Ever had a player in your group throw a tantrum or worse? Most uncomfortable moment?

[Rothe]

Wow, I guess I've been incredibly fortunate. Annoying behaivor saw plenty of that back in high school, but in over in almost 30 years of playing/DMing never seen a tantrum until last year.

Then it had nothing to do with the game. Responded to an e-mail call for players, the DM just had two others looking to add some more. Went over, DM wanted to try something new so I rolled up a character for WHFRP, 2nd ed. IIRC. Never played, but the DMs setting seemed cool. DMs other friend shows up late and proceeds to get up set that it's not D&D (1e by the way) I said cool, no problem, know it well, can have a character ready in 5 minutes, the other player already had a character ready, DM and other player agree we'll do D&D instead; no big deal right? Late comer proceeds to throw a hissy fit about how he thought we were playing D&D, keeps repeating that mantra, and at some point just walks out and never returns. Odd indeed.

 

[Reynard]

One of the groups I play with has a session we refer to as "Worst Session Evar". it was the start of a new campaign and I invited a good friend of mine who had played with us once before in a Middle Earth (Decipher LotR game) and gotten along pretty well with everyone else. But this friend has trouble with new people and a generally thin skin.

The campaign is Dawnforge, based around barbaric tribes that must be brought together to stop a mutual threat. The new player creates this image in his head of what his barbaric highlander was like, extreme code of honor and all. I should have guessed there was going to be trouble during the character introduction stage, but I ignored my spidersense and kept on going.

Within an hour, this player and one of the others -- a guy who can seem a little overbearing if you don't know him -- are having a yelling match at the table. other player sstart to get up to leave. Shortly thereafter, we're all doing the post fight pow-wow, trying to smooth things over.

He's still a good friend, but I haven't gamed with him since (and since he can be a little sensitive, I haven't ever told him why...)

It isn't the only drama our group has ever suffered through, but it is the only session with its own name.

 

[GravyFingerz]

There was this guy that we gamed with in 2e/3.0. We'll call him B.K., cause those are his initials

He was completely socially retarded.

I once requested that he scoot over a bit, as he was cramping in my personal space. He moved over just a tiny bit. I requested again... he moved again. 4th time he threw his dice and stormed out. Jeez, all I wanted was to not be rubbing elbows when I went to roll.

At least twice he called on of our main DMs "a bad DM" for making a call that made sense, but didn't favor his character.

I wish (almost) that I could remember more details... perhaps Talath (he was the insulted DM, not the social retard ) will unlurk and fill in the missing bits.

Eventually the group stopped inviting him to games... and he wondered why. He decided to hate me, even though I was the moron that kept inviting him despite his annoyances... telling the rest of the group "ahh, he isn't *that* bad.... besides we could use the cannon fodder".

Hah, memories. Let me see what I can drudge up.

Story #1: Thor and the Mysoginist Dungeon
B.K. was running a game and it was me, Ian, Justin, Nicole, Merci, Daniel, and Josh. As was customary, visiting the church in town (pick a church, any church, it doesn't matter) led me to be geased for wanting to be healed, for stuff that happened that I cannot remember now. As part of the geas, I had to go gather people and infiltrate a dungeon and find the treasure within. Enter the PCs, and off we go.

Now Justin had an intelligent mace that could fly. He asked B.K. if he could fly like Thor (the hammer pulls him where he needs to go), and B.K. says no. Fine, game continues on.

We go into the dungeon, B.K. and Daniel argue about the mechanics of a trap. Nope, not the game statistics, but the physics of the trap. This takes an hour, because neither side will admit defeat. Merci and Nicole enter the dungeon and decide that it sucks and want to leave.

At this time, B.K. tells Justin to make a Will saving throw. Fails. Oops, your Intelligent Hammer is now pulling you and flying you (what, he couldn't do that before) and interposing you between the exit and Merci and Nicole's characters. Appearantly, B.K. had the hammer take over Justin, and tried to stop the females from leaving.

That, and the tavern where no wenches were allowed, sorta raised doubts in us about him being completely heterosexual. Closet homosexual, at best.

Story #2: I Like 2-Dimensional Characters
The Psionics Handbook for 3.0 had just came out, and I was very excited. B.K. bought every book like I did, in what Drowbane called the "arms race". Everytime he got a new book, he would call of us to tell us. He would then talk about what was in the book for hours. But that's another story.

B.K. decided to make a Pyromancer. Fine and dandy. His character consisted of four phrases:

"Nice to meet you." (with fire in outstretched palm)
"Can I cook that for you?"
"Need a light?"

And ...

"I like fire."

Wow. That is some character depth. You know when a person is being humorous and satirical, and when someone is being serious.

He was serious. This was his character.

Story #3: The Temper Tantrum
We were playing at B.K.'s house one time. It was me, Justin, Daniel, Josh, and Kendal. We were on a gigantic mimic that transformed into an island out in the middle of the ocean. As we all stepped onto the island, the island depressed and we started sliding towards the fanged hole that was it's mouth in the center of the island.

