What are the no-goes for you?

[skaveng3r]

My "no-go's":

5) 4/5 Half-dragon, half-celestion neutral paladin/assassin... There are plenty of good times to be had with the basic races and classes.

so... that'd be a no-go for my dragonborn avenger with the deva bloodline feat going for the zealous assassin paragon path?

sorry... first thing i thought of...

yeah... those really crazy combinations for min/maxing are annoying, but i'm now tempted to make this character with a good backstory

~sk

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

No jerks (which is a rule that's being sorely, sorely tested right now)

DM *must* know the rules. I've had too many DMs who didn't bother reading the rules.

That's pretty much it.

Brad

 

[Cincinnatus]

I'm really surprised and honestly a bit baffled by the large laundry lists of "no-goes" that some people are posting here. It seems like some gamers have an awful lot of hang-ups, both in-game and out-of-game, that are so significant that they are dealbreakers (as in, these people will walk out of a game because of them). I guess I cannot identify with such a stringent mentality.

A serious question to those posters with long lists of no-goes:

Are you just lucky enough to have found your "perfect" game where none of your "no-goes" happen? If so, you're very lucky; hats off to you. If not, I imagine that you're walking out of a lot of games.

If not, do you just not game? That seems like a more likely scenario. Nearly every group I've ever played in has had at least some degree of min/maxers, smokers, drinkers, cell phone users, TV watchers, rule lawyers, crudity, racist/homophobic remarks, "jerks", bad DMs, PvP conflict, evil characters, heavy roleplayers, even people talking in strange accents. I've never just got up and left even one of them in the middle of a game. Perhaps I am more tolerant than some.

Are you just lucky enough to live in large cities with huge gamer populations? Are these cities large enough to the point where if someone broke one of your "no-goes," you could just walk right out and easily find another, more compatible group? I have a hard time believing this, as many people on the boards complain about lack of gamers in their respective areas. I live in a pretty big city (almost 2 million metro population), and I am damn sure that if I decided to just leave one or both of my two gaming groups, I would have a decently hard time finding another one, let alone a better one.

 

[Bumbles]

Are you just lucky enough to have found your "perfect" game where none of your "no-goes" happen? If so, you're very lucky; hats off to you. If not, I imagine that you're walking out of a lot of games.

Well, to answer your question, life's far too short to stick around where you're not having fun.

And let's avoid the argument between "seeking perfection" versus "forcing yourself to settle for less than you deserve" as that would probably get nowhere.

Besides, the reason I have my rules is so I don't have to worry about walking out, I cover them in advance so it's off the table as far as things to argue about go. And that's the part that is really no fun. See the closed fork for an example of where it can lead.

 

[77IM]

Well, to answer your question, life's far too short to stick around where you're not having fun.

I think that is the key -- to know what things you find fun, and not fun. I think knowing this is important for those of us who don't have a ton of free time and want to maximize our enjoyment of the game. So when someone posts a big list of no-goes, that just means they've identified things that are not fun for them, even though those things might be fine for other people.

Too many people, when I ask them what their game-play preferences are, say "Oh, I just like to have fun." Well, no @#$%! But what does it mean to have fun? If you know, you are more likely to get it than if you don't know, and just take whatever comes your way. (Not to say experimentation and "being easy" isn't fun -- you should always try new stuff, and shouldn't enforce your preferences on the rest of the group. But knowing, as they say, is half the battle.)

-- 77IM

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

3) Assuming a want to play a Lawful Good character, or that I'm, going to agree that Lawful Good is the "right" Alignment. I play D&D to play an adventurer. That is, a social rebel who has decided to make their own way in the world outside of the society's rules and expectations, and has the power to do it. I want my character to overthrow kings, not support them. I want my character to loot gold from ancient tombs and squander it, not return it to its rightful owners. I want my character to be involved with hot elven princesses, dangerous demonesses, and lusty sorceresses, not settle down in lawful matrimony. I want my characters to wield fearsome and forbidden magic for petty and self-indulgent reasons, not decide that it's "too much power for a human to have". My character may even get around to eventually doing the right thing, but I want to be free to have him do it for the wrong reasons.

Brilliant. Can I quote this? ;D

 

[tuxgeo]

My "no-go's":

1) . . .

2) . . .

3) . . .

4) DM's cheating for the players, or for themselves. All combat rolls/ ST for the encounters are rolled in plain sight so that there is no cheating. < snip >

I approve of the idea of rolling lots of stuff in plain sight: initiative, combat rolls, saving throws, skill checks, etc. (Except for arcane 3E stuff that is supposed to be occasionally unclear, e.g. divination where the same negative result might either represent the answer to the divination or else represent total spell-failure; those need to be rolled in secret.)

However, rolling in plain sight does not mean that there is no cheating!
a. DMs can play one of the bad guys as making a call for help; then keep on introducing more bad guys until the desired balance is reached -- and they can be bad guys that might not have been part of the encounter except for the DM's need to add more challenge.
b. DMs can move ahead in the initiative order a bit too soon; I heard James Wyatt do this in one of the Penny Arcade podcasts, where Omin Dran used Healing Word (a minor action), and the DM treated this as his whole turn, and immediately called for the next player's action, though Omin had not used his standard or move actions yet that round, and didn't get to do so because the next PC acted instead.
(On that occasion, James had the grace to say something to the effect of, "I'm rolling in plain sight so you can see that I'm not cheating you . . . much.")

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

A serious question to those posters with long lists of no-goes:

Are you just lucky enough to have found your "perfect" game where none of your "no-goes" happen? If so, you're very lucky; hats off to you. If not, I imagine that you're walking out of a lot of games.

If not, do you just not game? That seems like a more likely scenario. Nearly every group I've ever played in has had at least some degree of smokers, TV watchers, PvP conflict, evil characters

I'm the DM and I always host. Smokers (whether gamers or not) are asked to do so outside. I don't have a TV in the room we game in or within sight of it. And we have always agreed as a group to ban PvP and evil characters. New members to the group that don't agree with that have been asked not to return.

cell phone users, drinkers, crudity, racist/homophobic remarks, "jerks", heavy roleplayers, even people talking in strange accents.

This secondary set of no-goes are only a problem in my opinion if they disrupt the game excessively. I also frown heavily upon racist/homophobic remarks and crudity, especially when my children are around.