D&D 5E GMs of EN World: What player behavior annoys you the most?

[Mouseferatu]

Hey, remember when this thread was about annoying player behaviors, not annoying poster behaviors?

The good old days...

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

LOL. Cuts like a knife from the person who insists on whining in all caps that people are calling him evil when we just politely disagree. Too, too funny.

1 potato.

 

[Sadras]

Hey, remember when this thread was about annoying player behaviors, not annoying poster behaviors?

The good old days...

Sadly we ran out of annoying player behaviours and have since moved on

 

[Xaelvaen]

Pretentious elitists who take on some salmon-like opinion that has become the new 'elite' thing to think. In example, thinking alignment is the devil and restricts character development. Nope, the only thing restricting character development is believing your character can never change alignment. Just bad DMing and Role Playing, not bad game design. Or people thinking that a Lawful Good character must be from a lazy player who is too shallow to think. The hell kind of Lawful Good has that DM been allowing? Or perhaps the DM just isn't intelligent enough to challenge that Lawful Good character to make decisions they may not be proud of. I'm sure there -are- some lazy LGs out there, but stereotyping never works.

In truth, 28 years of DMing has pretty much let me see every type of awful DM and player behavior out there. If I truly had to pick the absolute worst thing out there, it wouldn't be exclusive to player - condescension. A player talking down to other players, or a DM talking down to a player - that gets my goat every - damn - time. As someone else said, it always just boils down to mutual respect, and that arrogant display of neanderthal-like tone just - Argh. A very simple Argh.

 

[cmad1977]

Yeah, taking the second or, shock horror, two seconds it takes to write down an important NPC's name is totally unreasonable a task to ask the players to do. And counting their ammunition when stuck in a dungeon environment? OMG! I'M JUST PLAIN EVIL! And recording their own treasure? What am I? The IRS?

I should put myself in chains for being a despicable, horrid DM who demands nothing less than perfection from my players. All twelve of them in two different groups run concurrently. They must be masochists.

Someone’s sensitive.



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[Gardens & Goblins]

Biting.

There's simply no excuse for it.

Yes, I'm looking at you Brian.

 

[iamntbatman]

I'm not entirely sure I fully comprehend your argument here.

1. Players don't owe the DM anything.

2. Because DMing is really hard, and take a lot of time.

3. Therefore, if there are any problems whatsoever with the game, the solution is for the DM to WORK EVEN HARDER AND SPEND MORE TIME, because the DM owes the players, not not vice versa.

Wow, talk about a strawman! First of all, I literally said that the players don't owe the DM "much." Of course, being cooperative, showing up on time, refraining from rude or disruptive behavior and doing their best to add to the game experience are important. DMing is really hard, and does take a lot of time, but as I said the rewards for running a great game seem to me to be even more, well, rewarding than having a great experience as a player. Also, as for your point #3...at what point did I say that "any problems whatsoever" with the game were up to the DM to fix? I was specifically talking about players not being engaged enough. There are any gigantic number of other problems that might arise that are absolutely the fault of the players. But sitting around scrolling through Facebook during other players' turns, PC/NPC interactions or DM exposition? Yeah, I really do think a more engaging style of DMing would do a lot to alleviate that.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[jasper]

Annoying player types. Some of these no longer tick me off.
1. The Bully. If you want a ride to the game next week, I get first dibs on magic.
2. Reskin of favorite fictional character, generally comic book.
3. I want Magic item of the week. Rip off of item from current movie. Talon rocket launcher sword. Light saber, blaster, phaser, etc.
4. Rules lawyer. Pulls out grammar book, Robert rules of order, to get its way. However becomes mute if mistake is in its favor.
5. But science says..... Tries to science the stuff of the campaign. Either forgetting magic will interfere with idea, game theme makes science take a back seat, or wants to build uber weapon using science, logic, math logic, and magic items.
6. Lone wolf who wants to take up 80% of game time on his adventure.
7. Squirrel. Can not focus on game look squirrel.
8. MY knowledge = pc knowledge.
9. Fore knowledge foe. Trust me Jasper. Just because I ran, dm, played it, wrote, etc, the adventure I won't act upon my knowledge.
10. I'm too sexy um too smart for my pc. PC has Int 8, Player has 3 STEM degrees. PC just gosh darn lucky to think of solution. Can apply to other abilities, class, etc.
11. Me against the dm. Two enter only one leaves.
12. Dave not here! Either cell phone, book, cute gamer across the way, bills, etc. Body maybe present if you lucky but mind is wandering.

 

[Zippee]

So many examples that strike a chord!

Sitting there like a lump, not responding to anything or showing any interest in the plot hooks, story line, or campaign world - just doing the bare minimum to get to the next combat encounter. It's like their character doesn't exist outside of combat.

I have one of those

But another one is the nit-picker. I like to run fast paced descriptive games. In addition, I regularly tweak monsters to fit my story or to implement some theatrical vision.

So I'll describe what the players are seeing, not explicitly stating what is happening from a rules point of view. The nit-picker want me to explain. Every. Detail.

