Shit GM's deal with

>player gives you a "heads up" that a specific ability configuration is "legal per RAW" immediately prior to handing over their character sheet

>Player wants you to look at his homebrew before the game's even started or anyone's discussed what it's gonna be about.
>Player wants you to look at his homebrew ever.

So, rather than try and obfuscate his power for later, he explains how his abilities interact to help gauge the characters strength level...?

Yeah, I mean, I don't just want to spring Life cleric+goodberry on him.

Oh cool, cool.
Well, this seems a bit overpowered.
I'll nerf it a bit. That's okay with you, right?

I would guess that generally means either the player is doing something sketchy, or alternatively that the GM is known for banning haphazardly and the player is just staying on top of things

>hey, so don't bother coming to the game
>just a heads up, yeah?

I find when players are doing something sketchy, they make no mention of it and try and keep it in reserve, trying to sneak it past the GM.

If they're actually hesitant enough about it to bring it up and say 'Look, this is technically rules legal, but..." then I'd view that as a sign of honesty. A player informing you that something is 'technically legal' is the same as a player informing you that it might not be reasonable, as opposed to trying to pull a fast one, just phrased slightly differently.

The real problem is how they'd take your input in response to this. Say you say 'nah, can't allow it, sorry', the difference between a good and a bad player is "That's fair enough, you're the GM and the ultimate arbiter and I understand your decision' and 'But it's technically legal I should be allowed this'. One of these is a thoughtful, considerate player who just wants to ensure everyone in line and has this cool idea he wants to make sure you're okay with. The other's an asshole and stupid for actually bringing it up. And it's unreasonable to assume that they're automatically doing the wrong thing here, just because it requires having all the intelligence of a bag of bricks when they could just say nothing at all and pull it out later, claiming mid session 'no its perfectly fine' (even if it is, they knew it was iffy and deliberately didn't bring it up? That's far more of a concern then them trying to bring it to your attention prior to the game)

>Spend hours preparing the game
>Ask players to give a more detailed background about their characters with a week's notice
>Players don't even bother telling me they don't want to do it

Yeah, unless they're the rare type of asshole that just wants more time to argue in favor of it, I would generally interpret something like the OP's post as a sign of good faith and them actually just being unsure if the GM would like to allow something

And what's the other option? not tell anything and then see the GM get mad because you're """""cheating""""".
Back in 3.5 I picked improved natural attacks for my monk (both RAW and RAI, with example characters having it, explained in FAQs and Erratas, etc), he didn't know about that and accused me of cheating because that feat didn't work with monk (according to him). After proving him wrong he got buttmad of being wrong and cancelled the game.

I'd prefered if that happened in session 0 in where I can step out instead of ruining the game for the other players (though with that kind GM the game was bound to be ruined sooner or later)

This honestly.
99% of Homebrew is shit.
Even worse, 100% of Homebrewers think THEIR homebrew is part of the 1% that isn't.

I never tell shit to my GMs unless they ask, I give them the character sheet and use only whatever they allow, if there's something they don't get or understand is their fault and they shouldn't GM the game if they don't know the game.

It's the presumption of their interpretation of the book over your authority in the first place
Instead of just saying "I can and intend to do this neat parlor trick" they feel the need to reinforce it with some authority that literally does not exist as every rulebook regardless of publisher or game says "ignore rules if you want to" and every good GM will ignore or implement shit as needed for a good, not orthodox, experience

You must be a joy at the table.

Why are GMs perpetually assblasted?

I've GMd and I've played in other peoples' campaigns, and the one constant is that GMs are salty whiny fucks

Because there are a ton of asshole players in the world, and the GMs have to deal with them for at least a session or two when they invade a game.

He wants to give you the chance to confirm it and/or tell him you won't allow it. This is likely because it involves some really tortured rules-logic that he imagines will just piss you off if revealed in the middle of a session. Also it means the player has the requisite shred of decency to not spring it on you without warning.

Source: Used to do this back in my minmaxing/charop days.

>It's the presumption of their interpretation of the book over your authority in the first place
That's your interpretation to make them look worse without extra context. In which case you're probably annoyingly insecure yourself. But the fact is the person bringing this to your attention sooner rather than later is more a sign of honesty than not. Otherwise they'd be more likely to try and pull a fast one on you and not tell you about it.

