Blow Ups

[jrowland]

These are some awesome examples of blowups, thank you for sharing them.

When we recorded this episode, we knew that these things were not mutually exclusive to our table and that most gaming groups have endured them. It astounds me that a group of very intelligent people (gamers in general) can be so childish and base when it comes to their games. Believe me, as stated in the episode, I am not exempt from this criticism.

I think the *problem*, as it were, stems from the fact that RPG's are a social game that can last for many months or years. Whenever you put two or more humans in close proximity foir a length of time, there is bound to be conflict. There is an industry in Reality TV that is banking on the inevitable blow ups.

Choosing who you game with is as important as choosing a roommate, a road trip buddy, as it is choosing who you put in a rocket to mars. All astronauts are highly skilled, but you probably don't want the devout Jew astronaut next to the radical neo-nazi astronaut.

When choosing gaming pals, there should always be a discussion as to what the game is. Some people like intrigue and backstabbing other players, some prefer an explicit "the team stays together, always" approach. But beyond that, you have to simply *like* the people you play with. If you have a serious issue with people who eat with their mouth open and one of your fellow gamers does just that, a blow up is inevitable...sure, you can suck it up for a game or two, but eventually enough is enough.

Casual gaming, tournament gaming is one thing, but long term campaigning requires, a priori, people who get along away from the game table.

 

[Umbran]

There is an industry in Reality TV that is banking on the inevitable blow ups.

There's an industry in Reality TV that *engineers* blow-ups.

 

[Stumblewyk]

3.5e, I'm playing the dutiful party cleric. Half-orc mind you, but still a good guy. We've got a new guy sitting in with us - a coworker of the DM's. He's pretty new to gaming, but loves fantasy, and the DM wanted to give the guy a taste and see if he liked it. New guy is playing a dual-wielding elf ranger. Of course he is. Not Drow thankfully, but might as well have been.

We're exploring a dungeon complex that's recently suffered a moderately violent earthquake, exposing part of it up to the surface. After a couple fairly standard encounters, we come to a large room with a crack splitting it in half, floor and ceiling. Laying on the floor is a young bronze dragon, clearly dazed from the earthquake, and wounded.

Being color-coded for my convenience and what-not, I'm trying to decide if I should try to approach the thing and offer it some healing. I'm still holding my bloody falchion at this point, and the new guy's elf apparently decided that enough time has passed and he was getting bored and needed some more XP or something. So, he shoved me into the room with the bronze dragon.

From the bronze dragon's perspective, a group of misfit vagabonds with swords and spells just wandered into the room where it's lying wounded and disoriented. And then a 6-and-a-half foot tall half-orc comes barreling towards it armed with a bloody falchion. Logicially, it defended itself from the perceived attack.

The party came to my defense, and we were able to defeat the dragon. Afterward, I pretty laid into that dude like I've never laid into anyone at a game table before. I told him it wasn't cool to push my PC into the room like that, and he just laughed it off like it was nothing. So I told him that I hope he didn't need any healing for the rest of the night. He laughed that off too.

We moved on. A couple encounters go by, and I steadfastly refuse to heal the guy. He starts getting really upset with me, as he's down around 2 HP or so by this point. I told him that my cleric of the god of battle decided that his ranger was unworthy of honor or respect due to his prior actions and would not receive the blessings and boons of my god. I wouldn't sully my hands with such behaviors.

Yeah, that did it.

Dude LOST it. Started yelling, screaming, calling me names, whatever. Needless to say, that kinda ended the night. He didn't come back. I didn't want him to. Could I have acted more maturely? Yeah, probably. But if I'm the only thing standing between you and negative HP, I think you should probably think twice before shoving me into the mouth of an angry and confused dragon.

 

[pogre]

One of the most fun groups I ever ran had frequent blow-ups and I hate blow-ups. I used to play in a dart league in a bar at St. Louis called Blueberry Hill. Following close a bunch of the barkeeps and cooks would come over to my apartment to play. They brought smokes, whiskey, beer, and tons of fried food. We generally played until 4 or 5 in the morning. Ahh, to be young again...

I don't think we ever had a blow-up about rules. Fights usually involved some one getting way too drunk or taking someone's smokes, etc. One time a guy threw an entire case of beer at another guy and chipped his tooth. Another time a couple of guys got in a fight and went through one of our windows. The game usually continued after the fight and there were seldom hard feelings.

I know that does not sound like fun, but these guys were a rowdy, loud, and fun group.

Folks I play with now are way too laid back to ever have a blow-up at the table.

 

[Stormonu]

DM burnout/stress will do it as well; DM's can be just as petty as anyone else at the table.

For me, the trigger was reigning in power gaming - you can only do it so many times before you lose your cool. I've blown my top at least once (you can ask my brother about the Magic Monkeys...).

 

[Boz Shulun]

DM burnout/stress will do it as well; DM's can be just as petty as anyone else at the table.

Very good Point. Any time game fatigue rears its ugly head, especially as DM, I find that conflicts erupt much easier.



(Off Topic)

Pogre - It's been a while since I've been to the Loop, but Blueberry Hill is a must visit when I go.

