What are your players' biggest pet peeves?

Adventurer guilds.

When they genuinely want to help someone and then get shit on for breaking a rule or other that they should have known in-character.

NPCs that go with the party and steal their spotlight.

I'm the player. If you do any of the above, go fuck yourself with a rake.

>the brave and gallant knight's response to every fight was hiding behind a tree or wall of some sort as far away from the fighting was and skipping every turn until it's over,

>then getting pissed when we nicknamed his PC Sir Robin.

Holy shit, what an immature manchild.

Not having combat. God fucking dammit. Not all problems need you to murder hobo yourself out of things. He's a politician, not a fighter. Why the hell do you think he's skinny and in a business suit!

...

>Adventurer guilds.
I'm in a game right now with that and I didn't know just how bad that is. I mean as a base theory it's fine, just a place for freelance mercenaries to take jobs, but it always just turns into bullshit that makes it no different than a military organization.

What's even worse is when it's the DM that's giving you the wrong information. "The guild told you to go explore this cave and kill what's inside." "Why did you explore the cave, you were supposed to secure the perimeter and build up fortifications to protect some scholars that would study the cave. You're not getting paid, and you owe us 50 gold."

I don't wanna perpetuate the passive aggressive GM griping but...

One experienced Gm for some reason gets on to me about how "swingy" M&M 3e rolls are and how I'm hiding resistance rolls in the first place. My players just seem to hate the combat in general, but they seem to blame the system as a whole rather than realize that I might have miscalculated things (which was understandable at a particular fight, I had a player threatening to leave the campaign and 4 hours of goddamn sleep that day).

I am thankful for my players, but sometimes I feel they are hard to make happy with anything outside the realms of roleplay. Good thing I'm usually a rather roleplay-happy GM. I still would like to do a combat (which lasts about maybe an hour and a half at most, and that's a lot for M&M 3e) without dreading their reactions.

i know everything doesn't exactly apply to "pet peeves" as much as "annoying qualities" but hey, sue me, fucker

one player that hates the "high levels" of games, because everything feels detached from reality, either a megadragon army is pulled out of the worlds ass every session because it's the only challenge left, or goblins and regular thugs are beefed up to such absurd levels that they can take on people that can whoop a'dragon'a'day

another player hates low levels, because they hate how limited they are, how their characters are just "aspiring ____" and not simply already "_____" and hate "yeah, in a world with dragon slaying badasses, you're the mop-up-crew for goblins and thugs"

a third player refuses to play anything but the system we're already playing, while actively trying to minmax the system and gets into constant arguments about the RAW

a fourth one is constantly trying to introduce weird homebrew rules that he made for his special snowflake characters "yeah, he's a necromancer but he only got a single zombie which is his dead wife/fighting companion" "oh hey, that's pretty neat, i guess" "yeah, so i made a list of revamps that i need, because i can't have her be just a regular zombie, so instead i gave her some character levels and removed this from my class and also i revamped my spell-list and made a new list of teamworkfeats to pick from"

one is a really chill guy, even if he might be a slight edgelord with a fetish for tieflings

personally, i've had issues with concentration (i get kinda antsy if nothing is really going on) but i've gotten way better.

Bullshit like that is what makes me hate Adventurer guilds.

In Critical Role, Matt made the mistake of employing one too and so the players killed a Hydra that was attacking a town and became criminals for said town, even though they had just protected it from a fucking monster. Like, what the shit are you smoking man?

Exactly. Adventurer's Guilds should always be first come first serve that is apathetic at best to the characters. If you want something more make it a mercenary guild or a milita. If you take someone's contract, they can go after you, but the guild should only care about the job getting done.

Adventure Guilds are from GMs that really only play vidya.

This is why I never call them adventurer's guilds. They've always got to have some other purpose than "adventuring" because that's so vague that it's meaningless.