Also not every scenario will be so vaguely worded that it is down to subjective interpretation of the rules. Often rules are very clear and the function is there even if definitely unforeseen and should be nerfed. Especially if you're playing 3.5

Players can't read your mind, when you say "I'm going to play this system" they're going to make their characters by using that system, they can't know you're going to change stuff beforehanded, people dont' read minds. Fucking basement dwellers who have no conection with other human beings.

I'm honest and never cheat, I give my GMs both my character sheets and backstory following their homerules, I expect at least they know what they're doing and to be coherent with what they're doing, and if they have a question I answer it without problems. But if you accept shit without knowing how it's been played and decide to not ask and be a cunt later, fuck you.

Also I never heard a complain about my behaviour, I keep being invited to a games and people keep asking me to GM games.

>We're going to play X
>Rules of X have no authority
Yeah, I keep playing football with a baseball and kneecapping people and referees keep kicking me out for some reason, I still dunno why.

Because that's not how you play football...

>Play a game expecting the rules to be used
>"Rules have no authority! only I!"
>Play a game ignoring the rules
>"That's not how you play game!"
Make your fucking mind!

It can be sketchy and unsubtle. Arguing that it's RAW before the GM ever sees the sheet is like I kid saying "it wasn't me" right when their parent gets home before they see whatever the kid broke. The parent IS getting big to notice it, so the kid figures his best bet is to start denying it early.

Is a trick made by expert GMs, see, you have to make players play the game blind, so they never know how a situation is going to be played
>My character is agile, he should be able to jump this 1 meter long pond because rules say I can?
WRONG
This allows you to railroad them super easy

>look at what he's talking about
>it's rad
>"Do it up motherfucker."

>look at what he's talking about
>it's shit
>"Too bad, not letting you do that."

faggot

Because GM's are to managers what players are to employees.

You're expected to carry a team of morons through each task and nobody is willing to help take the weight off you but are more than willing to fuck you over just because they can and think that they'd do better than you.

Excuse me if I start to get sick of players when more often than not, they ignore my primers, build whatever the fuck they want, start bullshit arguments and discussions when I'm trying to run the game, and criticize every minor thing I do while getting defensive as fuck whenever I ask them to sit down and focus on game.

If anything, you cucks should be happy I bother running a game at all, let alone invite you to it.

>player invites a new player to the group without telling you

Because God forbid there should be any form of HP recovery that is action efficient except Lesser Vigor.

Then the RAW is the OSHA keeping you from mistreating your employees.

Not him but RAW would actually be more analogous to sick days with how some DM's treat it.

It's given to you the first day you sign up, but you better not actually fucking use it if you want to stay for long.

>GM: This is the setting, and here are the playable races and classes. [Banned Class] doesn't exist in this setting, and neither does [Banned Race].
>Player: I WANT TO PLAY [Banned Race] AND [Banned Class]!!!!!!!!!!

Every time. Every fucking time. It's like they forget these things exist until you tell them they're banned. It's like some kind of infantile "I want it because you told me I can't have it" impulse. Fucking shit. I should just write a fucking novel instead of dicking around with these gibbering retards.

Yeah, that can be annoying, but I could protest depending on the case, many GMs use their status as GM to ban stuff to players then use it freely and in excess for DMPCs and NPCs, is infuriating when they tell you "human only" and then it turns out humans seem to be a fucking minority and every fucking body is a weird halfdragon halfcelestial kitsune. If you ban something because it doesn't fit or is scarce, make it fucking scarce or non existant.

Yeah, I can sympathize, and I've been in games with shit GMs who pull shit like that.

As a GM, I make sure to never, ever do that. I always try to keep in mind the shit I hated putting up with when I was a player, and to never repeat those mistakes.

You took a lot of time to say "sometimes that's legit."

The only homebrew I've ever liked is the sort where the DM just kinda leaves it there like 'if you want to use this, go ahead,' but isn't a salty asshole when you don't.

