Shit your players do that pisses you off

>making "mathfinder" characters who clog up the combat with irrelevant bonuses
There's no excuse for this. You figure up your bonuses BEFORE the session starts.

>insisting on standing while playing so that they can see over your GM screen
I have a zero-tolerance policy for that. If you look at any of my stuff, even accidentally, your character is wiped from existence.

>people have off-topic conversations to the point where I can't even hear the quiet guy taking his turn in a combat
I tend to slap the table when this happens to get everyone to snap to attention.

>asking for political intrigue campaign, then leaving the table to play video games during the investigation and interaction parts
>playing video games AT the table during the session
I roll with this. If you're doing something that distracts yourself, I assume your character is doing it, distracting them from plot stuff. If you miss out, tough shit, that's your own fault.
Of course, I make exceptions for bathroom visits or if somebody is on their phone and they tell me it's somewhat important.

>Oh we don't listen to your descriptions they're meaningless after all
>Oh we had no choice but to attack in broad daylight he threatened us afterall
>I can't believe stealing would have consequences, you're just picking on me

Lets not forget

>Who needs speach checks when you can yell really loadly?

Oh yeah they complain about my edgyness when all the lynch mobs and vigilantes come from when they murder npcs for "knowing too much", eg they stole everything from them.

Never, ever, ever have an obstacle with only one solution. The way I run games is to present an obstacle, scatter some toys around, and see how the players work it out.
What you described as puzzle pieces, may have only registered as scenery. I've had DMs that go into "description porn" of rooms where I think all these details are important and I'm trying to connect the dots and figure out the solution when it turned out to be nothing more than scenery.

See, the way you describe it makes me think that the chairs and/or platform kill people. That immediately makes me not want to fuck with it.

>If you look at any of my stuff, even accidentally, your character is wiped from existence.
Ah, that's no fun. Insanity is a better option.

"You have seen behind the veil of reality and realize that your life, nay, your entire existence, is nothing more than a game being played by giants from a strange world. Some of the giants are assholes and that's why there's evil in the world. Your character goes insane; make a new one."

Fair enough.

Playing around on their phones during the game. I warned and then booted my 'friends' for doing that. Fuck 'em.

Personally, I'd rather become bros with the guy who can cast raise dead and turn my water into great fucking wine.

God, this.

I fully understand the feeling of having your eyes glaze over when presented with a wall of text containing the GM's masturbatory garbage. I get it! It's dumb and boring.

That's why when I write a campaign setting, I try to keep things short and to the point and divided up into clearly labeled sections and written with simple language in small, easily digestible chunks. What I like to do is keep things in perspective: What -would- the characters know about this place? What's common knowledge about the place's history and day-to-day shit? What's obscure? What's secret? Dividing it up like that means players can quickly and easily look up what they need, and it means they don't have to read a huge wall of text -- they can just look up what's relevant to their dude, which turns out to be a pretty small amount.

Of course, they still don't fucking read it.

MAKE

A FUCKING

CHOICE

You're playing a CHARACTER. Make a choice based on that CHARACTER and go with it. Every decisions should not take 10 minutes and a group vote. Yeah, it's a game, but act as your character would without being a gigantic tool and it'll probably be fine. If not you at least have died with conviction.

If you can go through character creation and a few sessions to get the "feel" for your character and still need to debate EVERY MAJOR DECISION then you suck as a roleplayer. Just make a fucking choice and go with it, we've got shit to do.

Why even pick a fight with Jebus? If he actually fights back you lose because Son of God that basically is God (Fuck off Trinity, you're dumb and no one cares about the Holy Ghost) but in character he wouldn't and you'd either get smote by Big G or kill some jewish carpenter and then be fucked literally FOREVER, even after death and beyond

>Oh we don't listen to your descriptions they're meaningless after all
I actually had a player say that to me, and then get pissy later 'cause it turned out that yes, those trees I mentioned that you disregarded, actually exist

Best case scenario in which he's not the son of god, you murder an innocent carpenter/holy man professing love and forgiveness, with no benefit because
1. He's poor
2. His followers now hate you
3. The Jews hate you for murdering a holy man, even though they plotted against him because they REALLY didn't like outsiders in this time period.
4. The Romans are pissed because you murdered a man with state consent and caused dissent among the Jews, risking rebellion.