In the current game I'm running, there are two guilds the PCs have interacted with: a monster hunting guild (because there are lots of monsters and they're super dangerous) and an explorer's guild (because there are lots of ancient ruins being discovered). They often work together, because as it turns out, ancient ruins tend to have unusual monsters in them.

What if the Guild is like mafia unions

Is this a monster hunter based game by chance?

Dangers that grow with the player characters... and the characters never outgrow the dangers that they face.

It's annoying as all hell!

No, but I could probably rip off some mechanics and monsters from MonHon for my own 5e game.

Apparently their biggest pet peeve is showing up.

No one is willing to make specific plans. I message the group "you guys want to play this week? What days are everyone free?" and all I get back is a chorus of "sure I could play this week." with no other details. Propose a day and suddenly everyone's busy that day.

At this point we haven't played in over a month and I'm not willing to put in the effort anymore if no one else is.

I got a gripe as a player is when the gm tries to be all mysterious as he explains shit as an NPC. Look mayor we know the fucking axe is cursed cause we found it conviently placed in the "haunted" shrine, now fucking tell us the history behind it so we can remove the curse from the party.

Or my favorite, same mayor from same town asks us to go into a witches lair at witching hour and gets all uppity when we ask for a bigger reward. Look mayor you are trusting five people who just entered the town not seven hours ago to kill witches that have been terrorozing the town. We don't want weapons we want real estate. Particularly the inn. Which we will convert into a church of Avendra/casino. What do you mean we cant ask the townsmen if any would want to join our raid? Yeah my gm sucks

I cleverly changed my game's starting time to one hour earlier. That way we can start at the start time I originally wanted, since everyone but me is always A GODDAMN ENTIRE HOUR LATE EVERY FUCKING TIME DESPITE AGREEING ON THAT TIME.

> Not getting to collect NPCs like pokemon
Seriously, why must you try and recruit everyone you rescue as a camp follower?
You already have one long-term NPC to pad out the party numbers and allow me to prod you onwards.

> Not being railroaded
Fuck's sake, DO SOMETHING OFF YOUR OWN BACKS. Am I going to have to run this campaign like a 'choose your own adventure' book?

> Sticking around
I started with three players. I have three players now. Only one of them was there from the start, and I've lost two entire party's worth of characters due to player flakes and shitfits.
Luckily the current lineup is working out well-ish.

As the GM, my peeves are mostly health-related right now. I'm trying to get the campaign running again after a hiatus over xmas, and I get whacked with a cold and can't concentrate or stay awake.

>spoon into the soup
Makes me wanna die every time

One of my friends tells me of a guy in his old group who always played a dickbag money-grubbing rogue who would always go stealth when combat started. The GM had to get clever to get him to help: he decked out the rogue in all sorts of escape-kit gear, so if he ever took damage, he could just teleport away. I hear it got the rogue to actually start poking things.

>I've lost two entire party's worth of characters due to player flakes and shitfits

What kind of shitfits?

Nudging was a mistake.

Just drink from the the bowl and spit the spoon when you're done, duh.

>In Critical Role, Matt made the mistake of employing one too and so the players killed a Hydra that was attacking a town and became criminals for said town, even though they had just protected it from a fucking monster.

If I remember correctly, he set them up for that as a plothook.

Not nudging means losing your ball. Heck, early pinball games didn't even have flippers, and nudging was the only control you had after you had launched the ball. Learning to nudge effectively without tilting is all a part of the game.

>NPCs that go with the party and steal their spotlight.

As a GM, I hate those but my players keep trying to invite or recruit NPCs to go along with them.

Fucking stop it, I don't want to have a GMPC and I don't want to accidentally steal the spotlight. Just do your own dirty work, players.

