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You can lead a grown man to social interaction, but you can't make him join...
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I consider myself lucky after reading all these. Haven't had any really bad experiences with my gaming groups. Now watch, after having said that, something weird will happen at tonight's session.
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No murderers in my group, just a guy who is 46 and has never had a date and a guy who is 47 and has only ever had one. Both have their quirks but don't we all (I don't like touching my food with my hands when I avoid it). But no slavers, murderers, thieves, drunks, druggies,etc here.We have a player who's 50 and I'm not sure he's ever had a date. I'm convinced he's asexual. He also uses gaming as his only social activity. We gave up asking him to go to movies with us, as he always turned us down.
Gaming is a good activity for people who have trouble with social situations. It's interaction, but the majority of it is focused and structured. The interaction of the game ensures that there's always a common topic that people can participate with. I've known several people who likely would not have a social life outside of gaming.
It didn't involve murder, but [url=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p2nc?Weirdest-thing-to-happen-at-your-gaming-table#3]the scariest thing that ever happened at my table[/i] was when one of my players showed up while having a full psychotic breakdown.
We have a player who's 50 and I'm not sure he's ever had a date. I'm convinced he's asexual. He also uses gaming as his only social activity. We gave up asking him to go to movies with us, as he always turned us down.
Both of these guys go out to movies, to dinner with us, and other activities. One of them is an admitted misogynist who believes in the women should be barefoot, pregnant, and not seen thing (he keeps it toned down around me and when the occasional guest female player is here) but to the other guy is an enigma. He once stated he wanted a family but has never made any attempts at dating. Maybe he's just shy, but his mother also completely tries to control his life from 2 hours away and maybe he'd rather just not put up with her and the grief she'd give him about any woman he brought home to meet her. I dunno.
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Both of these guys go out to movies, to dinner with us, and other activities. One of them is an admitted misogynist who believes in the women should be barefoot, pregnant, and not seen thing....
Forget about how awful that is; it's just so...nonsensical.
How can a person manage, cognitively, emotionally, or logistically, to hate a category of person that's 50% of everyone you'll ever run into? Sexism I understand - people are indoctrinated in stupid gender roles and made by crushing social weight to believe they're concretely real (to say nothing of the whole "God says so" line of persuasion) - but hate??? Aside from the possibility of being seriously gunshy after a few bad life experiences, hating what you want to f&%$ (at least this guy of yours isn't inconsistent in THAT regard) couldn't make less sense.
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Sheesh, it's threads like this that make me glad everyone in my gaming group is in different states. The worst that happened to use was a really heated rules discussion that dissolved into shouting and insults on both ends. I tried to keep things calm but at this point I'm convinced that nothing but a soundboard with an airhorn or something else loud will stop these guys the next time it's going to happen.
I would but I think that would just make them more mad...then again it could redirect the anger to me and not each other, might be worth a shot. The only reason the loud noise method has a chance of working is I can potentially stun them for just long enough to yell at them to step away from the computers for a few seconds...and even then that's a long shot.
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How can a person manage, cognitively, emotionally, or logistically, to hate a category of person that's 50% of everyone you'll ever run into? Sexism I understand - people are indoctrinated in stupid gender roles and made by crushing social weight to believe they're concretely real (to say nothing of the whole "God says so" line of persuasion) - but hate??? Aside from the possibility of being seriously gunshy after a few bad life experiences, hating what you want to f&!& (at least this guy of yours isn't inconsistent in THAT regard) couldn't make less sense.
He doesn't necessarily hate them, he just thinks they have too much power and should act as servants. He says it's biblical, but he doesn't follow much else out of the Bible. But, strangely enough, he's a good friend and knows not to bring up the nonsense when we have women players in the group. Some of us guys play female characters just to bug him, though... lol.
And we should probably end this segment of the discussion here. It'll get the thread locked eventually.
Back on topic somewhat, was there a thread a few years ago on rpg.net about the worst gamers people had ever known? Does anyone remember the Brazilian Death Squad and the guy who wore adult diapers to cons so he'd not have to leave the table stories?
