My gaming pet peeves?
Chaotic Neutral characters. I groan when I see a character sheet with those words or CN written in the alignment section. Every single character that has had that alignment that I have had the unfortunate "pleasure" of playing with has played it as Chaotic Evil. Every single one. Oh, an NPC says you aren't allowed to go into some area? Better kill him. The law enforcement is coming to arrest you for murdering an innocent person? Better kill them because there shouldn't be any consequences to my actions. What do you mean my character's alignment is now evil? This has a higher occurrance in games where the DM says "No evil alignments"
When I play CN I play it like Malcolm Reynolds from the Serenity pilot and movie. Not the Mal from the rest of the series. He was more CG. But I play it as having no use for the law other than avoiding having to deal with it whenever possible, and prone to neither cruelty nor altruism.
But yeah, I have seen it played as evil in all but name many times myself. Bugs me, since one of my main rules in most of my campaigns is "no evil alignments." Go figure.
The first is a player that makes no attempt to create a unique persona for a character when sitting down to play. It gets to me when I ask, “Tell me about your character” and get told, “Dwarf Fighter.”
Totally agree with you, it’s very annoying. Having said that, while backstory is nice, it’s much more important for a character to have a fun and memorable personality.
Fellow players I know have created characters with awesome backstories… but when they play the character, they character is completely uninteresting or memorable.
Also, please keep in mind that nobody wants to hear your characters backstory. Or at least not all at once. A little bit sprinkled into the session is cool.
So when I make a character, I always think about how I want that character to act first. Backstory is second (and maybe not fleshed out at all until I get a feel for the character).
My second pet peeve is players who fail to role-play their characters appropriately, and GM’s who let these players get away with it.
Yeah, most players suck, I don’t know what to tell you. As a GM you can only coax so much… what are you going to do except not invite people back or play with a different group? Most players only play their character when it’s convenient for them… as soon as a logical choice becomes inconvenient, they choose the easy path. That’s why I don’t even bother with the alignment system anymore, just play your character however you want to play, at least it’s more organic and authentic and enjoyable.
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Meta-gaming skill checks. The rouge rolls to look for traps and rolls low so everyone at the take rolls to look for traps. I freaking hate that.
Players that think a crit on a skill check gives them something. Nope you must still bet the DC.
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Players who when eating food at the table slurp/smack their fingers with their mouths and then handle the miniatures.
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Players who when eating food at the table slurp/smack their fingers with their mouths and then handle the miniatures.
Cheese poofs have been banned from my gaming group. Someone had an incident.
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My gaming pet peeves?
Chaotic Neutral characters. I groan when I see a character sheet with those words or CN written in the alignment section. Every single character that has had that alignment that I have had the unfortunate "pleasure" of playing with has played it as Chaotic Evil. Every single one. Oh, an NPC says you aren't allowed to go into some area? Better kill him. The law enforcement is coming to arrest you for murdering an innocent person? Better kill them because there shouldn't be any consequences to my actions. What do you mean my character's alignment is now evil? This has a higher occurrance in games where the DM says "No evil alignments"
I always tilt my head when I see stuff like this. It might be because of my small group but I've never seen CN like this. They've been no more problematic than any other alignment.
no horses, they only cause distraction:-)
I always tilt my head when I see stuff like this. It might be because of my small group but I've never seen CN like this. They've been no more problematic than any other alignment.My gaming pet peeves?
Chaotic Neutral characters. I groan when I see a character sheet with those words or CN written in the alignment section. Every single character that has had that alignment that I have had the unfortunate "pleasure" of playing with has played it as Chaotic Evil. Every single one. Oh, an NPC says you aren't allowed to go into some area? Better kill him. The law enforcement is coming to arrest you for murdering an innocent person? Better kill them because there shouldn't be any consequences to my actions. What do you mean my character's alignment is now evil? This has a higher occurrance in games where the DM says "No evil alignments"
Lucky you. :)
That game turned me off of Pathfinder possibly for good.Overreaction much? The system is not the problem. The players are. Don't blame the game for playing with sh***y people.
When all I come across are people playing characters like that, it makes me not want to play. And that's basically all the people I have come across, except for a single group (minus one person in that group). Yes, it is the people playing the game, but the people make the game. And when all you find is s*+~ty people playing it...