So now you're a bunch of outlaws on the run from literally everyone. All because you wanted to kill a dude whose religion got started after he was killed anyway.

>Not wanting to become Jesus' disciples, following him on his journey, learning to perform miracles, becoming patron saint gladiators having your story and name immortalized in the religion that nearly conquered the world
I can't possibly think of a reason to not do this other than "lol we killed Jesus".

I did a game once where the players were captured to be sold as slaves in a country were slavery was legal. They broke out, killed their captors, and seized the ship. They are now wanted for theft, murder, and shipjacking, as was intended to be what kicks off the campaign as fugitives. As they were scouring their new ship for goodies, the Fighter comes across a book called "The Roles of Classes on Naval Vessels" or something. Right as I'm pulling out some papers I typed out outlining how PCs can use their Class Abilities to help out at sea, the Fighter gets angry, shouts "They don't tell us what to do any longer!" and throws the book overboard.

I pretty much do exactly that. Nothing in what I asked them to read is "secret" or "location specific" or whatever. Only one of them can name the capital city of the country they live in, and that's 'cause they physically live with me and are frequently subjected to my idle ramblings when an idea hits.

If we're following the story of Jesus you basically get off Scot-free after all the town officials who hated him pat you on the back and his follows are weird cultists that don't matter for another century or three.

When you die, though.....hooooo boy.

Shut up Genghis Muhammed,Weeaboo of El Dorado.

Medieval Europe will always be best setting.

You're the warrior caste of the local social hierarchy

Everyone had fucking knights, basically

Not just making them roll to see they can maintain there grasp on sanity. If they fail the roll they go mad and lash out violently at those around them. If the party can restrain and memory wipe they can keep the character. The party often kills the character tho.

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.

A complete inability to play the game without acting ironically. I'm not some downer stick in the mud and I'm fine with players making jokes from time to time or even acting a little silly in character but it's so frustrating to try and set a darker or more dramatic tone only to have someone interrupt me halfway through with some joke or meme. And the worst part is that calling them out on this only meets with the "b-b-but it's fun!" defense. There's a difference between having fun and being entertained.

>knows they aren't able to make it to next game
>says nothing about it all week
>just doesn't show up
>"I didn't know game was on"

>I start a FB event for game
>FB tells me they have seen the event
>they don't respond with Yes, No, or Maybe, they just don't respond at all
>for the whole week
>I message them and ask them if they're going to make it
>they refuse to reply

>post in group asking if people can make it to game
>zero replies
>the one guy in the group posts in the group asking if people will make it to game
>everyone replies

>says they can make it to next game
>tells me an hour before game that they can't make it

>45 minutes into game they say they're coming to game

>I have to cancel game for those who do show up because of these shenanigans

It's got to the point I've appointed one player the fucking Event Planner. DMing is enough of a job I don't have to be a goddamn socialite trying to babysit Millennials and their bullshit.

I dunno man, the only thing that bothers me is when they all flake out at once, or I get one guy that we then semi-awkwardly watch anime or play video games instead of a session.

I've become very distant from them and their shit. Their subpar RP, the shit jokes, extremely bad and loud accents, the ooc conversations, the indecisiveness... I just come up with the setting and the problems, and they're there to solve it; I sometimes hint at possible railroady solutions they can attempt. I don't care about having an amazing game that's screencap worthy, I just throw shit at them and they overcome it. I have extremely low standards and expectations and I'm usually right. I don't write big ass plot, I don't do much setting building outside of town-ruin-dungeon, and then the next town-ruin-dungeon with distant "you're a part of the empire, and the emprie is great". Little investment, little disappointment.

>that one motherfucker who won't roleplay to save his life and whenever he doesn't act like himself he cranks up the jokester knob

I have this one player and he's a great guy outside of the game but he has absolutely no imagination whatsoever. Trying to get him to roleplay, come up with a character and create a backstory is such a chore. It's gotten so bad that I just have him say what he intends to get across instead of actually talking to the NPCs. He's not autistic he's just not very smart.

>cunt pulls out phone the moment their turn ends
>everyone else takes their turn
>back to cunt
>"...Finally my turn? About fucking time. So what's going on...?"

This one guy in a game that I DM over Discord.

