Gamebreakers

[Ferghis]

Nothing at all.
Except of unacceptable behavior from someone on the table. I would say goodbye then.

I agree fully. But I guess that just begs the question, what is "unnacceptable?"

Well, there certainly is a range of social behavior that is unnacceptable, and I won't go into that here. Sticking to the gaming behavior, I guess it's "doing something that markedly excludes others." This includes a DM being unreasonably inflexible about houserules and rulings or even the official rules, or players being obstinate about something.

In addition, and this may be my strangeness, I don't like evil player characters characters that plot against the party. In theory, nothing wrong with it. In practice, it grates on my nerves. I have no problem with evil PCs that play a more or less cooperative game.

 

[ggroy]

My main gamebreaker as player or DM, is whether I'm bored or not.


As a player, I've walked away from games where I was bored most of the time.

As a DM, I have resigned the DM chair before when I found the players and/or game too boring after awhile.

For either case, some obvious signs would be stuff like:

- The appearance of too many players and/or the DM just "going through the motions".
- It's clear that the DM is incapable of producing a game the players want.
- Fundamental mismatch or incompatibility between the DM, players, and/or game system, and the schism involved.
- Too many players are there for reasons other than for playing the game, and their displeasure manifests in the game.

For the last case, such players were typically non-gamer SO/spouses (or siblings, when we were younger) who were talked (or bullied) into playing the game. Another class of such players were the "obligation" players, who were there because they were paying back a (previous) favor for the DM (or another player), and/or were trying to "curry favor" with the DM (or another player) for something else. In these cases, it was very clear that these types of players really did not want to be there.


In general I rather be doing something else, than being bored for 4 hours playing a boring rpg game.

 

[RangerWickett]

One of my pet peeves is when a fellow player has too many pet peeves. I'll try anything, and if I don't like it, I'll talk to the GM and other players to see if they want to change it.

Sometimes an idea you think you won't like ends up being excellent in execution. Like when we played cheesy Legion of Doom style villains working for an army of monsters (the most memorable line of the campaign was, . . . well, something I can't post because of the Grandma rule).

And sometimes a great idea just doesn't work. Like when our Rome-vs.-Brittania campaign got off to a bad start because the GM assumed we knew everything about ancient societies, and would never take into account the fact that, since we've never actually even seen an ancient village, it might be fair to remind us that thatched roofs can't support our weight, or that every business would have a guard dog.

Whenever we came up with what we thought was a good, intelligent, reasonable plan, we'd always fall afoul of some blind spot that would have been obvious to our characters, but which the GM would never explain in advance. Y'know, like before the party tried to sneak into a merchant's house by leaping rooftop to rooftop.

But in general, no, I have no deal breakers. I trust my friends.

 

[Mallus]

I don't want to disrespect a persons memorable game, but damn, I've heard some retarded stuff.

More retarded than Legolas teaming up with Conan to fight an angy Jello cube?

And now: on-topic.

If I like the people in the group, I'm game (for the game), be it an old-school hex-and-dungeon crawl or Jane Austen d20, with the possible exception of campaigns with no-holds-barred PvP conflict.

I play RPG's for the sheer joy of making shi stuff up and to have a laugh with friends. I can do that regardless of the system, specific system elements, or genre conventions in play.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I'm pretty picky.

I won't DM a game with evil PCs. I won't play in a game with evil PCs (with the possible exception of LE).

I won't DM or play in a game with true "lone wolf" PCs.

I won't DM or play in a game with explicit sex or sexual violence.

I won't DM or play in a cyberpunk setting game with PCs walking around as full cyborgs or in full hard-shell armor. (There isn't really much that is less cyberpunk than full cyborgs and heavy hard-shell armor, but try to tell that to the tools who insist on it.)

I won't DM or play in a supers game with lethal heroes (unless that's the focus of the campaign (e.g., Iron Age)).

There's probably other stuff. Like I said, I'm picky.

 

[MortonStromgal]

1. FATAL
2. Playing any game by RAW (rule lawyers drive me nutts)
3. People who like to get high or drunk during the game
4. Pages of house rules, dude just say its a home brew system at that point.
5. Saving the world plots (Epic level/Superman games)

 

[Celebrim]

5. Saving the world plots (Epic level/Superman games)

So a 1st level NPC class halfling isn't allowed to save the world now?

 

[balam_br]

- No low level starting games... starting at 3rd level is still fine, higher than that and i will probably lose interest

- Railroad to death... I game to try and accomplish new things. I dont NEED to be succesfull in all of them.,.. but i expect to have succes in at least some of them.

- Changes in RAW in the middle of the game: Im a Rules lawyer by heart... i dont interrupt other people´s games with rules discussions, but im really Annoyed to discover a new "House rule" or just a "i want that to work this way" in the middle of a combat.

- Decisions without dice: I really hate when i try a crazy or heroic plan... and the GM deny me the posibility to roll dice... please give me ultrageous amounts of penalty, but let me ROLL something.

 

[Steel_Wind]

WOW.

[blink][blink]

Dealbreakers that would send me packing on reading the game intro:

• may only ever play lawful and-or good characters. See ya.
• no in-party conflict allowed. See ya.
• must always be part of or follow the party plan, no deviations. See ya*.
• too much thinking (planning, puzzle-solving, divinations), not enough action (exploration, battle, tension). See ya, after attempts to get things moving.
• DM unwilling to or incapable of dealing with a split party. See ya.
  
  
• But I am chaotic as a player and sometimes evil as well, and this comes through in my characters more often than not.

In all seriousness? The number of DMs who would tolerate that sort of play regularly at their table is quite low, in my experience.

I'm not saying its unheard of -- but low? Oh yes. Your list makes you come off as a griefer and non-team player.

It might be that you already know this. And... it might be that you don't.

Just sayin', Lan-NotsittingatmytableEVAR-Efan

 

[greatamericanfolkher]

...what would be a gamebreaker for you? ...

Rule-less systems (I like crunch in my games)
Diceless systems (I have a dice problem. I had to build a dice case because the dice bag got too small)
Extremely railroady games (Prepublished adventures are fine, but anything more restrictive than that and I'm out. The first GM I played under was basically writing a bad novel and we were along for the ride.)

Anything else would be situational.