I rolled up a human divination wizard, and setting myself up to be a prophet who would make crazy claims all the time and every so often be correct thanks to my magic. Well that apparently is a power gaming option, and doesn't fit what she wants the story to be about. Divination is banned from this point on. OK, fair, I see how it could hurt the story.
Next idea hit me when I was playing Dragon Age. I thought Templars seemed pretty interesting so I decided to roll up a character strong against magic. I wanted to go dwarf+glory of old+steel souls, but felt if divination was power gaming then this would make Alice's head explode. So I went with a human Spellbreaker Inquisitor, and the option that gives the disruptive feat.....well this was apparently worse. And I learned that "it makes it hard to want to GM when people purposely try to make broken characters"
So I remember that she made a beguiler one of the last times we played and she had gone on a tangent on how focusing on enchantment wasn't as powerful as people think. ....And I'm powergaming (I took the infernal bloodline, offered to switch to undead, she said it was worse) Tried to make a undead hunter using the vampire hunter archetype from the inquisitor...and I'm powergaming.
I give up, pick a human fighter, give him toughness(nope that is power gaming pick another feat), give him skill focus, three times; swimming, climb, survival...I am so done with this. Now I am trying to offset the penalties of heavy armor and steal the spotlight from the survivalist gmpc. So I pick Fast Crawl, Catch Off Guard, and Animal Affinity instead. She says Off the wall build are okay but I he wont let me play a character that will bring down the party....
She decides that I shouldn't get to make my own character and will have to play one of her npcs...her main characters love interest since I cant make a character correctly. In a very measured and kind way I tell her to go somewhere hot and pleasure herself. Other people in the group take my side and refuse to play. I am now a monster to her for breaking up our game, and she will never play any game with me in it. So we are going to play king maker without her.