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In game: One of the players had a very powerful character. It was Gamma World in the late 80's and he had a mutant with ultra-powerful mutations (randomly rolled). Every encounter he trounced, the ref was new to GMing and I told him that it kind of sucks that the rest of us just sort of sit back and watch while he steamrolled encounters. I wanted the ref to craft better and more challenging encounters but the whole thing spiraled out of control. The player in question found out about the complaints and killed his own character in game. This was a behind the scene kind of thing, none of the other players knew that he was going to do this and the ref ran and described the event of finding his body and we were trying to figure out why the player killed himself. After it was revealed the game just ended - no one wanted to play. Instead of adjusting the challenges or crafting them for the group or even the player in question rolling back some abilities ...it all just fell apart. that wasn't even the players intention. Sucked all around. It was nothing but sad and sort of a byproduct of miscommunication and a new GM not knowing how to handle a diverse set of player abilities.It ended that group and made me question if I wanted to continue gaming.
Out of game: We had a clubhouse where we gamed - we all threw in for rent with some local kids/gamers coming by to help out. They helped with the rent and they could use the computers. We used to run our weekly game there, MTG tourneys, etc. This one guy was very interested in rpgs and role-playing in general, but he always struck me as being off. I didn't trust the guy, even though he would often hang out at the clubhouse while one of my other buddies (still in my gaming group) would sleep in the other room. There was an incident where we suspected him of stealing a knife and at another time I almost got into a physical altercation with the creep - looking back on it, I wish I did.
Well, we closed down the club and a few years later the guy massacred an entire family.
While he wasn't a gamer in our group he was at our clubhouse. And we had this sick pos in our midst, for years.
His obsession with Slayer was in the forefront of the investigation, some of us were questioned by the cops but gaming, gaming culture or the clubhouse never really came up during the investigation.
Back on topic somewhat, was there a thread a few years ago on rpg.net about the worst gamers people had ever known? Does anyone remember the Brazilian Death Squad and the guy who wore adult diapers to cons so he'd not have to leave the table stories?
Ah, yeah, I remember those two tales.
With the Diaper tale, it's far worse. Poor GM was made to run a game for his landlord's son, who evidentially had no sense of hygiene. Specifically, the guy saw no need to ever leave the table, and would just soil himself while playing. (I don't remember how he found other players) GM describes how he'd excuse himself by saying he had to 'check his notes' as an excuse to take his own bathroom breaks. (Apparently the Nurgle-Spawn felt that since he didn't have to leave to go to the bathroom, nobody else had to.)
It's described he only wore diapers to cons because he was chased out last time he brought his habits with him.
That, along with Death Squad and the near-rape tale, were, I believe, the most famous tales. There's also the guy that just said his tale involved "Twincest" but didn't elaborate further. Most people figured he was trolling.
Shudder...all those stories are coming back to me now.
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My worst experience was at a recent convention.
It was actually quite a fun game! I was playing an elf cleric, I think. We were going to find an ancient inevitable in the middle of the desert. But things went south when a player showed up who wanted to play his own PC, rather than the pregens. This PC was a fairly cheesy Hellknight paladin who could "double-smite" Chaotic Evil creatures.
Now, I have nothing against optimizing, but there's a sort of attitude you can spot, y'know? That, "Look what I squeezed out of the rules, aren't I clever?" manner. He actually challenged the GM to see if he could land a scratch on his guy. He couldn't stop bragging about how invincible his character was. They could double smite. They could bring themselves back from the dead. They could autoheal themselves for immense damage. In fact, there were only two big holes in his build.
The first was that he didn't really understand how the rules worked. This was one of those PCs you build in HeroLab just to test the limits of the software. It was a mess of misunderstandings—even basic ones, like how many times he could Lay on Hands in a round or how being grappled works). I pity the guy who has to audit that paladin in PFS.
The second was that the GM had absolutely zero patience for this kid.
