Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
in my experience, she would have either been ignored or forced to buy cards, be beaten first round, and told to leave as she was not playing any longer unless she was buying something.
Your experiences run counter to my own.
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As an impartial reader to the thread, I would suggest that an alternative explanation is that they've had vastly different and far more negative experiences than you with the game or format, and you shouldn't take it personally.Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
It's entirely possible that I'm misreading some of these posts. Can you give me your impartial-third-party interpretations of the following?
Magic players here are what I consider to be wrong with gaming. Completely absorbed with mechanics, not giving a damn about the story behind it or WHY something is happening. All they see in cards are the numbers. Making completely nonsensical decs as long as it gives them the advangate.
What's also upsetting is that... seems to be the epicenter of this Evil mind-plague of contempt for anything beyond mechanics that we've seen corrode the game over the past decade.
...
It's kinda like, bean-counters are never the first ones to catch on to a game, but they sniff a game out, they barge in, and ruin it for everyone with a broader mind than they. Game gradually turns to s#~*, it shrivels up, they stand in the ruins, shrug their shoulders, and decide it was inevitable, because obviously if they couldn't have saved the game, nobody could!
So what I'm seeing here is that (A) we're talking about things like "what's wrong with gaming" and "Evil mind-plague" and which of two groups of people has the "broader mind"; and (B) the source of the issue is when players engage the game competitively/mechanically (as opposed to narratively, as one would an RPG).
Perhaps that interpretation of those posts is a result of me "taking it personally". What would be the "impartial" way to interpret posts like those?
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Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
in my experience, she would have either been ignored or forced to buy cards, be beaten first round, and told to leave as she was not playing.
Your experiences run counter to my own.
Unless I misunderstood you earlier, I was under the impression your experiences were in the context of lunchtime casual games, rather than organized events, right? I already commented on the possible distinction there in an earlier post.
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Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
I have nothing against competitive players. If you come to a tournament, you sure came to play to win.
What I hate is players who are so competitive that they cannot have any fun unless they are winning and who cannot play for fun in casual games and must squeeze every ounce out of their army/deck/whatever in order to win at all costs no matter the setting.
I also hate players who are a~@%*$%s in their competitiveness rude to other players, dismissive of anything they deem not optimal and behave like s**t regularly.
I also don't get competitive players in a tabletop RPG. What are you trying to win at? Being the best player? That is not how teamwork works.
I also don't get competitive players in a tabletop RPG. What are you trying to win at? Being the best player? That is not how teamwork works.
This is the one that baffles me. I know a couple of guys who are absolute masters at optimization. They could probably take a first level commoner and beat a 10th level Paladin with it. And they usually pick on the same guy who has been playing for 30 years and still has trouble calculating his saving throws. They're merciless to him. I've had to warn them on more than one occasion during games to knock it off.
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I have nothing against competitive players. If you come to a tournament, you sure came to play to win.
What I hate is players who are so competitive that they cannot have any fun unless they are winning and who cannot play for fun in casual games and must squeeze every ounce out of their army/deck/whatever in order to win at all costs no matter the setting.
I also hate players who are a$~@$#~s in their competitiveness rude to other players, dismissive of anything they deem not optimal and behave like s**t regularly.
Magic players here are what I consider to be wrong with gaming. Completely absorbed with mechanics, not giving a damn about the story behind it or WHY something is happening. All they see in cards are the numbers. Making completely nonsensical decs as long as it gives them the advangate.
I'm having trouble squaring these two posts. I see two possibilities:
1) You're changing your story.
2) You really are okay with what I'll call "merely competitive" players, but Magic players categorically fall outside that zone and into the "cannot play casually and are a@+&*$+s to each other" category.
Is there a third option I'm missing?
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I haven't met casual magic players who weren't ousted out of the hobby because when they come to play on occasion, they get destroyed by hyper competitive decks and players and then ridiculed because they are casual players and found lacking.
I find that behavior disgusting, and it is near universal in all of FLGSs that I used to frequent.
Plus, a moment any of my tabletop RPG buddies started playing magic they either became unbearable to be around or quit playing anything but magic.
I think that my hatred of magic as a game and it's players is understandable.
And those two quotes mesh quite well if you read them again. My top quote expands upon the lower one. They can't not be competitive. That is ridiculous.
I don't enjoy playing CCGs. I've tried them, and while the lore for magic is amazing, it rarely comes out in play. Not for me.
I do not disparage people that play them, though. At least, not as a group.
One of my good friends plays magic. Another person I know that I've never gotten along with plays magic. Is it the game, or the attitude of the player?
