DMs: What are your character pet peeves?

[SiderisAnon]

Characters who refuse to participate or do anything useful. I don't mean the ones who just wait for the strong personalities at the table to decide what to do and then go along for the ride, I mean ones who actually do nothing.

In recent games, I've seen a number of these characters in combat. There was more than one battle where one of the PCs had to tell a couple of others, "If you don't start helping, we're all going to die," because a couple of the "adventurers" in the party spent all their actions hiding.

I also don't like types who refuse to participate at all outside of combat. They only use their skills when another player tells them to. Until initiative is rolled, they might as well not be there.

Of course, the ultimate worst are the JAFO types. They sit and watch, never instigating an action. They will roll a skill or make an attack when another player insists, but otherwise, they're just an audience.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have quite a few

1: People who play the same characters all the time(as said above)
2: 'reformed' evil characters who want to keep their cool evil abilities
3: (online) people who only post OOC summaries of what their characters are doing
4: Characters with more than 3 classes.
5: Most non-PHB races.

 

[The Shaman]

Well, we might actually be in partial agreement here... the guy who comes with a pre-invented character with an elaborate backstory and whole world seemingly built around him is... not what I have in mind, and I can't stand that either (they often come with a whole bunch of in-jokes and references that I don't get, and that don't jibe with the campaign. They're practically the "mysterious wanderer" by other means, or perhaps the opposite extreme... the guy who is just playing his own game.). (emphasis added - TS)

That's very well said; spot on.

What I'm looking for is something a little more basic:

-show me how you're connected to at least two of the other PCs (so we don't have to have a "you all meet in a bar and decide to go adventuring moment).

That's pretty similar to how we handle new character introductions as well; frex, in my current campaign, a new character was introduced as a fencing instructor at the same school where an existing character teaches.

-your character should have a job- what does he do when he's not adventuring. Tend a temple? Is he a local scholar? Have a profession- like a smith or an alchemist? Heck, maybe he's a farmer... or a guardsman... or a soldier. This gives an instant hook in the community. He might even be a mercenary- or an idle aristocrat- but those are all something I can "hang" things on.

The game I'm running right now - Flashing Blades - provides a variety of career options, so our present adventurers consist of a King's Musketeer, a fencing instructor and secret hero of the downtrodden, and a physician and Renaissance man. Another character, a royal bureaucrat in the Ministry of Justice, became a non-player character when the player could no longer participate.

That said, I've no issue with murder-hobos if they are a good fit with the genre, like in sword-and-sorcery.

So far, it looks like we're two-fer-two.

-a few family members don't hurt- we can flesh out the rest later, but if your dad is the mayor, the baron, or the scion of a lost bloodline... that's helpful to me, and I'd best know that you intend this now.

Characters in Flashing Blades may begin with Advantages like Contact or Favor, or Secrets like Secret Loyalty or Debt of Honor.

It's important, at least to me, to bear in mind that these are relationships which are associated with the starting character mechanics, and they are intended to be resources available to the characters in play. What I don't really like to see in character backgrounds are conflicts projected into the future; I prefer conflicts to arise from the events of the game in actual play.

Frex, the adventurers in my campaign are trying to figure out which of their enemies sent a gang of assassins and a case of poisoned wine after them. This is exactly the sort of result I'm looking for in the campaigns I run, where the adventurers earn their most significant friends and rivals from their choices in actual play rather than character generation.

So it sounds like you're right; while the specifics may vary a bit, we're not all that far off.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The subject says it all... as a DM, what kind of characters can't you stand. I'm not talking about distinct classes (though we all have a few we don't know what to do with- Monks, for me), but tropes that really drive you crazy.

What about your game?

Well, let's see...

(1) Any two-dimensional character. This is very broad, yes, but it mostly manifests (in D&D terms, as my game doesn't use alignments) with "Neutral" or "Evil" characters. When my players have played as "Good" characters, they tend to grapple with certain decisions. "Evil" and "Neutral" characters tend to be "I don't care about anything but myself/my own thing/anything" and that's a huge bore to me.

(2) People who are only in stuff for the money, or characters with no ounce of remorse in them. That is, people who will say one thing and do another, betray and kill allies because it might be momentarily advantageous, and the like. No, you don't need to be honorable. However, I don't find it interesting most of the time (it's usually pretty 2D), and it makes me stop the game to say, "roll your Bluff" all too often.

