Actually, giving them a finger might be a step in the right direction. ;)Pretty much. Give someone like that a finger and they will want the hand,I told him he could use the meteor hammer if he wanted, but that I would require him to take the appropriate exotic weapon proficiency feat.Well, now you're boned.
Not really, if the DM has stated that Core Rules and APG are the only books to be used for character creation and then the player is pushing for stuff that is not entered in those materials, then the DM is within his rights to simply not allow the character to enter the game. I know that this is a policy I had to use for the game I recently ran, because of a guy who would constantly make up various modifications to his equipment to try and gain an in game advantage. In the end, when he more or less disappeared from the game during the exam season, there was much rejoicing
Players and GM's that confuse in game activities with real like REALLY annoy me. Just because my character might be disgruntled with you has no bearing and doesnt mean I the player have any issue with you; sheesh.
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We had a gut that was a great player but, he was a Min/Max person and took command of everything the party trieds to do.
We had a bard that the only way he would fail bluffs, intimidates, sense motives by rolling a 1 and we had many many many times we could have done this, and if we did try, he would get mad and discusted with the party for not doing things his way.
Other times we would try to avoid combat and he would drag us into a fight.
He was suppose to be a lawful good monk but in 1 instance when we needed to negotiate with people who slavery was part of their life, he bougt slaves to take and then told lies to try and keep one of the female players safe by saying she was his 1st wife. She did not like that
Needless to say he left because I got to the point as a Player I would ignore him and his ideas and do what I wanted to do for good or ill. And as a DM he got into trouble in my game and he could not talk or escape out of the issue. He had made the head of the Thieves Guild in a city very angery by stealing from him when he was a member of the guld.
He was a smart guy, and had great idea,s but he always had to run the game, be the hero, kill the most monsters, do the most damage, have the best magic items, and borry everyones gold so he could get a spiffy item that helped him out that he claimed helped the party out.
Not really, if the DM has stated that Core Rules and APG are the only books to be used for character creation and then the player is pushing for stuff that is not entered in those materials, then the DM is within his rights to simply not allow the character to enter the game. I know that this is a policy I had to use for the game I recently ran, because of a guy who would constantly make up various modifications to his equipment to try and gain an in game advantage. In the end, when he more or less disappeared from the game during the exam season, there was much rejoicing.Actually, giving them a finger might be a step in the right direction. ;)Pretty much. Give someone like that a finger and they will want the hand,I told him he could use the meteor hammer if he wanted, but that I would require him to take the appropriate exotic weapon proficiency feat.Well, now you're boned.
I'm gonna give the guy the benefit of the doubt for a session and see how it goes. I think there's enough strong-willed players in this group that if he does get too far out of hand, they'll either rein him in or tell me in private that they don't want him back. If that's the case, I'll cut him. Games take up way too much time for me to play them with people I don't like.
And the meteor hammer is the ONLY request of his I've entertained, btw. I shut down the other ones very quickly.
Another gamer archetype I hate that I've recently had a lot of problems with: the guy who thinks his system of choice is better than everyone else's and takes every opportunity to denigrate whatever it is you're playing, yet insists on participating anyway.
Recently, one of this subspecies started running 4th Edition D&D Encounters at a local store, but it was obvious that he had a very poor understanding of the rules. He then showed up to a session with several decks of flash cards and tried to introduce a whole new combat system into the mix, claiming that a simultaneous combat solution would speed up play (apparently, he hadn't considered that learning the darned rules might also help him out with that). It turned out that the combat system he was trying to adapt was almost word for word out of an old edition of Chivalry & Sorcery (his drug of choice).
The table unanimously voted down his proposal, being as it's a sponsored event and we like the free swag too much to jeopardize the arrangement we have with Wizards; also, it was just too complicated for newbies who were already used to 4E. He agreed to run the session in 4E, but made vindictive and heavy-handed rulings the entire time and had alienated every player at the table by the end of it. I think he got banned from running Encounters games at that store after that little stunt.