It really comes down to the group. I think it's CCGs in general, but which game is the problem one can vary from city to city, or even from store to store within an area. YuGiOh players are by far the worst here, but there's one store where I just stopped playing Magic years before I stopped all organised play, because they were all ultra-competitive. The other two stores the general communities aren't bad, but there's still cliques of unpleasant players within them.
Can also depend on level of play. A casual league or even something organised but low level like Friday Night Magic is going to be a much more cheerful and friendly crowd than something like the main event at a Grand Prix or a Pro Tour Qualifier event. When there's serious prizes on the line (last I checked, first place in a Grand Prix main event is $10,000), a lot of people tend to get very serious about a game.
Maybe? I play semicompetitively. I am definitely no pro, but I sometimes go to GPs or SCG open events. I was just at the SCG legacy open, and everyone was nice, even on day 2 when we were playing for potentially thousands of dollars. I had one guy at GP edison try and get a judge to give me a game loss for being less than 100% precise in how I described an infinite combo (judge threw out the complaint), but that's like 1.5% of the highly competitive games I've played in the last couple of years.
FNMs are even more relaxed, as are casual EDH games at the shop. Most people have EDH decks tuned to different levels of optimization so everyone can be on a somewhat equal playing ground; I have a mass land destruction R/G stax build that I bring out vs. highly optimized combo lists, and a Karona false god deck with all the Theros gods for playing against people where I don't have to worry about being combo killed on turn 3. It is better for everyone involved, so the most common question to start a pickup game of EDH is usually "How competitive is everyone's deck?"
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Sorry for the Magic derail. To get back on topic, it was actually while pondering the irony* that I suddenly remembered another story relevant to the thread:
I'm no stranger to being accused of making personal attacks just for quoting a rule when asked (and I mean without any commentary of my own, just literally posting the relevant quote and that's it), but this one guy was really over the top.
He thought that sunrods trumped the darkness spell, and when (politely) corrected, he got really abusive (toward both myself and others) and demanded proof. But every time someone quoted exactly the thing he challenged them to be able to find, he would get even madder. Eventually he was typing out text-based imagery of middle fingers at me, and after being given one last batch of rules-quotes that he had demanded (and not expected to see), he started asking if I'd be at such-and-such a convention so he could really tell me what he thinks of me, and otherwise making veiled threats.
All because someone dared to show him the rules.
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The truth hurts, seems it has the bane property against certain people.
You can show a man the rules, but you can't make him read them....
I'm no stranger to being accused of making personal attacks...
My completely unsolicited advice that you can feel free to ignore:
That's because you have a habit of being aggressive in your disagreements with people.
People sometimes like to come on these boards and discuss things in a casual manner. You seem to respond to them at times in the manner of a lawyer prosecuting a case.
So even in the times where you are 100% correct, you can leave people with negative feelings about the way you showed them they are wrong.
Unless I misunderstood you earlier, I was under the impression your experiences were in the context of lunchtime casual games, rather than organized events, right? I already commented on the possible distinction there in an earlier post.Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
in my experience, she would have either been ignored or forced to buy cards, be beaten first round, and told to leave as she was not playing.
Your experiences run counter to my own.
The behavior I mentioned has happened at both organized and casual events.
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I'm no stranger to being accused of making personal attacks...My completely unsolicited advice that you can feel free to ignore:
That's because you have a habit of being aggressive in your disagreements with people.
People sometimes like to come on these boards and discuss things in a casual manner. You seem to respond to them at times in the manner of a lawyer prosecuting a case.
So even in the times where you are 100% correct, you can leave people with negative feelings about the way you showed them they are wrong.
I'm talking about when I've literally just copy-pasted a rule into a quote box and clicked "Submit Post". I've been accused of making personal attacks when I composed no language of my own whatsoever. That's what I was talking about.
As an aside, I'm sorry that one discussion we had left such a mark on you. I had kept thinking if I just explained myself one more time, with just a little more detail, and just a little more clarity, then maybe we'd have a breakthrough; but instead it apparently came off as aggressive badgering, which was never the intent.
Ok I failed my will save to resist this thread.. So here I go.
Out of game: a guy I knew closely in college had epilepsy. He had a seizure while playing the game. So to keep him from hurting himself the host moved him to his bed. After the game was over we checked in on him to find him dead. He had ruptured the waterbed during his seizures and drowned... It was horrible.
In game: it has to be the time a GM not only allowed another PC to rape mine but wanted to force me to role play it out since I was mind controlled. THAT was the last time I played with him.
Ok I failed my will save to resist this thread.. So here I go.