Holy shit, this. The worst part is That Guy in my campaign is playing NE and is using every single trick in the book to ensure that he can't be spotted or recognized. Thus far he's a Ninja/Master Spy Evangelist at 9th level. And his character's "real identity" image is from Naruto. But the GM says he's "playing his character" so it's OK. Except his character is a colossal fucking asshole that nobody can touch or identify. He just disguises himself as random hitchhikers and bluffs/stealths/disguises so well that it's nigh impossible to call him on it.
Pathfinder was a mistake

The pet NPC is a different problem from the GMPC, IMO. The GMPC is the GM's baby, which is where the favoritism and bias is likely to come in.
The pet NPC is where players latch on to some NPC and drag him around, making the GM roleplay their favorite character whenever they want. Which is more likely to lead to the GM killing them off so he doesn't have to do the monkey dance for his players next session.
Still, be happy your players are engaging with the world and forming attachments to characters, that's a good thing, and can be really useful for plot hooks and stuff.

This is why I take inspiration from Hunter X Hunter for this shit.

>Here's the licence certifying you as a badass. It comes with some privileges and opens a ton of doors. Do something particularly impressive and we'll see if we can't add a few stars to it so everyone knows just how much of a badass you are. Now go off and do whatever.

Some games have an Enemy hindrance or something a player can willingly take at character creation. That's designating some threat has it out for the character and is strong enough to do something about it.

For that, I'd say having it always be strong enough to be a threat until they can find a way to deal with it once and for all would be fine. It's a conscious decision on the PC's part afterall.

I've done that too. It works really well.

I had someone in a group like that, but he also meta-gamed too which made it even more awkward.

He literally hide during a bar room brawl encounter. A guard watched the fight to make sure no one tried to kill anyone during the encounter. After we barely won the brawl, without his help, the guard breaks up the fight. "All right that's enough, no more fighting". His character comes out of hiding and runs up and punches one of the knocked out baddies. He then explains to the guard that he was just making sure he'd get xp for the encounter.

And now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was more of a monster hunter guild. It still doesn't change the fact that there are rules from organizations that actively punish you from helping others. It's like adopting a dog from a shelter only to have peta break into your house and punch you.

It shouldn't be. I'm glad that Pinball is a dying art if only for that reason alone.

>early pinball games didn't even have flippers
I think you're confusing pinball with pachinko now...

No, it's true. The first one was just a ball and pins with a launcher.

im sorry user. No GM should have to put up with that

That's a special kind of retard.

Player 1: Non-combat sections
Player 2: Player 1's OBSCENE open roll frequency. Especially since his open roll zone is now mid-80's, due to Elan with the Random Chance Shajad. Also getting screwed by his own dice.
Player 3(me): Going from player to GM... AGAIN.
Player 4(No longer in game, thankfully): People who do more damage than him. People who play female characters. Women in general.
Player 5(No longer in game): Player 2's insistence on crossplaying every time. Not being able to participate due to job schedule.

>He then explains to the guard that he was just making sure he'd get xp for the encounter.

Please say you told him that it doesn't work that way.

Why do most of players like this make characters that can't fight for shit and then try to fight anyways?

Do you run online?

no, he's talking like goblins that have class levels for no reason other then to be a same lvl threat to the PC's kind of never out-grown danger

What's in that machine, canned Marlboro?

Have 2.

I'm DMing.

1. He just hates dice and kinda has this love hate relationship with the game world. Gets annoyed that other seem to be enjoying the game and whenever he plays wonder out loud "why aren't i just playing league of legends"

He hates feeling like he's bad at the game but doesn't want to get better (or read the books) and sits on his phone txting. Hates thinking too hard about the game because if he does "then I realise that all games are worthless and nothing but a giant waste of time." But this isn't something he thinks about when he's spending hours playing runescape or LoL.

2. A /pol/ user. Roleplays as somebody who knows it's a game. Actively tries to destroy the game world around him and when he can't troll the game world he troll other PC's. Things slow the fuck down with him around and everything has this bureaucratic madness about it. He avoids combat situations and sabotages other players plans. Begun to hate our chaotic good paladin (the most experienced player and my favourite because he gets shit done) Because he just couldn't troll him. And between passing notes to me and setting up traps he foiled all the plans of our beloved /pol/ user.