First combat, a big, bad Retriever shows up and starts making a fuss. The paladin singles that creature out, believing it is a demon he can deal his Insane Amounts of Damage to, and yells, "Come at me!"
It...comes at him.
We barely managed to save the guy after that (turns out he had no backup weapons for getting grabbed), and the GM took way too much glee in trying to teach that paladin a lesson. The player was literally daring the GM to try to kill his PC.
Later, we ran into a gang of goblins. And this is where things got bad.
See, in all the talk about rules, we often forget that teamwork is really the #1 factor in whether or not a party survives. I have never been in a TPK where the party did not at some level fail to communicate, and I have seen numerous instances where topnotch collaboration utterly trumped intelligent planning or superior forces. So what happened here?
• The wizard and I head up to the roof to look around (and avoid impending fallout). Another PC follows us.
• One PC tries to go into the next area and gets trapped inside with the final boss.
• Our sorcerer teleports in to try to save them. Those poor guys really didn't deserve what followed. Their screams still haunt my nightmares. They were just trying to finish the quest.
And what situation were we all desperately trying to steer clear of?
• The paladin charged into the midst of about ten formerly ambivalent goblin rogues, utterly confident in his ability to take them all on solo. Now, underpowered as rogues might be, it doesn't take a genius to know that getting surrounded by ten of them? Bad idea. The paladin hacks, killing a goblin every round, but he just can't kill them fast enough. They aren't even chaotic or evil. He's in over his head. I think four or five goblins tragically fell before the bizarre paladin at last went down under a sea of Sneak Attack +5d6 daggers.
At the end of the game, the paladin player was pissed. Most of us took the total failure in stride, it being a con game—I can't claim too much maturity, of course, since the wizard and I (and that third guy) were the lone escapees. But that paladin guy was really upset. He insulted the GM's abilities, picked up his beloved, insanely minmaxed sheet, and stormed out.
To be honest, it was sort of an awkward situation. That player was being super immature, but he was fairly young. The GM definitely stooped a bit to his level. It was a little bit uncool of the GM to handle things that way.
But, on the other hand...
...the guy was literally asking for it. Kobold out.
Why did you remind me of that? >.<
Ah, precious memories.
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And what situation were we all desperately trying to steer clear of?
• The paladin charged into the midst of about ten formerly ambivalent goblin rogues, utterly confident in his ability to take them all on solo. Now, underpowered as rogues might be, it doesn't take a genius to know that getting surrounded by ten of them? Bad idea. The paladin hacks, killing a goblin every round, but he just can't kill them fast enough. They aren't even chaotic or evil. He's in over his head. I think four or five goblins tragically fell before the bizarre paladin at last went down under a sea of Sneak Attack +5d6 daggers.
" Jenkins!!!!!!!"
I wish he'd had such self-awareness.
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I wish he'd had such self-awareness.
Reminds me of another tale...
At a convention, GM has a rather mixed reputation of being very much an antagonistic/deathmonger GM yet in my play at his tables he always came across as 'tough but fair' and 'willing to work with desperate ideas characters come up with'.
We're playing in a module that he had written (This particular campaign has volunteer writers, editors...) and he stresses to the table three times that we can choose to do a tough encounter 'as a group' or 'as individuals', with different results based on how a given party approached it.
Enter the frustrating player. The *rest* of the table looks at the opponents and goes 'We're doing this together' because the opponents looked THAT competent. He goes 'Oh, I'll just do this stuff by myself, since I've got this skill...'
The rest of the party could only look on in horror as he tanked all his rolls, then after he was done thoroughly hosing the encounter, stood up, packed up his books and dice and goes 'Well, it's been nice gaming with everyone. I have to get going to my next slot.' And then leaves with about an hour and a half left in the game slot for the module we're playing in...
The GM is sitting there with this perplexed look (which was a new thing for him) and we're all speechless. Some of us at the table had been gaming for over a decade at that point, and we'd NEVER seen anything like that, even at conventions.
