Things your players do that piss you off

>that one player who keeps wanting to have their PC be an established badass and/or expects NPCs to regard them as such right out of the gate

Stop. You haven't done anything to warrant being regarded as a big deal. You've a level 1 scrub, this is the beginning of your journey not the middle of it.

I've had this happen when starting characters at level 3, 5, and 10, regardless of setting
>defeated a demon lord
>killed his swordsmanship instructor
>defeated a sith lord in a lightsaber duel
>killed his entire clan to test his skills
>destroyed a lich
>killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why

Even in games without levels I've had this happen. Some early game guy wants to be a gang leader, or a hardened veteran soldier, or a SWAT officer, or a ninja assassin in a modern game, and it's like... come the fuck on, man, we're the non-level equivalent of level 1 here, slow the fuck down.

>wizard specs himself entirely for fighting things that can be Color Sprayed, charmed, put to sleep, etc. Never does direct damage, lets the melee fighters have the job of killing unconscious bandits before they come to, instead of a fun fight
>quietly suck it up, there's other OOC drama anyway
>one time GM throws a golem at us
>can't be affected by most of the wizard's spells in any way - no way to charm or put it to sleep, can't knock it over, no chance of non-lethal damage
>finally a chance for the melee guys to shine, but the wizard loudly complains that he can't do shit, this isn't fun at all, his character is too weak for melee

Conversely, fighters that don't do anything out of combat.

>"session will mostly be non-combat this time because you've come back from the combat area and X wants to talk to you about things."
>everyone agrees
>5 minutes in
>"I stab the guy because I'm bored"

Am I the one in the wrong? It's only one guy who does it, but the party can't really talk shit through with NPCs at all because of him. Unless we're torturing the NPC, in which case, the player's perfectly willing to do the talking.

Your player is a shithead and I would have stopped playing with him the second time that happened.

>but I rolled a nat 20

No, you fucker, you can't climb the 60ft solid steel wall as a gnome cause you rolled a nat 20 climbing check you fucker. I'm not being a mean DM, you're being a shit player.

>I stab the guy because I'm bored
"Oh look, here comes the guard. Do you guys want to defend Stabby McStabbystab against the dozen or so armed and armored men coming to detain him?"

This, but when the DM decides that there's a 1 in 10 chance that ridiculous things happen.
>a 20 in Perception... you can clearly hear their conversation from 80 feet away
>the spider rolled a 1 to hit, so it exploded

Oh god, we had this faggot in our group that did this.We'll call him Nate.

>group of me and 5 friends
>one wants to DM
>we all let him cause he's wanted to
>all roll our characters
>DM wants to be a little generous and let us roll 7 total stats and drop the lowest for higher curve
>fucking Nate rolls roughly 11-14's across the board
>bitches for a reroll
>DM cracks and says fine cause he is being a baby
>faggot rerolls literally like 3 times until he gets like almost 20's in everything
>level 1 half-orc barbarian
>wants his backstory that as a child, his mother, father and him were taken into an orc encampment
>they raped his mother and killed his father
>at 5 years old, he slayed the whole village and has all their severed heads with him at his house
>now as an adult, he lives outside society cause taxes and laws are bullshit
>he's like this irl too

i hated that edgy faggot.

Current DMfag here, I'm new to it, but if I roll a Nat 1 in combat, I just roll another d20 to check the severity of it, higher being not so bad and lower being worse.

>spider rolled a 1 to hit
>roll another d20
>14
>he just misses and lunges forward a bit
>puts himself in a slightly worse position

>spider rolled a 1 to hit
>roll another d20
>1
>spider stumbles and reveals its stomach
>player gets opportunity attack

I don't mind when my player's do this, honestly. If I've been super obvious about my plans unintentionally, I'll let them guess and swap it up to surprise them (within reason of course). If for some reason they end up guessing a plot twist that's even better than what I had imagined, I sometimes change to to make them feel accomplished, and because they just came up with a better story than what I did.

Honestly the main problems I have with my players is that they almost never specify when they're talking in or out of character. Often I'll engage what they said as a DM or as a player, and they'll just respond with "oh I didn't say that in character". Like goddamn guys, sometimes I just want the party banter and chat to be IN character, not out of character as jokes.

