DM Gripes Thread

Being totally unable to roleplay. I don't expect Shakespearean monologues from them but it's so maddening to have them try to make a persuasion check and being completely unable to make any valid point or argument that makes sense or try to communicate something to an NPC in character and take 10 minutes to explain.

Being on their phones in between their turns and then taking ages to decide what they want to do.

Idk it its from video games or what but the slighted challange are bad thing that happens and you get some players that have a fit. My group isn't even teenagers the yongest guy is 28.

Being the cheapest, greediest fucks in the entire universe
>Offered perfectly reasonable sum for bounty
>haha better double it and we might help you
>Demand discounts on every item they purchase
>Try to sell items for exorbitant prices and get mad when merchants tell them to get fucked
STOP BEING SO GODDAMNED STINGY JUST PAY THE PRICE

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.

>That second one
Sounds like they were going for a different style of story to you. More of a magnificent seven thing, where the wiley outsiders train the villagers to defend themselves.

I hope you let them succeed in haggling at least once in a while.

>where the wiley outsiders train the villagers to defend themselves.
Except they didn't even try to do that they just demanded the peasants go first and fight with them

Of course I do but it's incredibly frustrating seeing them try to nickel and dime every single person around them.

Not that guy and I haven't seen Magnificent Seven, but even if that is true, it seems really hard to train normal people to deal with rampaging monsters as opposed to what I assume were bandits in the movie.

Meant for

>T. Right-handed untermensch

>people start hearing about a greedy bunch of roving psychopaths
>priced are suddenly 3x the norm, no one is willing to haggle
Problem solved

One player decided to host an in-game drinking contest, whilst the party was off doing the adventure.

I said okay and made some rolls to determine npcs showing up (he was a wealthy noble so I decided it would attract attention) and had him make some endurance checks for it.

He actually won and then said he wished to see if he could make some contacts from the event. I was more than happy to do this and thought it was something interesting which could be turned into plot later on.

However after that he just did nothing but drink in-character whilst watching rubgy on his laptop.

The rest of the party though was fine and had a nice time.

I am always irritated thinking about it.

>I am always irritated thinking about it.
Sounds like he didn't want to hog the time the rest of the players were having doing the adventure. Probably didn't feel like playing that day. You made him happy, and the rest of the party were happy, and he got some contacts out of it. Why you heff to be mad?

Not that user but I'd be pretty mad if someone came to a session I'd organized only to sit around doing nothing. If you're going to come over to play the game then you should actually participate in it.

Well, if he's holding up the entire other adventure and only drinking at the bar, sure, but at least he did SOMETHING. He got something out of it, and the party got their time to shine.

Sometimes one just can't get the energy up to RP. It's a problem if that happens every single game, but once in a while you can ease off your players.

anime style character portraits

I was annoyed because I liked his idea; it got him (and thus the party) contacts and potential friends in a novel way. Then he proceeded to do nothing else with it when I was happy to keep up with him. I asked a few times if there was anything he'd lile to do but always got the same response.

I'm still quite new to GMing and it was something I didn't know how to handle without pushing the player.

You sound like a fun guy.

It's not railroading if they have a choice to go through 1000 more empty hexes until they go the right way.

My players roll into town are rude as hell to every npc and then get mad when they don't get info.
> would you like a drink for 2sp while I tell you about the mine?
No I'm good, so what about the mine?
> yeah I don't recall nothing

>lol u haet fun?!? robot.jpg

Well in that case its possible they were just idiots

Depends on the monster I guess, but it doesn't seem too far-fetched an idea in a light-hearted game. Train up some plucky villagers and show those monsters the power of teamwork and brotherhood.

Talk to him outside the game.
> that drinking contest was really cool and I gave your character the contacts, I'm curious why he hasn't followed up?

If he's not engaged even in that conversation then maybe
> oh and no watching tablets

The other thing is give his character a near death or life and death experience, like have a frost giant step on the bar or something, see if it wakes him up. Drop a deadly encounter on the rear of the party while he's off drinking. Let them sure if it goes that way without his help, I don't mean murder them out of spite, but make it really hard for them without his character.