Out of game: a guy I knew closely in college had epilepsy. He had a seizure while playing the game. So to keep him from hurting himself the host moved him to his bed. After the game was over we checked in on him to find him dead. He had ruptured the waterbed during his seizures and drowned... It was horrible.
In game: it has to be the time a GM not only allowed another PC to rape mine but wanted to force me to role play it out since I was mind controlled. THAT was the last time I played with him.
Good God! Those may win the Worst Thing prize.
Ok I failed my will save to resist this thread.. So here I go.
Out of game: a guy I knew closely in college had epilepsy. He had a seizure while playing the game. So to keep him from hurting himself the host moved him to his bed. After the game was over we checked in on him to find him dead. He had ruptured the waterbed during his seizures and drowned... It was horrible.
In game: it has to be the time a GM not only allowed another PC to rape mine but wanted to force me to role play it out since I was mind controlled. THAT was the last time I played with him.
HOLY S++~
Ok I failed my will save to resist this thread.. So here I go.
Out of game: a guy I knew closely in college had epilepsy. He had a seizure while playing the game. So to keep him from hurting himself the host moved him to his bed. After the game was over we checked in on him to find him dead. He had ruptured the waterbed during his seizures and drowned... It was horrible.
In game: it has to be the time a GM not only allowed another PC to rape mine but wanted to force me to role play it out since I was mind controlled. THAT was the last time I played with him.
Yeah, I think that set takes the cake.
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Ummm... someone had a grand mal seizure and he was left alone to have it? Yeah, that's not a good idea. Usually, seizures aren't dangerous, but you can't leave them alone. Get an ambulance, stay with them, check how long the seizure has been going on. =/
I suppose it's old news, but on the off chance that someone else needs this advice...
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Not as bad as finding the guy dead, but it kind of feels like someone died. One of my gaming friends who has hosted and GM'd for the group for more than 20 years was just convicted of a very repugnant crime and is going to prison.
This week instead of a game session our group are going to his house to re-home his extensive collection of books, miniatures, and props. I'm both disturbed by the news and sad. It's like losing a family member.
I've spent at least 6 hours a week at his house for all these years. It just shows that you can spend a lot of time with someone and not know them at all.
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Not as bad as finding the guy dead, but it kind of feels like someone died. One of my gaming friends who has hosted and GM'd for the group for more than 20 years was just convicted of a very repugnant crime and is going to prison.
This week instead of a game session our group are going to his house to re-home his extensive collection of books, miniatures, and props. I'm both disturbed by the news and sad. It's like losing a family member.
I've spent at least 6 hours a week at his house for all these years. It just shows that you can spend a lot of time with someone and not know them at all.
That's terrible, was there any chance he was innocent? Maybe he could appeal or something?
Does he have family, kids of his own? I can't imagine what it'll be like for him. It's very nice of your group to keep his things safe until he gets out.
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That's terrible, was there any chance he was innocent? Maybe he could appeal or something?Does he have family, kids of his own? I can't imagine what it'll be like for him. It's very nice of your group to keep his things safe until he gets out.
I doubt that he's innocent. The crime is pretty heinous, and I don't think we'll be gaming with him anymore after he gets out. He gave one of the group members the key to his apartment and told him we should all take whatever we want. I think he's anticipating that we won't be comfortable around him after this, and also that he won't have anywhere to store all that stuff after he gets out.
I feel really bad for his mom. She doesn't have anyone else.
Nothing compared to real world stuff...that's some terrible stuff in regards to gaming. I don't have anything that really compares to that.
Worst thing that happened was actually away from the table but involved with the actual game.
When I was younger, we'd play in school at the lunch table. Well, the DM was friends with one or two of the kids and would continue the campaign after school (when I was at sports practice of all things). Well, they decided that when we went and invaded some goblin caves, that some of the group would leave for town, and they decided to leave two behind to guard the spot.
I did NOT have a choice on this.
My character was human. They left no lights, no torches...basically left us blind in the dark.
Next afternoon, when I was at practice...of course goblins discovered us and not being able to see...my character was slaughtered.
Stupid, dumb, arse...idiots. It makes a group think when one person gets to decide and play all your characters and make dumb decisions like that.
That's life though. That has to be the worst thing that's happened in regards to Roleplaying a character though...as in...getting it killed because one CAN'T play their character.
Nothing compared to RL players dying or committing crimes, or genuinely grim things...but gamewise, it still makes me think that's something you shouldn't do to other people's characters.