>"Oh look, here comes the guard. Do you guys want to defend Stabby McStabbystab against the dozen or so armed and armored men coming to detain him?"

Which would be fine, if he only had one character like that. He tends to do this with every character he makes.

Kill me.

Not him, but I don't have any problem with stuff like that, as long as it's within reason, doesn't slow combat down too much, and doesn't ruin the tone
I think players demanding 20=success for clearly impossible shit is more of an annoyance, personally

>almost 20's in everything
>he's like this irl too
i dunno my dude, I wouldn't get on his bad side

>That person who plays the same character everytime, barely being arsed to change the goddamn name

>That guy who just roleplays as himself no matter the setting

>That guy who rolls up nothing but characters from the Anime of the Week that he's watching before getting bored that the game isn't centered around his character and rerolling another animu from a different series.

Oh fuck, this is the worst.

>DM: You take... 12 damage.
>Player: Holy fuck! I'm going to die! This is too hard!
>Rogue stabs the enemy for 30
>Sorcerer fireballs the entire group of enemies for 25
>The giant swinging a greataxe at you and dealing 12 damage is too scary to deal with

That sounds pretty good. A 1/200 chance of something going brilliantly right or disastrously wrong is much better than a 1 in 10. And even your 1-->1 sounds much better than "the full-health spider tries to bite you and explodes, dying instantly."

>I wouldn't get on his bad side
another fun tidbit on his character, cause as much as i hated him its funny reflecting on it

>long session campaign
>several hours go by
>mostly intrigue with little combat
>mainly because Nate's character is hard to balance for and he said his backstory made him have 5 gorillian gold so he has a top tier sword
>trying to figure out why some priest faggot is dropping sacrifices down this hole
>discover much about him
>recruit underground rogue elf agents
>confront him at the church as a group
>hyped as fuck
>get ready for the boss fight 8 hours in the making
>Nate's character instantly rushes in and basically 2 shots him
>all of us underwhelmed and DM sorta mad
>dont let him play with us from now on
>need explination on why his character wont be around anymore
>right after killing the priest his character ascends to the heavens and slays god
>he now sits in god's throne and protects us from fun boss fights

Nothing bad happens right away when a player rolls a 1 during a stressful situation at my table. Instead I roll a d20 for every point in the "escalation pool". The pool gets filled when PCs achieve an objectives with failed rolls. Essentially, if I have to say "yes, but...", the but is that the plot thickens. I'm probably ripping this off from some game I've read about but haven't played.

1-10 the escalation goes away with no ill effect, 11-15 it stays in the pool, 16-19 it triggers, 20 it triggers and I roll the remaining pool again.

An escalation that triggers doesn't directly affect the failed action. Instead, it might mean that the party breaks a healing potion, or a minor reinforcement arrives to the fight, or that the enemy gains some insight into the party tactics. Some minor inconvenience of danger that is relevant to the plot and theme. Nothing that would cause a wipe by itself, ever, and nothing ludicrous that would suspend disbelief.

I like the feeling of low and high rolls mattering, but I fucking hate "LOL THE SPIDER ASSPLODES"

That's the problen with these kind of players, they pull the rest of the group into his bullshit. They're doing it for the attention and don't care if something bad happens to their character, they just reroll a new one if they die and carry on doing the same thing. Ditch them.

>killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why

For what it's worth, he's showing up less since we started no-selling his interruptions. He may learn one day that he isn't the center of the universe.

>Some early game guy wants to be a gang leader, or a hardened veteran soldier, or a SWAT officer,
See, these I don't mind. They create an interesting premise for a character with room to grow, and they're not really something you could reach and move beyond during the session. And even if you were playing with a really weird time scale where you skip years, it still wouldn't feel right as a character arc.

It's one thing to want to be overpowered, but these are all good places for the start of a characters journey, and don't work as the middle of it.

I'm sorry Al.

I swear I'll stop doing this at the next session.

Don't let them do a roll if they can't succeed even if they roll a 20. I mean, what's the point?

