DM gripes thread

>Interrupts during other players' turns to ask about things he wants to do on his turn

Dear god...fuck this guy.

>interrupting during introductions and descriptions

My biggest pet peeve. Like, I'm trying to describe an area and set a mood and tone. And there's always one fucker who asks some dumbass question that will be answered IN MY FUCKING DESCRIPTION. It's not even that long. They can shut up and pay attention (get off your fucking phones you addicted twats) for one minute while I set the scene. I don't write this shit for me, you know, I write it so you can have some idea of where you are and what's going on.

When your players directly ask for meta knowledge OOC.

>Is this thing immune to fire damage?
>Is this wizard going to counterspell my fireball?
>Will the goblins run away if we kill their leader?
>How many hit points does this monster have left?

For the love of god, ask that shit IN CHARACTER.

>Does this creature look like it might be immune to fire damage?
>Does this wizard seem skilled enough to have mastered counterspell?
>Do the goblins seem to be fighting only because their leader is commanding them to?
>How damaged does this monster look?

>Forgetting that we're not playing DnD every 5 minutes
>Treating the NPCs like they're dirt.
>Wondering why the NPCs they consistently treat like dirt don't like them.
>Never thinking about the rather direct consequences of their actions, such as the guy they are trying to talk to might die if they try to get entry to a building by setting it on fucking fire.
>Whining like hell if you ever build a character who isn't made along the same lines as PCs are built.

Oh god this. Wasn't one of the games I ran, but in one I was playing, we had a guy pretty much out and out demand to the GM that he reveal something that was obviously a major plot point that we were supposed to investigate if we ever got a chance and weren't just running and hiding for our lives. When Dan refused to tell him, he threw this autistic shitfit and left the group.

I would call this one:

>Players don't like it when their (stupid) actions have consequences

>I want a pet dragon
>repeatedly explain why that wouldn't work
>Well I want a pet dragon

I've seen this birthed by
>well you didn't ask to roll perception ;)

This was probably just created as a survival instinct after dealing with GMs who spring a trap on you the moment you don't check.

Why not let them try and get a pet dragon?
NPCs could explain why it wouldn't work.
But they could still insist.
After a lot of research and rumor hunting, they could eventually get a dragon egg.
And experience why it wouldn't work on their own skin.
Bonus points if it's an inherently evil, but cunning dragon.

Are you my DM?

>MFW my party asks this shit in character and the DM explains in character without either side needing prompting
feels good, man

... Have you tried a pseudodragon?

Yeah it's pretty understandable since bad DMs love to throw traps and encounters out of absolutely nowhere.

Alright, you have arrived in a town and rested up. What would you like to do? You have several choices my son:

-Leave town and continue on the main quest to bring down the big bad
-Check the local fighter's guild for jobs
-Investigate the rumor you overhead about a strange dungeon a day or two into the wilderness
-Respond to the letter you got about helping to uproot a spy who has infiltrated the king's royal guard

>"I would like to rob and kill a random townsperson"

...O-okay...

I hate it when players never do any exploration, especially in urban environments.
The most interesting stories are ones that involve people, yet they would rather keep searching for more wolves to kill in the forest.

I mean, sure, I made do, but any sort of complex politicking, conspiracy or even warfare was impossible.
It's why I had to stop DMing for them, after 8 years, because despite talking about it, trying to teach them or letting them eyeball it, they never got beyond "get quest to kill guy/steal thing" and that's just boring.

wouldn't accept it I explained drakes and lame psuedo dragon familiars
we were moving dragon eggs in HoTDQ and kept being annoying about it and wanting to keep one

Yes, and you will all die next session.

Mwahahahahahahaha.

>80% of my players play rogues and other dex classes in anything i run

Well, DEX is the godstat in 5e again.

>players keeps provoking a villain organization
>one player keeps soliciting the front door of their hideout
>rebel leader responds by trapping that door and telling his men to use the other doors
>revealed like 4 hours later that they're the bad guys
>players argue over if sneaking in through the roof or walking through the front door is a better idea
>first trap of the game
>almost kills two of them
>the rest of the game broke down into "CAN I TAKE 20 I NEED TO KNOW IF THERE ARE TRAPS HERE"

they never fucking forget

Ugh, there's one guy who plays in my group who gets super upset if anyone else in the party has any overlap with his character's role.
>He makes a big jolly strongman prospector
>Fights with a pickaxe too heavy to be held by almost anyone
>Idea is to be a tall tale sort of character
>Has a touch of magical ability that gives him an affinity for sniffing out metals

>Other player makes a stoic druid
>Heavily focuses on earth magic
>Throws around boulders and raises walls from the ground
>consequently, can also detect ores

Player 1 actually bitched that player 2 made basically the same character, just because they both can detect metals.

