That Guy Thread

>coming to a That Guy thread and not wanting to read the story.

Is this an obscure method of bait?

I don't know if that guy threads apply to anything outside rpgs but I have one. I had a couple run ins with this guy before I stopped playing at my flgs because he wouldn't leave me alone. I know that makes me a coward but I just want to play wargames in peace.
>playing Warhammer with a bud. Necrons vs nids.
> just starting when it approached our table. Lurks over our miniatures for a few awkward minutes. Doesn't say a word. I decide to be a nice and strike up a conversation. Ask him if he plays etc.
> tells me about his army for a while. I'm always happy to meet new players and usually offer to get a game in at some point.
>asks to join our game. I explain already deployed or else I'd agree.
> his whole demeanor changed at this point.
>He sits at the table arms folded and visibly huffing.
>mofo pulls out a liter of mountain dew that he drinks straight.
>slams it down on the table inches from a unit of my crons repeatedly. This forces to constantly stop play and right my jumbled warriors.
>I make the mistake of ignoring the neckbeard. Should have told him to fuck off right about then.
> at one point asks my buddy why he has two armies.
>this fucker assumes all the figs he fucking saw me unpack from a fucking bag I brought in aren't mine.
>I just really want him to leave at this point.
>the neckbeard is strong in this one.
>seemingly immune to all social cues he continues being a general ass. If I'm not quick enough state a rule I'm using he blurts it out with this stupid smug tone.
>only targets me, ignores my buddy.
>misogyny.jpg
> whenever I go to make a play I'm instantly barraged with "corrections". If a unit dies, it's because I didn't do what he suggested.
>at one point it tries to move my necrons for me.
>This isnt fun anymore.
>tell my buddy I'm done. He agrees to pack it up.
>its wearing this stupid grin like he won.
what did you win neckbeard?

I mean I'd side with the player on that portcullis thing, if, and solely if, you literally walked up next to it and placed your missile weapon of choice right up next to a hole. I can't help feel that this isn't what he meant though.

I don't blame you, it's amazing how much one person can fuck everything up

Yeah, possibly. In retrospect I might have just given them some partial cover, since that's technically true, but I didn't. If it comes up again I'll probably just give a +2 or so to AC.

>Wizard is gf

Was believable up to here.

Fair enough. That's the thing with cover though isn't it. Super relative and up to perspective, which is difficult to continually keep in mind in well your mind.

What you did would have been perfectly reasonable if they were farther away and the slot to metal ratio was low enough, where as what I said hinges entirely on being so close that the ratio is non-existent.

>A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three-quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a *portcullis*, an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk.

I think you actually gave them an advantage in giving just them disadvantage. +5 to AC and Dex Saves is brutal.

Oh shit, I didn't know there was an official ruling, thanks dude

i play a lot of Adventurer's League since i'm a perma-DM. so it's not that bad in that i don't have to deal with any that guy for very long.

>playing some adventure with racist humans
>everybody at level 1 except for cleric and warlock, both 2
>at a non-human settlement
>human guards come up to harass the townsfolk
>True Neutral lizardman warlock, working for the Zhentarim, decides out of nowhere to walk up to the guard and blast a hole through his chest
>everyone gets pissed, it's an adventure on rails and we're tight on time as it is
>point out that it makes literally no sense for his character to do this, either as True Neutral or as a Zhent
>"no, they're racist, i'm starting the revolution, i'm the good guy"
>we all refuse to help him fight, Cleric outright leaves as he sees it as an evil act, gets angry at us for not fighting warlock
>he kills the guards, somehow
>tries to rally the townsfolk, fails completely as they now hate him for bringing the wrath of the guards down on their town
>he's actually confused by this
>we continue, take care of our business in the town
>guards show up meantime, demand him or they're basically going to slaughter everyone
>he goes willingly, only after trying to get out of trouble by bribing the guards and threatening them with his Zhent membership
>gets nothing from the adventure, gets arrested but is broken out by Zhents after the fact
>doesn't leave, just hangs around at the table watching us and joking like we don't all fucking hate him now
>the rest of the adventure is impossible for us as we're all level 1
>completely destroyed the timeframe, we have to stop despite not even getting enough fucking xp to hit level 2
>apparently he's a massive furry and all the characters he plays are beastfolk, usually reptilian
>usually wears a scarf or something with all these furry pins on it

Thanks user, but in retrospect I'm ok with not going back to flgs. I miss the people there but I also get the feeling that the neckbeard has no where else to go to socialize. I pity him a bit

>Trying to roleplay and sandbox
>In an AL game

this was what baffled me most.

