What are the no-goes for you?

[Bumbles]

I don't believe in the no-win scenario.

Except, of course, in Paranoia, because the Computer must never lose.

 

[Treebore]

My only "no go" is player on player "aggression", in and out of character. Any in fighting, that is allowed/condoned, and I am gone. Anything done to be a jerk towards another player, and its allowed by the rest of the group, I am gone.

Any serious stealing off of one anothers PC's, and I am gone.

So this means any evil, that is allowed to act evilly towards other PC's, and I don't play. If they can keep it focused on the rest of the world, OK.

 

[Dyson Logos]

My only "no go" is player on player "aggression", in and out of character. Any in fighting, that is allowed/condoned, and I am gone. Anything done to be a jerk towards another player, and its allowed by the rest of the group, I am gone.

Any serious stealing off of one anothers PC's, and I am gone.

So this means any evil, that is allowed to act evilly towards other PC's, and I don't play. If they can keep it focused on the rest of the world, OK.

My caveat for that is "unless agreed to by both parties in advance as something that will forward their storylines and will NOT result in problems in play at the table or away from the table".

For example, the character that joins the party because he's been hired to assassinate another character. Both players know the score in advance, and have agreed to role-play the building tension and one non-lethal fight between the characters.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

no alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs

no evil campaigns (if I DM, no evil PCs)



everything else probably falls in the "pet peeve" category rather than the "I'm walking" category

 

[amysrevenge]

My caveat for that is "unless agreed to by both parties in advance as something that will forward their storylines and will NOT result in problems in play at the table or away from the table".

For example, the character that joins the party because he's been hired to assassinate another character. Both players know the score in advance, and have agreed to role-play the building tension and one non-lethal fight between the characters.

No caveat here. Sounds like something that could work fine - just not in a game that I'm involved in.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My ire is reserved for people who ban a thing just because they don't like it, without any legitimate, believable explanation as to how banning the thing would lead to a better game.

I find this odd. If I dislike a thing enough to ban it, it stands to reason that the game I'm DMing will be worse if it includes that thing. Who wants a grumpy DM? (At the extreme, the game might not exist if I dislike it enough and for some reason I'm not "permitted" to ban it.)

I won't allow smoking in my house (we play all games in my game-room), and if I really had my druthers, there'd be no smokers in the game. Smokers stink. Smokers waste time with periodic smoke breaks. Smokers are a pain in the butt, when it comes to gaming.

On the other hand, I don't mind drinking or recreationals at the table, or a bong-break during a session. Like others, I'd have a problem with truly drunk or truly baked players. (Been there. Went like this: "You see a staircase going down." "We go down the staircase." "There's a door, and a staircase behind you going up." "We go up the staircase." Funny to me (I was stoned), but not real considerate of the DM.)

I hate playing games without a stable group. I read many posts about how folks have "seven players, any four of which will show for a session," and it makes me wince.

I dislike playing games where I can tell the DM is just winging it. I don't know how to explain, exactly, except to say that this is about as appealing to me as sitting around a table and taking five-minute turns telling a story. (If I can't tell the DM is winging it, no problem.)

I won't play in a game where the DM routinely fudges die rolls in favor of the players. Same feeling as above.

Having read the rest of the thread and been reminded of some stuff:

I won't play in or run games with evil PCs. I won't play in or run games in which the PCs do things to one another that would lead to fighting.

I don't exactly prohibit cross-gender PCs, but I strongly discourage it. (Yes, yes, I know ... I'm a monster. Whatever. Rraw.)

I snap at people who do things like play on their iPhones. I honestly don't mind the occasional text, or the occasional phone call, and if your PC is truly out of the action, I don't mind you playing Bejeweled. But if you're just bored, get involved.

 

[Dragonblade]

Universal rules:

1) No illegal drugs. Period. Smoking tobacco outside is cool.

2) Drinking is fine as long as no one gets drunk and you bring your own alcohol.

3) Limited distractions - No TV, or non-game related music within ear or eye shot of the game table. I don't mind kids, but if they are coming in and interrupting the game every five minutes that's a problem.

4) No politics - I don't want to hear your opinion about any current or prior president, or political party. More than likely you don't know what you are talking about. So zip it.

5) No stealing from the party - Even if your PC discovers treasure while separated from the party, full disclosure of any discovered items is expected once the party has regrouped. In over 20 years of gaming, I have never seen anything good ever come from such selfish behavior and it personally pisses me off.

6) No selfish or disruptive characters - No random ridiculousness just because you believe choosing CN as your alignment gives you carte blanche to be a jerk.

Additional rules when I DM:

1) No evil characters.

2) No excessive borrowing of others' books, or using illegally downloaded PDFs. I expect my players to own the books they use. Owning a physical copy of at least the core PHB is mandatory.

3) Pay attention - No sudoku, no talking on the phone, no playing games on your iphone or laptop. When playing, I expect you to pay attention to the game.

Additional rules when I play:

1) No permanent level or energy drain (if playing 3.5 rules)

2) Limited house rules - If I'm coming over to play D&D, I generally expect to play D&D and to be able to use all WotC material by RAW. If you want to ban something to prevent broken characters, or because something doesn't fit in your world (no elves in your campaign setting, for example) then that's cool. But I expect an articulate and reasoned argument behind it.

 

[77IM]

Here are some guidelines I follow as DM, based on my own bad experiences as a player.

1) "Always let the players play the characters the want to play." Obviously it's not always possible (someones shows up at the D&D game wanting to play a gunslinger), but it's a simple guideline that covers a lot of different DM mistakes. The bottom line is that a player has control of one thing -- their character -- and if you take that away from them, it usually becomes a lot less fun.

2) No railroading. I'm the sort of player who is happy to "play along with the plot" for metagame reasons. But this works both ways -- if the players really want to go off in some other direction, the DM has to respect that. There's 5 of them and only 1 of him.

3) Expect players to act like adults. Because they should. And even if they sometimes don't (nobody's perfect), treating them like adults is the respectful thing to do, and is usually the first step in working out any other issues.

4) Know the rules. For reasons others have stated -- it's bad enough DMing for players that don't know the rules; if the DM is clueless, it gets very frustrating, very fast.


A DM who lacks any of those is almost certainly a no-go for me.

-- 77IM

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I had one player in the game I run who smokes (though he is no longer in the game) - he stepped out onto the balcony of our apartment, which is just off the living room in which we play anyway, and smoked there. No problem.

No-one usually drinks, but the last session involved one player bringing some red wine. I wouldn't want to play with people who were drunk or high to the point where they couldn't pay proper attention to the game.

The idea of banning couples from a game is ludicrous. I don't play in every game with my wife - in fact, currently I don't play in any games with her - but she is definitely the first person I invite to play in every game I run, even though I know sometimes I'll be running something she doesn't care to play. I don't currently have any couples in my games apart from us, but I have no problem with the idea. The one major time when having a couple in the same game was a problem, it was their problem.

I don't care for distractions like television or unrelated music, but at the same time any GM that has a problem with me staying in touch with my wife via text messages is a GM with whom I'll decline to play. It doesn't happen much anyway, but if she needs to get in contact with me, I'm going to be available for her.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Oh, one other thing. I hate having a TV on in the same room where we're playing. Talk about distracting!

I can't game in a room with a tv on. Its not that I don't want to do so, I literally cannot. I get hypnotized by the tv, or whatever.

Otherwise, I am a pretty easy-going gamer. I don't play with people who are actively disruptive, or who constantly act like jerks.