Not really, it determines AC if you don't wear heavy or medium armor and can be used to attack and damage for finesse and ranged weapons.
The really good DEX skill is Stealth, which is a pretty powerful opener and largely a survival tactic once combat begins.

While it's true that strength is only used for Athletics, it does have the benefit of being applicable to the best damage weapons AND classes that use STR for damage tend to get multiple attacks.

i even ran paranoia and they all insisted on playing anime ninjas by taking only melee combat, stealth, and hand weapons

half of them got killed in gunfire because they never bothered to keep their blasters

How would one structure complex politicking or intrigue in games?

Are their certain building blocks that you stick to when planning something like that. Honestly, I would like to throw in different quest types other than "go in here and kill this thing," but I am afraid of making it shitty.

>Players that think just because they have a shared interest with you they can derail the fucking game every 5 minutes by bringing it up.
>Yes guy, we both like anime, no I do not need to hear about how this NPC is like weaboo-san from (Hot new anime of the summer)
>No, I don't want to hear about how your spell looks like that one move from Naruto, nor do I want you to stop to talk about how cool that fight in episode 295 was where they used that move.

Jesus I don't play with fuckheads like that anymore but the experience haunts me to this day.

>player spends all session either drawfagging, playing on tablet, or napping
>I know it's not my fault, cuz the other players are always engaged and having fun
>every time we ask him to do something or otherwise try to engage him
>"Huh? Sorry, what's going on?"
>give him a brief summary
>"Oh okay. I'll leave that to the other players."
>ask him why he keeps playing if he's clearly not interested
>"I just like hanging out with everyone, and I don't have anything better to do."
>mfw I live with this fuck so I can't exactly kick him from the group without making things hella awkward
>mfw I can't say no devices because that's how we all keep track of our character sheet pdfs

Making a character concept they aren't willing to play

> Lawful Good Wizard, wants to save the world

Okay, cool. I can get behind that idea. But once in session:

> Robbing people opportunistically
> Turning his back on the plight of people that he doesn't like
> Holding serious grudges over stupid shit (some from other games that aren't even related to this)
> Solving everything with violence
> Wanting to murder people

Just... why. Make a neutral evil character to begin with and be done with it if you can't step out your autism zone.

Honestly, I wouldn't say no, I'd just let them try to get a pet dragon. If it's nigh impossible for some reason (like these are LotR dragons or something) then either he'll give up at some point for something more manageable, or his character will die. or. against all odds, he'll come up with an insanely clever way to actually get what he wants

is he dragging the others down?
does he contribute at all if/when he actually participates?
does he buy snacks and does he share them?

Is this really a problem if he likes hanging out with you and the group of people? I get he isn't the most engaged player but unless nobody else likes him I don't really see this as an issue.

>The player who deliberately has their character do dumb shit or overcomplicated shit just so that it's funny or cool in the vein hope the GM will mention him in a Veeky Forums greentext story.

It's a blade you have to hone. Start small and put it onto what you're doing already.

> Go in here and kill evil monster for poor businessman
> Monster is actually resource for local town, businessman is now selling them that resource at a 400% mark-up. Thanks chumps

See how they feel about being used like that. Then move to 'who supplies him? Who gave him such orders?' How high does it go?

Intrigue can be as complex or simple as you want it, just like cooking you add it little by little until you know what's tasty.

Phew, well, that's basically worldbuilding.
And it essentially boils down to the scale you want to operate on.

I, being a consummate autist, plan out the power structures of the city/town and surrounding lands, along with factions that vie for power, foreign influences and religious feeling, and then I throw in some instigating event that would upset the balance of power.
Then, I work out what would likely happen if the PCs never got involved. I then make a few possible outcomes, where the story could branch out in several directions depending on uncertain variables.
The key to this is understanding the scope of the organizations, their leaders and the general principle of the Fog of War.
This method is very tedious, and should be done partially, as the story advances, or else you'll drive yourself crazy. Generally, know where things are going and what the relevant agents want to achieve (and how). In terms of minutia, you only need to write down 3 or 4 sessions in advance, and the players will be slower than you anticipate, most of the time.
You don't need to plan out absolutely *everything*, but you do need to be aware that systems exist to facilitate an action and those systems leave tracks. Similarly, you only need NPCs that are going to interact with the story or the PCs, so don't feel the need to figure out how many snitches work for the guard in the Thieves Guild, only that some must exist. Unless the plot is now concerned with finding them all.