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Out of game: a guy I knew closely in college had epilepsy. He had a seizure while playing the game. So to keep him from hurting himself the host moved him to his bed. After the game was over we checked in on him to find him dead. He had ruptured the waterbed during his seizures and drowned... It was horrible.
That is...pretty terrible. I didn't even know that was possible.
"He drowned in a waterbed" sounds like it should be the punchline to a joke or something - and only that.
Ummm... someone had a grand mal seizure and he was left alone to have it? Yeah, that's not a good idea. Usually, seizures aren't dangerous, but you can't leave them alone. Get an ambulance, stay with them, check how long the seizure has been going on. =/
I suppose it's old news, but on the off chance that someone else needs this advice...
Wow I feel like dirt now. But this was his standing advice for us for when he had a seizure. "Just put me somewhere I can't hurt myself"...Heck I had been rock climbing with the guy for weeks and he never told me about his epilepsy. That was crazy dangerous. I only found out when it happened while we were alone playing chess and he went into a seizure... I was SO freaked out, since before then I never heard of epilepsy. I don't think he liked to even acknowledge that he had the condition.
It really comes down to the group. I think it's CCGs in general, but which game is the problem one can vary from city to city, or even from store to store within an area. YuGiOh players are by far the worst here, but there's one store where I just stopped playing Magic years before I stopped all organised play, because they were all ultra-competitive. The other two stores the general communities aren't bad, but there's still cliques of unpleasant players within them.
Can also depend on level of play. A casual league or even something organised but low level like Friday Night Magic is going to be a much more cheerful and friendly crowd than something like the main event at a Grand Prix or a Pro Tour Qualifier event. When there's serious prizes on the line (last I checked, first place in a Grand Prix main event is $10,000), a lot of people tend to get very serious about a game.
Maybe? I play semicompetitively. I am definitely no pro, but I sometimes go to GPs or SCG open events. I was just at the SCG legacy open, and everyone was nice, even on day 2 when we were playing for potentially thousands of dollars. I had one guy at GP edison try and get a judge to give me a game loss for being less than 100% precise in how I described an infinite combo (judge threw out the complaint), but that's like 1.5% of the highly competitive games I've played in the last couple of years.
FNMs are even more relaxed, as are casual EDH games at the shop. Most people have EDH decks tuned to different levels of optimization so everyone can be on a somewhat equal playing ground; I have a mass land destruction R/G stax build that I bring out vs. highly optimized combo lists, and a Karona false god deck with all the Theros gods for playing against people where I don't have to worry about being combo killed on turn 3. It is better for everyone involved, so the most common question to start a pickup game of EDH is usually "How competitive is everyone's deck?"
Which is why I said it varies from group to group and location to location. It's not going to be that way everywhere, but here, even for FNM, there are groups of people that fall into the "We're not having fun unless we're winning" category, and bring insane decks to the events.
As for the Grand Prix and other higher level events, my point wasn't that they're full of a!~#$!$s, but more that people tend to take them a lot more seriously. There's less joking at the tables, people are more likely to bring serious decks. That's why I said that when there's money on the line, people tend to get serious, not that people tend to turn into jerks. EDH leagues where I am tend to be a lot more casual focused, which again comes back to variance between locations. I'm not an EDH fan myself, I have a deck but rarely play, mostly because I just tend to get bored waiting for peoples ridiculously long turns to end.
Okay, after re-reading a few posts, I think I'm starting to understand. It seems some folks regard it as an inherently bad thing to engage a game (even a non-RPG) with a competitive mindset, no matter how much politeness or professional decorum you might conduct yourself with. So (outside of a couple of outliers/horror stories not unlike the ones for RPGs) when I'm seeing people saying that MtG brings out "the worst", they're meaning it brings out "competitiveness, which is bad".
A couple months back, a little 10-year-old girl was the only one to show up for the Magic Kids' League, so one of the Modern players loaned her a multi-hundred-dollar deck so she could play that event instead. Everyone smiled, treated her kindly, patiently explained unfamiliar cards, and encouraged her even while she was losing. It seems that while I would look at the actual behavior and call it good, some in this thread would look at the fact that they were still playing to win and say "Man, Magic players are the worst!"
Explains a lot.
Definitely not what I'm saying. I play competitively as well. But I don't walk in, look at someone's deck or army list or whatever and say "You may as well forfeit, because I win in two turns". That's not being competitive, that's being a dick, and it's happened to me in multiple rounds in a row in a tournament. Nor do I spend time telling people they're running junk units or cards, or going into in depth explanations of how statistical analysis says they're wrong.