Edgy tier:
>killed his swordsmanship instructor
>killed his sensei in a duel and he never said why
>killed his entire clan to test his skills

Better have been an accident tier:
>defeated a sith lord in a lightsaber duel
>destroyed a lich

Liar's dice tier
>defeated a demon lord

>Having to remind players that Sense Motive and other skills exist
>Players forgetting important enemies, locations and occurrences from previous sessions
>Players forgetting important enemies, locations and occurrences within the same fucking session
>Players who only speak in dialogue
>Player who gets away with 'dnd 101' level competency at RP and combat because all my other players have crippling flaws such that he looks amazing
>Showing up late for the session
>Going afk intermittently within the session
>Players going silent between sessions

I'm a faggot that tends to ignore Sense Motive in favor of deciding things through roleplay.

Some shotheads roll withoit permission. Or insist to roll even when there is no chance of success.

He's coming!

I have no problem with taking a guess what the plot might hold, but arbitrarily doing it every few minutes just gets annoying, especially when the guesses start to get really off base.
Like I had a play who assumed that there was an ambush around every corner. In a session where I had a conversation with a female player via note to keep what happened away from the other players, to create some tension about the conversation she had with the local mob Don, he guessed instantly and could not be dissuaded from the idea that her pc had been raped.

Also in my group it's generally assumed that everything you say is in character, and can and will be used against you, unless specified first.
What complicated the first few sessions of my most recent game is that the group also gained a low level sort of telepathy in the first session, that worked only in the group.
So to send a mental message to the group without saying it out loud as you character they decided to touch their temple with a finger.

>he guessed instantly and could not be dissuaded from the idea that her pc had been raped.
Not even by the player herself? Sounds like he was trying to push his kink into the game.

I just wish the fuckers would take some damn initiative. Every time we come to a lull in the action or a crossroads, I look around at them and say, "so, what do y'all want to do next?" And all I get every damn time is mother fucking crickets. Some of the bastards don't even look up from their phones. After I ask them two or three times, one of them gives some sort of even-more-vague version of, "Whatever else is next."

Finally, I have to say something like, "Well, these are the 2 or 3 options I see available to you right now." At which point one player-without fail- would pick the worst or dumbest of the 3, THEN the other players would start discussing it by telling him how wrong he was.

>he guessed instantly and could not be dissuaded from the idea that her pc had been raped.
Really? I wouldn't even consider that possibility, to be honest.

I murdermauled one of my players twice, and I'll confess that one time it was a completely unfair curbstomp that I had planned badly (it turns out Kroot are really, really, really horrifying), but the other time he legitimately went up against a self-professed champion of Khorne and ended up getting his ass handed to him, and it was "unfair".

In a game I played, some of the other players bitched ceaselessly over things like this, like when our camp got attacked by night goblins (Warhammer Fantasy game), and another time after we went up against a whole group of Skaven. Fuck that shit. Fleeing is an option. Players need to fucking learn that there's no level-scaling in proper RPG:s.

It never was a possibility, I don't bring that to the table.
Eventually, after she had to tell him twice that wasn't the case, he made another comment about it, I put my foot down.
I told him, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this was not the case, and that I was disappointed that he couldn't listen better, if he had to make another comment, then he knew where the door was and we could just as easily go on without him.

>tfw have trouble with basic math
I'm so sorry

That's exactly what my DM does.
I like it, personally.

Just have he enemies act like the players. Even the tiniest damsge makes the, freak the fuck out

I caught one of my players changing his die roll during an important fight. It was one of the most disappointing things I think I've ever felt.

You will run into the problem of magic users who never swing a weapon and people with 5 attacks a round stumbling a lot ore often.

>guy named scott plays the same dickass thief in every game
>character is described as him but younger
>always looks the same
>always with a variation of the name Quinn
>always gets pissed when the character is not treated as a badass
>always fights with dual kukris

Shit was infuriating. Weirder is that when we all fell for the The Old Republic trap years ago, everyone of his character looked the same and had the variation of Quinn as their names too.

>Finally, I have to say something like, "Well, these are the 2 or 3 options I see available to you right now."
You should start by this.

>Getting gold from backstory

>Same character in every single game ever.
>"I tell the to go fuck themselves.
>Well my character wouldn't do this so I guess I'll just play Hearthstone on my phone

>if I didn't see it, it's a 1.
You're absolutely going to get a fight, but it'll only happen once, and then they'll give up and go along with it.