There are other ways to do this.
A good one is to read a couple of really good books, universal literature. Something from Dostoyevsky can give you enough characters and plots to work with forever, if you mete them out correctly.
Read "The Devils" or "The Demons" if you haven't already.

The simpler a political system, the simpler the plot can be. Early Feudalism is pretty simple. Monarchy is incredibly complicated.
Merchant Republics are basically the worst.
City States are most balanced.

>that first character idea
Gonna steal that, might steal the druid too if I ever play one

My issue is that the druid character is straight up just a generic druid that can do what the prospector guy is able to do, except better because magic>martials always.

>>Wondering why the NPCs they consistently treat like dirt don't like them.
I have met people irl who function like that.

I had this problem.

I fixed it by making that person not a player. They'd just sit at the table and hang out with us.

>That one player that skype called me at 4am just to say that he knew what ability he wants now
>He couldn't tell me at the next session. Nope.
>He had to tell me there and then. At 4am in a skype call.

If he doesn't want to be that way, perhaps use him more as a utility as opposed to a character?

>MFW playing a lawful neutral wizard and I'm acting closer to Good than the supposedly good sorceror and paladin
I just want to be a fucking hero okay

Thanks. I will take this advice into account

>Players are so against the idea of 'railroading' that they ignore any dangling story hooks they're offered and try to come up with random bullshit
>whenever it feels like I'm finding a way to turn their dumbass decisions into a new plot thread, they detect 'railroading' and actively attempt to avoid any coherent story that isn't 100% of their making
Why do you fucks even need me around if you'd rather be in control of every single aspect

My last campaign we had one player have character deaths (Although I got lucky with things like wild magic letting me get reincarnated).
She lost I think 4 characters.

Just give them a Dragon and have the Dragon burn the guy to death.

>When players spend too much time trying to throw a wrench into things
For example I had a trap room set up where there were alternating runes on tiles on the floor. If they stepped on one rune type a fireball would shoot out. Basically a magical version of the trap from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course they sniffed it out right away and tested it and found out what to step on and what not to.
The rogue tried to explain to me how he could roll for his Disable Device check and disable the whole room. To which of course I asked him how and he replied "I don't know, I disable it, I rolled a 20 does that disable the traps?" Then got grumpy when I said no and gave him the reason.
Still gets me heated to this day just thinking about it.

Mage Hand would've been my go to

>is he dragging the others down?
Not really. It's mostly just irritating to everyone when we have to stop and explain stuff every hour or two. Not rage-inducing, but frustrating.

>does he contribute at all if/when he actually participates?
This is where our main gripes with him arise. Like I said, he usually needs a few minutes of exposition just to know what's been happening in the last hour or two that he wasn't paying attention to, and then his input is to either say he doesn't have an opinion on the matter, or just occasionally roll dice to attack the nearest target. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't even remember his own character's personality or backstory (which he came up with) any more, so if I try to draw on any of that, he just gives a blank stare.

Again, not game-breaking rage-worthy or anything, but annoying to the rest of us.

>does he buy snacks and does he share them?
No, he usually tries to bum food off of everyone else. On the rare occasions that he actually does contribute food, he does share, however.

>tfw the players will never experience the various fleshed out NPCs that you had, neither will their characters change and develop due to various actions within the story.
>tfw you were willing to let them influence the world politically with their actions, with massive changes coming to the world if thats the route the story took
>tfw they throw that away for generic dungeon run full of mobs and treasure #77

You made a bad call there.

Your player is not a fantasy rogue.
He doesn't know how the trap works.
You don't even know how the trap "works".
He can't be expected to tell you how to do it.
It would be nice if he did.
This is an act of imagination that requires some training, but it might never work out. Some people aren't technically minded at all.

You could:
1. Start with mechanical traps that have an obvious way to disable them, so that anyone could do it, thus giving you a RP solution, without any roll. This was a rule in PF, I don't know if it is in D&D.
2. If he beats the DC, which is the *only* mechanical way to do this, describes what he does, so he gets an idea of what's supposed to happen.
Eventually, that player will probably supply you with an answer.
But you can't just blankly ask him "Well, how do you repair the space station?/Remove the magic tumor from the aboleth?"