A decent explanation of my issue from Privateer Press (creators of Warmachine/Hordes)
The casual Relic Knights League I ran was competitive from start to finish, but it was fun. I gave people advice where needed or where they felt they had no options, made sure they understood the rules their units had, and if they'd misplayed due to a fundamental misunderstanding of something (rather than just forgetting to do something they meant to), I'd let them take it back, while everything that I did was final, since I had more experience and felt that it was only fair. But I didn't hold back on strategy or gimp myself with subpar lists, and I played to win. I went 6-0 undefeated for the league, but everyone still told me they'd had a great time and would play again.
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Speaking as someone with a friend with a seizure disorder that I game with regularly...that story's kind scary.
His standing advice is also 'Just put me somewhere I can't hurt myself.'
So...yeah. I'm sorta creeped out now for no readily definable reason.
Actually the best advice for someone having a seizure is leave them where they are, don't move them. Make sure there is nothing in the area that will harm them. And stay with them.
I used to work with developmentally disabled adults, many of whom had seizure disorders, and we received training on how to deal with seizures. Never leave them alone, and don't try to put anything in their mouths. It is physically impossible to swallow your tongue.
Just read Aranna's stories... I'm not even sure what to say, beyond that I'm so, so sorry you've had experiences like that...
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Wow I feel like dirt now.
You shouldn't. You guys did what he asked and thought it was the best course of action. It's a terribly regrettable thing he passed away, but there is no need for you to feel bad for sharing the story.
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Wow I feel like dirt now.You shouldn't. You guys did what he asked and thought it was the best course of action. It's a terribly regrettable thing he passed away, but there is no need for you to feel bad for sharing the story.
Cal is absolutely right. You shouldn't feel bad over this, when you did what you'd been instructed was the correct course of action.
Man, here I was looking for some good stories of creeps and jerkass players, and I get murders, attempted murders, deaths during a game, and really depressing stuff.
And I still keep reading.
I doubt that he's innocent. The crime is pretty heinous, and I don't think we'll be gaming with him anymore after he gets out. He gave one of the group members the key to his apartment and told him we should all take whatever we want. I think he's anticipating that we won't be comfortable around him after this, and also that he won't have anywhere to store all that stuff after he gets out.
I can't deny I'm curious as to what, exactly, the crime was, though I have a theory. But I'll keep that to myself. More than likely there's a reason you didn't say, and I should respect that.
Wow I feel like dirt now.
Like Cal said, you did what he asked, and it turned out to be bad advice. Don't beat yourself up too much over it.
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Trying to think of anything bad in my many years of playing. Nothing that I can think of that's really story worthy. I mean, I've had bad games, but just ho-hum bad isn't entertaining.
The closest I'd say I had out-of-game is one former player who ended up doing so many drugs he fried his brain and is now on permanent disability.
In-game? Well, nothing really significant on my end, though if I may share a few second-hand stories:
One infamous tale that I heard involved one player joining a game where, when the character entered the dungeon, the GM laid the entire map down in front of them. Leading to:
Player: I assume I don't see that secret door?
GM: You assume correctly.
Also one GM who refused to let players die. The players caught on, and pushed this immunity to its absurd conclusions.
Player: I jump into the dragon's mouth.
GM: The dragon spits you out.
Actually, now I recall something.
I joined a group after one game, where they let one player go. The reason he was let go?
Their first adventure involved the group being agents of the crown. They were assigned to reclaim a scroll that was stolen by some bandits. They were warned, repeatedly and sternly, NOT TO READ THE SCROLL! I believe they were even warned that the scroll would drive a reader mad if they looked at it. (It's been a while, but I suspect the scroll might have been a one-use thing. Could be wrong here.)
So the group marches fourth, delivers royal justice to the bandits, and then reclaims the scroll. At which point, one player opens it up and reads it. And, predictably, goes insane, pretty much rendering his character an NPC. Was said player a rabble-rouser? Did he believe that the scroll contained important knowledge and that his superiors simply fed the story about forbidden lore to ward them off?
No, he just wasn't listening when they were briefed.
Turns out said player had that problem of simply not listening at all when combat wasn't happening. Apparently he decided at that point that the game 'wasn't for him.' and left.
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I LARPed Vampire the Masquerade and other WoD games for a good 10 years (starting when I was 14) with what was officially the University RPG Club. So there's a whole boatload of interpersonal drama I could go into there, if I liked, but to be honest, it was mostly pretty petty and unimportant. And almost universally didn't involve me directly.