If there was a silver lining on the dark clouds, it was that we role-played the apparent betrayal of our now-departed party member well enough that our opponents were willing to give us the benefit of the doubt.
Not enough to ensure complete success, of course but enough to finish the module in a positive fashion.
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I have a question: For those with truly traumatic and HORRIBLE out of game experiences. Is this thread helping? Like do you feel better after getting something off your chest/mind? Is it therapeutic to process this out and see other people go: "Dude! that is messed up!"
Because I HAVE to believe this thread is helping people... otherwise... this is just awful.
I can't speak for the group, but it is actually making me feel a little better. Sort of a comradery with others who've had horrible experiences. You'll find bad eggs in any group of people. Nice to commiserate.
I might talk about the really bad out of game experience I've seen later, but it was less to me and more something I watched happen, so maybe not.
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The worst thing that I can think of is when the GM decided that it would be a good idea to try and start a game when his wife was due. Too bad really, but he seemed like a good guy.
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I have a question: For those with truly traumatic and HORRIBLE out of game experiences. Is this thread helping? Like do you feel better after getting something off your chest/mind? Is it therapeutic to process this out and see other people go: "Dude! that is messed up!"
Because I HAVE to believe this thread is helping people... otherwise... this is just awful.
Mine probably sound worse than they are, in terms of their trauma for me, anyway. All of them happened...I think a minimum of 5 years ago, and most more like 10 or 15.
Things are pretty much fine, these days. I dunno if this thread helped, but it certainly didn't hurt.
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Probably my worst out-of-character experiences have to do with one of my players who's actually still in our group. He was stationed over in Afghanistan back in 2008-2009 when we were playing my first attempt to get through Savage Tide.
Long story short, the guy got very demanding about the game. When OOC things would come up, like sickness or family issues, that would cause multiple people to have to miss the game, he'd get grouchy and pitch a fit because this was his only real opportunity to socialize - he apparently didn't have a gaming group among his squadmates or anything, and was getting himself up at stupid-o'clock to be able to play with us. He started bugging one of the other players on Facebook, saying that he noticed she was posting things but not paying attention to his PbP games. Nevermind that you can make a Facebook post in a few seconds on a mobile phone, while a PbP post takes a lot longer and usually is best done at home on a keyboard. Basically he started feeling/acting like he was entitled to have the opportunity to game, and took it out on the rest of us (especially my brother and his wife, most of the time) when games didn't happen.
It eventually caused so much stress and frustration for everybody that I declared the game to be on a hiatus for a while so we could all cool off, and it never got restarted.
Thankfully he's back stateside now and has a better handle on his eagerness to game, though he's starting to get a bit fidgety again, since the Legacy of Fire game that he's now in has had to be cancelled several weeks in a row due to me (the GM) getting swamped with overtime.
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Oh we had a smelly one too.
I remember it like it was yesterday...terrible terrible yesterday.
Anyway it was a D&D game day, back when 3.5 was still king. I was a DM, and we had an empty seat at my table.
And then this guy enters.
And he REEKS. He reeks so bad that our eyes start watering. And one guy who wasn't at our table actually rushes to the WC to vomit.
He tries to sit at our table, but I stop him and tell him that if he wants to play he'll go home, shower several dozen times and get a clean change of clothes.
He starts screaming at me, tossing things around and spitting everywhere. So a friend, I and the store owner toss him out, and then scrub our hands for several minutes to get the stench out.
The store smelled for the duration of the day.
I have been fortunate enough to never have to deal with the stench gamer. Granted it probably helps that I've never gamed anywhere except at someone's house, and never at a public gaming area like a FLGS or convention.
I do all my gaming online via Skype and MapTool now though, so it's even less of an issue.
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I have been fortunate enough to never have to deal with the stench gamer. Granted it probably helps that I've never gamed anywhere except at someone's house, and never at a public gaming area like a FLGS or convention.
I do all my gaming online via Skype and MapTool now though, so it's even less of an issue.
Oh we had stench gamers at homes as well. Those games I stopped going to though.
