D&D General What's the most problematic D&D player you've ever played with?

[Oofta]

First, I'm not calling anyone out for making fun of someone with mental illness, it's just an issue . I would no more make fun of someone with schizophrenia than MS or cancer.

But folks are still responsible for their own choices, perhaps other than in extreme cases of mental illness.

Yes and no. I know people with mental illness and unfortunately there are many times when it's incredibly difficult to treat, our understanding of how the brain functions just isn't that complete. I know this is not your intent, but there's a lot of people who blame people who are ill for their own sickness.

...And it's not your gaming groups place to diagnose or solve those issues, or even put up with anti-social behavior, regardless of the reasons behind it.

I agree it's not up to a gaming group, any more than it's up to a gaming group to help heal someone's diabetes. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be mindful of how we say things and be aware of not perpetuating the stigma of mental illness. For better or worse, there are many times when you just can't help. Sometimes the best you can do is what's best for you which includes excluding the person from the activity.

In any case, this isn't the forum for this. I just know that there are plenty of people too ashamed to seek help, that feel like they are just weak when they are suffering from a disease that affects the brain. So all I'm asking is that people try to be considerate and remember that mental illness can destroy lives of individuals and families. That's all.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’ve been fortunate enough to not have too many or too egregious problem players. Back in high school, one friend I played with tended to bully another, which extended to messing with her character, and at the time I was under the impression that my role as a DM was to impartially adjudicate, so I didn’t step in to prevent it. Tough I did recognize that they weren’t a good fit for playing together and stopped inviting the two of them to the same games (though I would still run games for each separately).

Once I played in an LFR game at my LGS and brought my partner because they were curious about D&D and wanted to watch. One of the dudes creeped on them real hard, so I never came back, though I did later learn that the rest of the group considered him a problem player but couldn’t really kick him out because it was open-table organized play.

In college I did World of Darkness LARP, and that was a very particular milieu of toxic players.

 

[Stormonu]

I've had a few people that I have been at odds with on play styles over the years, but nothing of a problematic nature, just wanting something different and approaching the game different ways.

But there's one person who just remembering makes my blood boil. He was a narcissistic cheater with some annoyingly creepy sexual fetishes - and was quite explicit about the latter. Unfortunately, he's also married to my wife's sister, both sisters of who game with me regularly. Finally kicked him out of my gaming circle at the request of the rest of the game group when he was openly caught cheating on his character stats and rolls. My wife breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and only afterward I learned he'd made a couple passes at her (including a couple "you show me yours I'll show you mine"). Turned out she wasn't alone, and at the time about half my game group was female. Needless to say, he'll never be setting foot in my house again - and his wife KNOWS of this behavior.

As an aside, he was twice as worse as DM. His "games" were stories about his DMNPC, in which everyone else was just along to see how awesome said DMNPC was - and he especially tried to make it clear to all the female players at his table, as they were "obviously wowed by his dashing charms.", and whose character's survival was often dependent on going along with said flirtations.

As I said - the memory of his antics tends to make my blood boil.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, it was the player. I don't remember the exact words but it was something along the lines of " I have to go up to the mountains tonight* because it's a full moon and I'm going to turn into a werewolf tonight like always."

He, and his wife, were dead serious. I'm not sure what was worse, that he thought he turned furry once a month, or that his wife seemed to agree 100%.

A prime example of folie à deux, I imagine.

 

[jayoungr]

Does it have to be D&D? I've got a doozy of a story about someone I once played Shadowrun with at a con...

 

[Blue]

That's your DMs fault really.

If I was DMing, I'd clearly state such an act to be an act of Evil (this evil dude wasn't a threat to anyone), because you cant just murder people who 'ping' as evil (i.e simply because they've got history being bullies or not nice guys).

Heck, probably around 10-20 percent of most towns populations would be evilly aligned.

Agreed. I can easily see someone evil but law abiding, and then either have the LN/LG aligned city watch hunt down the paladin and demand he surrender for the crime of murder, or just eliminate the middleman and have the deity pull Paladin status for not following the lawful portion of LG.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm getting the strong impression that people a) aren't getting that there was an abusive relationship involved with the DM there, or b) don't know how abusive relationships work.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The sort of campaign that exists solely to glorify a DMPC, where they're the center of the story is generally bad, but that just manages to make it that much more sordid.

As an aside, he was twice as worse as DM. His "games" were stories about his DMNPC, in which everyone else was just along to see how awesome said DMNPC was - and he especially tried to make it clear to all the female players at his table, as they were "obviously wowed by his dashing charms.", and whose character's survival was often dependent on going along with said flirtations.

As I said - the memory of his antics tends to make my blood boil.

 

[Maxperson]

Back during 2e we had a player who was running a Thief. During game play things would come up missing from pouches and backpacks and at first we just put it down to thieves in the towns we went to. Eventually, though, we realized that some stuff that we had on us when we started into the wilderness would disappear before we made it to anywhere that someone outside the party would have access. It was quickly apparent who the probable culprit was, but we didn't have any evidence, so we didn't confront him right away. Instead, one of the party clerics Fire Trapped our pouches and backpacks, keying us to be able to access our gear so that it wouldn't explode when we opened them to get stuff out.

While travelling through a deep woods we encountered a ruined city and began exploring the outskirts. It was a deadly place, but had a lot of treasure and magic. We later found out that it was the outskirts of Myth Drannor. At one point we were at a point where we could go different directions, so we stopped to discuss which way we should go. While we were stopped, one of our pouches exploded and we turned to find the party thief with his hand in the pouch of whoever it was. His reaction, I kid you not, was to cross his arms over his chest and announce that he would not be moving one step further until someone healed him. My response as party leader was to inform him that we were deep into a dangerous place and we were going that way right now. I invited him to feel free to stay where he was while we left, but told him that I really didn't advise him staying alone and wounded. He came with us. The group decided that the character would be kicked out of the party when we got to a safe place.

When we eventually got to a town and as party leader it fell to me to inform the thief that he was no longer be welcome in the party. We weren't kicking the player out and hadn't gotten down on him out of character at all. In response to what I said to the thief, the player who was black immediately got angry and started screaming at me that I was a racist. At that point I got mad and after about a minute or two more of him calling me racist, I let him know that we could step outside and settle it if he wanted. That was the point that the DM, who was also black and my martial arts instructor stepped in and settled things down. Even with all that we still didn't kick the player out of the group. He made a new character, but it wasn't long before he stopped coming to the games.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm not even going into detail here. Dude was unwashed and owned like 5 ferrets and played a 6'4 CN Jester with a ring of shocking grasp. We were playing at his house. 'Nuff said.