(/Off Topic)

 

[Aldeon]

I haven't been through many blow-ups in my D&D career, although one of them had me as the DM. Here's the most memorable one for me:

I was DMing for a fairly mixed group of teenagers and adults. We had one player who was in their mid-forties playing an essentials thief as a sniper type. I've seen him argue with DMs about stealth rules multiple times already (they usually cave in at his bitter ranting to let the already-long combat of 4e go quicker). He always plays a rogue in the past few years I've gamed with him. I'll call him Thief.

In the game, they PCs were ambushed by a rival group of mercenaries going after the same bounty. Thief began arguing that he should have gotten a Perception check to notice, but I told him I went off of his passive perception (you know, a part of the rules) because none of the group said they were actively watching for threats. He argued bitterly for a good few minutes, to which I caved and let him roll his Perception actively retroactively. Thief failed, then said his character was going to stand at the ready in case anything attacks them just in case because "[his] character is paranoid."

The ambush starts and Thief runs behind a tent they set up earlier to snipe at the enemies. He makes a Stealth check at no penalties (I didn't want to argue) and he makes a 30-something with his twinked character. He hits the enemy, and then on the enemy's round one shouts to tell one of his subordinates to get the sniper; the enemy's shaman attacks him and he flips out. He starts talking about how they couldn't of seen him due to his high roll and after a few minutes of arguing I referred him to the Stealth rules in his own book which states attacking stops you from being hidden. He yields to the rules and combat continues, although he's visibly angry at this point. I end up missing anyway because of the cover penalty, so I rule that the fire spirit the shaman summoned for the attack hit the tent instead and it caught fire. We always roleplay our encounters anyways, so no one had a problem with it except Thief, who wanted to keep it around for cover so I just said it was still there, just on fire that they'll have to deal with it to save their rations and maps kept inside it before it burned down completely.

Another player starts attacking the shaman, then Thief shoots at the shaman again, pulls out his dagger then starts heading towards him with a dagger to get the flanking bonus for the next attack. In moving towards the enemy, he uses a power to make a stealth check at the end of his movement (Sneak's Trick, HotFL p177). He rolls as he's doing this, making another 30-something Stealth check.

I wanted to tell him before he made the roll, but since he rolled as he did it I didn't have time. I told him he couldn't do it and he starts shouting about how I'm trying to ruin his fun. I tell him that it's impossible because the power states he needs cover/concealment to get the stealth roll at all. He goes on about how he should be considered to have concealment because the guy is distracted by the other player attacking the shaman. I tell him flat out no, we continue to argue for a while. Eventually he screams that I'm a horrible DM, he never got this much crap for the past 30+ years he's played D&D, and that I shouldn't even get a table at the store. After that, he storms out.

After an initial few minutes of awkward tension, we continue playing and get back into it. I would've been completely fine with this blow-up if it was just him leaving my group, but somehow he got another DM to kick me from one of the games I was a player in.

 

[was]

IME blow ups at gaming tables usually revolve around a player who isn't fitting in well with the group. Either because they feel they are not getting enough attention, or the other players are getting sick of their behavior/attitude.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

I've only been at the table for two blowups.

One was a GURPS Supers game where the player and the GM were having issues that had nothing to do with the game at all. In game, as an act of "You're wrong and I'm right," the player (who was with my character) decided to shoot our contact (a dragon) in the eye, just cuz.

The second was at our Pathfinder game, when one of the players (a rules lawyer), made a couple of bad in-game decisions that almost cost the party their lives, which made the other players mad. The blowup occurred when the rules lawyer was trying to legitimately say something and everyone else was talking over him, due to their anger of the previous encounter. After about five minutes, he stood up and said "I'm not having any fun, so I quit. You have to leave." (we were playing at his place, so that was legit.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I blew up once...during PC creation.

It was a 2Ed game using the Player's Option rule books, so envying could design their own custom PCs. Another player and myself both chose to play Clerics.

My concept was a shamanistic Northman from a warrior culture (Martial weapons, medium armor, fighter THAC0) who Inspired Berserker Rages instead of Turned Undead, and had skill with arcane & divine protective & buff spells. Only one of his 3 damage-dealing spells was above 3rd level- Blade Barrier- and only because of the way the books divvied up the spells's Spheres & Schools.

In fact, while he had access to a lot of different Spheres & the Abjuration school of wizardry, most of his access was "Minor"- limited to spells of 3rd level or lower. Most of his spells targeted allies.

When the other cleric player looked at my PC, he started whining about my build. His PC was a lightly armored martial artist with a lot of magical power, but fewer Spheres because all of his access was Major. He, too, had chosen to learn a school of Wizardry, but one of the attack schools.

But all he could see is that my cleric had more Spheres than his, while being an armored, sword-swinging "barbarian" to his lightly-armored martial-artist with more powerful spell. He kept going on and on about it.

When he started calling the PC "Superman", I stood up, tore it up, and threw the pieces in his face, then set about designing a new PC.

(Later that year, I ran that same PC in a different campaign with some of the same players, and he got one-shotted by a foe who critted him. When this happened, one of those players said, "Soooooo...that was 'Superman', huh?")

I still gqme with the dude who set me off- it was neither of ours' finest moment.