What are some bad experiences you've had while playing, Veeky Forums...

What are some bad experiences you've had while playing, Veeky Forums? Not necesarilly because of one person or someone else, just shitty situations you've been in regardless of who did what.

I'll start:
>playing pathfinder for the first time, with a group I don't really know besides the GM
>some very minor experience playing RPGs
>struggling to understand how some basic stuff about the combat works
>I play a magus
>learn the basics of action economy
>I know I can imbue my weapon with magic (standard action), move towards an enemy (move action) and then attack them (free action thanks to the magus spellstrike)
>instead of saying "i cast, i move and i attempt to hit" I decide to make it more interesting and describe a bit how my character runs towards the enemy while enchanting his weapon and swinging it towards the enemy before i make my roll
>gm looks me silently
>another player is raising an eyebrow at me
>>You can't do that.
>what? why?
>>Running and attacking is a charge and thus is a full round action, plus you can't cast spells during movement.
>GM gives him an approving nod
>>>GM: You have to cast on your square, move, and then attack. If you want to run at him and attack it's a charge and...
>they spend a minute or two explaining the rules using a lot of technical terms I don't fully understand
>give in and just say "I cast, move here and attack him"
>from that point onwards every single combat encounter is just Chess

I got punched in the eye because I killed one of my players once.

>killing players

>players

Please note he said player, and not character of a player.

Someone call the FBI

>snitching

bump

I rolled a 3 once when I needed a 4+. Bad times.

Built a character for fun using the actual game rules when the DM let everyone else use SUPER broken homebrewed stuff. It resulted in me basically sitting there doing nothing for hours while everyone else just abused their stats/abilities.

>Not just letting the player fluff his characters turn as running and casting while running

Mark of a really shitty DM right here.

>Go to Pathfinder Society because I've got nothing better to do and it's the only organized RPG thing around
>Roll a fighter because I figure spellcasters don't get out of control until at least midlevels
>We're clearing out a fort or something, druid is level 3 and his animal companion solos it
>All right whatever I'll try again
>It's an investigation this time, looking around a church for Bad Guys or whatever
>Every question we ask gets shut down with a terse "nope," GM folding his hands and smirking like we're all retarded
>Fight some goblins in a library (at least I get to hit something) and end the session without actually resolving anything

I don't know what I was expecting, honestly.

I ran PF for six years.

Never again.

Any big box game for under five dollars found at a Five and Below or overstocked warehouse.
Heavy alcohol makes these games ironically fun.
Kind of.

>Be resident Tolkien nut of group.
>Some of the other guys want to play that old CODA LoTR system.
>Want me to run it.
>They also want me to make it "like the books".
>I think this is a bad idea.
>Warn them that this is a bad idea.
>Say that it will take a few weeks to edit the system if they really want it to be along the same thematic lines the books are written in.
>Do that
>They don't like the changes
>Game breaks down in session zero.

Honestly that's what you get for playing 3.PF

Were you aware of the party situation beforehand? If yes, your fault, if no, GM's fault. Arguably the GM should still have devised situations that played to your niche, but if another character shared your skillset there was nothing that could be done.

>playing pathfinder for the first time
>I play a magus
Um....

I was wary of it solely because of pathfinder memes, but now that I've played it I can 100% say that the memes are right, the game is shit

what is it user

You shouldn't play a complex class like magus your first time playing Pathfinder. That's all.

The last session, my paladin started slaughtering people who'd surrendered at the behest of my warlock, who had been a decent guy up until that point. Then they cheesed the fuck out of my final boss and I just sorta let it happen.

I was paranoid for weeks that I'd fuck up the final session and I did it. Completely. Now, to be fair to me, this all came out of a horrifically improvised one-shot I ran because the other GM was gone on the first day of club. I didn't actually want to run the game full-time, but they were all really into it. So, eh, fuck it. Whatever. Could have been worse.

But how would I have known it's a complex class if it was my first time playing pathfinder

>A bunch of coworkers have a D&D game going
>They've invited me to take part but I've never been into RPing
>One day the DM came to me and said he had an idea
>Wanted me to come and join them on the PC's quest but secretly be working for the bad guy
>Had a fake sheet that the players would see and a real sheet that the DM would see
>I was never supposed to actively try to kill them but simply hinder them by feeding false info and alerting guards discretely.
>Sounded fun so I went along
>One of the people at my office heard us and told everyone right when we sat down to start
>mfw

So, how's prison?