-- Powergamers and munchkins.
My GM and I have officially banned these from our group, and have an understanding that players who show themselves to be in this category are never fun for us to play with, are completely contrary to what our group wants, and must be shown the door immediately.
-- People who try to control other characters and/or tell the character OR the player what to do.
-- Players who don't show up AND don't call prior to the start of the session.
-- Players who are more concerned with making a character personality they find interesting, and do not take time to think about how such a character could possibly work well with others in a group.
-- Veteran players who are rude to players who are new to the game and genuinely trying to learn.
We had a gut that was a great player but, he was a Min/Max person and took command of everything the party tried to do.
I'm starting to realize min/maxers almost always try to control everything, especially other players. There must be something in their personality matrices that makes the two behaviors go hand in hand.
I'm starting to realize min/maxers almost always try to control everything, especially other players. There must be something in their personality matrices that makes the two behaviors go hand in hand.We had a gut that was a great player but, he was a Min/Max person and took command of everything the party tried to do.
You've confused min/maxers and wizards again there, Pally.
So anyways, this one time I was running this group.
One of the players was playing a bard, one a cleric of Thor, and one a monk. All three of them were playing CN characters. (That was a warning.) The bard was the only good player at the table.
Problem occurred when he walked off to buy some stuff. The other two players decide they're going to slaughter some random dude, crucify him upside down, and write a message in blood on the wall. For no reason.
Chaotic Neutral my arse. Session ended and there wasn't another game after it; not interested in that kind of party thanks.
The only good part was the mental image of the bard leaving the shop with stuff in tow whistling innocently, only to see a guy crucified on a wall upside down with a message written in blood next to it saying 'Went to kill more people, be back later.' In my imagination, his eyes bulged out of his head thiiis far.
CHARACTER SHEET SAY LAWFUL GOOD CLERIC OF PELOR. ACTIONS NOT SO MUCH.
Simple fix. Warn the player, if they continue then change the alignment. That then removes all the paladin powers from the character, and means that the player either steps back into line and continues playing, or doesn't like it and walks away from the game. Its a win win situation
The only player type that I dont find slightly amusing or whimsical
is the lawyer of rules , who pays dnd, they argue every thing, and refuse to be told they, are wrong they are intimidating and and just plain mean. when there turn comes around, they act hurt when you attack them, and make a big stink if you skip them in combat not meaning to, and just genereally you when there turn comes up you take a big breath and brace your self for there turn.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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-- Powergamers and munchkins.
My GM and I have officially banned these from our group, and have an understanding that players who show themselves to be in this category are never fun for us to play with, are completely contrary to what our group wants, and must be shown the door immediately.
I'm starting to realize min/maxers almost always try to control everything, especially other players. There must be something in their personality matrices that makes the two behaviors go hand in hand.We had a gut that was a great player but, he was a Min/Max person and took command of everything the party tried to do.
How exactly are you defining min-maxers and munchkins? I've encountered definitions ranging from needing to invent PunPun Junior to qualify, on down to "has stats that include an 18 and/or an 8", and everything in between. How are you meaning it?
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Players who insist on playing the exact same character in every game, specifically where that character is inherently disruptive to the game. I played with a guy who absolutely insisted on playing a dread necromancer with dreams of world domination in every single game we played. Every game was dragged into a struggle between him and the rest of the group, whether they were also evil or not. It got incredibly tedious by the third or fourth time it happened. On the other hand, I've played with another guy who tends to play honorable, non-judgmental paladins in most games we play - I've got no problem with that, as there's no harm done to anyone else's fun.