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I don't like "anything goes" games. I've quit games run by other people because nothing was a challenge. Nothing. Want a magic sword? Just go buy one for like 50gp because the magic shop owner has a surplus of them. Want to know a new spell? Well, here's a magic device that has every spell ever devised in it. For free. Want to play some really weird race or a monster with levels? No problem!
Heh. It isn't just one guy in my group/s, it's all of us. There's about ten of us, in various groupings as games come and go and our availabilities shift, and every one of us has a fair frequency of sarcastic witticism to us.
The only wordplay more common than sarcasm among us is terrible puns.
This sounds so like my group. But we are a group of eight including who ever is GMing. And now my post is ogre.
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I don't like "anything goes" games. I've quit games run by other people because nothing was a challenge. Nothing. Want a magic sword? Just go buy one for like 50gp because the magic shop owner has a surplus of them. Want to know a new spell? Well, here's a magic device that has every spell ever devised in it. For free. Want to play some really weird race or a monster with levels? No problem!
I have yet to see "anything goes" being equated with "too easy", if only because having more magic for the party usually means more party for the enemies as well. More often I see people complaining about how their "ideal game world" is "ruined" by something non-core being included, which is a rather ridiculous claim to make in a fantasy game setting if you ask me. I actually dislike the "Core only" games more than "anything goes" since it can be just as easy or hard but usually turns out twice as boring. That said, both are viable ways to play the game, but it comes down to what the individuals on the table prefer. My tastes simply differ from yours here.
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I have seen CN played as a "free pass to mayhem". I have played a CN character on several occasions, and I usually play them like Mallyk the thief from the Conan series, as in: 1. Don't kill fellow players; 2. Steal as much as you can get away with, but not from players; 3. If the NPC can harm me, I don't harm it; 4. Ask what's it it from me, then refuse to go, but pull the old 'they need me!" routine and go anyways; 5. Work with the party, because they're your means to an end. Plus the more they're getting hit, the less I am. That's prtty much how I play CN, it works for my DM.
My pet peeve when DM'ing is player knowledge metagaming. I absolutely hate it when the party encounter trolls, and no sooner than I announce what they are, with no Knowledge check made or prior knowledge had by characters, suddenly everyone has a torch out or fire spells handy. It gets aggrivating.
I would have even preferred that such knowledge was left up to the players having the opportunity to decide for themselves if they knew such things as I think they woud, at my table at least, in the spirit of the game, more often choose not to know...
Now that there's a 'knowledge roll'... now that there's a mechanic for it... nobody even bothers to question it. They roll it, they win quite often. They know everything and do not question it.
Its not a big deal for me but there is a tiny little pang of loss there when a written mechanic removes any impetus to 'decide to not know'. 'I think it would be fun if my character finds this out the hard way.'
I don't like "anything goes" games. I've quit games run by other people because nothing was a challenge. Nothing. Want a magic sword? Just go buy one for like 50gp because the magic shop owner has a surplus of them. Want to know a new spell? Well, here's a magic device that has every spell ever devised in it. For free. Want to play some really weird race or a monster with levels? No problem!I have yet to see "anything goes" being equated with "too easy", if only because having more magic for the party usually means more party for the enemies as well. More often I see people complaining about how their "ideal game world" is "ruined" by something non-core being included, which is a rather ridiculous claim to make in a fantasy game setting if you ask me. I actually dislike the "Core only" games more than "anything goes" since it can be just as easy or hard but usually turns out twice as boring. That said, both are viable ways to play the game, but it comes down to what the individuals on the table prefer. My tastes simply differ from yours here.
Combats were cake walks and half the time the monsters just talked and agreed to go away because they were so badly outgunned magically.
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My peeve is getting interested in joining a new campaign but being told for the 497th time in a row "Core only." Since 2nd edition I've been buying just about every sourcebook I could get my hands on from TSR, then WotC, then Paizo. And I read up and find some new race/class/feat/build that makes me want to play it. Only I'll give my idea to the GM and he'll say "Oh, I'm not allowing that." I don't think I ever got to play in a 2e game with the training wheels off, and I can only think of 1 3e game I got to play a later core class (Warblade from Book of 9 Swords - thank you SlyFlourish!). To be fair, I did get approved to try a duskblade in another game, but the game folded before I got to write it up.