Making retarded plans and then getting madly when they rightly don't succeed
>Players tasked with sneaking into bandit fortress and killing bandit leader
>Decide the best course of action is to light a few fires outside the fortress to coax a few bandits out of the fortress and then sneak inside
>The rest of the players agree to this plan
>I'm confused and think I misheard and tell them that while a few bandits would be sent out to put out the fires that it would put virtually the entire fortress on high alert as they would determine that, logically, someone or something must have lit that fire and sneaking into the fortress would become much more difficult as a result
>Furthermore they might even be spotted by the bandits sent out to put out the fires
>Players start arguing with me saying that the bandits wouldn't suspect people are around because they would light them stealthily - as if fires just appear in clear night sky for no reason without human intervention
>I tell them they can go through with their plan if they want but it probably won't work out well for them
>Players do it anyway, manage to avoid bandits sent out and then try to scale walls which I describe as being manned by bandits looking out at the fires and for what caused them
>Players get spotted and two of them are killed as the other 3 barely manage to get away
>Players chimp out

>Hey GM I was looking at the PHB and had a cool idea for a character, check it out.
one week later
>I'm not really having fun with my current character, can I write him out in favor of that character I showed you earlier?
one week later
>This guy is so much fun!
two weeks later
>That didn't end up being as useful as I thought it would be when I made this character...
two weeks later
>This character kind of sucks
two weeks later
>Hey GM I was looking at the PHB and got a cool idea for a character, check this out.

Every goddamn time. He's the reason I have a "no making backup characters" rule at my table unless I'm running a specifically deadly game.

Demand a mystery detective game, turning said mystery detective game into a murderhobo murder fest, then whining because there wasn't enough "detectiving" in the game, despite them refusing to solve their problems with anything except murder.

I've been through this cycle 4 times and I've given up trying to run anything but murder grind arena games for these fucking lunatics.

Meh personally I would have just wiped out the village/villagers around them. the bandits would quickly identify the squishies and there would be another wave until 80% of the commoners were dead and the rest fled.

I have the GM who keeps telling me to make new characters, because my previous ones were 'overpowered'. Even when I spend zero time optimizing.

Seen em all before. Come up with new made-up stories, Veeky Forums

>and tell them that
Ah so you're the reason my players keep asking me "what would happen if we X" I shrug and go
> are you doing that? You have to say "anonkun does X" and I'll tell you what happens.

So make a horribly unoptimised character, sorc dip cleric with primary stat str who shoots a bow.

But yeah, sucks that your dm can't handle race appropriate builds.

Well be a new kind of shit player and we might

Needing to be led by the nose to do anything and completely lacking in any semblance of initiative or creativity in solving problems
>Players entering new city
>Literally just stand around expecting an NPC or event to approach them instead of asking around for information or possible quests
>Most creative they ever get in combat is hitting it until it's dead
>Need to tell them what their options are in order to get them to do anything
>Complain puzzle is too hard if they meet one failure while trying to solve it

FUCK OFF YUKI AND TAKE YOUR BULLSHIT RNG CANNON WITH YOU

Personally I'd have pushed the training angle. Have a group of keen young 'uns walk up and ask to help, if they're showed how. If they're prepared to teach the villagers how to fight they can have some allies and cool heroic moments in the fights. If not, well then I guess its massacre o'clock (maybe even to the point where there's no-one willing to reward them if they win)

asking one day before game night if I am free to DM

Blatantly cheating. I've got a player who's a great friend of mine and still pretty new to the game but I'm positive he's been cheating the past few sessions now. He's playing a paladin and I've recently noticed upon checking his character sheet after last session that in his spell slots he's just written an 8 and subtracted 1 point from it for each spell he's cast, no matter whether it was at first or second level. At level 7 not only does he not have that many spell slots at all but he's obviously cheating by casting first and second level spells from the same pool. I'm actually really quite annoyed by this and despise cheating. How do I make him cut this shit out? I can't chalk it up to him being new either as there's no way a newbie could come to the conclusion that he has universal spell slots.

>How do I make him cut this shit out?
Are you fucking serious? Do you really have no idea how to tell a player to stop fucking cheating? How about "Hey Bill, stop fucking cheating."
Christ.

I mean without him throwing a shitfit. People tend to get upset when called out on their bad behavior you know.

Eh, don't underestimate stupidity. He probably is just making an honest mistake. That being said, fucking tell him "hey man that's not how that fucking works."

Keep it up buddy, you're doing great!:)

Tell him to eat a dick. This is like worrying that a guy might get pissy when you tell him to stop stealing your underwear. He's clearly in the wrong and if he doesn't agree then he can leave. Besides, didn't you say he was a friend? Just talk to him like an adult.

This

>Being on their phones in between their turns and then taking ages to decide what they want to do.
Talk to them. Directly tell them what they are doing is disruptive. I presume that your players are both adults and ostensibly friends.

Players getting pissy about me taking a few weeks to write material and lay groundwork before a new campaign.