Every session he's got some new goof that he tries to make stick that can be directly attached to some kind of media he consumed that previous week. He has dramatic lines in his pocket that he drops in a deep voice every time an enemy dies? Check his Steam and he bought Darkest Dungeon. His character's suddenly got a wacky high-pitched voice? Yup, he's on episode 10 of The Adventure Zone.

I swear he hasn't had an original thought in his entire life. First campaign I played with him (I wasn't DMing then) he just made Oberyn Martell. Didn't even change the name. And in this campaign he's playing a Paladin that's obviously just Reinhardt.

Players who can't write a 1-page backstory to save their life.

Players who can't write. Like, I am worried the US education system has failed them, and they are part of the illiterate 14% or functionally illiterate 21% of the American population.

Players who refuse to read the 1-page setting description I wrote.

Refusing to follow DM rules or game rules or any kind of rules.

Players who get angry when I say bad things happen to their characters.

Players too stupid to make their characters.

Girlfriends of players and the stupid shit they do and make their boyfriends do.

Girlfriends of DMs and the stupid shit they do and make the DM do and how we're all just supposed to put up with it.

On their fucking phones during the game.

Don't know basic rules, like "oh I'm supposed to add stuff to my d20 roll?"

Can't handle it when rules are unclear and gets so angry another player has to mediate the argument.

When it's their turn they have no idea what is going on.

Takes 5 minutes for them to take their turn. For, like, any reason. But it's especially egregious when they're a nervous, uncertain fuck who has also decided they're in charge of the party.

>Girlfriends of players and the stupid shit they do and make their boyfriends do.

over the summer i had a couple at my table
don't be deceived, this wasn't two players
this was the boyfriend playing both characters (and half-assing both of them) while his girlfriend just whispered what she wanted her character to do to her boyfriend and didn't interact with the table

jesus christ, I'm sorry

>it's been 12 sessions and he still doesn't know his rolls
>every other player knows his sheet better than him despite never seeing it

>On their fucking phones during the game.
I have one player that takes this to another level. During combat he will ALWAYS be on his phone. He doesn't even slow the game down, he even actually has the fastest turns of the group.
His turn will begin and he won't even look up from his phone, just start listing what he does and start rolling. He even reminds me of attacks of opportunity I get against him. All while looking at his phone. He isn't looking up rules, too, just playing some shitty handy games or chatting.

>Players who can't write a 1-page backstory to save their life.
This. Players that write one paragraph, or a short book are common.
>Players who can't write. Like, I am worried the US education system has failed them, and they are part of the illiterate 14% or functionally illiterate 21% of the American population.
My god this. One paragraph. Half the page. Fragements are being. Everywere and verb aspect, had been an unown concept. And jesus fuck the types. It underlines them for you. I don't even care if your orc had tree brothers, but tere bothras, really?
>Players who refuse to read the 1-page setting description I wrote.
This one rustles me.
>So here's my Elf Cleric
>Elves can't be Clerics or Druids, man
>It doesn't say that in the handbook
>No, it said it in the page you were supposed to read.

>Refusing to follow DM rules or game rules or any kind of rules.
At least as annoying is the player who has his own rules.

>Players who get angry when I say bad things happen to their characters.
Cousin to "Players who change their minds after the consequence has happened"

>Players too stupid to make their characters.
I, thankfully, have only had to deal with this two or three times.

>Girlfriends of players
I have had one bf/gf combo work well, and that was because the gf was the one we had at our table before.
>Girlfriends of DMs
As forever DM, not my problem.

>On their fucking phones during the game.
REEEEEEE
>Don't know basic rules, like "oh I'm supposed to add stuff to my d20 roll?"
I just do this.
>Can't handle it when rules are unclear and gets so angry another player has to mediate the argument.
One of my players will waste hours looking up grey areas of the rules. And settle on fucking forum answers.
>When it's their turn they have no idea what is going on.
Grey area rulesfag is prone to this
>Takes 5 minutes for them to take their turn.
Even worse when a 5 minute beard tugger is punctuated with "I hit it with my greatsword"

Social Media was a mistake

Fine. I'm a samurai with a superior steel broadsword.

>Japanese
>steel
>superior
pick two at most

Do...do I put the corpses on the chairs? The corpses on the platform?