Sidenote, the dread necromancer player had another quirk that drove me crazy, but it's unique enough that I wouldn't attribute it to a player type. He'd come up with a character background along the lines of "My character is a super-genius eldritch master and he's friends with all kinds of ultra-powerul demons." Then the GM would design the character for him, so he wouldn't need to bother learning the rules. Then, whenever there was even a chance that something in the game wouldn't go his way, he would pout and say things like "My character is a genius, he would have thought of this in advance" or "This is stupid, we shouldn't be rolling for this, my character's demon friends should be able to save him."
How exactly are you defining min-maxers and munchkins? I've encountered definitions ranging from needing to invent PunPun Junior to qualify, on down to "has stats that include an 18 and/or an 8", and everything in between. How are you meaning it?-- Powergamers and munchkins.
My GM and I have officially banned these from our group, and have an understanding that players who show themselves to be in this category are never fun for us to play with, are completely contrary to what our group wants, and must be shown the door immediately.
Closer to the bottom of that spectrum you've given, but merely having an 18 doesn't qualify you.
Using point buy to make sure you have two 18s and two 7s, because it's not "fun" to play a character without a 20 at level 1, does qualify as a munchkin/min-maxer/powergamer, which are practically the same kind of problem player to me.
Powergamers also generally approach the game with an "I must WIN" attitude, where they are not really having fun unless they're doing what they perceive as "better" than all the other characters despite RPGs usually being a cooperative game. The very idea of there being no "I win" in a co-op game is lost on the powergamer.
That's the kind of player that is the worst above all others, really; in all other respects, he/she (though I've not met a female powergamer yet, I know it's possible) can be pleasant to be in a group with, make attempts to roleplay, and in other ways be difficult for the group to realize as a problem player immediately.
Everyone knows Bad Hygiene Guy has to go ASAP.
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Players who insist on playing the exact same character in every game.
I used to always play a gnome wizard whenever I had the chance to play instead of DM.
One game the DM specifically barred me from playing either a gnome or a wizard.
After two months of being a melee, he rescinded his ruling and let me have my caster back. I was safer that way. (This was Rolemaster, not AD&D, but it was still funny.)
Using point buy to make sure you have two 18s and two 7s, because it's not "fun" to play a character without a 20 at level 1, does qualify as a munchkin/min-maxer/powergamer, which are practically the same kind of problem player to me.
I would rather play a character with a 20 and two 7's at first level than a character with all 16s. I think that having one stat you're amazingly good at and two that you are terrible at lends itself to lots of roleplaying opportunities. I find characters with all similar stats (even all high stats) boring.
Does that mean I'm a powergamer?
Edit: My point with this post is that nobody can look at someone's stats, even in a point buy game, and immediately know what type of a player that is. Some people just like having particular stats (often high stats). That does not always mean that they're going to be a disruption to the game. The moral of this story: Don't judge someone's gameplay based on anything other than how they actually play the game.
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CHARACTER SHEET SAY LAWFUL GOOD CLERIC OF PELOR. ACTIONS NOT SO MUCH.
BARBARIAN FIND HEALTHY DOSE OF SMASHING FACE UNTIL PLAYER LEAVES AM GOOD STRATEGERY.
SMASHING AM USUALLY BEST PLAN. BARBARIAN NOT TOO GOOD AT READING, BUT PROBLEMS IN THREAD SEEM SOLVABLE BY SMASHING CHAIR INTO FACES UNTIL PROBLEM STOPS.
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WHY NOT SMASH OUTSIDE CAMPUS?
AM PALADIN BIG PROBLEM: ALWAYS HAVE TO THINK IN BOX. AM PART OF WHOLE LAWFUL GOOD THINGY.
PEE-SHAWW.
IF PALADIN AM NEEDING HEALTH PLAN, AM NOT SMASHING GOOD ENOUGH.
BARBARIAN NOT NEED HEALTH PLAN. SPELL SUNDER WITH CHARGEPOUNCERAGELANCE AM SEEING TO THAT.
HOW AM MOM DOING BY WAY? NOT SEE HER SINCE BARBARIAN AM LAST SMASHING HER FACE FOR LYING ABOUT BABY BARBARIANS.