>When your players roll play instead of roleplay.

That's like finding a dead body and saying, "I rolled a 20 on Investigation. Do I know who the murderer is now?"

When the one solo rogue edge lord always sneaks off a lone and it bogs down the time in the city because Batman is chasing a fucking pickpocket who stole money or bread for his family.

He straight up took this guy to frown town and had to abandon him at a hospice because he nearly killed him. He was in disbelief that there wasn't some sprawling criminal underground that stole bread from people.

Okay, so I, who am a florist IRL am playing a character with high Survival and Investigation.
Assume I don't read much and I watch mostly wrestling and sports on TV, with some soap operas thrown in.
How am I supposed to know how to investigate a dead body?
What should I be looking for?
Wouldn't this be something my character, the detective, would know?
People don't just start off knowing shit. You gotta slowly expose them to knowledge, or else they feel frustrated because you're punishing them for not liking what you like. And breaking the rules as you do it.

Well, you can either let the rogue do something actually cool that is his fucking job, or you can let the wizard trivialize it with a single spell.

Also
>Always insist on playing evil dicks or murderhobos
>Always insist on minmaxing the shit out of everything. So much so that I had to ban everything except the PH and Complete series
Playing 3.5 of course so shame on me for complaining about players minmaxing but still I just want some normalish D&D not every character be a crazy psychotic killing machine able to make anyone do what they want because they found an exploit that let them have 40+ CHA at level 4.
>Always play characters that are complete and utter douchebags to each other, so much so if there wasn't a universe ending horror they'd murder the shit out of each other.
>Never play a character other than "I hit enemy with hitty stick. My goal in life is to become the best at hitting people to death with sticks" for a personality.

Oh, I don't make dungeons. I haven't in years.
They still got to experience the world, even all the backroom politics, or at least, the result of it.
They just never realized their agency in the world and remained forever the pawns and tools of others, almost always to their detriment.
Eventually they were exposed to the truth, but they never learned.

>When the player takes forever to say what they do next because they spend minutes dicking around trying to get a laugh with constant 'fake moves' such as "I go up to the guy and slap him in the face! Hahaha. Just kidding, man. I go up to the guy and drop my pants and tell him to suck my dick! Hahaha, nah, I dont really do that."

>Player at table is massive chili-head.
>Brings her own snacks that have god knows what in them.
>Half the people at the table get their sinuses clogged up and eyes watering just from whatever it is they're giving off.
>Ask her to stop.
>Oh, but it's not bothering anyone, is it?
>Stupid thirsty dumbasses at the table trip over themselves trying to exclaim how tough they are and how it doesn't' bother them at all.

Well we didn't have any magic users in the party. My real gripe was that he just couldn't even explain how he'd do it. Just that he rolls a die and the action is completed or failed.
It's a thing they all do all the time. Like it took forever to break them of the habit of "I rolled a 19 for Diplomacy to get this NPC to be my friend, is he my friend now?" Type of thing. Like said.

It's actually surprisingly easy. All you need is 2-4 factions who all have competing methodology and interests, and then just roleplay them accordingly in reaction to what the PCs do. As long as you keep track of everyone's goals and motivations, the story more or less writes itself.

An example from my campaign:
>The PCs are gangers in a hive city district.
>The district is dominated by three main gangs.
>The Sabre Tribe are Mongol/Mad Max-style honor-bound warriors who make most of their money from the slave-trade.
>The Red Dragons are aggressive Soviet Russian gangsters who rely on brute force and intimidation to get what they want, but also employ guerilla tactics when necessary. They primarily deal with stolen vehicles and smuggling.
>The Fang are a gang that specializes in subterfuge. No one knows much about them but they're very good at presenting an intimidating appearance, so most people don't mess with them. Secretly, they plan on toppling the other two from within, and are slowly infiltrating their competitors. Their primary income is from the drug trade.

So, based on this, we know a few things:
>Sabres and Dragons aren't going to get along because the Dragons fight without honor.
>Each gang has a trade they specialize in. If the PCs attempt to get involved with these trades, they could make enemies with the gang in question.
>However, making enemies with one gang could make them allies with another.
>The PCs could also decide to go into a completely different business, giving them more freedom with which to negotiate with the other gangs.
>The Fang are infiltrating their competition, which could include the PCs if they get too powerful

And so on. Once you have the groundwork laid, the rest of the game will almost write itself based on what the PCs do. For more complexity, you can add stuff like having some of the gangs be part of a different religion or things like that.

fucking annoying. I just tell the dude that he's taking the dodge action and blathering like an idiot whenever they pull shit like that

Yes, but if he has no idea how to start to disarm the trap, and you as the DM aren't giving him any sort of leads/hooks/notes on how the trap might work, he can't really do much besides say "I try to disarm the trap" and then roll.