Put the chairs on the platform and sit on it, which causes the skeletons to come to life and carry the platform like a palanquin?

>They want to play a highly lethal game playing squishy humans
>They get angry when they die easily
>They get frustrated when can't find builds to become unkillable
>They get furious when their one ambush tactic doesn't work with the same group where every enemy survived twice
>"This system sucks it's so bad I can't kill anything and you are a killer GM"

>Running survival / horror themed game
>Provide areas rich with areas to explore and loot filled with custom items and gear
>Players all want to leave every area ASAP, never search / loot, complain that they still have their starting gear.

Sigh.

what's the solution, here? i can't think of any 'obvious' solution that'd have an actual result, so you're either omitting something big or are the moon logic point-and-click kind of DM
>put the bodies in the chairs
>put the chairs on the platform
>put the bodies on the platform
>put the bodies in the chairs, on the platform
>cast animate dead and do a synchronised dance
>play an exceptionally macabre game of musical chairs
>put the chairs in the bodies
>ignore the fucking thing
that's about all the solutions i can think of to this puzzle and only two of them make any sense to me

Not that guy but seems quite obvious to me. You simply place the bodies on the chairs. Whether they were killed by being placed on the chairs or by some other force is irrelevant.

The question is what indication there is that the chairs are actually connected to anything else. Like, if it's a solid platform surrounded by chairs and some dead guys, and that's all you can see, then maybe the dead guys were poisoned by watching some dancers on the raised platform or something.

Honestly, I wouldn't even be bothered by that depending on how they act outside of combat. Some people just really don't enjoy combat and want to get it over with ASAP.

>Players don't want to explore in a horror game
What else did you expect, user? Exploration in horror gets you killed and they know it.

Most of those sound autistic but what's so wrong with playing a dude who likes dick/a girl who likes pussy?

>gender identity
>straight
im not sure if i should feel relieved or worried that people who aren't pro-lgbt just aren't educated.

and my dude, it isn't that hard to use gender neutral pronouns. de-centrify masculinity in your life

although from the other points your group still sounds shit. especially the standing up, who the fuck does that lmfao

Are you the guy who tried to run the WH40K Dark Heresy game on YouTube?

Sounds about right. You need to print off a piece of paper and make it look old and interesting. When you sit down for Veeky Forums you don't involve Google Docs at all.

You have to give them something better than "knight" to be then

you're the first person on Veeky Forums who i actually believe has ran a game with other people, hahahaha

it annoys you when you realize you suck at being a DM?

>Are you the guy who tried to run the WH40K Dark Heresy game on YouTube?
You got a link there mein freund?

>playing 5e
>hey guys we could keep track of food and water for a few sessions, it would suit the next adventure, if it isn't fun, we can drop it
>all players agree, one doesn't seem to be too happy with it, but ok
>half an hour later they finish a combat near a town vs a few knights
>that one player slays the horses and wants to take as many meat with him as possible
>he does that after every combat looting human bodies for meat aswell
>"Well YOU wanted us to keep track of food. It's just in character. It's your fault that he acts this way."

What a shithead

/pol/ doesn't like the gays.

That's probably the long and short of it yeah

Damn user, ur group sounds like retards

Why people dont want to play????
Geez

>running 5e d&d for a new group ( and by new I mean they've never played anything before at all and this is their first experience ever) because they specifically requested it
>all of the group is fine, varying levels of roleplaying but as complete newbies they're doing good
>expect one
>in half a year never once learned how any rolls work
>played overwatch whenever it was someone else's turn or time for me to talk about anything
>the few times actual attention was bein paid, it was in order to try and be as edgy as possible

>'I don't sleep in the inn I sleep on the roof'
>'okay, you remember it's raining right?'
>'wow that's fucking bullshit fine I'll sleep in the inn'

>constantly trying to be mysterious, sitting in the corner with hood pulled up, never saying anything in character

>"...Finally my turn? About fucking time. So what's going on...?"
Nope. Just nope.

Please de-centrify breathing in your life, it's encouraging really problematic behaviour and I wow just wow I'm literally shaking at how much internalised misandry you have.
Lrn2 Trigger warning, FRICK.