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AM GOOD TO HEAR. BARBARIAN ITCH TURN OUT TO BE SWARM OF TEENY PARASITES BARBARIAN HAVE GOOD PERCEPTION; AM SEEING THEM.
BARBARIAN STANDARD SOLUTION OF SMASH WORK. TAKE MANY WEEKS TO RECOVER FROM SMASHING IN SENSITIVE BITS, BUT AM OK NOW.
AM LIKE BARBARIAN ALWAYS SAYING: NO PROBLEM CANNOT BE SOLVED THROUGH PROPER USE OF SUNDER OR OTHER SMASH-RELATED POWER.
RASH AM PROBLEM, BARBARIAN AM SMASH PUNY RASH. IS BEST PLAN.
BARBARIAN AGREE. IS WHY BARBARIAN ATTACK DIVINE CASTYS FIRST.
BARBARIAN BELIEVE CONAN SAID BEST WHEN SAY, 'IF NOT HELP ME, TO HELL WITH YOU!' TO GOD WHO AM SNUB HIM.
OR DID GOD NOT SNUB CONAN. AM NOT REMEMBER; BARBARIAN NOT GOOD AT MEMORY.
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- The GM who favors his wife/GF and makes her basically god-like in every campaign. F#~% that's annoying.
Pfft, my wife whinges at me that I don't give her any special attention. In fact, I have killed her characters before which has the other players scared, for if I am willing to kill the character of a woman who can withhold certain "privileges" then I am willing to kill any of them. Keeps em on their toes.
Pfft, my husband and I both have DMed games for our group and we have no qualms about killing each other. The only time I got mad at him for killing me was after I had spent a few hours creating a brand-new character and was really excited to play her (he even helped me build her and knew how excited I was about playing her) and then he killed her in the first round of combat of the first fight we got into during the first session I played her.
Sometimes I really despise playing with other girls. I am a "girl gamer" myself but almost all of the other female "gamers" I have played with have only been there because their husband/boyfriend is there and they are being clingy. There was a couple in our group for a little while, the guy was not a great player but he was all right, but his girlfriend was god-awful. She sat on his lap and "cuddled" with him the whole time, and when it was her turn in combat, or the GM asked her what she was doing, she'd shrug, turn to her boyfriend and say, "I dunno, what should I do?" I wanted to slap her.
There is one guy in our group right now who has a great number of bad habits and drives all of us crazy at times:
-he plays with his phone or other portable device (lately it's a Kindle or a Nook or something along those lines) the entire time we're playing. He used to interrupt the games to show us videos or pics online that he was looking at. We've stopped that habit but he still always has his portable device out and is messing with it, all the time.
-doesn't own any of the books and doesn't read the rules on the SRD. Therefore doesn't know how to play any of his characters. Every single time he attacks, he has to ask us how to calculate his attack bonus.
-is extremely whiny and gets bent out of shape very easily if something bad happens to his character. Has been known to sit on the couch and pout for 3+ hours when his character dies, refusing to make a new character, and interrupting the continuing game to make spiteful comments about how it isn't his fault he died and the party and/or GM suck for letting it happen.
-is always late. Always. We always play on the same day, at the same time, in one of two locations that we alternate between. He is always at least 1+ hour late. Has been talked to about his tardiness and doesn't care at all. We now start without him as soon as everyone else shows up.
-used to eat all the food people would share and not bring anything to contribute himself. I once made chicken wings for lunch for the group, he ate over half of them himself, took the last of them when some people hadn't even had any, and didn't bring anything else to pass. Has been talked to about this too and fortunately is at least better about not eating everything and bringing something, even if it's usually only a bag of cheese puffs.
-has disgusting habits like spitting in my kitchen sink when there are dishes in there, and slopping soda over clean dishes that are drying in the sink drying rack.