(3) Characters based on fictional characters. I'm okay with the concept of a PC being inspired by something, but I don't want to hear "I want my character to be just like that guy from Assassin's Creed" in my game. I'll usually tell them no, too, but offer to help massage it as seamlessly as possible into the setting.

(4) Joke characters. I like immersion in my game (it's a big goal during play), and anything that constantly pulls anyone out of immersion is something I'd like avoided. It's just preference, but that's what you asked about

(5) Characters that don't fit in the party. This touches on something you wrote, Tyler Do'Urden. When I was playtesting my game, my players had normal races. Eventually, I allowed someone to make a unique race, and that quickly exploded. Soon, I had one yomayn (angel), dragon-man (a human that had been magically altered into a dragon), dwarf, orc, and gnoll in the party. This baffled me. Maybe they just wanted to test the new stuff, but man was I left shaking my head (it was a help, though). However, too often I see character concepts that involve loners, aberrations, or ultra-arrogant, and it almost always leads to party conflict (I had to come up with "5 Rules" to make sure this stopped with my group).

I have other pet peeves, but it's often player-related that gets expressed through their characters. That is, things like certain players line of thought that includes "all PCs are more important that NPCs", or "how dare that NPC do the same exact thing I'd do in his scenario!"

As always, play what you like

 

[S'mon]

I tend to dislike Druids, I don't find they fit very well into the standard D&D milieu.

Also, a lot of 4e classes take some player skill to describe their powers (etc) effectively; Swordmage is a notable example. I dislike all those classes in the hands of a player who just declares some mechanical effect ("+20 vs Fort, Stunned & Pulled" without describing the in-world action that created the effect.

 

[S'mon]

I think my second biggest issue is tangental to the first- the "problem race"- the guy who insists on playing a mind flayer, or a grippli, or a mongrelman, or even a drow... in a campaign setting that is relatively low-magic (and the environs the players start in are nearly 95% human). Now, if it's just one weirdo PC in a group of "normals", this can be okay... but the "cantina scene" party is something I'd rather avoid, because it generally makes my plots fall apart pretty fast

Yeah, for most games I hate the 'cantina scene' party, it really sucks the enjoyment out of the game for me.

 

[delericho]

Characters that really annoy me:

- The guy who doesn't want to adventure. This generally comes about because the player is under the misconception that it is my job to motivate his character. My presumption is that you came to the game because you want to play - if you've created a character who doesn't want to adventure, it is up to you to create a different character!

- The 'topper'. This is the guy who deliberately creates a character to do the same things as someone else's character, but better, thus marginalising that other character. Alternately, I've seen a guy have his character killed by another PC, create his new character to get revenge, and deliberately build his character to negate that other PCs abilities (this was in Vampire).

- The guy whose character just doesn't fit the group. Look, your characters are going into a dangerous environment where they will literally have to trust one another with their lives. If you've built an assassin who states outright that he would have no compunctions about slitting the other guy's throat, then he's just not going to fit (the same is true of the pre-4e paladin in an Evil party, just the same). Create something else.

In none of these cases is "I'm just playing my character" a valis excuse. You created your character, you define his characteristics, and you decide the nature of that character. If your character is a problem, create a different one, and play that.

I think my second biggest issue is tangental to the first- the "problem race"

I'm really not keen on the party composed of special snowflake characters, each of whom must be more specially special than the last. I deal with this by stating at the start of the campaign which races and classes will be available, and leaving it at that. In general, this means "PHB only", although some campaigns demand a wider (or different) selection.

I've never had any issue with players complaining about this. Whether that's because my players trust me to run a fun and fair game even with the limited palette, or because I've just been really lucky in my players, I don't know.

 

[Pentius]

For me, The ___ Stupid alignment character. Whether its the Lawful Stupid, the Stupid Evil or anything an oddball player can concoct, if I have to cock an eyebrow at him mid-game and say, "Really, man? I said before the campaign that this behavior was not acceptable." I'll be mad.

I mean, I really can't cock an eyebrow, this is putting a lot of pressure on me.