Player-made Homebrews never, ever work out

>GMing Dark Heresy
>one guy starts going on about how the party needs to find an ancient cache of primarch geneseed and use it for experiments
>I just tell them it is beyond the scope of the campaign at the moment

The one that I will never understand is GM chicken. You know, where you get this.

>Hey, GM, what would happen if we did X?
>The plan would fail and you'd probably all die horribly because of the following reasons...
>Players do X
>It fails and they probably die horribly.
>Get mad at the GM.

Through that exact sort of exchange, I've had players summon demon princes using their own souls as a portal, blow themselves up by putting in a power source an order of magnitude more than a teleporter could handle, attack armies that outnumber them 15:1 against, attempt to impersonate a deity to said deity's high priest using system's equivalent of prestidigitation, burn down their city's main food storage while under siege, and admit to a king with a reputation for insanity and short temper that they aren't actually part of the elite unit they entered into the palace by impersonating; among other not quite as egregious examples.

I really have no idea why people do it, outside of a belief that the GM really won't go through with it and mete out the logical consequences of that sort of stupidity.

>hey GM, do I have the resurce that helps me in this specific situation that just never ever came up before?

I have difficulty comprehending this kind of player behaviour. It feels like they think the GM is running the game entirely for their amusement and will bail them out no matter what stupid bullshit they try, which explains why the dumb idiots get mad when consequences happen.

The GM Arms Race is also pretty stupid. D&D 3.5 / PF was (and still is) rife with this kind of nonsense.
>player finds broken ability combo
>dominates a couple fights with it
>enemy groups counter broken combo
>player finds new broken combo
>enemy groups counter broken combo
>player gets butthurt
>enemy groups start using broken combo themselves

One other thing that mildly annoys me is when players are too dense to consider that a spell/ability/piece of technology has a use that is different than whatever the players are using it for.

>Running Dragonquest game
>There's a spell that makes the person it's cast on more resistant to fatigue.
>Party has access to it, mostly uses it to travel further when they march, or to be in better shape on marches that they think will end in combat.
>Adventuring along
>In a country which is noted for a high degree of magic usage
>Come across some people who are building a road
>Notice they have a spell on them
>It's the same fatigue reducing spell.
>Someone comments on it, and the leader of the work crew mentions that yeah, it's great, they can get a lot more done with adept Gunble helping the rest of them like that.
>I don't get it GM, how does it help? They're not traveling very far.

>players keep plotting to kill each other because they think the other players are plotting to kill them

>player keeps plotting against the DM because he thinks the DM is the enemy and his goal is to kill the party and make it impossible for them to advance in the campaign

Fuck you, MarĂ­a

And everyone is right!

but that sounds like a good time

I won't lie and say I didn't have contingencies ready to go off on other players in most of my games

I had 2 players try to betray the rest of the party in one session. One succeeded and joined my cast of villains, the other's attempt was foiled when I told him his scopeless gun wouldn't be able to hit at the bottom of the 500 meter tower he was standing on top of as a coup de grace.

It was honestly my favorite session because the players who weren't stabbing the party in the back were super confused and lost all trust in their comrades who tried betraying them. It's gonna make for an interesting situation here in a couple weeks when we start back up

*hit a target at the bottom of the 500 meter tower

I heavily prefer to have some sort of limit on party dynamics that way you can't have the typical

>P1: I want to play a Drow/Illithid Assassin/Mage/Psion.
>P2: I want to play a (fun ruiner)!! If you don't let me your shit LMAO
>P3: I'm a human fighter.

Situations. I prefer using base books in games just because there are so many annoying ass players. Sadly then I'm the >that guy GM. You just can't win with this shit unless everyone wants an all in troll game, or everyone wants a classic DnD story.

>P2: I want to play a (fun ruiner)!! If you don't let me your shit LMAO
Explain.
>P3: I'm a human fighter.
Explain further.

I hate it when players can't get hints.

>group wants a story driven campaign
>npc gives an express courier quest to group
>has to get there next day
>players just dick around in town for another day
>meanwhile giving them generic shit to do
>they get annoyed how there's "no interesting plot"
>monster raid
>through a series of very thin connections they now think they are fighting a god

This is just annoying for the most part because I already had a campaign loosely planned out. Now it's just more unneeded work.