I suppose the person you're talking to was more concerned about them more often than not being immensely annoying and fixated on the concept
Wouldn't mind gay characters

>When you sit down for Veeky Forums you don't involve Google Docs at all.
That assumes my game is in-person, which it ain't

In the last one-shot I ran, I had six players. Three (3!) of them are experienced DM's. Ironically, it was the three DM's who had a difficult time shutting up when I was explaining what they saw in front of them as they progressed. I was surprised, and it was annoying. Surely it's logical and polite to stfu when the DM is answering the question of, "What do I see?".

Also, not taking even a faint interest in the rules is annoying. I'm DM'ing for my friends these days, and they all expect me to be the all-knowing God of everything despite me telling them that we'd have to learn things together. They just sit down and expect me to entertain them for hours on end, and don't put in *any* effort. Yes, retard, even after your 25th time attacking with your sword you still have to roll a fucking d20 and add the SAME FUCKING MODIFIER! Why do they think it changes!? Why don't they remember?!

That's annoying yeah, but it's unrelated to being gay and more of the players being spergs

I can't stand it when they have fun.

>letting your players have fun in the first place

>Always makes an unspoken and unwritten alliance with another player, who has no idea this alliance is taking place
>Always plots against the rest of the party except the one that he has an alliance with
>Usually picks one other player as his arch nemesis, despite the story containing multiple characters he could select
>Launches his ambush against his nemesis when his nemesis is strong and when he himself is weakened
>example: attacking after or during a large battle where he, himself, is very injured and has cast half his spells, while his nemesis is full health and not used a single ability

It would be fun if it happened once, but it happens in every game. Regardless of his alignment, or the alignment of his nemesis. I am so glad he was removed from the party.

>Attempting to run wh40k over youtube
That's not me, but that sounds hilarious

...

What bothers me is that they know that with great risk comes reward, they just want things handed to them on a platter.

this is the bane of my existance:

>bad guy gets rekt by a particularly nasty volley during an ambush
>bad guy gets resistance to that particular tactic with new loot to protect him
>player REEs when the same thing doesnt work the second time, and they retreat
>players REE when they try an ambush the 3rd time, with the SAME set up as the last two, immediately get their teeth kicked in when the bad guy skips the obvious destraction and tosses a heightened maxed fireball into the alcove they were hiding in (the one vantage point in the area)
>why so mean GM??
>You said you wanted hard and meaningful bad guys. this one learned.

See I dont believe most players do that.

In Bethesda games it is entirely feasible to find high-end loot on the fucking ground, or save-scum/cheese your way through actual difficulty. Nothing ventured, but fortunes gained. At worst, the game makes you slog an hour or two or even three until it spits out the shiney. Mehrunes Razor is the best example of this- a 3 dungeon quest filled with bandits and vampires who ultimately crumble to a decently sturdy character, with no real consequence to coming back later or save-scumming. And in return, yott get a dagger that can instakill things.

And unfortunately, thats what I think people want in TTRPGs now.

*enlarged maxed fireball

>Takes HOURS - fucking HOURS - to make a decision
I mean, yes, whether or not you make a deal with the Devil is a pretty important choice, but fucking hell, you've spent literally - not figuratively - THREE HOURS on deciding whether or not to go through with it, wasting everybody's time.

your players are awesome, and you can be too

>Players come across refugees on the run
>Say they are running from the marauders who occupy their village
>Ask the players to rid the village of the marauders for a hefty reward, for their level, and addition to any loot the marauders have on them
>Players say yes and do the deed
>Loot the entire village, taking anything that isn't nailed down
>Villagers rejoice and return to the village, inviting the players to celebrate and get their reward
>Come to a village empty of anything valuable
>Villagers kindly ask that they give them back
>"You said we can take anything the marauders had and the marauders had the whole village and all in it"
>Villagers refuse to give them the reward now since they already effectively took it and much more
>Players threaten the villagers with violence and legal proceedings if they don't give them their "due diligence"
>Villagers scatter and run into the woods screaming in terror
>A month passes in game
>Players are now shunned in every settlement near the village they "saved", never allowed to sleep in an inn and everything costs way more than they should, assuming they are even let in
>Road patrols refuse to help them and even drive them off into the wilderness every so often
>Have to explain why they are pretty much labeled bandits and that an apology and a rather large fine (something they could easily afford at this point) must be paid for this to end, which is unbelievably minor considering what they did from the villagers' point of view
>They refuse to admit that they did nothing wrong

What drives men into this kind of madness?