Why present an extraneous thing not meant to be interacted with then? I'm not defending him by the by, just curious why something like that would be included if you have such a tight timeframe.

because the DM was kinda shaky and was leaning heavily on the mod as written, and as written, the guards are harassing the people to show they're racist dicks, then they pretty much immediately fuck off after that.

>HE RIDICULED MUH GF!
>desgning an encounter in a way that makes player sit on his ass the whole time
you are both are that guys

That's even dumber.

It's like someone read show don't tell but forget RPG players can actually interact with the world and usually have a list of spells and sharp stabby attacks infront of them.

Me being protective of her does sound kinda douchy.
As for the encounter building, dumb on my part. My thought was the players would have to decide between opening the portcullis or fighting at a disadvantage, but that didn't really work. Hindsight is 20/20.

You people are pussies, should have pushed his shit in.

It's not a particularly good story. Barely anything happens.

I wouldn't feel too bad. Players are pretty simple minded folk for the most part and it's hard to sway them away from their simple ways. Your example perfectly illustrates this, they blindly go at it head on while one player argues that blindly going at it head on should have no penalties and intact be the best approach. They don't think out of the box.

I had a game recently where I was trying to encourage the players to use some house ruled disarm/combat maneuvers rules for 5E.

I had a magical statue guarding a corridoor. He animated and swung at the party . I said he had a really big shield protecting him. I said they could disarm him fairly easily and he'd be easier to hit as a result.

They all just ineffectually shot at him getting increasingly frustrated until he eventually died when some damage got through. I asked the players why they didn't disarm him and they said 'oh we assumed it wouldn't make any difference' despite me during the encounter telling them the exact opposite.

Sigh.( They also could have just run passed him and risked the opportunity attacks, or even better tripped him so he'd have a harder time hitting them with opportunity attacks as he was only 'programmed' to defend that area and return)

One of the best remembered moments from my last game was encountering a literal dungeon with zombie filled cells, a single level to open them, and a reason to get into a cell. DM assumed we'd try and do something to fight some at a time, instead we fashioned long sharp sticks and poked until they died. The Pokey Inquisition is a fond memory.

Christ, you all need to learn to be assertive from the start. 90% of these situations could be avoided just by you actually standing up for yourself and your other players from the beginning. Stop being so afraid of "looking like a dick" or "I felt kinda bad for him".

You faggots let these assholes walk all over you and then wonder why it never stops. And then you come passively aggressively post about it on Veeky Forums when in real life you all smiles and tolerance.

Pathetic tbqh just grow some balls and watch your games improve immeasurably.

>"Y-yeah! I could have taken him!"
Just admit it, user. you're just as pathetic as all of these cowards.

I've done this kind of thing before. I'd recommend frequently describing the statue's shield as invalidating their attacks. Especially if they just barely missed meaning the shield was the responsible modifier.

Less with the arrows and more with disarming make sure that the players know the rules beforehand (I generally do this with niche core interactions as opposed to house rules, but laying out your house rules is super important prior to their implementation). Then abuse the shit out them yourself. ABUSE THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF THEM.

The players might not have thought to throw dirt into people's faces, but after some bandits circled around a pc on the beach and completely invalidated them with sand they will never forget that its an option.
Oh what's that you've convinced a baddie to duel you? Sure would be a shame if his friends constantly heckled and taunted you while you try to fight back to make use of an often ignored combat effect without actually being in combat.
Be a terrible thing if mooks used their spear's reach to force the players to extend melee range in order to retreat without suffering attacks.
Sure would be a shame if that guy with a big sword and some minions entire strategy is to have the mooks trip people so he has an easier time hitting their weapons in order to force unarmed defender penalties on people who are also prone and being ganged up on.

Its all fair play if its by the rules. Imagine how quickly they'd learn of disarming's use if some baddies disarmed them? Imagine if a sneaky quick baddie disarmed one of their favorite weapons then ran. They've never forget that the urge to murder would be too strong.

This. A hundred times this.

Crawl back to your safe space, kid.

You mean... IT'S A WELL-GROUNDED STORY WITH SOLID, BELIEVABLE EVENTS ALMOST LIKE IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AND WASN'T AN OVERBLOWN FICTIONAL SERIES OF EVENTS?!