I hear ya. My first and last experience with Vampire LARP ended with being invited to a game by my ex-girlfriend. She didn't know the people who were running it, just responded to an ad. I got a character generated and that was it. Because the VERY NEXT DAY she started sleeping with the LARP's GM. This was a whole three days after meeting him, and after only one day of actually hanging out. We hadn't broken up very long before that... only a few weeks, so my feelings were still pretty raw from the breakup. To her credit, she was disappointed when she found out I wouldn't be playing. But she really should have figured I wouldn't want to go to a game and see her on the GM's arm so soon after us breaking up.
Wow I feel like dirt now. But this was his standing advice for us for when he had a seizure. "Just put me somewhere I can't hurt myself"...Heck I had been rock climbing with the guy for weeks and he never told me about his epilepsy. That was crazy dangerous. I only found out when it happened while we were alone playing chess and he went into a seizure... I was SO freaked out, since before then I never heard of epilepsy. I don't think he liked to even acknowledge that he had the condition.Ummm... someone had a grand mal seizure and he was left alone to have it? Yeah, that's not a good idea. Usually, seizures aren't dangerous, but you can't leave them alone. Get an ambulance, stay with them, check how long the seizure has been going on. =/
I suppose it's old news, but on the off chance that someone else needs this advice...
Don't feel bad about it. It is a relatively rare disorder, and he told you what he wanted you to do. No shadow on you, I mean that. I guess I was sad about the grimness of it all. Sorry if you felt I criticized you. And wow... Rock climbing? Ouch.
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Wow, definitely shows how things can be different for everyone. All my warhammer fantasy and battletech friends have been cool, clean, and fun to be with. Of course warhammer fantasy is now history unfortunately. XD
Sorry to say I am probably the reason for three peoples worst in- game experience. It was pre-pathfinder in the days of living greyhawk in a game store down in lacey,washington.
I had not been able to play very often as the army had different plans for my time and location, but I was finally was able to go. Played my favorite class the ranger for a quick scenario and used the proceeds to buy potions. In the afternoon game I joined a second table with four players, three of which were a group of friends together and a fourth was the keep to himself kind of guy.
1. This dude splits the party and then starts an encounter with just me and him in room. His paladin leaves me to solo the encounter. I get merced of course.
2. Guys Paladin comes back to room after the rest of the party has arrived and defeated the encounter. The other three players are looting the enemy and not paying attention. This is important.
3. Guy asks if my dead character has anything good on him, specifically potions. Now a game is game and I dont let it get to me usually but this dude irritated me to an extent that I let it bother me.
4. The stores owner is a very nice lady and has rules about what you can say in this store, mainly like abstain from anything you would not want a kid to hear, etc. She is nice and usually I respect the environment she sets at the store.
5. So instead of telling him to shove the potions up his a##, I say "yeah dude there is three but they are suppositories." He asks what that means, I say they can tell you and walk off to get a bite to eat. I don't think anything of it and presume he knows I am just being salty.
6. I come back later to the gaming area to see that the game is still going on but all the nearby tables have stopped playing their game and are intently observing this one and laughing hysterically. The GM was in tears holding laughter and the three friends are very much not amused.
7. The fourth guy had triggered multiple encounters and in a panic had began "rendering" the healing potions to the three players. Apparently he had asked what suppositories were and they told him and thought nothing of it. well...........
8.they were not happy to see me after the paladin had pulled their characters pants down mid fight and assisted in keeping them up. It did not get better when I said I did not really mean for him to believe it.
9. I bought dinner for those three dudes later that night.
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I have nothing that compares to tales of murder and attempted murder, but I do have a few interesting memories.
I started playing as a teenager in the early 90's when the D&D Satanism scare was still very strongly in play in the Midwest. I was the only member of my group whose parents were cool with gaming, but my house also wasn't exactly ideally set up for it, so consequently we had to sneak around to the others' houses to play when their parents weren't watching. One guy in particular had ultra-conservative parents who would have hit the roof over gaming, but they also owned an industrial laundromat where they washed things like doormats, etc. for various local businesses. One weekend when his parents were away, this guy thought it would be awesome to have the group come and do the game there since he had to work there that weekend while his parents were gone.
So we're doing our thing, playing D&D for several hours. I had some loose change in my dice bag - exactly eight cents, I remember it to this day - and it had come out of the bag when I dumped my dice on the table. Well, his parents might have been gone but the guy clearly never counted on his grandmother just showing up and walking in unannounced. We could do nothing except hurriedly put our things away in silence because we knew we were busted. His grandma didn't say anything to us, but we pretty much bailed without a word because he wasn't even supposed to have us in there in the first place.