 

[Bluenose]

There's so many types of them, but mostly they come down to PCs who are created to be the centre of attention. The cowardly warrior who has to be persuaded in character to participate before every fight might be amusing for you, but if you're going to demand ten minutes of attention before a scene that only lasts that amount of time then I'm going to be annoyed. Sometimes it's a PC with a great concept if they were an NPC; something I've seen from people who usually GM a lot. The cleric of a god of peace who is only going along with this gang of ruffians because there's a particular task they need to do, but otherwise they don't want to participate. That works fine as an NPC concept, but as a PC you run into the problem that if the other players want to do something different they either do it without that PC or they do it with someone who makes it obvious their PC doesn't want to be present. Then there's the character who is created to outrank and (try to) order around the other PCs. That's possibly acceptable if it's pre-arranged, though I prefer a 'patron' to be an NPC, but if you just turn up at the table with a character who is a noble and expect the other players to act as servants you really should know better than to whine about it for an hour when they don't go along with your particular fantasy.

 

[Oversquid]

By the looks of it, I'm pretty flexible with what the players can be and do, so long as if they add to everyone's fun, and so long as if I can work with it.

But even then, I have a few archetypes I won't allow.

1. The Munchkin

The term Munchkin comes from a term used by older gamers to talk about the new gamers who "play RPGs to win". The term Munchkin means that the new players are "Short and silly".

But to go deeper into detail, those players invest absolutely no dimensions to their characters, other than min-max their stats for combat. Then when they kill everything in a dungeon, they are the first to say before anyone else, "I take ALL the loot! "

2. The Pointless One

You know those players who in one way or another just don't end up doing anything? Yeah, its those people who either sit back as part of the audience (Which could be a problem with coming out of the shell, which I can forgive once I understand that), or make a character that literally is useless, and is played as such.

Like when the PC runs, the players will say that they trip and fall over. Or when they swing their sword, they'll miss and fling their sword into a wall or something. Its to the point where its just borderline griefing, which those concepts might possibly work for NPCs, its just plain annoying to handle when a PC deliberately does that.

This takes me to number 3.

3. The Griefer

Ok, so this person's play style in the party is to cheese off the other players, and make it less fun for them. I ask them the question, "Why do you do this?" Then they'll give an answer thats usually something like, "Its just a game, don't take it so seriously", or "I don't like the party", or something stupid like that.

To respond to the first answer, yes, it is just a game. And a game is an event purely to assist with the enjoyment of others. The problem is, no one is enjoying themselves when they go and do whatever stuff it is that keeps players from enjoying themselves. I ask the griefer, "What is the point of what you're doing? Its obvious that you don't want to work with others, and its obvious that you don't want to play this game. So do both you, the group, and me a favor, and get off my table, and find something else to do".

4. The Mary Sue

The difference between a Mary Sue and a Munchkin is that a Mary Sue is a character that looks and acts like a "Speshul Snowflake with Speshul Powers", whereas a Munchkin seeks to win at RPGs.

The Mary Sue is a character that, despite all the labor poured into him/her, still has absolutely no depth to them, relying only on whatever they wrote down for their appearance (No doubt having purple hair as a human, or having some kind of an exotic pet like an ooze that changes colors depending on the mood or something), and then they walk around like the story rotates around them and only them, and all others, including the other PCs are just their butlers or something. Outside the obvious problems with that point of view, its also bad that such a story has to revolve around such a boring character.




But really, I consider myself a flexible DM, and will allow stuff outside the PHB so long as they consult me on it. Heck, I even allowed a player to play a flesh golem after we talked about how this flesh golem was not going to be immune to spells, and will be a living construct, and having a mind.

That flesh golem is now adding to the experience for all the players and me as well.

That aside though, when I see the above 4 examples, I try to stop the problems before they get approved. The Mary Sues will be given more depth, the Griefers will be kicked out, the Pointless Ones will be encouraged to assert themselves more often, and the Munchkins... oh boy do I have a safety net for them.

When I sense Munchkins, I try to talk to them about it, and to use the backstories I made them write as a guide to help them to make their characters more interesting to everybody.

Then when they try to loot everything before everyone else, I ignore any cries of, "I loot everything!" I instead manually split the loot, the gear, the money, everything between each of the players. Then if they try to loot everything while the players are either everywhere else, or still fighting the dragon, I tell them, "You cannot loot until the dragon has been defeated". I know it makes no sense, but nor does magic, or Elves, or Dragons for that matter...