Banned from playing a specific archtype?

[carpedavid]

I have the opposite situation in my group. One of my players is so good at playing a bard that I have (only half-jokingly) told him that he isn't allowed to play anything *but* a bard in our next campaign

 

[diaglo]

no.

but i have seen DM's ban specific character concepts after the character was already in play.

not my characters...mind you...but
it did seem weird at the time.

 

[Hjorimir]

I have (as a DM) limited classes by player. But didn't single out a single player when doing so. So that is kind of the same.

 

[Umbran]

I've seen it done, I've had it done to me, and I've done it as a GM. If the player seems to have a "preferred type" that doesn't fit in the game, or has gotten into a rut, such bans can be a good tool for molding the flavor of the campaign or helping a player grow.

Btw, about the Malkavian - I know I have little to no information, but from what little I've heard, I might ban it too. Insanity is not funny. Insanity is creepy, scary, disturbing, or pitiful, but if it makes people laugh constantly you aren't playing it in a way I'd like to see it done in the WoD. Plus, there are way too many "wacky rubber clown nose" Malkavians out there already. The thing has been done to death.

 

[KenM]

In one of my old games, one player wanted to play a Drizzit clone. The DM let him bring one in, the player was not very good and the character died rather quickly. The player then wanted to bring an ANOTHER Drizzit clone. The DM banned him from doing so.

 

[Wombat]

Well....

I've banned one of my players from ever playing a Flaming Drow Poodlemancer in any of my serious campaigns...

And another one from playing a guy with STR18, INT4 armed with a leather sack full of horseshoes...

Other than that, no

 

[Teflon Billy]

HAh! I banned a guy from playing Malkavians (and no, I'm not the original poster's GameMaster)

The malkavian clan in V:tM is described a being mentally disturbed, and the player I'm talking about (with help from the supremely idiotic Malkavian splatbook) consitently took "mentally disturbed" to mean "Daffy Duck Unleashed"

I got really tired of trying build the reuqisite atmosphere for a politically charged Game of V:tM while this guy decided he was going to use immortality to play pranks and make up funny routines.

No Malkavians for him. Not now, not ever.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Btw, about the Malkavian - I know I have little to no information, but from what little I've heard, I might ban it too. Insanity is not funny. Insanity is creepy, scary, disturbing, or pitiful, but if it makes people laugh constantly you aren't playing it in a way I'd like to see it done in the WoD. Plus, there are way too many "wacky rubber clown nose" Malkavians out there already. The thing has been done to death.

You, Umbran, have a standing invite to play a Malkavian in my game.

 

[Desdichado]

Btw, about the Malkavian - I know I have little to no information, but from what little I've heard, I might ban it too. Insanity is not funny. Insanity is creepy, scary, disturbing, or pitiful, but if it makes people laugh constantly you aren't playing it in a way I'd like to see it done in the WoD. Plus, there are way too many "wacky rubber clown nose" Malkavians out there already. The thing has been done to death.

It might be occasionally funny, as long as in the big picture it's creepy, scary, disturbing or pitiful. One of the most striking "theater moments" I've had was seeing the Two Towers in the theater. That scene where the two halves of multiple personality Gollum are talking to each other illicited laughs when the scene started, but by the end of it the theater was deathly quiet. In that case, the audience reaction was almost as powerful as the scene itself was.

 

[Wippit Guud]

In my own defense (cause hey, I started this), boB wasn't clownish funny. However, he spells his name backwards, and nobody every seemed to pronounce it right. It gets really annoying when people keep mispronouncing your name, and he tended to 'lose it' after repeated mispronunciations.