You reply, "No, but you know how they were murdered... and your discovery doesn't fir with the obvious knife left at the scene."

In regard to that earlier roll about the trap room I would have played a similar way: "No, you don't disarm it. However, your investigations allow you to understand specifically HOW the trap works. The fireball runes are fed from a reservoir buried beneath the tiles. It'd be tricky, but you could dig up one or two key tiles in the middle and try to sabotage their connection to the reservoir."

That way, while there is a way to disarm the trap and bypass it, it too has a process.

The one player whose character is always some weird ass special snowflake race that nobody has ever heard of. I hate how some people make sure they always have to be as unique as possible. They'll drag out some bumfuck book you've never heard of or some rotting away magazine issue and point to this wacky ass race they wanna be. Then if you restrict the races you can play to a handful of your choice because those are the races in the lore of that world then they call your campaign "boring" and the races "boring" because they can't be some weird ass race with flaming wings or made out of crystals or have eyes made out of water or whatever.

Then there's always the furry one who tries to get their character to be as furry as possible. If they can't be a furry race, they're ALWAYS a lycanthrope or druid instead.

Then there's the player whose character is just an obvious copy of an anime character and tries to be as anime as fuck with their class.

Then there's also the player who is pretty set on what kind of specialisation he has later down the line and what kind of traits his class will have, but then gets pissy that he doesn't get to 'become' that role by session 2 as if I'm gonna instantly give him a crazy class like that.

Yes, your character would know how to investigate a dead body. You can even say, "I would like to investigate the body."

However, rolling high doesn't automatically solve the murder completely. Your character would find a clue or have some sort of minor insight into the murder.

>You can tell based on the stiffness of the body, that the murder happened 24 hours ago.
>You notice that the victim fought back during the murder and seems to have clawed or scratched at whoever killed him.
>You remember hearing that this person had many gambling debts, perhaps that has something to do with why they were killed.

Then from that information, you can attempt to find more clues or solve the murder. Rolling dice isn't an instant win button that replaces roleplaying and genuine thought.

Not your target, but well worded response with examples there. Just saying.

Have you considered they're using humor as a coping mechanism for being under pressure to make a decision?

>Rogue
>being able to dispel magical runes with a long stick and a lockpick...

Why not:

>Rogue detects subtly inscribed enchanting runes before the party stumbles into them
>Being guided by the rogue, the Wizard is able to dispel certain enchantments without triggering them.

>MFW one of my party wanted to duel a guard but didn't say at any point that e had asked for a duel, so he literally just attacks a guard
>The GM rolls with it
>MFW I have to bail his ass out of jail

I find that special snowflake races actually make their character concept less creative. Its always "I'm an elf who lived in the forest." Anything else about your character? "You know, he's really haunty and standoffish and wields a bow." Its like they get boxed into a role and cant escape. I usually tell them to play a human. Then suddenly the player has all these ideas about why his character lives in the forrest and his childhood friends and his favorite type of game to hunt and all this stuff. Really weird.

If they really want some race bonus, I'll let them refluff that race as human and keep racial traits.

I am the target. And I am taking notes.

>structure complex politicking or intrigue
>throw in different quest types

Kek.

You need to build a web of characters with their own motivations, likes, and dislikes, and ways of satisfying those outside of the players. An interesting politick campaign happens with a crowd of NPCs that would be interesting to watch without the players being there.

So you need to put a bit of effort into them, but not so much that they become the focus of the story at the expense of the party. You want to create situations where violence isn't a good answer (and talking is), without making your players feel like they're caught in a JRPG cutscene where none of their attacks or phoenix downs work.

There are ways around this - they might not be able to stab a plotting vizier in the middle of the court without having to fight every guard in the kingdom, but they can sure stab the hell out of any assassins that happen to be doing things in line with the vizier's interests after dark.

You've got to be able to refocus the whole web on whatever the players find interesting, rather than force them into the stuff you've got planned. Party wastes a bunch of time talking to a flower girl after getting into town? Fuck it, she's the long-lost daughter of some character involved in the intrigue. The players haven't read your notes, so they don't know you didn't plan it all along.