>Both work, but I grew up playing PC games where cheating was as easy as

That's a lot of button presses. I remember LIM

To be fair the monsters usually have high health and low damage and the players have low health and high damage

I get this shit all the time, and it really grinds my gears.

>what is Reputation
>what is Status
>what is Social Regard

Things you will probably have very little or none of at character creation.

>You take... 14 damage.
That adds up, you know.

I tend to to think that using skills like Sense Motive contributes to roleplaying.

In gurps you can actually make these kinds of characters, but to blindly demand that reputation for free in a system that doesn't support it to start with? Fuck youuuu

Fuck and i was worried when i requested my latest character is known about town for being a really good guy and a /decent/ swordsman
Which considering he's a paladin isn't exactly stretching things, but i wanted to be able to toss in lil things he'd done along that lines of epic cat-from-tree saving or once helped find a halfling lady's kids when they were lost in the woods so she has him over once a week for supper. He's an elf, the idea of him hunched over a table that comes up to his knees amused me

Nice sort of "i've lived in this town for 80 years, people know me" type stuff

>Can't into basic addition/subtraction below 100
Shit man, I'm sorry, but not everyone has a head for numbers. Math's tough for some people.

kys middle school dropout NEET

Grinding my gears a little. I don't think anyone under 30 ought to say "When I was growing up!"

In my case it's players that aren't even trying to be edgy but seem to operate under the fucking logic of a grand theft auto character. Like they just take the most pragmatic route despite the fact their character would at BEST be a heartless sociopath.

That and "my alignment is neutral!" as an answer to everything. No it doesn't matter if you wrote TN on your sheet, using an orphan child for trap finding is fucking EVIL.

Wow, you're cool.

Actually, I was more going for friendly NPCs. I get that the spotlight should be on the PCs, and I always arrange things so that at the very least the PCs have a chance to critically affect things, but I like worlds in which competent people do competent things, and if someone is built up as a great general who goes off to face dire odds, there's actually a pretty good chance he'll win the battle even without PC handholding, freeing them up to do something else.

This seems to annoy a lot of players though; I think they feel threatened by the fact that their friends can find their butts with both hands and thus they might be rendered irrelevant if they don't get their shit together.

>fighters that don't do anything out of combat
>Skill Ranks Per Level: 2 + Int modifier.

>no matter what you do no one is ever impressed
>everybody is a snide asshole
>they are universally immune to non-magical persuasion and fear
>magical persuasion obviously doesn't work the way you intended it to

This is usually because the possible options, motivations for adventuring, and goals are presented unclearly or are not interesting enough for the players to keep track of.

In other words, get good, shit GM-kun.

Roleplaying doesn't require skill points.

I admit to doing the picking up the dice right after rolling sometimes, but it's out of frustration for rolling low, not to cheat.

Being able to actually back up your roleplay does, faggot.

The PCs will be rolling so many more dice then one shot NPC fodder ever will.

You are fucking them via shear math. Stop that.

>A wizard who uses mind influencing spells instead of just hucking fireballs

I'm okay with this part

>horror campaign
>improvise most of it
>players keep trying to guess what's going to happen in the next scene
>some are great ideas
>if the idea I had was too boring, I add their ideas to the mix just to fuck up with them.

Why does this piss you off?

fuck off jake

It did piss me off at first, but I dealt with it that way and now it's pretty amusing for me

I heard that dude had like... 30 goddamn dicks

That's why I have NPCs react like they said that.

Especially dragons when a player blurts out "if we kill it we get the hoard!"

20 something and I grew up without PC games so my cheats were limited to big head mode and the like. Not because of generation gaps and shit, just different childhoods

>Player is a chaotic neutral character
>Comes for first two sessions
>Can't come for next three
>When he finally comes back, he kills the other two character in their sleep because 'lol, I'm a chaotic """"neutral"""" guy and I wanted to kill', forcing the other two to re-roll
>Fucks off for the next two sessions

In the last 3.5 game I ever played I was a barbarian built for killing huge shit. Another PC was a white half-dragon with a breath weapon.