Our friend wound up grounded for the rest of the school year. Not because his grandma had caught us playing D&D, but because she she saw my eight cents laying next to a pile of dice and drawn the conclusion that we were gambling! I don't know who seeds a gambling pot with three pennies and a nickle, but maybe that was a lot of money in grandma's day.
What's sad is said friend took a nosedive into crime almost immediately after he graduated from high school and did quite a long stint in prison. I think it might have had more to do with his family's draconian parenting, however, than our shoddy attempt to turn the family laundromat into a penny-ante den of iniquity.
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I LARPed Vampire the Masquerade and other WoD games for a good 10 years (starting when I was 14) with what was officially the University RPG Club. So there's a whole boatload of interpersonal drama I could go into there, if I liked, but to be honest, it was mostly pretty petty and unimportant. And almost universally didn't involve me directly.I hear ya. My first and last experience with Vampire LARP ended with being invited to a game by my ex-girlfriend. She didn't know the people who were running it, just responded to an ad. I got a character generated and that was it. Because the VERY NEXT DAY she started sleeping with the LARP's GM. This was a whole three days after meeting him, and after only one day of actually hanging out. We hadn't broken up very long before that... only a few weeks, so my feelings were still pretty raw from the breakup. To her credit, she was disappointed when she found out I wouldn't be playing. But she really should have figured I wouldn't want to go to a game and see her on the GM's arm so soon after us breaking up.
In my experience, LARPs that deal with interpersonal drama and politics (and VtM LARPs definitely fall under that category) attract people who enjoy interpersonal drama and politics. Many enjoy them purely within the context of the game (I do myself, actually)...but others are drawn to the game because they see reflected in it things they also enjoy in real life. Those people are a problem. And one quite possibly endemic to the medium...especially when it's difficult to impossible to exclude people for anything short of outright crimes or cheating (University Gaming Club, remember).
There's a reason I don't LARP any more despite having won a fair bit of respect in the local community and having successfully run a couple long-ish running LARPs.
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Another one:
I played a Legend Of The Five Rings game in college. In it, I played a very friendly and lovable martial arts monk who was earnestly seeking enlightenment, but also wasn't very guileful. His closest friend in the group wound up being the courtier played by the GM's wife, and they would spend a great deal of in-game time talking, him about enlightenment and philosophy and her cluing him in on various social aspects that he had missed out on during his years in the monastery.
Now the GM gave a LOT of one-on-one time to his wife's character outside of the weekly game time. It bothered the rest of the group, but since he never seemed to show her any overt favoritism during the group session, and since she never seemed to be acting on knowledge that the rest of us did not have, we let it go.
Cut to some time later after the campaign had ended. I'm hanging out with GM and his wife and we start reminiscing about that game, and this is when they smugly reveal that her character had all along been a powerful member of an evil secret society within the game world with all kinds of connections and subplots that she had been doing behind the scenes. Basically she had been an overpowered munchkin character the whole time and covertly working against the group.
What makes this a "worst" story is that then the wife basically laughed in my face about how she'd been playing my character for a fool the whole time. As she was describing it, she kept saying things like "I can't believe you fell for such-and-such" or "I can't believe you ACTUALLY told her so-and-so." Basically her just sitting there telling me how dumb I was as a person for trusting her character when I had NEVER been given a reason during the weekly sessions to NOT trust her. If she had told me OOC during the game that she was just faking friendship with my character to further her goals, that would have been one thing and I'd have gladly played along. But she didn't make it about her character deceiving my character, she made it about *her* deceiving *me.*
There were other douchey things that those two did over the years of gaming together. Individually, they were more annoying than upsetting, but looking back on their overall pattern of behavior I realize that they really were a couple of jerks. I don't associate with them anymore and I'm better off without them.
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In my experience, LARPs that deal with interpersonal drama and politics (and VtM LARPs definitely fall under that category) attract people who enjoy interpersonal drama and politics. Many enjoy them purely within the context of the game (I do myself, actually)...but others are drawn to the game because they see reflected in it things they also enjoy in real life. Those people are a problem. And one quite possibly endemic to the medium...especially when it's difficult to impossible to exclude people for anything short of outright crimes or cheating (University Gaming Club, remember).
I hear ya. My first and last experience with Vampire LARP ended with being invited to a game by my ex-girlfriend. She didn't know the people who were running it, just responded to an ad. I got a character generated and that was it. Because the VERY NEXT DAY she started sleeping with the LARP's GM. This was a whole three days after meeting him, and after only one day of actually hanging out. We hadn't broken up very long before that... only a few weeks, so my feelings were still pretty raw from the breakup. To her credit, she was disappointed when she found out I wouldn't be playing. But she really should have figured I wouldn't want to go to a game and see her on the GM's arm so soon after us breaking up.