>misogyny.jpg

Stopped reading there.

>I'd recommend frequently describing the statue's shield as invalidating their attacks.

I did this, to the point one player said 'wow you're describing this shield blocking our attacks a lot'

>make sure that the players know the rules beforehand

A player during the combat said that a disarm.would have a huge penalty. I said no it would be an opposed roll with a good chance of success on your part.

>The players might not have thought to throw dirt into people's faces,

I did this in a combat and it resulted in my low level mook nearly killing the highly armoured Paladin . Nobody has bothered to replicate it since.,

>Be a terrible thing if mooks used their spear's reach to force the players to extend melee range

I've done shit like this too. Players just think I'm a dick. Don't try to replicate tactics at all.

>use if some baddies disarmed them?

I've done this albeit in another game. Players equally just thought I was being a dick and continued to basic attack/ cast spells on their sheet.

I can't help players being retarded. I've tried.

Have you tried doing all of it at once in an attempt to overload the dumb out of them?

That's a cute snek

Maybe you're right. I've tried to drip feed it to them so far. Having some combats make use of cover. Some combats make use of dirty tricks. Some are about using pushes/shoves/grapples ( this one stuck, but probably as it let a player instant kill enemies on high ground a) Some are about disarming. I've also shared a PDF of all the various combat rules in game and my house stuff and printed off combat sheets with various actions the players can take to refer to in session.

But nothing has really stuck. Sure the rogue uses every chance to hide but that's to try to spam advantage/sneak attack.

Maybe I should just go all out and have every enemy group use an aggressive mix of tactics but I fear if I do this I'll just get repeated TPK's.

Nah go for weaker enemies (if they still lose the handicap being in their favor will hopefully beat it into them), and have the baddies goal not be killing the party.

And by that I mean share in my though of a wave of goblins swarming a party and leaving them on the ground with nothing but their skivvies as the horde stampedes away. But probably with less numbers if you want to "play fair"

This reminds me of the time I played in a M&M "open world" text game with dozens of players.

The GM led us through an exposition first sessions in which we followed a dude around that was expositioning things about the world and then we fought against some prisoners that had broken free.

The encounter had been thought by the GM to be for 7-8 PL6 heroes, but at the point of the fight, we were only 4 players left.

And so it came to pass that we ineffectively tried to destroy one guy with PL 12 defenses while he tried to kill the PCs that had surrounded him. At the end of the fight, after some lucky shots were had and the villain felled, the GM was like "well, you could have tried to disarm him or grapple him." when I brought up how unfulfilling this fight had been...

Except that my character sucked at grapple and fighting maneuvers, so that would not have gone anywhere anyway.

Hmm, I could set that up pretty easily when I think about it.

...the party soon may be attacked by a swarm of thieving, trip attacking kenku who steal all their shit...

Are you playing with a group that has only fighters/martial characters?

Good good. I too am now going to try something like this, oddly enough also raven themed. I'm planning a medieval cops game, and had long thought of a thief with a swarm of ravens acting as a familiar.

If he ends up showing up he's going to slip in during the chaos of the swarm and try to unbuckle someone's plate for the sheer streetcred it'd earn him.

all-martial parties are the best parties

Makes it all more sword&sorcery-y

Mostly.

Ranger, Barbarian, Rogue, Bard.

>Bringing your girlfriend to a game

Why do you stupid assholes do this. It never ends well.

but what if my girlfriend brought me to a game?

>bringing your boyfriend to a game

I think everyone in our group has been That Guy at one time or another.
(Names changed)
>I was that guy when I stopped taking my friend's campaign seriously after my fourth character died due to bad luck, and I just started playing a
Lol-random dickhead.
>Larry was That Guy when he made a combat-only character for a campaign involving only infrequent combat, and thus he acted like a whiny arsehole, and spent all his time trying to turn peaceful negotiations into shootouts.
>Richard was that guy when he tried to play a 40k psyker like a wizard from dnd, and ended up getting the group into repeated trouble over it, despite the GM repeatedly informing him that his powers were not to be taken lightly.
>Frank was that guy when he decided to repeatedly and deliberately try to defy the GM's plans in protest over his getting his arse handed to him in a fight; one which he instigated for the explicit purpose of showing off how ridiculously overpowered his character had become.
>John was That Guy when he felt entitled to lecture us on "playing the game wrong" and not being as dedicated role players as him because we were playing for fun while he was temporarily on this "hardcore role player" thing.

