What kind of useless, infuriating or self-defeating stuff have you come across from players? Having DM:ed a few games, I feel like this kind of venting thread simply needs to exist.
This kind of roleplaying seems to happen nearly constantly: >dm: The door bursts open and three zombies enter the room >player: I panic and scream >dm: (rolls) Critical success, you piss yourself and faint.
This happened with a genuinely autistic player. He was playing as a philosophic eastern character, and spent pretty much every turn "philosophizing". >dm: One of the brigands charges you. >player: I philosophize about the meaning of life. >dm: (rolls) You ponder the meaning of life, but don't get anywhere and the brigand hits you for one damage. What now? >player: I philosophize the meaning of life more. >dm: (rolls) Okay, you attain perfect enlightement and understand the meaning of life perfectly. You never need to think about it again and you know your purpose with perfect clarity. The brigand hits you again, you are now down to 1hp. >player: I start making tea.
What kind of annoying experience do you have to share?
Robert Anderson
>Player only likes to play hulking hugefuck meat tanks with big weapons >Basically needs to be the most effective combat character in the party. >Any situation comes up EVER where the Bard or Warlock can use magic to turn a fight or do something cool. >"WOWWWWWWWWWWW, THIS GAME IS FUCKING BULLSHIT! MAGIC JUST DOES FUCKING EVERYTHING AND WHY EVEN PLAY ANYTHING ELSE?! FUCK, WHY DO YOU EVEN ALLOW CASTERS IN THE GAME?!" >Literally doesn't think the whole Male Fighter Only meme is a meme and buys into it as a legitimate reason to bitch about any tabletop game with magic, even when we move to non-DND systems. Literally complains about Jedi existing in star wars, and magic being a thing in Shadowrun. >Is still the strongest character in combat 9/10 times anyway because he's min-maxy as fuck.
Oliver Johnson
>Be brigand >charges some eastern idiot >he just stands there philosophizing about the meaning of life. >hit him again >he start making tea. That sounds fucking terrifying holy shit. Like, this guy lterally doesn't give a shit that I am stabbing him, what the fuck is going on
Zachary Bennett
>Complains about Jedi existing in Star Wars.
Why keep him around if he's pants on head retarded?
Jaxson Foster
>Be fighter in a party. >Love to deeply role play, stuff like buffing my strength to hit harder with a high dmg weapon and feats to increase potential dmg output. >EVERY FUCKING TIME >WIZZARDS N SHIT casting their spells. Making me NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER. even though I'm thinking e best Roll player in the group. >Shitty DM won't even remove casters from the game.
Man I hate this kinda shit. Jedi are no better, they shouldn't be in SW.
Liam Kelly
>they keep avoiding plot points like the plague >they keep getting in fights where they can't win >everyone looks bored at the end >people forget to use their XP even after months of playing >decide it's time to act
"So guys, I'm thinking of retooling this campaign since it's clear you're not having fun" >"No! No, we really are having fun, user!" "Really? I mean your characters are clearly clashing styles with everything from combat to locations and even people." >"No seriously! We want to play the game as it is!"
>next session >everything is still the same >game dies out quietly >mfw this has happened twice >mfw it's the same group
Jayden Jones
This is a sad thing that happens in alot of nerd groups across the board. Its the same as blacks not calling out other blacks on their behavior to their face, even if they go home and talk about how bad they make everyone else look. When you are part of an ingroup that feels persecuted nobody wants to be the one to call out another member on something even when its for the better.
No one wants to tell a another nerd "hey every idea you've pitched this campaign is gay like a faggot, there wont be a next session" even if they all think that and say it to one another later that week. Doing so would be putting someone down and nobody wants to feel like a chad putting down another nerd. This is the same reason you can have a group of ten people with a retarded dumbass no one likes. No one tells them to fuck off and leave even though 5/10 of the group hate them and the rest tolerate them at best. No one wants to be the one to exclude someone from their hobby because everyone who plays tabletop has, at some point, gotten shit on for being a nerd.
The best solution to this is threatening your group with physical violence if they do that stupid shit. Its not the "right" solution but it consistently gets the results. Just tell them you wanna know what they think and if everyone says its all good and then nobody shows up the next session you are going to slap someone around like a cunt. All of a sudden "yeah, that didn't go so hot" comes on the table instead of "yeah man, yeah that was cool. next week fosho" and you have a functional playgroup.
Asher Butler
Our group just talked to the offending player and then gave them the boot when they showed that they were unwilling to change.
Y'all niggas make it out to be like some kind of job interview or some shit but the reality is that you don't have to hang out with people you don't like and you don't even need a good reason not to hang out with them either.
Life's too short to worry about people you don't even like.