One latter-day pre-Pathfinder game I was offered I didn't join. I was really excited about Complete Arcane and wanted to play a Warlock. "OK, but you can't have unlimited magic. You can only use your blast once a day at first level." Uh... that's a wizard, and I've played that already.
I always ran my games as "Play what race/class you want from whatever book you got it from, as long as you can tell me how it fits into the world." I think the most exotic I got in my 2e game was a minotaur fighter and an elf Sha'ir. Oh, and eventually a Drow fighter/cleric/magic-user (remember magic-user?). I told new players I was the DM who said yes. Because you paid for the book, you should be able to play with it. I know as DM, I was using all of mine.
/rant
ETA: I ought to say that I'm not trying to counter Cal's peeve with this. Opening options is a world of difference from 50gp vorpal swords, and I've played in that kind of game, too, and it feels cheap. Just because I let you play a Minotaur doesn't mean you win the game.
Combats were cake walks and half the time the monsters just talked and agreed to go away because they were so badly outgunned magically.I don't like "anything goes" games. I've quit games run by other people because nothing was a challenge. Nothing. Want a magic sword? Just go buy one for like 50gp because the magic shop owner has a surplus of them. Want to know a new spell? Well, here's a magic device that has every spell ever devised in it. For free. Want to play some really weird race or a monster with levels? No problem!I have yet to see "anything goes" being equated with "too easy", if only because having more magic for the party usually means more party for the enemies as well. More often I see people complaining about how their "ideal game world" is "ruined" by something non-core being included, which is a rather ridiculous claim to make in a fantasy game setting if you ask me. I actually dislike the "Core only" games more than "anything goes" since it can be just as easy or hard but usually turns out twice as boring. That said, both are viable ways to play the game, but it comes down to what the individuals on the table prefer. My tastes simply differ from yours here.
And you blame the players instead of blaming the DM?
It's the DM who designs the encounters, and should know what the PCs are capable of.
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Sorry if I was unclear. I thought this was about gaming pet peeves. A DM who does this is a pet peeve.
Murderhobo-ing.
Hey there, don't knock it til you try it:-)
no horses, they only cause distraction:-)How about War Turtles or Owlbears? :-D
Well maybe a turtle, we don't have any Owlbears yet tho,
The breeding program has been.... problematic.... i'm hoping introducing Kahlua during the holidays will produce some satisfactory results, we'll see....
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My peeve is getting interested in joining a new campaign but being told for the 497th time in a row "Core only." Since 2nd edition I've been buying just about every sourcebook I could get my hands on from TSR, then WotC, then Paizo. And I read up and find some new race/class/feat/build that makes me want to play it. Only I'll give my idea to the GM and he'll say "Oh, I'm not allowing that." I don't think I ever got to play in a 2e game with the training wheels off, and I can only think of 1 3e game I got to play a later core class (Warblade from Book of 9 Swords - thank you SlyFlourish!). To be fair, I did get approved to try a duskblade in another game, but the game folded before I got to write it up.
Core Only is one of my major pet peeves, too. I often limit my games around a certain theme or I might say no to particular class/race combinations, but if I'm going to the DM, I do the heavy lifting of making sure it's balanced and appropriate. My biggest complaint about DM's is cutting things arbitrarily. I got banned from playing an alchemist by a DM because he hadn't bothered to read the class and didn't want to.
You know what I hate? Ninjas. You know what class I read all about anyway? Ninjas. You know what class I let my players choose if they're so inclined? Ninjas.
Also going to chime in with the chorus of people who can't stand Chaotic Evil Chaotic Neutral players. I love Chaotic Neutral. It's one of my favorite alignments since it is so freeing. But I know any DM that sees "CN" on my character sheet is going to groan and roll her eyes because too many players have used it as a license to kill, brutalize, rape and pillage indiscriminately.