I want him out of the group and have talked to the group at length about booting him. Unfortunately, one of our members is adamant about not booting him, saying that he just wants some friends to hang out with and isn't really causing any trouble or being too disruptive. I disagree and the next time I DM I will be having words with the offending person and if some things don't change, I will be booting him anyway.
I think the most annoying player I have gamed with was in a recent campaign. The guy started off with a druid character. No real problems, apart from that he never took down the stats of anything that he either summoned or wildshaped into. I only had a printed out copy of the beastiary at the time, and it made it hard to make the weaknesses of the monsters a secret when he would be flicking through the bestiary and looking at those exact pages.
What really got to me though was how whenever he got bored of his current character he would try and get the character killed just so that he could make himself a new one. Suffice to say he went through about 5 characters in the space of just a couple of months (we game once a week), and ultimately became pretty disliked among the party.
What really took the biscuit was when he attacked another party member for lethal damage, and then when the rest of the party attempted to grapple him and get him out of his armour etc, he claimed that he was welded into his armour! The character met an untimely end with some meteorites that just so happened to hit him and left the rest of the party unscathed. He left the game soon after, and never was a better session had by the party.
Edit: My point with this post is that nobody can look at someone's stats, even in a point buy game, and immediately know what type of a player that is. Some people just like having particular stats (often high stats). That does not always mean that they're going to be a disruption to the game. The moral of this story: Don't judge someone's gameplay based on anything other than how they actually play the game.
I don't. They prove they're powergamers once they begin playing. :)
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Another pet peeve: If you are going to host a game in your home, make sure that the home is reasonably clean. Nobody expects you to be Martha Stewart, but basic hygiene and enough de-cluttering to provide reasonable play space is expected if you're hosting, IMO.
We have a GM in my area who is a fantastic storyteller and role player, and I LOVE his games - but because he doesn't have a car, he generally wants to host in his apartment, which is disgusting. Dirty dishes that are literally months old piled in the sink, dead bugs and food debris around the edges of the carpet - one time another gamer told me she was playing there and his cat started playing with a dead mouse that was showing signs of decay. My wife flat out refuses to use the bathroom if we go over there. I've basically written off his games because of this problem, and that's too bad.
I don't think I can come up with something that is already up here. But I can recognize a few of them...
Once gamed with a guy that got nicknamed Smelly-Dan because, well, you know..
Currently playing with a guy, he's my bestest friend, so no hard feelings there, but he cannot leave his fancy phone be for very long.
The Punster... well... guilty at that myself (but ain't it brilliant to name my Wolf AC Wolffang Amadeus?)
I could prolly come up with more, but I like my friends that I'm playing with and wouldn't invite them to come up with more of my own quirks and put them up here ;-P
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I don't. They prove they're powergamers once they begin playing. :)
Edit: My point with this post is that nobody can look at someone's stats, even in a point buy game, and immediately know what type of a player that is. Some people just like having particular stats (often high stats). That does not always mean that they're going to be a disruption to the game. The moral of this story: Don't judge someone's gameplay based on anything other than how they actually play the game.
I don't believe you. When asked, you specifically said that having two 18s and two 7s qualified. Then you change your tune when someone calls you out on your prejudice.
Sounds a bit more likely that you see the stats and brand the player as a powergamer, and then just let the confirmation bias flow freely once the game starts.
And for the record, being a "powergamer" or a "min-maxer" is not a bad thing and does not mean they're a problem player. There's nothing (except certain people's rampant elitism) keeping Mr. Concept and Mr. Optimal from having a grand old time together. As I've said in another thread:
Just as a wizard needs to respect a fighter's brawn and a fighter needs to respect a wizard's brains, so too Mr. Concept needs to respect Mr. Optimal's ability to keep him alive and Mr. Optimal needs to respect Mr. Concept's ability to bring a story to life. Isn't that the kind of teamwork that this game is supposed to promote?