>P2
Players who make characters directly just to fuck with the other players, whether it's alignment, build, or just straight up attitude. And you KNOW that these type of people will try and be cunts if a GM is just like, "No you can't play this retarded ass shit" for whatever reason is given. "DUDE I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT." Yeah, you can also find a new GM if you want to ruin games n purpose with shit characters.

>P3

People who want some normal shit but all their party members are either retarded or minmaxing so hard their character basically does nothing all game. This isn't really a bad thing but in the hypothetical described they are shafted if they don't have some sort of gimmick, or if the player just isn't in the mood for a bunch of corny shit.

Not that guy but sometimes to keep a game going I will fudge rules. There are times where my players walk into death and I realize it's because I am a faggot and I did not properly give them context to the situation. So i'll just fudge the dice if I feel I have been unfair to the players.

Also, it's literally in the 5E rulebook that all rules are to be altered or implemented at the GM's discretion. So the rules of the game are literally "no rules lmao."

The players and I are knew so I don't try to homebrew rules myself, but your baseball/football analogy doesn't really work since neither of those games has a "Game Master" who according to the literal rules of the game can do what he wants.

Oh god, I've had this, combined with the worst sorts of tunnel vision ever. This group was delivering a message, and in the course of it see a man stumble up to them, convlusing, and shout "For the love of all the gods someone help me" or something to that effect, before vomiting a tide of beetles and collapsing into a husk.

>You think that might be important?
>Nah, someone would have told us about it if it was.

Wow. So much hp healed. How will I ever out dps the crazy healing of Life Cleric + Goodberry combo? These players suuuuuuure are meta-gaming.

Players changing their mind repeatedly on major encounters.
They were planning to assault and take an imperial ship. Go completely rogue and f-the imperium.
Next session the characters have a discussion,
>they all good imperials ave emperor, gonna take that fight to the xenos.

Next two hours is me making social ackward intrigue that doesn't make sense instead of running a multiple outcome, multiple stage space battle with the imperial ship that was planned out.

I had a case of the opposite, which is equally annoying

>give players some simple "rescue this guys" mission
>they somehow get to the conclussion that obviously the guys they need to save are actually the bad guys, because they're rich and rich=evil
>kidnap the guys and torture them to get some unexistent info
>get angry because I'm not giving them something to progress further in the plot

>Halfdragon halfcelestial kitsune
Who hurt you user?

>amnesia backstories

While tropey I don't find anything actually wrong with this so long as it's not the same person with every character they make.

It can be fun as the DM to basically go to town on who and what they were before they lost their memory and tie it into the story so long as you're not boring/predictable.

That being said, it's certainly something that needs to be done in small doses or it loses any staying power and just kind of becomes annoying.

>Hey everyone, let's meet this Wednesday at 8. Does that work for everyone?
>Players affirm that it'll be fine
>Time comes, one player never is able to show up because he "forgot" he had something
>Continually happens and everybody else wastes their time showing up
>Player who never shows up lacks common decency to actually tell me beforehand so I can rebalance the encounter

The funny thing is I've never had to deal with players complaining about me banning things, it's always people who don't show up on time or who don't show up at all due to scheduling

The worst part is they're all my friends and it's hard to tell if they're just absent a lot or if they don't like the campaign

I don't understand. Why would that be a good combo ever? Even if disciple of life triggers on the berries(Which it wouldn't) you're still using an action to heal 4 damage which even at level one is still mostly useless.

>tropey

I hate railroading referee's.
What do you mean I can't kick people in the nuts.
Fact:
The only good sport is a sandbox sport

As far as I'm concerned, The player is giving the GM written permission to fuck with them at every opportunity.

If you come to me with a character who has amnesia, I'm going to make them into a bisexual ex-circus clown and serial arsonist, who is wanted by an organised crime syndicate for impregnating the boss' daughter. And you will have only yourself to blame.

>Not having him impregnate the boss's son.
You had ONE job.

That actually sounds like a lot of fun.