Exactly.

>Friend wants to take a shot at running a game
>It's his first time doing it but I'm the resident foreverGM so fuck it
>He picks Deathwatch
>Mission is on a planet "overrun by Dark Eldar"
>Game starts with our team getting drop podded onto the planet
>Based on GM's description, the entire planet consists of a hill, some jungles, and a single building that we've landed directly in front of
>We approach the building
>It blows up, we get ambushed by Dark Eldar
>Kind of a rough start but it's his first time, whatever
>Second encounter goes the exact same way
>So does the third
>He basically throws his hands up and says he ran out of ideas an hour ago
>We only played for an hour and a half

The main problem is that because of that session it's turned my group off of Deathwatch entirely. It's been like four years and I still can't convince them to give the game another shot because of how that one went.

I have a few...

>GM friends sets up Dark Heresy campaign and asks me to join, say sure because haven't played the game before and like the setting
>sends me the essential rules and character sheets I need, roll a typical cleric
>get to session being the only one with a finished sheet, early warning sign but whatever
>chat with GM while other players roll characters
>nobody has read anything about the basic rules, feats, checks so its a question every three seconds
>finally ready to play after an hour of explaining things to other players
>two new people show up because another player texted them or some shit, okay fine not my game so we'll see how this dynamic plays out
>another hour passes
>total of seven players in the game
>this_is_fine.jpeg
>GM sets scene -played some ambient music, some good industrial concept art and gives a great description of the characters
>the second he stops talking the other players just start describing what their characters are doing, all at the same time, nothing relevant to moving the game forward
>worried_laughter.png
>eventually things settle and the adventure finally starts
>hear rumors of a 'ghost' haunting a hotel and another about a small time cult
>i suggest the cult because I know the GM is trying to see who is paying attention to the setting
>"lol I ain't afraid of no ghosts"
>guy playing the arbitrator class just flat out rushes to the hotel and to the room where the haunting is happening
>fucking killed by warp ghost in no time flat
>rest of party goes to cult location, mostly scum and low level enemies so things go by somewhat smoothly
>adept class just keeps ignoring combat and looting, picks up a ton of corrupted books or some shit and gets a bunch of malignancies
>scum player keeps rolling out of turn and getting constant crits
>assassin keeps yelling over people and staring at his phone when he feels the attention strays from him
>guardsmen players keep talking about MTG or something

to be continued...

>psyker player seems only other person focused on getting the session done so we get the others on track and eventually the session ends four hours in

A few sessions pass with more of the same stuff happening. Arbitrator guy rerolls the same class and has seemed to calm down a bit. Rest of the party slowly learns the rules but can tell that the GM wants to end the campaign because the players aren't paying much attention.

>ask GM if I can leave the campaign
>he understands why so we come up with a plan
>buy all the grenades I can, selling a few things and working out the weight so I can carry them all
>session starts
>party is going through a tournament death match coliseum thing
>the room gradually gets smaller with more intense enemies and the party having to place its shots better
>everyone is full aspie because they don't care about anything but fighting
>waiting for my moment
>get knocked down dangerously low on wounds
>players all locked in close combat or rushing to help me out
>nows the time
>detonate grenades and wipe the party

It sounds like a dick move but everyone was getting tired, the GM and myself especially. In retrospect had we less (and better) people and walked through the game it would have been a better time. Its hard to tell where it all went wrong.

Another one...

>go to another friend's house for a game of Pathfinder
>show up and the guy is high as a kite
>"you alright dude?"
>"yeah we're just getting for a session"
>okay, go inside and set up the table while the rest of the party smokes outside, don't really mind it
>GM somehow manages to fall asleep on the couch before the session starts
>one guy just sits on his laptop
>leave the house

I eventually found a good group of random people to play with at my FLGS but for fucks sake it was like pulling teeth.

STOP HAVING FUN WRONG REEE
Every fucking time 3.PF gets mentioned you autists come out of the woodwork screeching about it. There's nothing wrong with 3.PF as long as you're not playing with assholes.

Yep, that sounds like Pathfinder.