My peeve is getting interested in joining a new campaign but being told for the 497th time in a row "Core only." Since 2nd edition I've been buying just about every sourcebook I could get my hands on from TSR, then WotC, then Paizo. And I read up and find some new race/class/feat/build that makes me want to play it. Only I'll give my idea to the GM and he'll say "Oh, I'm not allowing that." I don't think I ever got to play in a 2e game with the training wheels off, and I can only think of 1 3e game I got to play a later core class (Warblade from Book of 9 Swords - thank you SlyFlourish!). To be fair, I did get approved to try a duskblade in another game, but the game folded before I got to write it up.Core Only is one of my major pet peeves, too. I often limit my games around a certain theme or I might say no to particular class/race combinations, but if I'm going to the DM, I do the heavy lifting of making sure it's balanced and appropriate. My biggest complaint about DM's is cutting things arbitrarily. I got banned from playing an alchemist by a DM because he hadn't bothered to read the class and didn't want to.
You know what I hate? Ninjas. You know what class I read all about anyway? Ninjas. You know what class I let my players choose if they're so inclined? Ninjas.
Also going to chime in with the chorus of people who can't stand Chaotic Evil Chaotic Neutral players. I love Chaotic Neutral. It's one of my favorite alignments since it is so freeing. But I know any DM that sees "CN" on my character sheet is going to groan and roll her eyes because too many players have used it as a license to kill, brutalize, rape and pillage indiscriminately.
I have rarely played ‘core only,’ but I don’t really have a problem with it either. Especially if the GM is not terribly experienced or skilled. It makes a heck of a lot for the GM to keep track of.
Sometimes the entire groups is ok with ‘core only’ gaming. Either for simplicity or cost, I’ve know of at least 3 groups over the years that everyone agreed on gaming that way. It would be exceptionally selfish for me to make them change their gaming to suddenly allow everything just because they invited me to join them.When I’m GM, I say most anything from the books I have is allowed (some campaigns have specific exceptions to this rule*). Most anything from Paizo will be allowed, but you have to give me the opportunity to look at the books long enough to understand it and its implications. NOT just spring it on me game day with no warning. 3PP and/or homebrew stuff is same rule, but more likely to not be allowed. Some of that crap is just stupidly overpowered. If not, no problem.
* I really do not like the drunken monk or modern firearms. Also some campaigns I have not allowed some specific things like summoners, mystic theurges, elves, orcs, guns, or horses.
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I used to absolutely hate CN for the same reasons given above. But for whatever reason, I have not seen as much abuse of it the last few years and so I usually let guys I know give it a whirl.
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Another pet peeve that came to mind was people who insist that enemies have to be "always evil", whether it be orcs, drow or some other being. If I wanted brainless hack and slash, I'd go play video games. I'd be doubly pissed if I played the party's diplomat yet was forced to swing a sword every time the party encountered something that is even slightly different. I'm not condemning people for choosing to have every humanoid that isn't from the core book be super evil, so long as they don't try to claim that I am wrong for not doing things the same way.
That said, I won't make Diplomacy automatically succeed as DM either.
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Got to say that Chaos always trips people up. Our Drizzt clone in our Runelords game used to pick pockets at random in the market but claims that his character is chaotic good because he dumps the coin he gets in the donation box at temple. If he were doing the Robinhood thing and only targeting the rich I would agree; but he picks random targets of convenience without thought for how his acts affect the target.
He only stopped when the thieves'guild started leaning on him for their cut of all illegal activities. Its funny to me that the evil Sczarni thieves' guild is forcing him into his stated alignment because he doesn't want to commit evil acts. I really wish the player understood how almost perfectly he is playing CN. He means no harm but thoughtlessly causes harm some times because he is neither evil or good and doesn't think about possible consequences; but he's most definitely chaotic.
Core-only is a semi-pet peeve. If it's a new DM, or the group has been doing that forever, that's one thing. If the reason for "core only" is because I hate all the special snowflake races or super OP class or feat or spell, then it gets into pet peeve territory. Hell, even when you open up more than just core races, everyone will just be a human anyway thanks to the feat (though open up the every flavor aasimar and tiefling, and you will have mostly human, aasimar and tieflings).
Another is the blanket ban on summoner, gunslinger, ninja and samurai that so many people do. Even with the advent of the crossbow archetype for gunslinger, I still see people say "no gunslinger". I hope the pathfinder unchained summoner will end up being allowed to be played.