Zachary Nelson
>genuinely autistic player
I have a guy with Asperger in my group, and he's absolutely in love with the insult simulator games.
>DM: The only way through is blocked by a huge boulder. >Player: I tell the boulder "Your mother secretly admires pictures of your father and your hat smells like homeless man's socks!" >DM: The rock is insulted. No effect.
And he tends to do this on every turn, to every thing. I'll never use aspergers as a general insult because I have actually witnessed first hand what it really means.
Jason Stewart
>hit him again >he dies >nothing happens but still unsettling
Julian Brooks
>dm: The door bursts open and three zombies enter the room >player: I panic and scream This part I have no problem with if it's in character for that PC. It's a nice character moment.
>dm: (rolls) Critical success, you piss yourself and faint. This is the part where the dm escalates it from an in-character moment to a major disadvantage.
Dylan Peterson
>ponder why >become the philosopher >the cycle continues
Lucas Morris
For me it's a combination of my players both assuming everyone around them is retarded and constantly trying to boss other people around even when the players are clearly the inferior party
>Players defending farmstead from raiding bandits >Hole up in the barn and set up traps >Bandits come in waves, first two waves are heavily wounded by the traps and fall back >Players cheering themselves because of how successful their traps were >Subsequent waves avoid traps as they've figured out where they are and can see their comrades' corpses littering them >WOOOOOOOOOOOOW HOW COULD THEY KNOW THEY WERE THERE?!? THIS IS BULLSHIT WAAAAAAAAAAH
>Players hired to defend defenseless town from rampaging monsters >Decide this might be a little hard for them (which is fair enough) but then insist the local peasants join them instead of hiring actual capable people OOC: "Hang on guys, these people are defenseless peasants who hired you to take care of these monsters because you're more capable than them. Don't you think if they were any good in a fight they would have already done something about them?" >Players won't take no for an answer and quite literally press the peasants into service to act as meatshields for them >Monsters attack and players press peasants forward >Two peasants are immediately killed and the rest, being untrained peasants, break and run like untrained peasants >WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW WHAT THE FUCK WHY ARE THEY NOT STANDING AND FIGHTING WAAAAAAAAH
I don't know if they act this way because of the power trip of it all but it's so frustrating as I may as well just jack them off for a few hours and tell them how great they are if that's what they want from the game.
Nathan Turner
>Running one-shot involving a heist at a house-party >one player is rich guy who lost everything >character disdainfully refuses to participate in the planning stage because it's beneath him >arrives at party, goes upstairs and shits, showers, and shaves >leaves after that >"It's what my character would do! He's down on his luck so he'd rather take the opportunity to clean himself up than commit a petty crime, that's not him." A.) Why make a character for a one-shot heist that would never commit a heist? B.) How the fuck is playing this character fun or interesting in any way?
Eli Miller
>that player who throws a tantrum because he is speaking IRL and being ignored (two people are speaking, and that-player is trying to interrupt). That-player gets so mad that he is being ignored he starts throwing pencils at the person ignoring him. The above honestly had me thinking "Dude, you are 30 years old and you are acting like a literal child".
Jose Rogers
What's wrong with panicking and screaming? If the character has never seen zombies or is a coward wouldn't that make more sense than directly bashing the zombie's head?
Tyler Lee
>players kidnapping an NPC, needing to get them out of a building and onto the street where a getaway driver is waiting >one of the players decides that the scene is boring them >instead of just acting quickly and getting through it, one player begins screwing around >asking for all sorts of pointless exposition of the rooms around them so they can parkour off of stuff >between this and the various acrobatics checks, this takes forever >party reaches the car but can't leave because this guy has to do a million filps and jump from fire escape to fire escape instead of just running down the stairs If you don't like what's happening, why extend it for as long as humanly possible? Turns a brief, intense sequence into half the fucking session.
Grayson Allen
>dm: (rolls) Critical success, you piss yourself and faint. >somehow this is the player's fault.
Hudson Cooper
Interactivity. Players tend to get bored based on how much they can interact with their environment within a scenario.
Alexander Diaz
My main issue is that they should do something worthwhile too, like "I panic and scream, taking cover behind the fighter" or "I panic and scream, getting as much distance as possible between me and the zombies" rather than just giving them a free attack. I really appreciate acting in-character, but it's still a turn-based game and spending the turn just on reacting doesn't do any good whatsoever.
David White
It seems to me a better alternative would have been to have him roll a WIS save. >Fail >A wave of fear overcomes you. You knees quake and give way and you find yourself scared stiff >Success >A wave of fear threatens to overcome you but you steady yourself and stand ready to meet your foe It's important to allow player agency by letting your players act as they see fit, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't contextualize how and when they feel which might affect their actions.