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I know a guy that thinks anything less than 45 point point-buy results in "scores so low I may as well make a dozen back-ups because this is going to be a meat grinder of a campaign." His attitude is that there are two states, and only two states, for any given character ability: Absolutely maxed out (which he refers to as "decent"), and complete garbage to be dumped and ignored (which he will be offended if you ask him to roll, and will blame you if he fails at).
You can see by his stats that there is probably going to be a problem...
Those are some awfully specific and extreme views to expect to be able to anticipate just from his character's stats.
I have a PFS fighter with 18 STR and 8 CHA. So are you going to assume the same things about me? Are you really going to assume I wish I had 25 more points to spend? Are you really going to assume that my skills all have either max or zero ranks? Are you really going to start making personal judgments about how I'll react when one of my character's weaknesses comes up in a game? Because you just said "you can see by his stats" that there would be a problem.
How dare you judge people by the numbers on their character sheets. Would you be okay with me assuming that you would be a problem player just based on your character's stats?
Take it down a notch, please.
There are other threads to discuss whether or not you can judge a player for the character he plays. Or make a new one if you want to get it off your chest.
This thread was much better before it became about which poster is incorrectly defining terms.
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Back on topic: The player who would rather be playing another system, and so chooses his PC's actions to illustrate why the current system is inferior. If not that, then he gripes and whinges about how the current system doesn't allow him to do what he should be able to, etc. etc.
Back on topic: The player who would rather be playing another system, and so chooses his PC's actions to illustrate why the current system is inferior. If not that, then he gripes and whinges about how the current system doesn't allow him to do what he should be able to, etc. etc.
Needless to say, I have a lot of sympathy for those types of players. I would never have embarked upon my massive houserules project if it weren't for a few of those types of players, in fact.
Back on topic: The player who would rather be playing another system, and so chooses his PC's actions to illustrate why the current system is inferior. If not that, then he gripes and whinges about how the current system doesn't allow him to do what he should be able to, etc. etc.Needless to say, I have a lot of sympathy for those types of players. I would never have embarked upon my massive houserules project if it weren't for a few of those types of players, in fact.
I prefer other systems to PF for many things, too.
Choosing stupid actions to prove the system is bad and getting your allies killed in the process... when those allies are played by people who genuinely enjoy the system... that's a petty move.
Back on topic: The player who would rather be playing another system, and so chooses his PC's actions to illustrate why the current system is inferior. If not that, then he gripes and whinges about how the current system doesn't allow him to do what he should be able to, etc. etc.Needless to say, I have a lot of sympathy for those types of players. I would never have embarked upon my massive houserules project if it weren't for a few of those types of players, in fact.
I've been guilty of building "cautionary tale" PCs, but for a different purpose: to point out houserules that I think were poorly thought out. It's childish, I know...
getting your allies killed in the process... when those allies are played by people who genuinely enjoy the system... that's a dick move.
Of course it is, once you add that crucial piece of information.
On the flip side, a player who says, "I have a character concept that the mystic theurge would be a great match for, but I don't want to screw the party by being a sorcerer 3/cleric 2 in a 5th level adventure" is being extremely considerate to his co-gamers. It was a comment like that which caused be to add our Archivist option for clerics.
I've been guilty of building "cautionary tale" PCs, but for a different purpose: to point out houserules that I think were poorly thought out. It's childish, I know...
Were I the house-ruler in question, I would be grateful and call your actions "playtesting." :)
The two situations are starkly different, I think.
I've been guilty of building "cautionary tale" PCs, but for a different purpose: to point out houserules that I think were poorly thought out. It's childish, I know...Were I the house-ruler in question, I would be grateful and call your actions "playtesting." :)
Exactly correct, EL. I should also point out that our houserules were always subject to player discussion, and on several occasions a proposed rule was called to a vote (in which I would abstain except in the case of a tie) -- so Hogarth would have been able to present his case in a less roundabout fashion.