... Another is the blanket ban on summoner, gunslinger, ninja and samurai that so many people do. ...
I don't have a severe problem with the gunslinger, but I only allow the early firearms. I have a moderate dislike not because I think it is too powerful, but because many of the mechanics don't make sense to me. "Oh you took a feat and can now load and shoot your musket faster than a semi-auto." Yeah right. But that kind of thing also bugs me about some other classes. So no I don't ban it for that.
The summoner attitudes have blown all out of proportion. The only time I've seen them be way overpowered is:
a) Player mistakenly (or possibly intentionally) isn't following all the rules and the eidolon is built way too powerful.
b) All very non-optimizing players. It is one of the easiest classes to get optimized. So if no one in the group is good at optimizing, this one might then seem comparatively powerful.
c) Player is a really great optimizer and is able to get the very last bit of potential from every class ability. But then that player was probably going to break your game with whatever he built even if it was a rogue or monk.
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I also despise the people who say that. Worse still if they let the dragon fly with those wings, but don't let the Fighter (and other melee classes) do some epic things at high levels just because they don't use magic.
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I can see bans for flavor, and I can see bans on certain books because the GM gave out a list of allowed source material. I can even see bans when a group has agreed to a certain theme or concept. Otherwise I rarely see anything banned from Paizo source material.
Our Runelords GM banned firearms, samurai, and ninja as not fitting the campaign theme, but he made the announcement before character creation so everybody knew before coming up with their character concept. That's literally the most restrictive I've ever encountered; which seems pretty open to me. How restrictive have you seen GMs get?
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Despite it's flaws the Palladium rules when it came to alignment I never ever had any trouble with rulingas as both a player and gm. No Dirty Harry or Lawful Stupid Paladins issues. It says in point form what a player or npc can or cannot do.
For example a Princepled which is Lawful Good never kills for pleasure. Aberrant which is Lawful Evil will never torture for pleasure, but will use it to extract information and intimidate others. I know some here dislike a coded set of rules for alignment yet to me anyway it reduces the amount of conflict about alignments at the table.
I don't mind "Core Only" if the DM actually takes a look at the material before banning it. It bothers the hell out of me when it's too often a auto response from dms. Made worse when the negative experience about non-core material was had by someone else. Then the same dm turned player acts like a kid in a candy store using as much core and non-core material as possible. Broken as a term when it comes to the rules as well tends to be used to often. If I had a 1$ for everytime it was used I would be 10000$ or more richer.
I also don't mind a ban on certain classes as well because again either the dm takes the time to read the class or had experienced a negative experience with the class. Next AP i plan to ban Gunslingers not because I don't think they belong in fantasy. The mechanic that target touch AC makes them too damn powerful. Running Rise of the Runelords it was a turkey shoot for the Gunslinger. I don't recommend them in the upcoming Giants AP either.
The whole realism argument in D&D is just really strange. Made worse when people try to say that D&D is realistic. Ars Magica is what a realsitic fantasy rpg is all about. D&D is anything but. When Dragons the size of jumbo jets not only fly and find enough food to feed themselves. wizards can make their own demiplanes. Realism was put on the entire planet stockpile of nukes. Blown up and sent to the other side of the universe. Even the realistic elements sometimes make no sense. I espcially dislike it when Wizard are allowed to break the walls of reality because of "reasons". Yet as soon as a Fighter can jump from roof to roof easily it's not only broken it's enough that some stop playing the game.
The most restrictive I have ever been was for one specific campaign. In it a bunch of godlings had made their own world as an experiment and they only brought certain races and professions over.
So I restricted a bunch of stuff. Some of it like guns and samurai the players could have tried to develop themselves but there were none to start off with. Similarly there were a few races not allowed since they weren't brought over. Some magic also did not work right because of the way the world was made.
The whole point to the campaign was to figure out why there weren't any of the legendary elves, summoners, or guns. Then maybe they would try to escape to Golarion.
That is the only campaign I've run with very many restrictions.
I've been in some others with a whole lot more restrictions.
Example: One guy was trying to run a Viking/norse theme. So no heavy armor, monks, etc... because they didn't fit the theme. Though some of them could be discovered later in our travels and multi-classes into or feats taken at that time.
