Bitching and Moaning General - /bamg/

>GM can't decide if he wants to do fantasy or futuristic
>throws up his hands and runs steampunk instead

>that one player that brings down the entire mood of the game down/wants to cut it short because their depression/anxiety kicks in over stupid shit.

I mean, fuck, they're my friend and all and I'm there for them, but sometimes I just don't want to deal with that kind of shit. I wanna have a fun, upbeat game without worrying about a sudden text or phonecall or something ruining everyone's mood. Is that selfish to say?

He probably genuinely wants to join your game but is generally a disorganised fucking moron. He'll make a pretty tissue thin character but he'll have fun playing him anyway, and he probably has really low standards for your campaign to meet, which is nice.

Either that or he's a colossal cunt.

>it's a GM who just makes the BBEG generic "evil" without motive or purpose

>it's a faggot who uses "BBEG" and then wonders why it's retarded

>that player that makes a power level over 9000 munchkin with zero roleplaying ability then complains that the party hates him
>that player that makes an obviously contrarian character to the party then complains that the party hates him
>that GM who's idea of world-building is a constant reminder that "I'm the GM and I can kill you at a moments notice and am allowing you to have fun" then complains that people leave
>that GM that argues with a player over leaving his game for any reason
and finally
>that player/GM who views rpg's as a competition to win
there needs to be a cure for social autism

>it's a GM who answers any setting questions with 'it's a standard fantasy setting' and 'it doesn't matter'

>Is that selfish to say?

No, frankly people with depression and anxiety can be a colossal fucking drag. It doesn't seem to be popular to say now that apparently everyone has anxiety, but it's the truth.

At some point if they get triggered into depression by random stuff on a regular basis, they need professional help. Like yeah, a friend having a shit situation for a while deserves some slack, but when it becomes a regular thing I don't know what you can do for them.

>it's a GM who answers any setting questions with 'what do you think it should be?"

honestly, him bringing his depression/anxiety to the table is pretty selfish of him. Yes, if he has this problem, he needs friends to help him out, but if you know that it's not going to be fixed/curbed by playing games with them, you're just bringing the whole group down.

You know, misery loves company

oh FUCK THAT GUY

WITH A RUSTY CACTUS

WHY IS THERE RUST ON IT

DUNNO, WHY DO YOU THINK A CACTUS RUSTED JUST TIME TO FUCK YOU IN THE ASS WITH IT

For PbP:
>It's a newbie shitter who doesn't read the rules and generally acts like an ass
>It's a self-insert/edgy/fetish character so cringe-inducing it makes your face feel like folding in half
>It's a 'mature' game run by someone who doesn't match either of the meanings for the term
>It's a freeform game run by someone new to the site
>It's a game that goes nowhere because nobody posts
>It's a 'no grammar required' episode
>"It's like Game of Thrones, but-"
>It's a group where players passive-aggressively insult each other and the DM
>"It's in-character for me to be a dick all the time for no reason!"
>It's that argument where the player is looking for a one-time exception or bonus XP and blows the refusal out of proportion
>"It's okay for me to intimidate NPCs and browbeat them into doing what they want with Intimidate and Diplomacy checks, but they have no effect on me ;^)"
>It's an emoticon abuser (or someone who uses emoticons to express their character's emotions)

>players come up with horrible, half baked plan
>Give them chances, see if the rolls really want fate to help
>It dosnt. The stupid, unintelligible plan fails
>"I mean, I'm not mad GM, but if you wanted to railroad us you shouldn't ask us what we want to do".

Do these people believe I am some fucking motivation coach or something? Your plan was stupid S. It Was all kinds of dumb and the others probably followed along just so you would shut up.

you should have tied the fucker up and threw him on a railroad

>lel I just start randomly mixing saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur together to see what happens
No. No you don't. Because your character is eaten by spiders.

Exactly, they're the mental illness equivalent of that absolute faggot of Nurgle that comes into work with the flu.