/pol/ then began to believe that there was a conspricay against him, drank vampire blood and flipped his shit at me because i made him a mindless thrall.

Reckoned i was a shit DM, and that even though he had never read the books nor owned a single dice, and that he could do better. And ended up running this memes campaign about defeating the jewish menace.

Hey, just because you suck at pinball and/or have autism, don't get all down on the game.

This. Tilt sensors have been around ever since those days, and they're always built with a little leeway to tempt you to nudge it too hard and let it eat your quarter. To git gud at pinball requires learning to nudge without tilting, and watching an expert do it is pretty amazing. It's what separates the physical medium of pinball from purely virtual things like video games.

Anything that's not a combat encounter/loot pinata.

You just replied to me twice across two different posts.

I say they should go back to hammering nails into the machines for people that get rough with them like they did in the olden days.

>You just replied to me twice across two different posts.

Yeah, what's your point?

>I say they should go back to hammering nails into the machines for people that get rough with them like they did in the olden days.

Tilt sensors are all that's needed. Proper nudging requires a careful slap; too hard and you lose your ball.

My intense use of various kinds of mimics. Chest mimic, door mimic, ladder mimic, cup mimic, etc.

I think pointy spikes all over the board would instill a sense of care as well.

Tilt sensors are baby mode.

Maybe so, but no manufacturer's going to want to make tables they can't sell.
But seriously, what's with you not liking nudging? It's part of the game.

>But the GM says he's "playing his character" so it's OK
Congrats, the player is dedicated to being an annoying twat. Show him the door, I say. Better a distracted respectful person than a passionate jackass.

Is nudging the new Skub?

First one sounds like he's just not invested. He probably shouldn't be there. You need to tell him that, if he can't keep his, "thinking out loud," about how it's all pointless to himself, he should either get invested in the game or maybe just go play something else, because everyone else is enjoying themselves.

Second one needs a swift kick to the dick and to be left on the curb. Whether that's literal or figurative is entirely up to you. Either way, don't invite him back.

What's his real identity look like? I don't expect you to know a name, but I'm curious, now.

>NE
>every trick in the book to keep from being spotted
>ninja/master spy
Okay gonna be retarded here for a second and ask this.
What's wrong with this again? Are you going on about how he's trying really hard to be useless to the group in combat?

Nah, it's an accepted practice, to the point that famous designers not only do it themselves, but build their tables with nudging in mind. It's just some weirdo on the internet who hates it for some reason.
It's as if he was saying "basketball is stupid, what's with all the running and jumping and dribbling? They should get rid of all that and walk around instead, so they don't, like, scuff the floor" or something. I've never encountered a pinball fan who was anti-nudging before. I met plenty of noobs who didn't do it, usually because they were afraid to tilt and lose their ball. Noone ever opposed it in principle to me before.

Objective Morality

I assume it's because he isn't actually with the party and just goes lone wolf the entire time.

1. Complains every time he gets damaged, but only at "Come on man," levels. When he does something stupid he'll make any justification he can. Like this gem last session "You made it sound like I should have touched the thing! (the thing which caused the last person to touch it to fall into a 5-year long coma)". Can never talk in character, at all.
2. Every choice is life or death important and must be deliberated intensely for way longer than it should take. Including level 1 spell slot allocation, the price of rations, which full-health goblin he should attack, and his position in the watch order. He has predictably started playing "simple" classes and characters in non-D&D systems but now uses the same time he used to spend deliberating actions to playing on his phone.
3. Half-remembers rulings but owns all the books. Know it all.

autism

Neither of them are in anymore. Ironically we still play at number 1's house. So we're there having fun playing "Drow-boys" while he sits there playing ARAM. As for number 2, he trolled so hard that he's not invited to anything. You're right user, where i'm from there just isn't enough D'n'D to go around that you can have shit groups.

I think only really good D'n'D players should be playing evilly aligned characters. Only the wise can differentiate between being evil within the world and being evil to the other players. The former can provide a fantastic dynamic, the latter ends in eye rolling and TPK's.

