DM's Suport Group: Most Cliche Player Behaviors Ever

[aboyd]

Get your whining self in the cave, remove the sword from the rock, and go kick some butt!

That feels railroady.

 

[A flannel shirt]

That feels railroady.

Huh? A suggestion for a course of action on an internet forum for something that happened years ago is railroading?

EDIT:
I think I missed your point aboyd. My bad.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

As a DM, I dislike players who refuse to try any other solution to a puzzle than the obvious. Just because the solution isn't obvious doesn't mean you can't figure it out. Try rolling some Intelligence/Knowledge/Bardic knowledge checks. Or better yet, try talking to the rest of the party. You're in a GROUP, after all.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Lack of communication is the root of most of these problems.

Players being human beings are at the root of the rest.

Agreed.

This is why I only invite players who are stuffed with straw and have button eyes. They're much easier to deal with!

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Huh? A suggestion for a course of action on an internet forum for something that happened years ago is railroading?

I'm fairly sure aboyd was being ironic. Good rule of thumb: if you don't immediately see humor, look for irony. If you don't see any irony, kill yourself.

 

[twisted.fate]

The game was a module I was running that was meant for Thor and in the module it said that Thor couldn't bring in Mjöllnir. There were some runes or something that prevented it being taken in. This was my adaptation of the module that the player just like Thor couldn't bring his hammer in.

As it has already been said. It is rather common in the genre to lose your powers. But even without his powers he wasn't as useless as sticking his nose in the air and pouting. He could still punch, kick, throw, and get the other weapon that is already in the cave!

To not even try to be hero because you don't like the situation is juvenile. I'm going to be a jerk because I think you are being a jerk? How old are we? My friends and party members are getting their ass kicked so what do I do? I protest because life isn't fair and I won't be as useful.

Get your whining self in the cave, remove the sword from the rock, and go kick some butt! Guess what the sword would have given your powers back and made you super strong but you don't know that because the character decided to not even try. That is my fault? There were enough clues.

My point is you don't know if you don't try. Pouting about it not being fair will accomplish nothing.

Another thing that is a theme of the comic genre is to rely on your friends and team members. He decided to not get by with a little help from his friends. His choice was to sacrifice the entire team for a concept and felt justified because that is what his "hero" would do.

Hey, fair enough. I made a point of saying that it would make sense if there was a story-based reason for the restriction, and it turned out there was - the runes. That's totally reasonable, and yeah, if there were clues available that would have suggested that there was an alternative waiting just inside the cave (ie. the sword), and he still refused to participate, he sounds kind of like a jerk.

 

[SuperJebba]

It's nice to see that I'm not the only DM that runs into these kind if annoying things.

What really irks me about stuff like this is that it really makes me feel underappreciated as the DM. I run our group's games because I'm the only organized enough and has a long enough attention span to prepare adventures. I feel like players don't appreciate that it is rewarding for me as the DM to facilitate these awesome adventures and that I'm not just a pawn in their games.

 

[GameDoc]

How about this one: The player who is oblivious to the fact that the game shop hosting the game is a place of business.

You know the one. The guy the owner has to remind not to bring his own case of Mountain Dew because they sell it at the store. They guy that won't drop a quarter to buy a d20 from the bin of assorted dice, let alone procure a copy of the Player's Handbook that he has to borrow from someone else each week to run his character (no, not the guy who can't afford it - I mean the guy who just won't do it.). Or even better, the guy who comes in showing off the new splat book he bought of amazon.com when there are three copies gathering dust on the shelf behind him.

My experience is the same player types we've been discussing that don't recognize the DM as another person playing the game are the ones that don't recognize that the local game shop needs to make money to keep its doors open. There's a certain egocentrism about them. It's not malicious, just a bit insensitive or naive.