His plan was to hijack an entire galleon, fully crewed with sea vets, with a single, ONE, bottle of flammable liquor. He even knew it was a 8 day trip on sea to his destination, and he was going to "hold it and threaten to throw it below deck if they didnt sail for him.". For over a week, he was going to stay awake and threaten to light and throw a fire pot on a solidly built war ship.

They tackled him the moment he ran on bored and held it up threatening to light it. To which he said it made the happen to stop his good plan. Fuck players sometimes.

>Because your character is eaten by spiders.
You do know they're gonna use this as an opportunity to play the spiders, right?

>Your plan was stupid S. It Was all kinds of dumb and the others probably followed along just so you would shut up.

This is because what passes for a good plan in fantasy-imagination-land would be laughed out of a room in real life. Some DMs are just so happy their players are making any kind of plan that they'll let even the stupidest plan in the world succeed.

That's fine. The spiders can't make gunpowder without the appropriate craft skills either.

I was even going to leave it up to fate. His plan was and if he got the intimidate, or the sailors happen to be going their and bargained, or a distant relative happend to be a big shot on board.....But no, the dice werent having it, and neither was the crew.

I had a friendly 15 year experience DM tell me this:
>What you do when someone tries to do the incredibly improbable:
>Explain to them all of the modifiers against their rolls/spells cast, why they exist, and how many rolls they need to make/spells they need to cast.
>"If you fail, it's likely going to result in this outcome. Are you still sure you want to do this? Do you want to change your plan to account for anything?"
>If it fails, it fails - luck of the dice. If they can't handle that, let them bitch.
>If it works, congratulate them for beating the odds.

To be fair, plenty of Civs in the cradle of fucking civilization were proto-commie, but they all got BTFO by the Akkadians. Sargon's economic policy was much closer to laissez-faire, probably so his administration could focus on the propaganda machine and infinitely expanding his empire which Akkadian myths said had to keep happening or else the world would end.

>local game store only sells D&D and PF
>local game store only hosts D&D and PF

Why is our hobby dominated by two fucking games?

More like 2 editions of the same game. And it's basically first-movers advantage and the OGL.

>BBEG turns out to be a Big Nice Good Guy
>You questgiver is the BBEG

What if they were collectively an Alchemist?

>it makes your face feel like folding in half
I shall steal this

>it's the guy who sees fetishes everywhere
>and almost faps to them

>It's that guy who runs and hides from everything.
>And his cousin, who uses his best spells/abilities/whatever against the weakest enemies and then runs away to hide and rest until he can overkill some more
>And then they complain when you put them on even a loose time limit
>It's that GM who makes your characters search through a huge, rambling, poorly organized library to find the one tome with the vital info you need.
>It's the GM who gets your characters involuntarily addicted to dangerous drugs.
>It's the guy who smells like piss, shit, or vomit.
>It's the GM who doesn't describe things clearly and then looks at you like an idiot when you want elaboration.
>It's the guy who has a speech impediment, often to the point of being incomprehensible, and he wants to play the party face
>It's the guy who plays the same character over and over again, and if said character gets killed, his identical cousin shows up.
>It's the GM who thinks "Sandbox" means" I don't have to do any real work.
>It's the GM who thinks that "Sandbox"= "Generic".
>It's the GM who tailors quests to the one party member who actually created a background that interfaces with the setting, and the players who complain that they don't get personal sidequests.

lel
I know a guy who jokes that his superpower is the ability to spot dicks. Every time a map or a drawing comes out, no matter what it is, and no matter if it was made by someone in the part or from a television show, he'll point out the dick.

>watching one of the DC animations
>he calls a halt and demands the remote because he saw a cock on one of Batman's maps
>rewind
>it does vaguely resemble a cock and balls

It doesn't do it to build a false reputation either. He just spots dicks so often the rest of us started commenting on it.