Several have limited a lot "Everything in Ultimate Magic (or whichever book) is ridiculously overpowered! I don't allow any of it." All of that kind of stuff basically comes down to misunderstanding or not following all the rules.
It is really hard to realistically say anything in any of the books is really all that much more powerful than a well done CRB cleric, druid, or wizard. A few come close. Especially in the hands of an expert, something like a saurian shaman can stomp all over your lovingly crafted story. But that expert could probably also do it with a CRB wizard.
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Several have limited a lot "Everything in Ultimate Magic (or whichever book) is ridiculously overpowered! I don't allow any of it." All of that kind of stuff basically comes down to misunderstanding or not following all the rules.
Sometimes it's not even reading the rules. Someone told them Ultimate Magic was broken and that's all it takes. The book being broken might not even be yet because they made the mistake of not reading it for themselves they will never know.
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Reminds me of the people who think Powerful Build is OP when it really isn't that much compared to the Human's racial bonus feat.
I can see bans for flavor, and I can see bans on certain books because the GM gave out a list of allowed source material. I can even see bans when a group has agreed to a certain theme or concept. Otherwise I rarely see anything banned from Paizo source material.
Our Runelords GM banned firearms, samurai, and ninja as not fitting the campaign theme, but he made the announcement before character creation so everybody knew before coming up with their character concept. That's literally the most restrictive I've ever encountered; which seems pretty open to me. How restrictive have you seen GMs get?
Eh, I've been pretty restrictive as a GM I've got to admit. My first campaign was all-dwarf, and my current one only allows humans, dwarfs, elves & halflings (re-flufed as humans, I simply allowed the races for some mechanical diversity).
I've got to say, a pet peeve of mine is someone coming into a game without at least a small idea of what the game's about.
I always make sure to write a good "preview text" expounding themes, the premise & the limitations. If someone says they're interested and then brings something completely incompatible, it's very irritating.
But as I've stated before, I play with randoms (not friends), so if I aint running a game that interests me, I'm not really getting much out of it. And for the moment, sandboxy "anything goes" isnt what I want to run (might enjoy playing it, but I've yet to see a GM runnning such a game)
As another sidenote, I can understand banning gunslingers (since they almost entirely rely on guns), but samurai & ninja less; I've refluffed them as "Stalwart Knights" and "Dashing Rake" in the past. But I dont mind re-fluffing in general.
Those of you who are old enough to remember earlier editions of D&D (1st and 2nd editions primarily), will recall that the character classes for the game were VERY STATIC. If you had two fighters of the same level (even if they were of different races), the pretty much were the EXACT SAME CHARACTERS with very small differences in regards to attributes and minor racial abilities. At higher levels, these minor differences became even less apparent where your Elven Fighter was almost identical to your Dwarven Fighter.If a paladin slaughters an orc village of women and children after fighting all the male warriors, then you need to have the character’s god withdraw all vested powers until they atone for their actions (and, no, just having a cleric cast an atonement spell should not be sufficient). Losing all the powers he worked so hard to gain and then having to work to restore himself in the eyes of his god without the benefit of these powers should drive the point home that he needs to shape up or start rolling up a new character that better suits the player.
If a chaotic neutral fighter has been going into the woods and making a point to kill one bear once a day just “to get XP to help me level up faster”,
Well, I have been playing and DMing since 1974, and I strongly disagree with the first point.
Since stats were rolled and not assigned, PC's tended to be quite different. And a elf archer with a high dex would be a lot different that a dwarf with a greataxe and platemail. We even had a game with five Paladins in 2nd Ed and they were VERY different. (OK, one was a CG Paladin, but...)
The Paladin falling point has been argued endlessly. What should happen is that the Player and DM sit down and discuss Paladin code expectations- and every Paladin should be given a Phylactery.
The next one is simple- there should be no EXP for that, and in fact the DM can always say "You encounter nothing". This also solves the "splitting the party or lone wolf" issues which are a pet Peeve of mine.
In general splitting the party means twice the work for the DM and half the fun for the players.
In general you make good points however- I have been appalled at the lack of good roleplaying in favor of rollplaying nowadays. Stormwind or no, too many players are optimizing their characters a lot and neglecting roleplaying.