Anyway,

>start a modified game of Inferno with some peeps
>we're all playing a bunch of tweens with double-edged demon powers
>game is about investigating supernatural goings-on in a small town, which seem to be centered around the mansion one PC lives in, and the council estate another lives in
>one seems to be directly to do with our powers and stuff whereas the other is more separate
>everything's going well, but when we hit the fourth session the game seems to stall
>I suddenly realize that the mansion stuff is probably a long running mystery that will stay mysterious for most of the game, while the estate stuff is clearly tangentially related but more like a sideplot that is our first mystery
>the other players will not fucking budge on investigating the mansion stuff
>don't realize that they're not directly related despite my suggesting it IC
>refuse to stop fixating on something that clearly won't change unless we follow up other leads
>I try to hint that maybe we need to look elsewhere
>I have my character lowkey suggest that maybe the two things are different, even if maybe one is causing or allowing the other
>try to bring up anything else I can think of a plot thread
>fucking nope, other players are adamant that they need to know everything about this current mystery right now, despite the GM starting to really push the impression that they've explored all there is to explore at the moment
>fuck it
>after another session mostly goes nowhere, though to the GM's credit he manages to make things interesting through learning about some NPCs, decide to go check out the estates at night while everyone else is sleeping

cont

>obviously, I run smack into the supernatural threat we SHOULD have been focusing on, and my character is severely injured to the point of running on fumes for the rest of the chapter, but I experience something that gives me one of the two types of XP available, letting me up muh devil powers
>clearly this was something we all should have run into together if we wanted to remain on the same footing
>other players are like "why'd you do that on your own, we missed out on sweet buffs"
>i'm like "nobody else wanted to, I was constantly trying to convince you guys and you wouldn't do it"
>all but one of them either choose to engage selective memory about this and think I'm trying to be the main character, or seem to acknowledge this but still remain bitter as fuck
>for a long while everyone is salty as fuck that they missed out on something important due to their own inability to think critically

Luckily the GM managed to hook everyone again and it turned into a great campaign, but I'll forever remember how bored and then annoyed everyone made me by being so fucking dense and then so fucking bitter about it after.

Here’s where 4th Edition ended for me. This is an account of an actual 4th Edition Encounters I participated in:

It’s Dark Sun, so we’re a group of adventurers running through the desert to escape an intelligent obsidian storm. We take a breather at an oasis where we discover an old dwarf who invites us to sit with him. Our Sorceror identifies him as a evil undead wizard and blows him up. All of a sudden, combat!

>GM: Move your guys to the starting area.

>Rogue: Can I stay hidden in the oasis? I was swimming when this went down.

>GM:Sorry, says to start on this pregen map here. Tell me your passive perceptions everybody.

We’re all using pregen characters and none of the characters we’re using (or ones brought in the box) have close to the passive to act in the surprise round.

>GM: Roll initiative.

Turns out while all the pregens have the usual +1-+4 range, these sand elemental things had something like a +11 or +14 to initiative. The sand elementals sprout in perfect box formation and all of them have AOE damage attacks with multi d6’s+ability. Surprise round happens and 3/4 of the party are down from their attack, only the barb and the fighter standing.

>GM: Okay, that was the surprise round. Did anyone beat their initiative? No? They attack again.

Everyone dies in the next attack. We sat there scratching our heads wondering why it was built that way, the GM even let us look at the encounter sheet to confirm the monster stats. Felt like no one had play tested or checked whether this was a good idea or not. They were challenge rating 3 monster and we were level 1.

That seems like less of a mechanical issue and more a problem with the DM being shit at designing encounters.

Those 50/50s will getcha every time. Love d6 systems though

Apart from the shitty balance, goofy magic system, mind-numbingly dull settings and generally uninteresting mechanics that fail to be either credibly simulationist or entertaining abstractions.

Assholes make it worse, obviously, but it's shit to begin with.

Come on mate, the class balance is completely fucked and the devs refuse to acknowledge it. Furthermore, the system itself is padded with so much useless fat it'd a wonder it works at all.

There are pros to the 3.5 model, mostly that the way it describes abilities and actions weaves a more effective illusion of reality as opposed to game mechanic (something many players fail to capitalizing by being like those described in the OP), but it has major flaws too.