Oh look, it's eternally triggered bitch-user.

it is the bitching and moaning general

Much later, after the 12th century, but the Diggers during the English Civil War are anther example of a pre-Marx & Engels group that had proto-communist ideas.

Oligopoly is easy to establish in such a niche market.

If it helps, about 37% of games on Roll20 (out of 46,000) in Q1 2016 weren't D&D.

>It's the GM who tailors quests to the one party member who actually created a background that interfaces with the setting, and the players who complain that they don't get personal sidequests.

Only the players in this case deserve blame. The GM is fine.

Oh look, it's eternally triggered by eternally triggered bitch-user.

You've replied to different people by the way. Hatred of Pathfinder is not exactly a unique trait.

Oh look, it's eternally triggered bitch-user.

I think he's just a twat trying to push a shitty new meme phrase.

I think it's just pointing out that if D&D triggers you to shitpost, you're going to be shitposting forever.

I assume you mean allusions to Marx and the USSR, like a paladin who fights for the common man with a hammer and sickle?

>get the urge to be creative
>start taking levels in artificer after finding a book on eberron and getting the okay from the GM
>2 levels in and the game ends next week
WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME. I WOULD'VE STUCK WITH A MARTIAL CLASS. FUCK.

God damn I hate this so much. He's my favourite player at the table, too, but he just can't stop getting sick of his 2similiar characters.

But it's not a complaint about D&D, it's a complaint about market domination. When you go to a store and are given two options out of hundreds of games and that is the case almost everywhere it gets really frustrating. Pretty sure this guy's just a memeing twat.

This is a thing?

You are going to be bitching forever, bitch-user.

Jesus, why does this have to happen?

I've never really seen it in D&D, but I guess some people do it. More often I see it in PbtA games (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, etc.) where it's a thing the MC/GM is supposed to /occasionally/ do; turning questions back on the players. Especially if it's relevant to that character especially. Like if only one person in the party is playing an elf, and asks if the elves in this setting live in forests, the GM might say, "I don't know, do they?"

I personally really enjoy it, in moderation. It gives the players a chance to have some creative input, and gives a feeling that the whole table is responsible for the game world, not just the GM. It also ideally prevents people from just checking out and refusing to contribute creatively.

On the other hand, it can get annoying if it's done all the time; sometimes people might give answers that aren't quite... good; and if you do have the sort of players who just check out until it's time to roll dice and attack something, it'll cause friction.

>it's a player who thinks as the DM, you have to cater to him by making the campaign about his halfassed character

>it's the player who wants to "hack the dark net" with his low-intelligence homeless character
>it's the player who immediately shoots his intelligence up to the highest it can be with his level-ups, despite him saying at the beginning of the game that low intelligence was his character's weakness

>it's the player who wants to have ten-hour long conversations with every NPC, alone
>it's the player who makes the only optimized character, then complains when you say that it makes it tough to balance things out as a GM
>"I built my character well! Don't blame me for playing the game right!"

>I whisper all my spells

>Your whispers lack the force to complete spells.

If their characters should realize their plan won't work, just up and tell them. Simple.

>Guys this plan won't work because XYZ
>NUH UH, YOU HAVE TO LET US TRY IT OR ELSE YOU'RE RAILROADING

Just try and stop me.

I'm really criticizing this type of player, who tries all kinds of obvious, cheap and often mood-destroying actions, thinks they're incredibly clever and demands mechanical benefits for it, despite the fact that it never has any support in the actual rules.

Also
>I broke the game with my Mutans and Masterminds character and ruined it for everyone, aren't I clever?
I don't know what kind of retardation you have to suffer from to miss the big "it's easy to break this game, so don't" sign they have up there.

I had a chat with him in character about where he grew up. Then, to illustrate my point, I spent my next ten points on time travel and went back and killed him as a baby.

Nah. It's been a while, but there's a starting trait in Shadowrun called Common Sense, that makes it mandatory for the GM to tell you when something is a bad idea. It's more for new/inexperienced players more than anything else, but the principle still holds.