Kendal's character was trapped in the teeth, taking alot of damage. Josh decided to cast levitate on Kendal. Daniel, who ran the game, decided that Kendal's leg gave way, and ripped at the thigh. He made his system shock roll, and bled profusely as he was lifted into the air.

B.K.'s character got stuck in the mouth, suffering 2-3 damage a round. He had over 60 hit points, and at suffering the first round of damage, he threw his dice and books down and threw a tantrum. Play stopped for an hour as we tried to reconcile him.

There are more tales, but I cannot recall them all now. He isn't the worst gamer in the world, but his name, among our old group, is a general term for socially retarded.

 

[Chimera]

The evil wizard, realizing that she was discovered, filled her house with a clodkill spell

For some reason, I really like that typo. That'd be a really interesting Druid spell.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

There was this one guy who couldn't separate game and reality. Out of character remarks/jokes about his character (he had to play a female character with high Cha and this was a friday night game with alcohol involved, so what did he expect) led to in character attacks.

Once he "lost xp" due to me (half a dozen enemies, he and the other wizard torch them, DM wants to give XP only to those two, I suggest that we act as a team and are rewarded as a team - and demand an init roll if we're competing for XP now - and everyone sees how this makes sense, except him.) and his char started badmouthing my char. My char did not hear it (the other player made sure I was not allowed a listen check, I still don't know why the DM gave in to that), so I could do nothing against it. He left the group before I got any justification to plunge my two wyvern-poison-coated ninja-tos into him.


One of the most funny things was this:
We were playing evil ravenloft, with gestalt characters (which was somewhat evened out by a lot less treasure). The characters were quite powerful, and the DM seemed to have problems challenging the party (okay, there were some really heavy min-maxed chars out there, especially that of the local min-maxing specialist).

So we got one mission where we had to get into a building that contained information we needed. But the whole building was in a permanent anti-magic field which had the same dimensions as the building itself (but did extend below the ground, which we found out after we tried to dig through with magic). Did I mention that only one character did not rely heavily on his personal magic powers? After a failed attack we got a plan (involving non-magical "incendiary bombs") and retreating to the woods.

During the night, some dire boars wandered into our camp. Except they were no dire boars, but hii giant wereboars sent to foil our plan (which we still don't know they could have learned of - and we also don't know how they knew where we were: I'm sure we never got any rolls to notice anyone following us, or the DM making any rolls for us). We had no chance looking through their disguise and seeing that they weren't simple dire boars (I'm sure at least one character there had huge spot and sense motive bonuses).

The DM probably wanted us to show that while no NPC heard us planning, he did, and he was smarter than us and could foil our pitiful plans. The hill giants were supposed to be too powerful for us, especially since they got to surprise us in our sleep.

It backfired awfully for him, as we won that fight. It was in part due to my gestalt rogue/magus (Elements of Magic - I wanted to try that ruleset and said from the start that if it turned out to be too much, I'd retire that character at once).

He threw a fit like a little boy (he was something like 25 back then) and ended the campaign.

He was especially petered that I could paralise several enemies with no extra save each round, which was bad because 3.5 hold person did allow a save each round (never mind that that's a 2nd-level spell, and this something like 6th if you translate it).

The most funny thing is his apparent hatred for "munchkin characters" (not only this experiement, but also the min/maxer's characters I mentioned), as when he played in my campaign earlier, he made an egoist (psion, with 3.0 rules) with some weird PrC which turned out to be nearly untouchable (AC through the roof, and that was even after I stopped him from getting 10 types of AC bonus for his character) and as we were playing Psionics are different (so PR was SR - 10), he got through everything easily, and since mind blast was more difficult to save against if you weren't psionic, he usually had most of the enemies stunned (and the rest he disintegrated).

When the final boss was a great wyrm topaz (psionic) dragon, and for a change he had the very problems everyone else had the whole campaign (and they had an easier time getting through SR/PR for a change), he accused me of being out to get him, because his character was at a disadvantage (while really he just wasn't at the huge advantage he always had any more).

 

[Hussar]

Oy, Away, the great flaming booger of gawd will smite Thugdar. Teach you to go spreading tales. Cranky? I'll show you cranky. Make me get up an hour earlier because of stupid daylight savings time... I'll show you....

Honestly, I only get cranky when people force me to sit and stare at a computer screen for three minutes and then type: "I attack." No dice, nothing else. I type, "Roll please." Three minutes later. "[1d20+5]=[10+5]=15" "You hit." Three minutes later. "What's my damage dice?" I go ballistic!

Had one almost fist fight in a game a couple of years back. Not a great story since I actually didn't hear the comment that started everything. I just know that there were plastic bottles flying and a whole lot of shoving. I think it was a complete misunderstanding, but, wow, I had never seen anything like that at a gaming table before.