She was very much that sort of person. I think I wound up dodging a bullet with that particular LARP, as it was by and for a very creepy group of people who got a little TOO into the whole vampire thing, if you know what I mean. I heard from a friend that one session disintegrated into a real-life orgy. (Said friend left earlier in the evening before that happened; they heard about it from participants after the fact.)
As for my ex, after she dumped the GM she started dating his roommate. After she dumped him, he moved to Seattle. A few months later she and another boyfriend took a vacation to Seattle and previous ex offered to let them crash at his place... Boyfriend came back alone. She dumped him to get back together with her ex after spending 12 hours in his presence and stayed there in Seattle. I wound up helping her best friend pack up her things to send to her.
Suffice to say, these days I'm not losing any sleep over the fact that we broke up.
Freehold DM and the others who've been saying how especially bad Yu-Gi-Oh! seems to be: Do you have any idea what it would be about that game that makes it such an awful-magnet?
Personally, I've never had reason to be anywhere near that game, but I must confess that from what I've seen of the card art, I like their general aesthetic (of course, I was saying a while ago how rich I found some the Magic art).
the game is not balanced very well. There are individual cards that can really alter the balance of power, such as exzodia(sp) and such. For a while, the only point in the game was to get exzodia. When one(or five) cards can really alter the balance of power, it tends to result in a game that is very swingy, and calls to people who have a lot of win-game-fast schemes.
Wow I feel like dirt now. But this was his standing advice for us for when he had a seizure. "Just put me somewhere I can't hurt myself"...Heck I had been rock climbing with the guy for weeks and he never told me about his epilepsy. That was crazy dangerous. I only found out when it happened while we were alone playing chess and he went into a seizure... I was SO freaked out, since before then I never heard of epilepsy. I don't think he liked to even acknowledge that he had the condition.Ummm... someone had a grand mal seizure and he was left alone to have it? Yeah, that's not a good idea. Usually, seizures aren't dangerous, but you can't leave them alone. Get an ambulance, stay with them, check how long the seizure has been going on. =/
I suppose it's old news, but on the off chance that someone else needs this advice...
someone I love very much almost died when the guy she was dating had a seizure while driving. They are now married, the near death experience brought them closer together. He hadn't had a seizure in close to 12 years before then, and he was planning on telling her he was epileptic later on that week, as that had been dating for a while and things were going well.
In my experience, both professional and not, people with epilepsy are embarrassed greatly by it, and don't talk about it much. Noone wants to be seen as a freak or weirdo, or as a porcelain being that must be protected at all times. But this isn't something that should be kept to oneself, as people in that persons life need to he aware that they may need to make space for this person to seize at a moments notice.
It's an awful situation, but it's an even worse thing to surprise someone with.
I LARPed Vampire the Masquerade and other WoD games for a good 10 years (starting when I was 14) with what was officially the University RPG Club. So there's a whole boatload of interpersonal drama I could go into there, if I liked, but to be honest, it was mostly pretty petty and unimportant. And almost universally didn't involve me directly.I hear ya. My first and last experience with Vampire LARP ended with being invited to a game by my ex-girlfriend. She didn't know the people who were running it, just responded to an ad. I got a character generated and that was it. Because the VERY NEXT DAY she started sleeping with the LARP's GM. This was a whole three days after meeting him, and after only one day of actually hanging out. We hadn't broken up very long before that... only a few weeks, so my feelings were still pretty raw from the breakup. To her credit, she was disappointed when she found out I wouldn't be playing. But she really should have figured I wouldn't want to go to a game and see her on the GM's arm so soon after us breaking up.
this is why I don't larp.
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She was very much that sort of person. I think I wound up dodging a bullet with that particular LARP, as it was by and for a very creepy group of people who got a little TOO into the whole vampire thing, if you know what I mean. I heard from a friend that one session disintegrated into a real-life orgy. (Said friend left earlier in the evening before that happened; they heard about it from participants after the fact.)
this is why I should larp.
Thanks guys I am so choked up on old emotions now. Emotions I thought buried. He wanted to become a geologist so rock climbing was an important skill, for me it was something new and fun to try out since I was done with cheerleading. It was perfect timing for us to meet. The girl he used to climb with had fallen and quit rock climbing so we both needed someone to climb with. He was a great instructor and we quickly became friends. BUT it's time to stop crying in the bathroom and get back to work, I hear it's bad for morale if the employees see their manager crying.
*offers hugs, or if more appropriate, pat on back*
Sorry again, Aranna.