>_<
I'm quite happy to say I haven't had any out of game bad experiences, and hope to keep it that way. Especially for anything as dark as some of these other ones. Still, I'm a newbie yet.
My favourite in-game worst things happening:
Kingmaker. One of my players for some reason thinks he can beat the boss in the first module solo, so he leaves the rest of the party and starts walking. He had no ranks in survival, no map, and only the slightest idea of where he was going. I went for the full RAW approach: 1 survival check per hour to avoid becoming lost, and then more to realise he'd become lost.
It took him over a month to travel what the rest of the party did in two days, and he only survived that because I didn't give him random encounters or penalties for running out of food.
The rest of the party held off the boss fight for longer than necessary and did other things instead, although they very nearly decided to fight him anyway just because it would have been funny to have been sitting there having a party when he finally turned up.
The entire thing was a horrible mess of course (over 200 survival checks in a live session!), but it was hilarious looking back at it. The frustration it caused him!
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DISCLAIMER: Long post coming up, I hope it's worth the read though!
I really only have one bad gaming experience but it nearly ruined the hobby for me entirely.
Until the day of said experience, I had only played with people I had known for a long time before getting together at a table. But when I moved to a different city, I desperately tried to get into a group and finally got a message via a gamer connection website by someone living just a few blocks away (let's call him Host) who invited me to their Deadlands game (a d20 Weird West RPG).
Sure, I thought, it's not Pathfinder (which I was actually looking for), but it's better than nothing! So I accepted.
O, how wrong I was.
Now this was back in the days when it would still raise an eyebrow to meet online before you meet in meatspace and in the days leading up to game night I got started wondering, what those guys might be like. I had heard of gamer clichés and the stereotypes surrounding our hobby but because all the gamers I knew had also been my friends first, I banished those into the realm of myths. Still I wondered if we would hit if off right away and was just excited to meet new people.
And then I went to Host's apartment. I was on time and rang but no one opened. I rang several times more but still nothing. A while later, another guy showed up and we started talking and realized we we had both been invited by Host to join the group.
Time passed while we were chatting and after about half an hour Host appeared with his girlfriend and grocery bags and moved past us to unlock the building door, ignoring us and our polite greeting.
Only after several attempts to establish contact, he finally mumbled something like "oh yeah, right" and just went upstairs, leaving the building door open.
The other new guy and me followed him up to his apartment, which was smelling not very nice and was cluttered with... stuff. A broken chair in the hallway, little piles of trash here and there, magazines lying around, video games, CDs, just utter chaos. Little did I know what was waiting behind the as of yet closed doors branching off the messy hallway...
For now we followed to the gaming room where several other people were already playing Descent (a dungeon-crawling board game). Apparently, they were very focused on their game because they, too, did not even look at us in response to us saying "Hi, we're the new guys!"
So there we were awkwardly standing around and being ignored by Host and his friends, until we asked what the plan was and we received a grumbled "DM is not here yet" as a reply.
About another half hour later DM arrived. He was an enormous man, morbidly obese (not judging), and brought his own chair because, as he said pointing to the trashed chair in the hall, Host's chairs apparently couldn't hold him.
DM sat down on his seat, took of his jacket to release a cloud of eye-watering stench, and started getting involved in the ongoing Descent game.
It took another hour for the group to finish their game (all the while telling us that it's only going to be 5 more minutes) and everyone got ready to play some pen and paper, when the DM looks around and asks: "So, what are we gonna play?" I thought he was kidding at first but nope, he really did not have a clue at all.
So Host calmly told DM that we were going to play Deadlands, not even flinching at the question, and the game slowly got started.
It was clear within minutes that the DM had no plan or concept whatsoever and after a half hour of awkward and pointless roleplaying I asked to use the bathroom.
Unsurprisingly, the bathroom was just as much of a mess as the rest of the apartment. After doing my business and silently thanking my Y chromosome, I flushed. The next moment, the bathroom was flooded.