My pet peeves are dudes who steal from the party. Dudes who claim "but that's what my character would do!" as a excuse to act up, even tho THEY were the ones who decided their characters (very limited) personality.
Core Only is fine to start or for new DMs. Certainly "allowing everything" can be a mistake.
"Anything goes" can be too easy- in a PF AP, the encounters are designed for Core 15pt PC's. Make that optimized 25 pt "allow everything" and you cake walk thru too many encounters.
I would hate the "murderhobo" style of play, but since in 40 years I have never played with any group that uses it, I am then just shocked that many posters on this board simply assume that how EVERYONE PLAYS.
Just remembered another of my pet peeves. You are told that the game will be one thing and it turns out to be nothing like it only because the gm did not like one or two players having built characters designed for thing A and thing B just about negates any special bonuses they might have.
Prime example is party gets told it's an aquatic pirate campaign and ends up on land 95% of the time. (I know you can't have every encounter on the sea, but when you get told to play a pirate and you build for aquatic combat only to be told that that's not happening it kinda rubs the wrong way.)
Granted that was how my last murderhobo came to be but that's a story for another day.
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Biggest pet peeve for me?
It has to be when people talk about other things at the table while I'm GMing and explaining story hooks. It's distracting (to both the other players and myself), and it's just outright impolite.
Good lord, I had this one player who just would not shut up about anything when the spotlight wasn't on him. He'd whisper and chatter and carry on whenever we weren't in combat and sulk when other people called him out on it.
I don't like it when GMs decide a certain ethnicity or group of ethnicities doesn't belong in fantasy. I can understand restricting ethnicities based on theme, such as not wanting a Samurai in a game with a theme about Vikings discovering America, and that's not the sort of thing I'm referring to. I'm referring to those people who whinge about how Samurai don't belong in fantasy at all, and that players who want to play them are somehow bad players.
By the by, I would never be able to find energy to GM with my current workload, but if somebody started a Vikings and Indians themed PBP I would totally be game to play.
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I hate 'core only'. Part of it is that I didn't spend hundreds of pounds on all the books (as has everyone at the table) just to be told I can't use them on the totally arbitrary divide on which bit of paper it's written.
The other part is that, with each book, you read it and absorb the bits that interest you, ideas and connections form in your mind, giving rise to more and more intriguing possibilities, and all this gets mixed up as a single body of knowledge in your mind. Every character idea you have draws from that combined body of knowledge, without regard to which book any part of that idea belonged. To be told that you are only allowed to use a fraction of all that only leaves you feeling stunted as almost every concept you had is now forbidden because chances are at least one thing about it didn't happen to be in the CRB.
Having classes forbidden for reasons of campaign integrity is one thing, but because of personal taste? I had a player who wanted to DM. He had been making his own world since 2nd ed, had made a map of a continent, gave us detailed notes about everything, including what classes were available. I noticed that Warlocks were allowed. I was playing a high level Warlock in the main game, and wanted to try one from first level. As soon as I said this, he decided that there were no Warlocks in his world.
He loves wizards, and doesn't like sorcerers. I have always hated preparing spells each morning, and I once made a fighter/magic/user in 2nd ed whose Int was so low that her spells known was equal to her spells per day at each level, just so I didn't have to decide which spells to prepare; I just prepared one of each spell I knew, job done. You can imagine how pleased I was when sorcerers appeared in 3rd ed!
So his campaign was set in his world, working for a country ruled by wizards. I wanted to play a sorcerer. He decides that sorcerers are persecuted slaves on this country, and if I play one it'll mess up his campaign. Wow! I'm okay with us liking different things, but not okay with being forced to abandon my agency because hevforces his likes/dislikes on us!
I hate 'core only'. Part of it is that I didn't spend hundreds of pounds on all the books (as has everyone at the table) just to be told I can't use them on the totally arbitrary divide on which bit of paper it's written.
The other part is that, with each book, you read it and absorb the bits that interest you, ideas and connections form in your mind, giving rise to more and more intriguing possibilities, and all this gets mixed up as a single body of knowledge in your mind. Every character idea you have draws from that combined body of knowledge, without regard to which book any part of that idea belonged. To be told that you are only allowed to use a fraction of all that only leaves you feeling stunted as almost every concept you had is now forbidden because chances are at least one thing about it didn't happen to be in the CRB.