I like the enthusiasm, but guess what: I have way more work to do then you, so please do shut the fuck up and just be patient.

Thats sad to hear, you handled the situation well having the blacksmith be grateful and give a bargain without making him look like an idiot. Shame your player was being a brat though.

...

You can always tell how assblasted someone is when their comebacks look like this.

>WOW Veeky Forums STORIES ARE ALL FAKE AMIRITE GAIZ

Ha, that's amusing, I play with a guy named Bill who the whole table knows is cheating, but he's kind of a tard so no one really minds (and even while cheating he's less effective than my character which is literally this, sans the bow).

No, but someone who trails every thread on a vaguely similar theme to repeat the exact same story multiple times for months is more likely to be making it up for (You)'s than it is to be an actual story.

I've only brought up my murderfest "detective" game once before this thread personally.

*gets hit once*
>fucking Christ user what the fuck is this ultra-lethal bullshit railroad you have us on I hate this game so much we should switch systems I can't do anything that I want to do and now I'm almost dead

"There is a door in front of you with the same insignia on that key you found painted on it."
>I turn the knob
"The door is locked"
>Well, we should leave then and find someone with lockpicking because someone forgot that none of us has that skill

Jesus Fucking Christ, those players types are infuriating. The first sign of challenge and they throw a tantrum, or their problem-solving skills are exceeded by toddlers.

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/55595704/#55612906

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/55604073/#55613087

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/56155942/#56163325

I count three different threads before this one after a 30 second search of the archive. There's probably one or two more that I missed.

>No, but someone who trails every thread on a vaguely similar theme to repeat the exact same story multiple times for months is more likely to be making it up for (You)'s than it is to be an actual story.
I find it's the opposite, actually. I rarely type the faked stories twice, while I tend to repeat the same details about the campaigns I've actually played.

>players constantly afraid that everything in existence is conspiring against them and them alone, actively looking for a chance to exploit, betray or kill them, but typically all three of them at the same time
>never do any of those things ever
>explicitly tell them out of character that they're just being paranoid and that they should just feel free to do whatever they want to do with their session
>"You're so cheeky GM, we know how crafty you are!"
>Well, I guess that I'll just have to earn their trust.
>later, in another session
>they're determined to dig up a supposed government conspiracy that they came up with completely on their own
>tell them that there isn't one right away
>three of them insist, so I allow them to to investigate, they spend two hours looking for clues
>the other two get the hint and go shopping instead
>much to their surprise, they find absolutely nothing that would suggest a conspiracy of any sort
>afterwards, they ask me what they were supposed to do to figure out my mystery
Getting real sick of this attitude.

Maybe this is just me being idiosyncratic, but when I tell stories about past adventures multiple times, I don't use the exact same words a la a lot of our repeaters do.

What drives me most up the fucking wall as a GM is what I've come to call "passive play."

You know how some people listen to conversations and just occasionally nod, say "uh huh," and shit like that, to make it appear that they're listening, while if you stopped and asked them what you had just said you know perfectly well they'll give you a blank stare?

Passive play is the RPG equivalent. This is when players give one-line reactions to whatever's happening, but fail to proactively engage with a circumstance or event or really consider what it would mean for their character. Like when a villain who caused some horrible circumstance in a PC's backstory shows up, and the PC just glares at them to show us they're pissed and otherwise does nothing, in a context where there are other things they could do. Like, really, you don't have a more interesting reaction than a silent glare? GMs still need something they can roleplay with, you know.

It can be a little hard to spot at first, since the player is present and actually responding. It's especially a problem in online play, since a disinterested or distracted or asleep player is still pretty visible in person. That's part of why it's so fucking annoying. It's difficult to call out on the spot because it's not as visible as someone disappearing or failing to respond at all.

At least for me I usually only have one player doing it at a time, and if the entire party is doing it the GM might want to ask why their players aren't invested enough rather than blame them. But it's still fucking obnoxious and rude.

Other symptoms include:
>not recognizing important NPCs
>forgetting what the party's plan was
>forgetting critical story information like what side they're on or who is conflicting with who
>not reacting to events that specifically appeal to their character's traits, fears, traumas etc
>taking way too long to decide what to do on their turn

I think a lot of the problems people ITT are complaining about with players just stopping at the first sign of a challenge or being unable to clear even the most basic exercises of logical deduction and reasoning might come down to this, as well. Players aren't going to connect even the most straightforward dots if they're just nodding and pretending to notice the dots are there.