I rushed out to tell Host to do something and he came to my help, snatching DM's jacket, shutting the bathroom door and blocking the water under the door with said jacket, all the while yelling at me for not flushing while sitting down, because the plumbing was shot and you needed to apply pressure to it or it would leak. He did not even bother to answer my question how in the Hells I possibly could have known that.
This was the last straw and I took my leave, as politely as possible, when the other new guy seized the opportunity and also took off with me.
On our way out, we caught a glance into one of the other rooms: Host's girlfriend was sitting on a couch, eating chips and watching TV, surrounded by trash. In fact, there was so much trash in the room, she had just pushed enough of it aside to have a place to sit and a clear view of the TV screen. She even rested her feet on a garbage bag.
We left and never looked back. Luckily, the whole ordeal ended up being a bonding experience for the other new guy and me and we ended up founding our own gaming group.
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Happened with a new game I'm in. The DM was in the process of recruiting new players. One of them is one of those gamers who is s certain age. Yet instead decides to act less mature than their physical age. Already the DM is hesitant to add him to the group. But decides to be fair and give him a chance anyway. The DM setup a group on Facebook to stay in contact. The DM being hands on likes to setup and build props and scenes for the game. The problem player writes something truly dumb on the page. Both dismissing the work on the DM did, swearing, and all but getting himself booted out of the game. Why do both men and women think acting like that is both acceptable and the right way to act.
I have a question: For those with truly traumatic and HORRIBLE out of game experiences. Is this thread helping? Like do you feel better after getting something off your chest/mind? Is it therapeutic to process this out and see other people go: "Dude! that is messed up!"
Because I HAVE to believe this thread is helping people... otherwise... this is just awful.
Well... the murders happened in 1991, and the psychotic player happened in 1993, so time has pretty much healed these wounds.
The worst experience in recent years was the time that a very experienced and usually-very-mature player (who was in his mid-40s at the time) threw a total hissy-fit about getting stuck with the "crappiest" magic item in the treasure trove. I mean, he got into a shouting match with the GM about how his PC "never" got any cool stuff (not true) and how the GM had it in for his character (also not true). The tension got so high that I used one of those "fake call" apps on my phone to feign getting an emergency call from work so I could duck out.
(...and, it turned out that the "crappiest item in the treasure trove" was a major "quest item" artifact that actually gave the PC godlike powers...)
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Oh we had a smelly one too.
I remember it like it was yesterday...terrible terrible yesterday.
Anyway it was a D&D game day, back when 3.5 was still king. I was a DM, and we had an empty seat at my table.And then this guy enters.
And he REEKS. He reeks so bad that our eyes start watering. And one guy who wasn't at our table actually rushes to the WC to vomit.
He tries to sit at our table, but I stop him and tell him that if he wants to play he'll go home, shower several dozen times and get a clean change of clothes.He starts screaming at me, tossing things around and spitting everywhere. So a friend, I and the store owner toss him out, and then scrub our hands for several minutes to get the stench out.
The store smelled for the duration of the day.
Yeah... I had one of those.
This is another from my college days in the late '80s/early '90s. The college RPG club met in an academic building at 7:00 on Friday nights, and we played in various classrooms. I usually ran an open table AD&D game in my homebrew campaign setting. It was the start of the year, and it had been a pretty hot day for early September. One of my regular players from the previous year shows up, and his clothes are soiled with what looks like dried mud... and he totally reeks of sweat and concentrated cow manure. I then remember that he's an animal science major.
"Stinky" Al: (shows up about 25 minutes late, which is normally fine.) "Hi, guys! Sorry I'm late: I just got out of a late class. Anyone want to go in on a pizza?"
[Everyone notices how bad he reeks, and people start moving their chairs away from him.]
Me: Um... let me guess... AnSci practical at the cattle barn, right?
Al: Yup. That class gets out at 7:00, so I came right here. Who's in for pizza?
[Everyone looks at me with a pleading look in their eyes: It's obvious no one has any appetite any more.]
Me: Well... you must be really tired from that class, especially because it was so hot today. If you want to head back to the dorm and freshen up a bit, we'll wait for you. I brought my Lost Worlds set, and we could play that while we wait for you.