>impregnating the boss' daughter
>not having him be a eunuch

Pic related non-withstanding the idea of 'correct' language is a lie, all that matters is that you are able to understand the meaning of what is conveyed. Being smug or otherwise elitist about it is a waste of your time and mine friend.

...

>play with people who aren't autistic
>don't have to deal with powergaming bullshit

It's pretty refreshing to play with a party of people who just made characters they thought would be cool, instead of having munchkins using five different feats and racial boons from six different splatbooks

>never have npcs betray party
>players always think npcs will betray them
>can never use betrayal because the are paranoid as fuck

Additionally
>party memvers are assholes to all npcs
>cant understand when npcs do not want to work with them
>get pissed when any npc ever does not back down from intimidation

These fuckers threatened a arbites lord marshal three days into a investigation and got pissy he had them takeb to the hab outskirts for discrete execution.

But then he won't have heavily-armed men with no sense of humour confronting him over grievances he doesn't remember causing!

In my experience, one time out of ten, the player gives an amnesia backstory because they want the surprise of whatever the DM comes up with and the fun of figuring it out. The other nine times, it's because they're too fucking lazy to write something.

I have one munchkin but it's expected and all he can really do is fight. To his credit the player pulls it off well in RP, and dude has become so infamous for his lack of charisma and intelligence that he's regarded as an invalid or a savant in some of the regions they've visited. Plus he takes bait to fight big dudes one on one which allows me to balance encounters easier.

The one time I used amnesia, I think it was OK because I used it as a starting point. Essentially, he woke up in the focal city a while ago (I think somewhere from six months to a year), and since then had done some stuff, working for a crime boss and then leaving because he didn't kill a target, so at the start of the game he had a home and a father figure and some local investment, with the amnesia giving the DM some scope for shenanigans. Specifically, it was a Planescape game based in Sigil, and later on a succubus turned up who kinda implied there was a thing going on with them in the past and I might've been another PC's dad.

I allow amnesia backstories on the condition the player gives the character a couple faint memories and possibly a memento from their past I can work off of.

oh it's legal in the raw? that's nice. it's not legal in my game, fuckface. get out of my house and don't come back.

The player is always doing the wrong thing.

Don't be a faggot that brings weird shit to the table. Just play a normal race and class and choose normal abilities. You're not special and neither is your character.

>Party levels up at the end of the adventure
>"See you all next week"
>Player shows up next week, everyone's ready to go
>"Hold on, I just gotta level up real quick"
>He's so indecisive and unfamiliar with his own class he takes 30 minutes to level up, even with help.

>oh that's cool, hey have you heard of template stacking?
>uh, no?
>okay cool, the innkeeper wants you to clear his basement of were-zombie-vampire-construct-minor god-rats

So Paranoia?

>don't be a faggot
Should have taken your own advice mate.

what's wrong with that?

why are you do something you don't enjoy?

nah get fucked m8, banned shit is for me only, I'm DM and god :)

>The only reason a player wants in on the campaign is so they can shoehorn in a character they came up with in a vacuum up to several months beforehand
>The only reason a player wants in on the campaign is because they see potential to shoehorn in a character ripped off from the latest game/book/movie/anime/whatever that caught their interesting
>A player wants to kill off their current character because they want to play a character ripped off from the latest game/book/movie/anime/whatever that caught their interest instead

your word is shit and so are you :)

stay mad :)

>"Why does my character care about this?"
This infuriates me so god damned much. The only time a player dropped this line on me I lost it. Told him that the PCs are literally the only thing I don't control and that it's up to him to figure that out. If his character has no reason to travel with the party, then he should make one that does.

nah, you should make an adventure that revolves around me, bitch

>lay out some magical, gimmicky gear early on
>character takes it, never uses it
>ask why
>"because my character thinks its stupid, but its got mechanical benefits that might come up, so I'm keeping it on me"
>mfw

>players always want to loot the bodies of enemies, especially if they're using unique weaponry that they can't/won't use
>this goes on for months
>players complain of being overwhelmed with so many items
>mfw

>" Competing" against your DM instead of working together with him
I found your problem.

You should both do a proper session zero and compromise
>This is what I will be running
>This is what I want to play

this

nah compromises are for losers, i always get what i want