....what
Just... What?

>giving me nothing to work with
No, you're not going to find the bandits by aimlessly walking around the countryside looking for "a building."

Not him, but I feel like the idea was to set them up like they were sitting around a table. Still a very dumb puzzle though, and unless I was told it was a puzzle I probably wouldn't have moved them around either

>whenever he doesn't act like himself he cranks up the jokester knob
REEEE gas these players now!

>Forgive everything I fluff.
>Never call me out for not knowing what I am doing, just make gentle corrections.
>Trust me not to kill them under totally unfair circumstances.

Tonight they fight either Emperors Children lead by a Demon Prince or Necrons.
No other ways out.

>>Players who can't write. Like, I am worried the US education system has failed them, and they are part of the illiterate 14% or functionally illiterate 21% of the American population.
>My god this. One paragraph. Half the page. Fragements are being. Everywere and verb aspect, had been an unown concept. And jesus fuck the types. It underlines them for you. I don't even care if your orc had tree brothers, but tere bothras, really?
At least you don't live in Australia.

What do you expect of a nation of inbred convicts?

not really a fair complaint, but my players got so smart about everything its almost impossible to trick them or ambush them, at all.
Also tends to them overthinking the most simple things, but its my own fault.

I want to pretend to be surprised by this, but I can't bring myself to lie in such a magnitude.

...

That's fucking hilarious user

>There's no excuse for this. You figure up your bonuses BEFORE the session starts.
Except, they are situational bonuses (aid another, team work feats, gay shit like that). So he can't. Every FUCKING turn it's "oh I forgot, you all have DR 2/- and +3 AC, so his AC is actually 30 so the attack misses." And it's all legit with the rules, it's just a fucking mess to keep track of. Fortunately that character/player left and was moved into another campaign on roll20 in the same setting. Which makes it even worse, actually, so I don't know why I said fortunately.

As for the standing, they claim it helps them think. Also the rest of the group yells at the player who peeks. It doesn't matter much because I write so tiny the best he can make out is a vague dungeon map with no details. Which I don't really care about. Sometimes I think he sees the monsters' hp totals but his character is weak af anyway so I don't really mind.

I don't mind the video games quite as much except for the fact that it makes it seem like my campaign is just boring. I mean, it is 6 players, because this is "include everyone in the playgroup" campaign.

You are correct, though. I am mostly being a tremendous pussy.

I am agreeing with your players. I would not fuck with that shit. The dead bodies are the issue here. I tend to think that corpses in a dungeon are close to where they died. So if I am finding them, that means something nearby can kill me and I shouldn't fuck with it.

That's my DM's problem. He's "solved" it by just fucking us in the ass. Just last session we failed to notice a "bright, swirling energy blast" the size of a building being charged up for a minute until it was already launched at us from people we were already aware of because we didn't make a high enough perception check. He has a way of describing scenes to us and having them effect us negatively before we're given time to react. I mean we nearly always all survive without losing anything but hitpoints, but it's still annoying. If you want my advice, you should look online for difficult tricks and traps, but still remember to reward your players if they manage to outsmart it.

I meant to type male/female, my bad.
No, I am not going to refer to a character as "they" especially when the muscular NPC guardsman is talking to them.
Everyone in my group, or has ever been in my group, are either gay, bisexual, trans (those two were the same person), which are fine, but then I start cringing when the rest are asexual and get indignant about how "ace" people are treated and getting triggered when someone says "you'll meet someone someday" or being pansexual (I don't even know what the fuck that means). I just kinda nod along with it, because I don't want to be rude, but holy fuck is the level of narcissism in talking about your sexual identity the cringeworthiest thing I've encountered in real life in the past year.

As long as they don't bring it into the game, I'm happy. If they do, then I'm bringing my sexual identity into the game, and they will NOT be happy about that.

I almost always reward them for it, and in many cases its the only way for them to win, by being smarter. Im running a game of VTM and they are fledglings in a big world, so they aren't comparativly that strong.

Do they? Has your game shown rewards given for risking things, or has every venture off the beaten path ended in violence so far?
I get it, it can be hard to balance an atmosphere of terror with a reward system for exploration, but maybe throw them a bone once in a while.