Once in the entire campaign, in the first session, we fought a big thing. Every other encounter for five levels was giant swarms of chaff for the half-dragon to instagib. He was also really central to the plot, whatever it was, I don't remember.

I also ended up guilty of "the fighter what doesn't participate in non-combat" because by that point I was basically a spectator.

If someone misses three sessions in a row and he does that shit? Kick him out and tell him it didn't happen. The fact that he fucked off for another two means this is entirely on your group.

GM's good friends with that player unfortunately. The sessions are pretty good when he's not around at least.

This is why I ban chaotic neutral PCs along with evil ones in my campaigns. Everyone I've played with who goes as a chaotic neutral always ends up chaotic evil.

Then talk with the other players and then the GM. If the majority of the group hates that cunt, then the GM has to either do something or suddenly not have players.

>shit that never happened

I've had a player throw a shitfit because he wouldn't accept that his character was affacted by magical mind control. When even otheR players with characters more competent at blocking magic were affected and cool with it.

It wasn't even a coercitive effect, just a general feeling of acceptanceand obeissance.

Why did you call him a faggot?

Surprisingly, people under 30 grow up from childhood into adulthood

You're a little too uptight about presenting your special, unique story. Unless the other players are complaining about the behavior, deal with it.

That being said
>"dont hold our hands so much, let us just play, we dont want to be railroaded into a story"
>your party arrives in town, heres all possible things you can do that ive thought of, or you can just make something up and ill make it work, what do your characters choose to do?
>blank stares, awkward feet shuffling sounds
>whats the issue?
>"just wondering when we are going to get back to plot or something"
Fucking kill me.

>player bases his character's appearance and personality off of an internet personality, nearly 1:1
>player names their character after an internet personality
>player tells me in no uncertain terms that he is basing this character off of an internet personality
>player doesn't understand why I don't like this

....because welcome to Veeky Forums? How is this even a question.

Agreed. Fuck that sack of shit. No game is better then shitty game ruined because the DM is a pussy.

>'Hey I know it doesn't fit but I'm gonna play this race.'
>Interest drops to coma patient levels when That Guy finds out this isn't going to be a back-to-back combat game and that he'll actually have to roleplay something other than a walking axe
>Other guy only ever plays the same snarky asshole every game who has no reason to be with the party
>Another guy who is awful about railroading players and gets pissy when we deviate from his 'plot' actively threatens not to follow the story when he's a player
>Same guy whines when anyone plays anything not straight ripped out of Tolkien and tries to brag that he's 'so standard'

I have not run anything in a month. My motivation is gone.

I remember playing a lizardfolk warblade in a game. Something like level 8 or 10, in there. We fought this weird tree thing, and it just fucking wailed on me. Even with Iron heart surge and a cleric, I couldn't keep up and it trashed me like a hotel room in a few rounds of combat. The players basically began FREAKING OUT because I usually heavy lifted every encounter being a well built warblade. I just laughed. It's all part of the game, and I was just unconscious anyway...

If theres no danger, theres no sense of accomplishment! The party pulled through in the end thanks to our new wizard player, but shit, man, the party like... instantly lost morale when their murderlizard went down, like they couldn't wipe their own asses.

>Player A plays a Fighter, basically built as your sterotypical tanky frontline character.
>Every time battle starts he runs to the back behind everyone else and throws rocks and shoots arrows
>He's specced for sword and board so his rocks and arrows are doing fuck all for damage
>Fucking bolts the second anything gets near him, despite having the most AC and health of anyone else in the party by a fairly large margin
>One fight I decide to have an archer shoot at him because I'd like to have him actually involved in the fight
>I hit, but roll shit, so he only takes 3 or 4 damage out of his ~80.
>His Fighter immediately grabs the Rogue's dagger and slits his own throat with it, then he tears up his character sheet and storms off
>Ranting about "How I'm deadset on fucking TPKing the party and that he's done with this shit."
>After 3 points of damage, literally the only time he's taken damage across 2 sessions.

Most fucking bizarre thing I've ever had happen in a game.

Obviously he doesn't play with us anymore. Or anyone in the store, as he's joined 2-3 other groups and pulled similarly dumb shit and no one wants him in their groups anymore.