The trick is keeping consistency with what you've told (or implied) to your players, so they can puzzle things out, while keeping everything else fluid. Give plenty of red herrings, and if the players think one of them is important, then make that the important one.

It's a lot more difficult to manage than a string of combat encounters.

They figured out how to get around it almost immediately and all discussed it. Step on the white tiles not on the black ones. I made it that easy. It would have been fine and more could have gotten done if he just stepped on the white tiles to get to the door and continue on. But he had to argue for ten minutes about how he's a rogue and can disable all traps just because he rolled for it.

Congratulations, the random person just happened to be the spy, you have saved the day.

>Rolling dice isn't an instant win button that replaces roleplaying and genuine thought

If you're rolling Charisma and Intelligence checks, it kinda does.

D&D-style systems are bad at this side of things.

Overlap these answers like a Venn diagram.

Your failure state is if you ever feel like you have to haul out your Tome of Backstory and lecture your players about why what they did was based on a truly awful reading of the situation, and they didn't pick up on any of your hints about what was going on.

If a player interrupts me during description, I go back to the start of the last sentence. Every time until they shut up and let me finish.

If you're being interrupted while you're speaking, it's because you're too polite. People learn in primary school that interrupting is rude. If they haven't learned it, treat them like they're in primarily school.

>If you're being interrupted while you're speaking, it's because you're too polite

Might be because you're too long-winded. (There's a spectrum between the player with a gnat's attention span and a GM who's trying to schlepp out a page and a half of Tolkein to describe a room, and both can yield the same result.)

My usual strategy if I start getting that sort of interruption is giving a short, broad-brush description, and then asking if there's any particular piece of it that the players are particularly interested in (possibly modifying answers based on various perception checks, depending on the environment and situation).

Gives info about something they're interested in, lets them roll dice, keeps them engaged.

I once had a player search for traps in a random church in the middle of a city. I have no idea where that impulse even came from.

>Players whine whenever they take damage
It adds up.

You're within your rights as DM to change their alignments. I love doing it to murderhobo """Lawful Good""" paladins. You ignored the beggars and were dishonorable in combat? Get fucked, your god sees your lack of faith and your smites now do half damage until you reconcile your crisis of faith.

I have a guy at my LGS who will randomly guess what the DM's going to say next. I'm pretty sure it's just whatever's on the top of his head. It's awful.

>Your party turns the corner, and out of the shadows you see
>AN OWLBEAR
>...no, it's a bunch of skeletons. Roll for initiative.

He's very clearly autistic too, and it's a public weekly d&d event so the DM can't tell him to fuck off

Dude, I was in that game!

Why did I save that tard from crit?
whywhywhywhy

This is why you have no more than 3 traps the entire campaign. And they all should be at the mid-end.

This gets me too. I understand that some games are more complex than others but if we're several months into a campaign you should be able to sail through a standard combat. At one point a guy in my group had actually stopped updating his character sheet and instead relied on the GM (who kept a copy himself for this) to tell him his attack bonuses or AC or whatever. He pretty much just updated his Hit Points and that was it.

And to top it off, he'd re-ask *every round*. Like, if he tells you you have +8 attack last round, and nothing changed, you have +8 attack this round. I don't even play your character and I can keep track of that.

He's a little better now. Still by no means "good" at the game we're playing, and when it's time to level up he generally stares dumbly at the two or three people with legitimate system mastery to have them do it for him, then immediately forgets all the new abilities he got until he's reminded about them a few times--but he's at least functional now.

His saving grace is that he really does enjoy roleplaying and gets super, entertainingly invested in the events of the game world. Frustrating guy to GM for but at least he has the decency to care about it and encourages the other players to do so as well.

we tried that but our DM chickened out.

Is it just me or are the majority of players frustratingly stupid?

Uninvested might be a better word. People who are smart outside of game but don't realize that tabletop games require investment to get returns on. Maybe they treat it like an excuse to hang out with friends and eat snacks more than a hobby in its own right. So they don't bother to learn (or often even read) the rules, show up, have some fun, go home, and don't think about it again until the next session.

I mean, it's clearly doing it "wrong" but I can understand it I guess. There are dabblers in every hobby.

I think they are deliberately sabotaging the game. Like they get off on it.

that or somebody is dumping them on us. It feels very much like a session of congress or a senate committee hearing.

you wouldn't believe how fucking half assed some of them are. they show up, wait for the clock to to run out, pack up and go home.