[Everyone vigorously nods in agreement.]
Al: Nah, I'm fine. [Puts his gaming bag on the table, also soiled with "mud", and also reeks. Starts taking out books.] Let's get going!
Me: No, really, I'm sure you'd be much more comfortable if you went back to your place, took a shower, and changed into fresh clothes. We'll wait!
Al: Nah, I'm fine. So, no one want to go in for pizza? I guess I'll just order a sub...
[Everyone continues to look at me pleadingly.]
Me: *sigh* Al, I was trying to be polite, and was hoping you'd take the hint, but you're just not getting it. Man, you stink. You really stink. Like concentrated B.O. and cow$#it. We really want you to go home, take a shower, and put on fresh clothes. We'll wait. Really.
Al: Aw, c'mon! It's not that bad!
Everyone else: YES, IT IS!!!
Thankfully, he only grumbles a bit, leaves, and comes back 45 minutes later, fresh as a daisy. We do go in on pizza with him. He wasn't a bad guy... only a little clueless sometimes.
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Having grown up on a farm that smell wouldn't have even fazed me.
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Worst Out of game : A player starting spouting racist and misogynistic slur in an martial arts themed RPG (Qin FYI), insulting and trashtalking other player,including me as a GM.
I had to get him out because the tension have started to skyrocket and the other players were ready to lynch him. It nearly degenerate in a brawl.
Worst In games : The mass effect reapers are a good idea. Recycled in Pathfinder, no.
And in another scenario, I have use cultist of angazhan as the antagonists and all player were nauseated when I was describing their lair because I went the very detailed road, with clinical accuracy and no horrors were sparred or ignored.
My player made me sign an agreement to never put Demon lords worshipper as antagonist in my future games.
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Not a dungeon for 9-year-olds.My 1E Paladin entered Tomb of Horrors. This was the local legend Gerry the Paladin who I had dutifully played all the way to level 11 and went into ToH like a boss. When he died, like all characters in that damn thing inevitably do, the older kid who was GMing reached across the table and snatched my character sheet, tore it up in front of me and I walked home crying. Ok... I was 9 years old at the time. My Mom saw the trauma on my face, compelled to tell the story and then proceeded to call the other Moms up to complain about what had happened turning it into a huge mess.
Screw Tomb of Horrors! Screw Gary Gygax!
RIP Gerry the Paladin
Or for little b#&&~es that steal and destroy other people's character sheets.
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Agreed, but I suppose that the DM was also a little kid when he did that, so some immaturity is to be expected.Or for little b!%#!es that steal and destroy other people's character sheets.Not a dungeon for 9-year-olds.My 1E Paladin entered Tomb of Horrors. This was the local legend Gerry the Paladin who I had dutifully played all the way to level 11 and went into ToH like a boss. When he died, like all characters in that damn thing inevitably do, the older kid who was GMing reached across the table and snatched my character sheet, tore it up in front of me and I walked home crying. Ok... I was 9 years old at the time. My Mom saw the trauma on my face, compelled to tell the story and then proceeded to call the other Moms up to complain about what had happened turning it into a huge mess.
Screw Tomb of Horrors! Screw Gary Gygax!
RIP Gerry the Paladin
Not an excuse though.
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Screw Tomb of Horrors! Screw Gary Gygax!RIP Gerry the Paladin
Not a dungeon for 9-year-olds.
Not a dungeon for anyone.
Tomb of Horrors is, simply, terrible game design. It's written just to take players down a notch or two. There's no rhyme or reason to the deathtraps, no logic to them, and no satisfaction in avoiding them. And if, somehow, you manage to survive to the end (fat chance!), all the treasure is cursed.
The whole dungeon is a giant "F--k you!" from a jaded GM. No one should ever play it.
And, regarding tearing up character sheets, Gygax himself was notorious for doing that in bring-your-own-character tournament play... Even going so far as to call a player's home GM to say "Jardov the Fighter died. Don't let your player Joe bring a copy of Jardov to your game any more."