Even worse.

I don't get what the problem with bringing her was. She's my friend and I like doing things with her. She's getting more comfortable with RP and is good at puzzle solving.
I get there's a stigma of being the "DM's GF", but I don't show favoritism.

So the Bard was supposed to disarm the statue... how?

And the Ranger, does he usually go Melee or use a bow?

>all-martial parties are the best parties

Ranger uses melee.

My disarm rules are simply

>The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the defender drops the item.

I then drop the item randomly in a square around the defender and allow the attacker to either kick it away or pick it up. It's fairly quick, easy, loose and rules lite. Players ignore it anyway in favour of ineffectual basic attacks.

Casters suck the fun out of everything.
Mostly because caster players are obnoxious idiots who can't play for shit and rely on the "caster supremacy" meme

Only allowed caster classes are semi-martials like clerics and paladins

I liked it better when 3.5 allowed the defender to have an AoO when someone tried to disarm them. It would prevent shit like this.

And I am glad that I don't play 5e anymore.

I pity you for your rotten luck in finding good people to play with.

I suggest you stop trying to play a garbage system like 5e.

>I liked it better when 3.5 allowed the defender to have an AoO when someone tried to disarm them

You mean you liked it when players had even less incentive to use anything but a full attack every round? That sounds fun...

If anything I blame how needlessly restrictive 3.5 was in letting martials do anything interesting in combat with why players are so drilled into a basic attack everything to death mentality.

With how overpowered you've made disarm attacks, there is no reason to actually go in for the kill anymore, just lop off an enemy's hand instead.

A better alternative would have been
>I attempt to disarm him
>Okay, go for it: roll your attack against his AC, which is increased by two for the difficulty of hitting his wrist/hand/swordarm. Then he has to make a strenght/constitution save to see if he drops it.

I mean, give at least a little reason of why someone would aim for center mass instead of going for the arm all the fucking time, you know?

Hint: it's because it is easier to hit a bigger target than the moving point that is an opponent's hand/wrist. Just saying.

Then you could do something like this, too

>I attempt to feint to the left, so that I will catch the enemy off-guard!
>Alright, roll your attack against his AC and then he will have to make an insight/deception check if you hit.
>You got him off balance, your next attack will be at an advantage against him.
>Sweet! I attempt to disarm him with a quick upward slash to his arm.
>*go on with the disarm attempt*

Something that is *actually* good, you know.

>With how overpowered you've made disarm attacks, there is no reason to actually go in for the kill anymore, just lop off an enemy's hand instead

Um . Disarm doesn't mean cut someone's arm off. Do you English ? It just means getting rid of their sword or shield. In which case they can usually get out a sidearm , cope without it, or make a grab for it back etc creating some more dynamic combat situations. You also have to sacrifice a chance to actually kill the opponent with an attack so it's hardly overpowered, the fact all my players continue to refuse to use it being a testament to that.

The more mechanical shit you add to something for 'muh realism's the less likely players are going to care to do it meaning the less point of bothering to write the rules in the first place. (See the entire flawed design of 3.5 I'm still trying to deprogram players out of)

why is cutting off a hand your go to idea for how to disarm a weapon? you know the phrase isn't always meant to be taken literally right?
sometimes though

I blame video games personally

I am aware that disarming a character doesn't mean maiming them literally. And it's sad that you have to argue semantics instead of mechanics at this point.

>The more mechanical shit you add to something for 'muh realism's
This made me chuckle
>realism
>in D&D
kek

>You also have to sacrifice a chance to actually kill the opponent with an attack so it's hardly overpowered, the fact all my players continue to refuse to use it being a testament to that.
Wait a second. You are telling me that you have the characters attack with their weapons to attempt to strike the enemy in such a way that they drop their weapon and it doesn't do damage whatsoever?

How do you even justify that shit?

Ok fine. The general way you go about forcing an opponent to release a weapon is to overpower them in a bind. This isn't taken into account in most systems, but the idea that they're somehow magically getting a free attack in against you in this situation tilts the scale even harder into retard town.

So far this conversation has been.

>Your disarm rules are overpowered
>No they're not because X and Y reasons
>Actually your disarm rules are underpowered

What the fuck are you even saying anymore ?