>playing on his phone
I see that said a lot, here. Is it really a major problem to have people off on their phones instead of play the game? That just seems incomprehensibly rude to me. To the point of, why even play if you'd rather sit on your phone.

A lot of people don't take a similar mindset of "going to the movies" that they should when doing a session.

That's how I hope to phrase it to make people understand and oblige.

No sir. FLGS.

Sometimes during combat things tend to really drag, especially if it's a larger group of players that session. And a lot of them really like to focus on combat, so it can be a good 45m before someone will get to take another turn, and then I don't mind players in their phones so much as long as they are ready to go when it's their turn. That and a lot of them like to reference things like pfsrd when they play. But if it's clear that phones are being distracting then they get banned at the table for that session.

Damn, I'll have to figure out Open Rolling on R20 myself. Might just have to do it manually.

Had a player attempt diplomacy by throwing the mangled corpse of a criminal onto the table of a city official. He was upset when the official called the cops on him.

I even asked if he meant intimidation but no, he specifically said he was trying to be diplomatic.

>it can be a good 45m before someone will get to take another turn

Jesus christ!

midlevel tieflings that are all homebrewed and you play them every session. no progression. and some adderall.

I'll admit I get antsy if a session has *no* combat whatsoever, but even having just one token encounter is enough. Sometimes though you just want to mash that skip cutscene button and get to shooting the demons already.

I was about to exclaim as well, that speaks to a need for "mor practice" on everyone's part, it should not take that long.

this is me as well, i check everything, need more practice.

i have a player in a 12th level pathfinder game that insisted on rolling avery damn dice one at a time.

one. at. a. time.

he couldn'y even roll 2d6 at the same time because the dice hitting each other might fudge his rolls

>counts his dice clacking off of each other as fudging
The fuck? No, really, what the fuck?

Yeah I don't get it. Unless he's trying to cheat the rolls how does hitting something make the dice any more or less random?

This is only okay if you're good enough at addition that the rest time of the die is below .7 seconds (and you don't shake the die around for seventeen fucking years between rolls)

If you can't do the math fast enough with individual rolls to keep the duration of the whole operation manageable, you need to get out with that weak ass shit and grandparoll everything in one throw.

>Has an irrational hate boner against wizards
>Complains they ruin the game by forcing encounters to be balanced based on the number of full casters in the party insteadof level.
>Complains about the wizard character being useful at every opportunity.
>Played a barbarian.

Maybe he thinks that, since he's seen people do trick throws with dice where they increase their chances of getting certain rolls by throwing the dice so they clack off of each other in specific ways, that he might do it by accident. And he sees doing that, even by accident, as cheating.

It's stupid, but that's all I can think of. Especially considering it's only for a specific casino game that only uses two dice.

Any chance you play near Wisconsin, specifically the SE quadrant

>"You guys want to play this week? What days are everyone free?"
>wave of, "Sure, I could play this week."
>five minutes pass with no other info forthcoming
>five becomes ten
>"Okay, so, it's been ten minutes, and no one's said anything about when. If you guys actually want to play the game, I'm gonna need some more info."
>"Seriously, you all have been pulling this crap for more than a month, and I'm getting tired of it."

Problem solved.

Oh no, everyone is well versed in how to play, but I have one or two players who can be indecisive, a couple that really like to think every move out like a game of chess, and some who have very well made, but technical characters. That and a large group can be up to 8 characters sometimes, plus familiars or all that. But yeah, sometimes I have to implement the "your taking to long or not ready to go, auto delay action" rule.

...

Calling them out on their bullshit.

Not him, but I'm a SE WI fa/tg/uy. Coincidentally also with player attendance issues.

What's the nearest 'big' city for you. I'm close to Sheboygan and am willing to drive to West Bend.

I'm based near Menomonee Falls.

What do you play because I desperately want to play and have very little social life