...
I don't mind it once in a while, especially with a new GM. Or like I said, if the rest of the group has already agreed to it and I'm the new guy.
I did think of one other occasion I played in a CRB only that didn't bother me, but it did bother some of the others. The guy that had been the GM for years needed a break. New job and new kid, he just didn't have the time to prep to be GM. The group asked one of the other guys to GM since he had done it long ago in 1ed and 2ed. Let's call him Grog.
Grog said he would, but it would only be a CRB game. He doesn't like the huge number of books. He only owns the CRB and Bestiary 1. His PC's have always been CRB only. He's never tried to push the rest to abandon their books, but he had no interest in more options. There has always been more than enough to keep him amused in just the CRB.
Some of the other guys got kinda pissy about it. They asked him to GM. yet felt if he was going to GM, it was his responsibility to expand to everything. His response was approximately: Look you guys asked me to help you out. I'm willing, but these are my conditions. If you don't like it, some of the rest of you can step up and try to GM for a bit.
I think if he had just said he didn't want to GM at all they would not have got as upset.
He did a 4 level mini campaign. I thought it went very well. Then some of the other guys took turns doing one shots. (Ended up being sorta like PFS events except mostly with monster races.) Then a bit over a year later the original GM took up the mantle again.
I was always kinda surprised at how upset the some of the guys got at Grog. We want you to do something for us. But you have to do it our way. And we're going to get angry if you don't agree to do it our way.
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Having classes forbidden for reasons of campaign integrity is one thing, but because of personal taste? I had a player who wanted to DM. He had been making his own world since 2nd ed, had made a map of a continent, gave us detailed notes about everything, including what classes were available. I noticed that Warlocks were allowed. I was playing a high level Warlock in the main game, and wanted to try one from first level. As soon as I said this, he decided that there were no Warlocks in his world.He loves wizards, and doesn't like sorcerers. I have always hated preparing spells each morning, and I once made a fighter/magic/user in 2nd ed whose Int was so low that her spells known was equal to her spells per day at each level, just so I didn't have to decide which spells to prepare; I just prepared one of each spell I knew, job done. You can imagine how pleased I was when sorcerers appeared in 3rd ed!
So his campaign was set in his world, working for a country ruled by wizards. I wanted to play a sorcerer. He decides that sorcerers are persecuted slaves on this country, and if I play one it'll mess up his campaign. Wow! I'm okay with us liking different things, but not okay with being forced to abandon my agency because hevforces his likes/dislikes on us!
I have always tried real hard to not restrict things because of my personal dislike. {{ Other than the drunken master. That one just really bugs me and I rarely let it in my games if I am GM. }}
But I have to confess, I may have set up some of my campaigns such that something I don't like no longer makes sense in the world. But if the player can come up with a legit reasoning for having it I will almost always allow it even if I don't like it.I always give a detailed document with all my house rules before character creation when I am GM. But I do have a note that if a particular ‘thing’ becomes a problem in game, we as a group will sit down and decide how to handle it.
There is one exception. When I ran my ‘experimental world’ campaign, I had not gone through every single book to see which ones were reasonable for the godlings to have brought over. I went through most anything in the CRB and all the options I knew my players commonly took. Those were listed out. Then I told them if it wasn’t CRB to go over their PC’s (and build plan) with me before game day. I still allowed almost everything they had, but there were a few spells and an archtype that didn’t make sense.
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A GM has the right to ban whatever he wants on account of personal taste. If you don't like it, you don't have to play with that GM.
And we all have the right not to like those GMs, whether we play with them or not. Your point?
I ban gambling, if you don't by the end of the night someone bets another PC is gonna bite it, and they aren't afraid to help throw the odds "what do you mean you charge and attack! i'm dying! you're the f%~+ing Cleric!" :-)
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I like how often I hear about gms banning asian themed characters in rise of the runelords... You don't get to do that when I have the option of picking a campaign trait that lets me choose to be a very trusted friend of a family named the kaijutsus.