I am saying that any disarm rule that is basically "You attack his hand and he drops his weapon. He doesn't get hurt by you hitting his hand so fiercly that he drops his weapon" is retarded

>Ok fine. The general way you go about forcing an opponent to release a weapon is to overpower them in a bind.
Apparently not, it's more like "hit them really hard on the arm which is holding the weapon and they will drop it"

But I agree that if you are in a bind with an enemy, them getting a free attack is not the way to go about things

you were pretty much finished with the story at that point, why'd you stop reading?

If you want to get technical a called shot to the weapon arm could be abstracted that way. The actual attack portion of the roll representing getting the leverage required to force them to let go.

Bit of a stretch, but in a system without a mechanic for binds that's the best I've got. Incidentally does anyone know of any system with binds?

>Be me DM
>drags gf along

That DM right here.

Song of Swords, the successor of Riddle of Steel comes to mind.

I'm not surprised by that. Shame nobody in my group would ever touch something that crunchy. Wouldn't happen to know if its less confusing of a read than RoS would you?

It's a mechanical abstraction to simulate a far more complex thing within combat itself within the constraints of D&D's fairly simple combat system.

Likewise you're making the assumption that a disarm involves hitting somebody's hand with your sword until they drop it. (This would actually be a called shot to the arm)

Note actual examples of how to disarm someone in combat don't involve directly 'damaging' them at all.

>Should, as he advances or is inside the close measure, the opponent thrust a Quart across the arm, one should parry this thrust high in Seconde, almost simultaneously putting one’s left foot in front of one’s right, encircle his wrist from below with the left hand (Taf. 20, Fig. 2 A), turn your back toward him by turning on your left heel, pull his fist over your left armpit and press down on it strongly, as you press the forte of your blade in Tierce strongly against the back of his blade: Thus the sword will jump from his hand.

You don't seem to understand much about D&D or game design. That or you're trolling.

Legend of the Five Rings has a good mechanic for this. It's called Raises and you call raises when you want to disarm/trip/shove someone

>The more mechanical shit you add to something for 'muh realism's
>realism
>in D&D
You're in the wrong thread

I'm arguing that you shouldn't be overloading D&D with mechanics to simulate realism, hence the simplified disarm mechanics I use which amount to one opposed roll.

It truly is the summer.

Eh it was just a joke I through in there last minute. 99% of the people I game with are chill but that last 1% are a strange, awkward, sometimes creepy group. Bad apples spoil the bunch you know. Sorry for your Jimmies user no ruffles intended.

>I can't help players being retarded. I've tried.
if everybody you play with is that guy, i have bad news for you

you're that guy

So what's wrong with abstracting disarming to a simple contested roll, then?

If it was a simple contested roll, it wouldn't need a roll to attack and hit

You suggested an attack roll too senpai

Attack roll to start the bind as opposed to have your blow deflected. Opposed roll to gain leverage.

Honestly seems legit to me. Maybe allow for an attack from the defender if they voluntarily fail the opposed roll for the express purpose of countering.

For a called shot

Beside, if Grappling can be OP like "roll athletics vs athletics", then in a situation where your weapon is bound with that of the enemy it would be the same thing

>for 5E
There's your problem.

I swear, players are retarded. I've had mine just throw themselves at a problem unless they've been explicitly given an outline to follow from NPC suggestion.

>players are in underground lab looking for double kidnapped lost girls
>they run into the boss of the place Not!Wesker who has the ability to manipulate the surrounding atmosphere
>players are stuck in a small room with him
>he turns the place into a vacuum
>the majority of the party decides to fight him inside the vacuum instead of running
>even when their weapons were explicitly stated to be in effective in harming him
They were lucky the party caster had a spell that pinned him against a wall by sheer circumstance, allowing them to pelt the mask he was wearing, since the guy still needed to breathe.

In my session yesterday, I was trying to goad some thugs out of the room they were closed up in, having closed themselves in there after our party killed the enemies before said room.

>Me: "Oh god, it sure would suck if someone came out and attacked us right now! We're so injured!"
>Roll Deception
>Nat 20
>DM: "You hear a few chuckles from inside the room."

Not mad about it. Thought it was handled pretty well, and it was probably a dumb move on my part anyway.

Also wrong thread, lmao. But if the shoe fits, by all means.

Is Commander "that guy" worthy, because I have a dude who, despite our kitchen table tribal and themed deck meta (at an actual kitchen table, no less), shows up with singleton legacy every week.

Unless she passes you arround the table then no.