 

[Chimera]

The most uncomfortable moment that I have had at a game table was when the 8-months pregnant wife of the GM put her character in harms way, refused to back off, then began threatening to make his life a living hell if he killed her character. He got very uncomfortable, there was a lot of silence around the table and several people tried to defuse the situation with humor. She wouldn't have it. Finally, a long time player/friend of theirs declared that it wasn't right and he wouldn't play with anyone who did something like that.

Her PC died. She came back the next session with one that was rather excessive on the stats, being 61 points. The guy who had made the statement quit the game. Unfortunately for me, my work schedule changed and I could no longer make it, so I too had to drop. (When you get off at 7pm and the game runs from 4pm to 10pm, it ain't worth it.)


Used to play with a guy who was pathologically incapable of PAYING ATTENTION. He would get the strangest ideas in his head because he wasn't quite aware, then start arguing with people over them. Since he was so convinced that he was right, he never listened to what the other people said, he just heard "they're not agreeing with me" and launched an even more vigorous defense of his hopelessly reality-challenged "idea". Emily Litella (from the original SNL) had nothing on this man.

He was always telling me what a bad temper I had, because I'd get pissed at this pattern of behavior and his inability to listen to WHY he was wrong when he'd argue things like;

A number of Kobold Sorcerers in an army, all casting different spells. He argues that I shouldn't have ONE Kobold Sorcerer casting all those different spells. Now be real. Obviously, by the rules, that couldn't happen. But that was what he had in his head, so that is what he kept pounding me with. The sixth time I had to tell him that wasn't what I was doing, I blew my cool. But all he heard was the word "criticism", so he changed tactics and said "OK, I get what I'm doing wrong. I shouldn't be presenting it as a criticism. I should me making a suggestion. I should be suggesting that you shouldn't have one kobold casting all those different spells..."

I no longer associate with this person.

 

[charlesatan]

I was playing a Cleric at the time and the party Rogue found a trap. He was hesistant to spring it though (high DC? low ranks in the skill?) and so I got into a discussion with another player (I forgot what he was playing, I think it was a Barbarian) on who should "tank" it and spring the trap. I wanted to do it while the other player wanted to as well. After a few minutes of raising our voices, the player who controlled the Paladin got frustrated, threw some dice, and started ordering us around: "You're the Rogue, you should disable the trap! You're the Cleric, you should stay at the back and let others take the risks!"

And then he went on about how frustrated he was with the game, ripped his character sheet, and left. There was a few moments of silence and then he returned. "Forgot my PHB." Then left again. After we were certain he was out, we laughed.

 

[kolikeos]

I got upset once because two of my players took the DMG and MM and started to assign themselves xp based on the CR of the things they killed.

Ooooooo! That is really annoying! My players do it all the time since they think I'm not giving them enough XP (they are right of course, because i don't like super fast leveling, so i always give them a bit less than what the DMG says)

 

[Nightchilde-2]

My ex-wife was well known for throwing fits and tantrums, but the less said about her, the better. I have three non-ex-wife stories though that stick out in my mind.

Story A: "I Jump Into the Fire."
It was a Vampire: The Dark Ages game. This one guy and his Gangrel bodyguard (played by my ex) were smarting off to this really powerful Prince. The two idiots decided to set fire to the Prince's throne room. After everyone successfully resisted rotschrek from the fire, I called for initiatives. The Prince won and easily staked the two of them with a single blow.

The guy rips his sheet into little pieces and yells "I jump into the fire!"

Of course, he was staked, so he COULDN'T jump into the fire, which just irritated Mr. Fit-Thrower more. We eventually talked him down.

Story B: "Lockpicks."
Wraith: the Oblivion. It was during character generation. Understand that, in the RAW, Wraiths pretty much start out with nothing unless they spend points in a Background that gives them equipment. This guy's character was a thief, and he wanted lockpicks. I asked him if he'd spent points in the appropriate Background.

Cue the fit. Not just a small argument, but he jumped up and down (Tom Cruise-like), yelling at the top of his lungs that he should be able to have lockpicks. Yeah. That pretty much ended his participation in the game because I never invited him back.

Story C: "Book of Vile Darkness vs. the LG Cleric."
This was a high-level D&D game. The two characters important to this story were a LE rogue /assassin (who had devices that hid her alignment) and a LG elven cleric. The party had discovered THE Book of Vile Darkness, though they didn't know it at the time.

The rogue/assassin was flipping through it, no ill effects, but couldn't make out what was inside of it (I ruled that it was written in Abyssal) so she asked the cleric, who did speak Abyssal, to look at it; quite innocently I might add.

The cleric looked at it, failed his save and died right there on the spot. The cleric's player, however, got up and started yelling at the rogue/assassin's player, telling him to get out and never come back (we were playing at the cleric's player's apartment). We managed to talk him down once we explained that it wasn't on purpose, and the rogue/assassin was going to pay for the True Rez.