Troublesome Players?

shadow · Apr 20, 2002

As gamers, we probably have all played with some rather interesting or annoying players. At times these players are mearly annoying, other times they are really fatal to the game as they tend to break up gaming groups, start fights between players, and worse. I know this thread has probably been done before, but I think some of the stories of such players are interesting in retrospect. Any way I have played with a number of players that could be described as toublesome.

1.The King of Munchkins: Somehow every character this player made was a clone of the previous one. They were all battle-hardened mercenaries with an extreme amount of weapons. Moreover, he always managed to take advantage of the fact that I was new to gaming at that time, hence fairly naive about the rules. Whenever I GM'd he would take advantage of my lack of experience as a D/GM and use it to create a super character. He managed to create a first level D&D character with Skills and Powers that had a +7 to hit bonus with daggers (And did a fair amount of damage too) I'll never forget the time he talked me into allowing his GURPS Cyberpunk character to start out with a mini-gun. After high school he joined the marines so he could "be a badass". Go figure!

2.The annoying Tag-Along: He didn't come to play D&D, rather he only came because his friends were their and he had nothing better to do. He frequently would daze out and not pay attention to the game. Even in the middle of combat he was over in the corner eating chips and drinking soda. Dialogue was limited to "I guess I'll go up and attack........" At times he would forget all about the character he was playing (Ohh.....yeahhh... I was playing that ranger with the hawk animal companion....)

3.The person who gets a little too into the game: Finally I played with a girl who got really into the game. She became obsessed with the Forgotten Realms and started declaring the realms gods superior to real world religion(especially Mielikki(sp?) because she was Drizzt's patron diety). She also started getting really into New Age stuff and mysticism, and started really criticizing Christianity and traditionaly religion. (Of course to be honest, I later learned that she had a lot of problems at home, but that didn't stop her from giving my high school's game club adn D&D in generally a bad name.)

Those were my three worst players. Anyone have any interesting stories of annoying players that they wish to share.

Crothian · Apr 20, 2002

Ya, the guy who just doesn't get it. He was a friend and very creative. But he just could n't get the concept of in character. He never talked as if it was his character. It wasn't a game breaker, but it did disrupt role playing.

Ulrick · Apr 21, 2002

Once I ran a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign--tabletop. It was, of course, set in the city I lived in at the time so we used actual locations for references. We even thought it would be cool to let the players pick homes for their characters. Which was all fine and dandy until a couple players took it upon themselves to actually walk up to somebody's home and asked to look inside....

I folded that campaign real fast.

I've had a munchkin that whined a lot when things wouldn't go his way. He even thought for a brief time that he was the leader of the group because his character was one level higher than everybody else's.

Then there's players that don't show up regularly or are chronically not on time. But those aren't too bad to deal with unless the majority of your gaming group consists of them...which happened to me once. grrr...

Here's another interesting story:
Once I was running a game in a college dorm lounge that nobody used. There was a waste basket behind me. People started throwing their empty pop bottle and stuff over my DM screen and me.

I told them to stop. It didn't want to be hit by flying projectiles nor did I want drops of pop to get on my gaming books. All stopped except for one guy. He threw his pop bottle, it glanced off the side of my head, and dripped Orange Pop on my DM notes.

For some strange reason his character died in the next combat. I just don't know how that happened!

I made him leave the room to roll up a next character which he didn't get completed until the game ended.

Now I screen my players. I have the best group thus far because of it.

Ulrick

DM with a vengence · Apr 21, 2002

4- Ruleless Moron. Doesn't read the rulebooks, won't learn how the rules work from other people, and just takes up time. If you buy them rulebooks, they won't read them. Even worse if they complain when their characters die because they don't know how to play them.

5- Disruptor. As soon as the party decides to do something he'll do the exact opposite. He decides to steal from PCs, join the evil cultists, and generally betray and screw over everybody for no reason.

(Shameless bump: See the Comedy of Cthulhu story hour for some examples.)

Corinth · Apr 21, 2002

There is no hope for either of them. Call Arturick, get a shovel and do them the honors: *WHAM!* *dig* *dig* *dig*.

Pielorinho · Apr 21, 2002

RE: the Meilikki worshipper: this isn't too rare. When I was fifteen and decided to look into druidism as a modern religion (there are several thousand self-identified druids in the US, and plenty more in England), the organization I wrote off to had a membership application just to receive their magazine, Ar nDraiocht Fein ("Our Own Druidism"). One of the questions on the application was, "How did you first hear about druidism?" Although I'd studied historical druids a bit, I dutifully checked off the box next to "Dungeons and Dragons."

Sadly, real-world druidism is nowhere near as fun as D&D druidism.

Daniel

sword-dancer · Apr 21, 2002

Is Mielikke not a IRL Goddes of the old Patheon of the Suomi or finn.

Many gods of D&D are old IRL gods of the old pantheons?
tiamat babylonian
Tyr Norse

Couldn`t they be a member of the neo old religion/faith.
I had once played with a person who was one.
And i didn`t think he didn`t get the difference, quite contrary.

BTT
A Bastasrdsword with a charactersheet pinned on.
Hack & Slay as it´s purest core.
The only solution for every problem , you get the picture

maddman75 · Apr 21, 2002

I find 'Pouty Lip Girl' to be rather annoying. I had one of these awhile back, girl that I was sort of seeing in the group. She'd give me the little pouty lip whenever someone attacked her. Solution: Attack her again. Homie don't play that.

Moe Ronalds · Apr 21, 2002

The guy who was always playing a Shield Guardian. And since he was the DM, there was really nothing to do about it... Except leave.

Methinkus · Apr 21, 2002

It's me

I think I am the troublesome player in my group. I don’t disrupt the flow of the game and I stay in character as much as possible, but I’m chronically late. Its almost every week, up to an hour late. I do feel bad about it and I’m trying to work things out but there are some other things going on in my life that I’m not proud of and I am trying to deal with them but for now it makes getting to the game on time – among other things – a bit tough.