Not writing down any notes of what's happened and then getting confused about what's going on

im a player but still
when the team doesnt want to adventure
>playing death house
>team of wizard(me) cleric, ranger and thief
>see crying kids
>THISMUSTBEATRAP!
>i approach and use prestitigitation to calm them down and ask whats wrong
>clearly shady kids tell us that their baby brother is in the house with a monster
>rest of party stands there investigating the house and door and trying to see if there is a way out of here
>i just walk in the front door
>rest of team chimps out but follows
>spooky ghost appears
>i start flinging spells
>the other 3 fucking book it to the (now locked) front door and attempt to break it or the windows to escape
>im left alone to fight 3 ghost by myself

One of those was a mis-post because I clicked the wrong tab.

But seems like I did bring it up before. Alright, twice before now then.

>Player is an overweight 50something warrior with a charisma score below human average
>"user can I try to seduce that girl?"
>"Okay, what do you say?"
>"I don't know, can't I just roll?"
>"I will let you roll but you need to describe what you're going to do at least in a general manner"
>"I flex my muscles and say something manly"
>"...roll, and let's see what happens."
Roll is, predictably, not good enough, and he complains that "picking up girls should be easier for him because he's a big guy".

For you

All of my players are pretty good except for one. He is without a doubt the most uncreative person I have ever met. He's not autistic but he can't roleplay to save his life and struggles to make any character and backstory. He can't even come up with simple characteristics about his character beyond his race and class
>What's his personality like?
>Ummm
>What does he look like?
>Uhhh
>Why is he adventuring?
>Ermmmm
>What are his personal goals?
>Ahhhhhh
It's even worse when NPCs interact with him as he can't condense what he wants to say in a way his character would because his character has no personality so every conversation is just him telling me what he wants to get across instead of actually conversing with them. I don't understand how someone can be so devoid of any creativity. It's utterly maddening.

>he complains that "picking up girls should be easier for him because he's a big guy"
U U U U

4 u

One of my players is like this too, but he loves RPGs and never misses a session and is always looking at me with awe-filled eyes when I'm narrating. He's also a really kind guy and having him around is great.

Story time!

>be running new campaign starting at level 5
>gonna be a hard one I say
>no time for bullshit 1 encounter/long rest fuckery
>players dig in and do surprisingly well
>first chapter closes, group now in service of a noble
>a few more sessions later and they’ve survived despite chronic migraine player and his son taking a hiatus
>shenanigans involve outwitting a wyvern that was hunting them, stealing from a cloud giant, stealing from a dwarven clan (lots of theft)
>make it to the last two sessions
>herewego.oboy
>museum dungeon set in a pocket dimension accessible through magic teleportation rugs
The idea is that the owner (a high level wizard) has living set pieces frozen in time, from a chimera fighting an elf to a small group of hobgoblins slaughtering villagers. The magic has just worn off however and now they have to trek through a museum to retrieve shit for the noble they work for. The adventure is literally called A Night at the Museum.
>optimized fighter (literally theorycrafted internet battlemaster) extinguishes torch on the rug they appear on
>scorches the rug, no longer operates
>no choice but to go forward now
>party gets split up
>jinkies.scoob

>half of the party (a bard and a sorcerer) encounters a chimera
>unprepared for fire breath and bard goes down
>sorcerer traps them in a room to keep chimera out so they can rest/heal
Can’t blame them for being unprepared but what comes next is just stupid
>round 2
>prepared for firebreath and chimera can’t fit into the room to claw the mages
>bard wants to use misty step and attack from behind
>sorcerer throws 3 fireballs at the thing catching the bard with the first one and downing him then adjusts his aim for the rest of them
>bard is frustrated and feels shit on, sorcerer laughs it off
>”You’ll hurts but you’ll live”
>doesn’t realize it was his fault the bard went down
>on the otherhand, completely realizes it is his fault the chimera went down. Gloating ensues

>Other half notices signs of an ooze (no dust, acid washed stone, etc)
>group is the aforementioned fighter, a rouge w/a musket, and a NPC paladin they met while stealing from the cloud giant
>encounter a large fleshy ball with desiccated imp corpses nearby
>poke it with a stick
>...
>Suddenly a Deathkiss out of nowhere
>a few rounds in, the deathkiss is hard to kill but the two frontliners are too hard for it to hit
>blessed be the dice
>lightning blood is taking its toll
>it’s beginning to look grim
>battlemaster pulls the battle out of his butt with some nice critical hits
>the vampire beholder falls dead and the fighter and rogue player cheer with victory
>group high fives and heads off to rejoin the casters
This group has given me hope. They graduated from being purely on edge, believing that I was out to kill them, to actually enjoying the game and the free will they have compared to a previous gm. This however...this next part was hard to watch, much less run.