Some examples

• Why are you rolling two dice when you attack?
• That's the third Legendary Save, so we're good to go now!
• But a ____ doesn't ____! It says so right here on page ___ of the MM!
• How could they do that? They used a spell and now they're casting another one! No way!
• I describe a lair action as the BBEG waving his hand causing thorns to wrap around a character after he already used a legendary action to do a different attack, so the Nit-Picker wants to stop the game so we can have a discussion about game mechanics.

And this one - same person actually

Player's who try to 'convince' other players how one's character should be played, or even role-played. Dude, back off, this isn't your character, stop treading on another's agency. .

hey guess what, yep same guy

Players that waste my time, money, and efforts. Which is honestly half the group lately. But here is my #1 pet peeve. Player A.... Well when its his turn he has to then decide what to do, if he uses an ability he has to look it up since he can't remember what it did from using it 15 minute prior. Every attack he has to put his glasses back on, find his character sheet, look up his bonuses, then roll. Well first he has to find his dice. Then he rolls dice as slow as possible, one at a time. If its rolling at Adv/Dis he rolls them one at a time, and has to double check what his bonus is since he apparently forgot from last round. Oh don't forget before he looks he has to find his reading glasses and put them back on! After all he has a lot of heavy political commentary to fit in between actions. *beats head off desk* Well I guess he's better than his brother, Player B, who has to be told by the rest of the table to use his various special abilities since apparently in between rounds he's like the guy from Momento and his short term memory erases and he forgets that a 10th level Paladin can attack twice, or use certain abilities. Its to the point where I'm going to start giving a cut of his XP to other players who mostly play his PC for him....

I have this guy, A&B in one chap - let's call him Player #2, to counterbalance he does try and do the RP thing, steadfastly describes his actions, rather than saying "I hit for X points". It's frustrating to watch him fail to add 3+8 in anything like a consistent manner, or to remember how an attack roll works (ignore it's written on his sheet - I have to keep his sheet updated for him, otherwise chaos ensues - he just can't remember it's that number there!).

However I don't object so much because you won't believe what this guy does to the player referenced above - let's call him Player #1. If I thought it was deliberate I'd applaud, instead I'm happy to watch the kama of the table at work as Player #1 is driven to fits of animated frothing and impending aneurisms by Player #2. The rest of the table seem to take the same attitude and protect him from what would otherwise be utterly unacceptable bullying (although we have had to have an 'intervention' once or twice).

I've seen a lot of annoy things in my 30+ years playing RPGs but currently, since I'm the only DM, I have a few big ones:

1. Players that steamroll the group. Powergamers and min/maxers don't bother me. If they are reasonable and courteous to others, they can be dealt with in-game. It's the player that always HAS to be the loudest voice in the room ALL THE TIME that really gets under my skin. No matter what the group is doing or deciding what to do, this player is always contrary to the point of "taking their ball and going home" if they don't get their way, even if that decision is clearly a bad one (like splitting the party). Essentially, if D&D was real-life, he would make the worst adventurer ever because no one would want to be in a group with him.

2. Players that check-out when it's not their turn. This usually results in me having to repeat flavor text or descriptions CONSTANTLY or the player missing something in combat and getting mad when something doesn't go their way because of it. I don't have a problem with phones or tablets at the table. That said, they are usually the thing that is pulling the attention away from the player that doesn't pay attention.

3. Not staying in-character. I don't require players to stay in-character 100% of the time but during combat or when interacting with an NPC, it's expected. I like to run things "real-time". I have a general rule: I will assume everything is in-character and real-time in-game unless told otherwise. So if you start taking strategy during combat or saying things out loud, the NPCs will hear you. If you have a rules question or need additional information, that's fine. I've found players that simply cannot wrap their heads around this...

To further complicate these table behavior problems, a player who exhibits one of these usually also exhibits all three. And so far, from my experience, it's very difficult to address these problems with this type of player face-to-face and having the result being positive. Usually the player just reverts back to their typical behavior or doubles-down and gets defensive.

As you may have gathered, I currently have a player like this. It's made worse by the fact that this player is great to hang out with otherwise. He's really generous with beer & snacks and always looking forward to the next session. Playing board games and card games goes fine. But playing RPGs, especially D&D, forget it. It's to the point where the other players in the group (who are also friends out of game), flat-out don't want to play with him because the game isn't fun.

Yep that sounds like Player #1, some famous interactions: on returning to Waterdeep to meet his faction contact and relay all information (in the context of doing the same for each of a table of 6, a few minutes of spotlight time each) his RP was restricted to the statement "I tell him everything and he tells me what I need to know" end of social encounter, no actual requirement to have the information or know what his character needs to know. Then there was the whole episode spent frothing and shouting at the wizard "just f***ing cast fireball" over and over and over again at increasing volume (luckily we're all 3 friends of 30 years standing and treated it as a joke but it was uncomfortable to say the least) - the wizard, a diviner who wouldn't know an evocation spell if it bit him on the nose! On the other hand he took having his paladin being ganked by a bunch of cultists whilst unconscious for the second time in his stride - he was frothing again when he returned to find the other players had buried him, complete with his magic sword.

Seriously Player #1 is now on a clock, 30 years notwithstanding I'm about done with him at the D&D table (other games he's fine - it's just D&D)