IIRC, the original edition of Tomb of Horrors instructed DMs to tear up the character sheets of anyone who died.
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Screw Tomb of Horrors! Screw Gary Gygax!RIP Gerry the Paladin
Not a dungeon for 9-year-olds.
Not a dungeon for anyone.
Tomb of Horrors is, simply, terrible game design. It's written just to take players down a notch or two. There's no rhyme or reason to the deathtraps, no logic to them, and no satisfaction in avoiding them. And if, somehow, you manage to survive to the end (fat chance!), all the treasure is cursed.
The whole dungeon is a giant "F--k you!" from a jaded GM. No one should ever play it.
And, regarding tearing up character sheets, Gygax himself was notorious for doing that in bring-your-own-character tournament play... Even going so far as to call a player's home GM to say "Jardov the Fighter died. Don't let your player Joe bring a copy of Jardov to your game any more."
IIRC, the original edition of Tomb of Horrors instructed DMs to tear up the character sheets of anyone who died.
Wow, seriously? F$#+ that noise.
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Worst thing that happened to me:
In "The Disappeared," my brother Jiggy and I were scouting ahead in the Chelish embassy, looking for a particular room that we had the key for. We find it, and Jiggy decides to stay behind in the room while I fetch the rest of the party.
Me: "OK, give me the key so I can get back in."
Jiggy: "No, I'm keeping it."
Me: "Why? It does you no good, and I'll need to get back in the room."
Jiggy: "Because someone might notice you and take the key, then no one can get in."
Me: "But you can let them in. Literally, the key is useless if you have it."
Jiggy: "I'm keeping it. Just go."
So I leave Jiggy in the room with the key, and he locks himself inside. While I'm fetching the rest of the party, he decides to explore, and he triggers a combat, which of course he can't solo, and he goes unconscious. I get back to the room, and of course can't get in because I don't have a key and Jiggy is unconscious. So I pull out my thieves' tools and get to work.
Did I mention that this is in the middle of a fancy dinner party?
Naturally, someone sees me working on the lock (my Disable Device wasn't great, and I found out later I would have needed a natural 20 to pick the lock), and I go through 2 or 3 different false identities before the guards finally arrest me and drag the rest of us away.
Total mission failure, because my brother doesn't understand what keys are for.
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Out of game: It was my first semester of college, and I thought it would be cool to try to teach my new friends about D&D. They thought it was cool too, so we got everything all set up one night and started playing. It was something very light, as I recall, just make some funny characters and kill some orcs.
Anyway, the point is that my friends were really into weed. This being Rome it wasn't too surprising, and it didn't bother me, so they could smoke at the table. What did surprise me, however, was when after looking down at my dice, I surveyed the table to find that two people had put on and fired up gas mask bongs. Needless to say, they were out of commission about a minute later, and the rest of the game was called off due to the players suddenly being high as balls.
I suppose it's not really the worst thing that's happened, since I still laugh about it till this day, but it's definitely one of the most memorable moments.
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I have seen other players with issues in game but not as bad as this. A guy who used to play in our local society stuff had mental issues. I was never told what he had but think of a combination between socially retarded and a minor pinch of terrets. He was a minor irritation that could be handled on his good days. Another player who was a friend of the gm basically had a rage quit during book 1 of Kingmaker. The GM had one of those octogon things for rolling your dice in and demanded all D20 rolls be rolled into it. After so many sessions, the player has a hissi fit, states that his cavalier sits the throat of his horse, throws his dice and storms off. The group was disbanded after that.
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@ Haladir
To be honest I don't think your player who stunk was clueless. If your genuinely clueless about smelling bad. Your told about it. One apologizes. One does not grumble about it leave wash up and come back. Too often it's not so much about being clueless so much as wanting to see how far they can take bad behavior until they either change what bothers others or are asked to leave. a "clueless person" when told they stink. Does not respond with " Aw, c'mon! It's not that bad! " imo.