>PC meets other 2 for the first time
>"I greet them"
>stare at him
>player stays silent for several seconds
>finally tell him we should roleplay the conversation
>"Uh-oh?"
To make it fucking worst he's not a newbie, he was talking about and recommending several games before and after the session.

>group reunites
>swap stories and take a look around
>weapon room showcasing all types of weapons (basically pick from the PHB and its in here)
>group notices that the rug they came in on is disintegrating
>before I finish my description, bard player jumps onto the rug
>youdidthistoyourself.facepalm
>combat starts with him engulfed
>bard gives up and doesn’t do shit until fighter pulls him out
>fighter then metagames hard and cries out “we have not the weapons to kill it, in previous editions it would eat your weapon if you hit it. Run!”
>discounting the sorcerer and trying not to giggle at the fact that he didn’t shy away from a beholder but he’s scared of a standard ooze, I mention that monster stats from previous editions are not necessarily the same and I might be using slightly modified stat blocks to discourage meta gaming
>words fall on deaf ears as bard runs off down a hallway and uses the greatest use of this spell to say fuck you that I have ever seen
>before the group can catch up, he casts Gust of Wind down that hallway pushing the group into the ooze
>CR2? More like CRFuckYou
>Eventually they beat the Ooze
>Bard is beaming like the sun on a cloudless day
>the group promptly beats his ass

Try with pre-made characters.

>One beatdown and a short rest later
>after searching their new surroundings, they find that the only way forward is through a wooden door that will not open
>they speak at the door
>they detect magic at the door
>they admire the door
>they even knock on the door
>after all this and a very impressive 25 on a perception check, the rogue hears a slight noise on the other side
>the talk at the door again but there is no answer
>in frustration at not being able to open the door, the group wanders around into the weapons room and around the area waiting until the bard has his knock spell back
>I pause the game and ask them if they really want to go through the door
>yes but you won’t let us
>GRAB AXES FROM THE WEAPONS ROOM YOU FUCKING MORONS!!! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU BREAK THROUGH WOOD?! HEY SORCERER, THAT FIREBOLT CANTRIP THAT YOU SPAM SO MUCH, FUCKING USE IT!!!

My only vindication to all of this is that when they broke through, the fighter was crit in the face by a hobgoblin’s crossbow. They have maybe one more session left but I am afraid that the papers they are supposed to retrieve will wind up being toilet paper that’s used to clean up the bullshit they purposely jump around in.

I'd agree with the players. If they trained them abit then it should be fine, even as just a peasant mob lead by a party of heros

not existing

>>Players won't take no for an answer and quite literally press the peasants into service to act as meatshields for them
They didn't give a damn about training the peasants, they just wanted to present more targets to the monsters

>This is when players give one-line reactions to whatever's happening, but fail to proactively engage with a circumstance or event or really consider what it would mean for their character.

I do this because often there are already other players who know what they want to do and are the first to screech what they are doing but what I want to do is mutually exclusive with their dumb antics so I just sit back and let the idiots have their fun.
I also play like playing a wizard and like getting the rest of the party out of dumb situations they get themselves in or providing plans other than "lets go in there and fight everything"
Example from a game a couple of weeks back
>Other players: Let's go in and kill those bunch of goblins and pair of ogres
>Me: I have a spell for this situation. I'll cast a spell to get the ogre to fight everything else
>Other players: Nah that's stupid lets go in and kill those bunch of goblins and orgres
>Me: That's really dumb when we can solve this problem without putting ourselves at the risk of undue harm
>Other player: Okay that sounds good so I'll hit the ogre to lure it out..
>Me: That would make the spell not work. Lets draw it out through other means
>Other player: Damn I really want to hit that ogre to lure it out
>Me: I have a better plan to lure it out

Or maybe the rest of the party was just hinting to me that they wanted to be a bunch of murderhobos with zero strategy and I was just too dense to get the message. On the plus side they eventually went with my plan and turned what would probably be multiple session spanning series of combat to 1 session. Though I don't really blame a bunch of martials for wanting to use the only tool they have available to them which is hit things.

Who the fuck are you quoting?

If I had to guess?
His players

4th (You)

The feels

>Don't like being foreverDM
>Hate the shit that my table comes up with even worse when one of them tries to DM.

I remember that thread

How do I avoid getting players like this?

I'm new to tabletop and the stories on here scare me sometimes. I really don't want to upset my players/GM if I'm playing.