>something is telling you that it may not be wise to try intimidating men who may have fought off pirates before, at least without researching who the crew is and whether so brazen a plan will work or not

it's not just telling them no, it's giving them a way out that gives you additional ways to tell them no. It might take longer, but with this caliber of retards you may even be able to get them onto another topic that isn't hijacking a ship that takes at least a half dozen men to sail.

>low quality, all caps writing that attacks the players
Wow. I wonder why you have problems in your game that can be solved by a simple conversation.

Well, not all. China had one or two. Wang Mang is considered a traitor for usurping the Han empire and putting an end to the Western Han, but he promoted a system of:
-national ownership of land (as well as the redistribution of large farms)
-the abolition of private land ownership
-nationalization of six industries
-abolition of forced labor
-national price controls and interventionist economic policy through the purchasing of surplus goods
-a national income tax
-a tax on rich individuals unwilling to work.
It was the closest thing to modern socialism in an ancient civilization. It also failed terribly.

Hong Xiuqian's Taiping rebellion had some aspects of this, though it had a distinctly religious nature.

>it's a faggot who doesn't understand board culture

Lurk moar

>muh board culture

You being a fag is just you being a fag.

>criticizing slang
You have a lot of free time on your hands, don't you big man

>That GM that gets tired of his campaign in 3-4 sessions
>that gm is me

>''My character is a battle hardened warrior who has fought in many great wars and became champion of his kingdom''
>level 1
>party is just asked to clear out a small goblin cave, that's it

>it's a player who tries doing a shitty accent
What's the problem with this?

Divided XP is a bitch.

This is why all those militiamen and town guards rarely get past level 3.

>My character is a great warrior who has fought in a thousand battles
>But he's level 1 to model the fact that he's been terribly wounded over time and lost most of his abilities as a result

There is.

It's called "bleach."

An example of a half-baked plan would be nice.

I've seen it go either way: where the GM didn't specify the nature of the situation and the plan is based on assumptions on that nature that are incorrect, making it a good plan executed in the wrong situation, or just a really harebrained scheme that shouldn't work even if all goes well.

>It's a player in a superhero campaign who actively attempts to avoid being a "special snowflake" by trying to be an average joe
that seems more jarring than it should

>it's a player who tries doing a shitty accent
what if the accent is good and is funny?

>its a guy that tries to play evil in a good aligned party

>the players don't ask anything about the setting or ask questions about the hidden motivations and shit

man, sucks to be an aspiring writer

all in all, they are pretty great guys, and that isn't really a complaint, but sometimes I'm left with "come on man, aren't you going to ask the motivation of the guy who has just helped you? maybe he is hiding some mysterious shit that will backfire on you! uuuuh!"

>its a newbie girl trying to hog attention all the time

Not OP, but just off the top of my head
>white guy trying to be a black guy
>using the common chinaman accent
>the mario brothers italian accent
etc.

The keyword is shitty. I've played a french chef and an irish family man and tavern owner before, and I got positive praise for it. When I did the irish, there was no "ayy be a wee laddy from Dublin", nor any "honhon baguette du fromage" from the french. But people do that, and it's more obnoxious than anything else, especially when they try doing it for hours on end.

what if its a shitty plan with surprisingly good odds?

If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid

source of the pic?

Hear hear.

Had one our players give DMing a shot a while back. We ran a Final Fantasy game, and while the setting was premade, it being his chief inspiration should have set off some red flags.

>Players start apart and are forced together for arbitrary reasons
Just slap us together and send us off to the races, we can deal with some direction if it doesn't force us for TOO long.

>NPCs are flat and borderline incompetent
No military/government/cult/mercenary is so daft that four random fuckers can save the world in your stead.

>DMPCs
Why was that paladin guy leading us? So that you could repeatedly corral us to follow the story instead of motivating us to care about it?

>Mysterious "trickster" villain wanders through to give cryptic warnings about their deeds
>Villain eats shitloads of damage and says "Is that the best you've got"
Stop. Your campaign is not a scripted cutscene or a bad anime. Forcing us to buy into this doesn't excite us.

>Combats are almost entirely damage-sponge bosses who deal no damage
The fact that this happened more than once was puzzling. Was it not obvious the first time when we were so critical of how boring and easy the combats were? Partly a fault of the system, but sheesh.

>Plot asks us to collect MacGuffins before something evil beats us to it
>Bosses are based on seven deadly sins
If you're going to be stock, at least have some fun with it. If you just go through the motions that apathy extends to the players. Would YOU want to play in something you made if it's this dull?

We eventually let him have another shot in a different system, with an "original" setting based on Final Fantasy and his old 4e notes. Most of these mistakes were repeated, and a lack of verisimilitude in the setting really killed it for us. He's wanted to run stuff for a while now, but these growing pains can get exhausting.

>giant elephant (20m) charging
>"I climb on top of it!"
>Because a mixture of buffs it works
>Manages to defeat the enemies on top of the elephant
>Didn't plan what to do afterwards

I don't know, still seems stupid
I was the one who did that

>its a player who shits on anything and everything his friends do despite the fact that literally nobody else play with him.
Here's your (you) sweetie.

The foes riding the elephant are more dangerous than the elephant.

>forcing that gay non-meme so hard that even people who like DnD are starting to hate you

Yep, it's happening kid.

actually they weren't
few filthy untrained soldiers too busy launching arrows to notice me going stealthy and an unarmed one riding the animal when I was a level 5 (D&D5)
The elephant destroyed the city, but we had our laughs and the elephant ultimately fell, which was a huge blow to the enemy's army and the damage wasn't as big as if it had been manned

Out of curiosity, which item on OP's list is it that you're failing to defend here? It's obvious you're rump-sore about at least one of them being criticized.

And just because I'm not done bitching,
>Players who won't compromise on their "vision" at the expense of others

I get it. You want to make your character your own, and there's nothing wrong with that--but TTRPGs are a group experience. When you make characters who suck at the combat-simulator elements, you're gonna be a drag once dice hit the table.
That can be fine, though, if you're shooting for a skillmonkey or a social butterfly--or at least a character we'd want to roleplay with. It's certainly a big part of the appeal. But when you make your characters (or PLAY them as) antisocial Loney McWolf douchebags, you're gonna be a drag for the social element of the game as well.

>5e
>DM's setting is basically Celtic Earthdawn
>Wants to make a character who hates magic
>Makes a Gnome Ranger
>Not a self-hating type, or a judicious resource-user
>Just a Gnome Ranger
So your "vision" of a stunty guy with a bow who hates magic is also a magically-inclined race using a class with spell levels...? And then using neither as part of the character? A Halfling Fighter would have covered all the bases. But no, you wouldn't compromise even a little with yourself and played the useless load who didn't interact with anybody. You got bored and THIS happened. Big fucking surprise. He also used a stock name, a pet peeve of mine. You spent all this time on this vision and didn't try making a name?

Then you made someone better in combat. Not hard to do, but you're trying.
>Makes Dwarf Paladin/Barbarian
>Interesting traits: oldfag, only uses his sword on undead/demons. Can't afford good armour and bemoans this
>But his sidearm is a quarterstaff, no Fighting Style/Feats to support it
>No armour/shield, just a robe
You've made a character who doesn't interact with others, goes Leeroy Jenkins and gets zonked in every session. It's not fun for us when you don't interact, wait for initiative, and then suck at the one thing you apparently intended.

>The rogue that tries to steal from the party/loot everything before the party and hides it
>Not even some grand hilarious plan that leaves them safe, just trying to pick pocket a fucking party member
>For a common dagger
>From the combat monster that could overkill her with ease

She then called me in game a racist when my character joked that she, some crow person race, was attracted to the shiny.

> it's a player who invents guns even though his character would have no concept of such a thing