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

[dropbear8mybaby]

Lots of people seem to have pointed out that there are players who forget everything in-between sessions, especially mechanics. I can understand forgetting obscure things, but I find it odd that people forget the kind of basic things like attacks and skills that they use constantly. I've had one player literally have to be reminded how to do the exact same attack, every single round of every single combat. Are these people just plain dumb or is it something else?

Personally, I think it's a lack of investment. I've also seen sentiment expressed here that says players shouldn't have to do any work to remember things. I think that's bollocks. Players should definitely do enough work to understand and remember their own character's abilities, as well as recording pertinent details about the story like NPC names, locations, quest goals, etc. This is a co-operative game, not a video game. The DM shouldn't be relied upon to have to remember everything and relay everything to everyone during every session. Yes, you're not your character, but you are a person who is engaging in a social activity with other people where your level of involvement needs to be at a certain minimum for you to be a contributing, rather than taxing, member.

 

[Oofta]

One I haven't seen yet.

Players who roll. One. Die. At. A. Time. While. Slowly. Adding. Them. Up.

<RANT>
I know some people don't have a lot of dice, and that's fine. So I bought a pound'o'dice and split it up into sets. Your first attack? Well take all these green dice and roll them all at once. Multiple attacks? No problem. Here's a set of blue dice. Here's a container for you to roll them all in. Heck, I'll even trust you to roll ahead of time!

Nope. Every time. One. Die. At. A. Time. As a bonus, they always put all of their dice away between turns. Then they have to look at their character sheet carefully pick through the dice bag, select 1 die and then look back at their character sheet before they can start looking for the next one. Really? You have to read through your entire character sheet to know that you're going to need a D20? You couldn't just leave it out for the next time? And BTW, why aren't you using the second D20 I gave you when you have advantage or disadvantage?

I get that some people aren't good at adding numbers in their head. That's fine. I've offered let them average their damage so we can work it out ahead of time and all they have to do is roll D20s. Nope. Even if I round up. The still insist on rolling and then sloooowly adding up numbers.

So their turn takes 10 minutes or more to simply resolve a single attack action while mine (when I'm playing) takes roughly 30 seconds if all I'm doing is attacking because I roll ahead of time and write down my results. I can then ask "does a 15 hit? Ok then I hit 3 times for ...".
</RANT>

 

[Shasarak]

"The barmaid gestures to a figure lurking in a darkened corner. You see an enormous half-orc stand up and head your way with a menacing look on his face. The barmaid points at you and walks off to another table..."

Oh well, $20 is $20.

 

[Ogre Mage]

The "lone wolf" syndrome. This PC continually wants to do everything by themselves because their PC's personality is a "lone wolf." Everyone sits around bored as you try to cater solo time to this person. If coerced into having to work with the rest of the party, they either mentally check out and/or get sulky. Why the F did you make a lone wolf for an adventuring group?

Players who don't understand there are consequences for their ridiculous behavior in character. They think they can drop their pants and $h*t on the floor in the Lord's house or piss in the biscuit mix in the kitchen and then get surprised and upset when the Lord has them thrown in the stocks and flogged. Embarrassingly, these players were not teenagers but in their 20s. This is D&D, not Beavis & Butthead.

 

[iserith]

The "lone wolf" syndrome. This PC continually wants to do everything by themselves because their PC's personality is a "lone wolf." Everyone sits around bored as you try to cater solo time to this person. If coerced into having to work with the rest of the party, they either mentally check out and/or get sulky. Why the F did you make a lone wolf for an adventuring group?

Players who don't understand there are consequences for their ridiculous behavior in character. They think they can drop their pants and $h*t on the floor in the Lord's house or piss in the biscuit mix in the kitchen and then get surprised and upset when the Lord has them thrown in the stocks and flogged. Embarrassingly, these players were not teenagers but in their 20s. This is D&D, not Beavis & Butthead.

To curb that behavior, I just roleplay the Lord as being totally into that sort of thing.

 

[DRF]

My PC may have the keen memory feat. I do not. I play to have fun and hang out with friends, not to take a graduate level course on Bob's World with Pop Quizzes (tm).

.

I bet you've never DM'ed a session in your life. You realize how much work we put into running a game, and then you can't even be bothered to take notes, or take an interest?

Lazy players are the worst.

 

[Dualazi]

I bet you've never DM'ed a session in your life. You realize how much work we put into running a game, and then you can't even be bothered to take notes, or take an interest?

Lazy players are the worst.

As someone who has DM'd extensively, no. Sometimes the players don't click with your settings or themes as much as you'd like, sometimes they have a lot of real world obligations taking up their thoughts, sometimes they simply can't be bothered to remember all the details of a world they only occupy for 3-4 hours a week. Most DMs assume they're not going to get back what the invest in the game, it's just how things go most of the time because it's a reasonable outlook. Oofta's point is also particularly valid from a character building perspective; I don't expect every player with the Inspiring Leader feat to have a Churchill-esque rousing speech on hand for every single pep talk, why would I expect the same out of someone with a memory/intelligence related perk?

In the event that someone at my table doesn't want to play lorekeeper or note taker, I simply create handouts with the pertinent information. It's usually marginally more work at best, and it lets me spruce it up with artwork and the like as well. There are easy fixes to this problem and I think having this problem in particular is greatly preferable to some of the other character flaws mentioned in this thread.

 

[Yama Dai O]

Players who don't understand there are consequences for their ridiculous behavior in character. They think they can drop their pants and $h*t on the floor in the Lord's house or piss in the biscuit mix in the kitchen and then get surprised and upset when the Lord has them thrown in the stocks and flogged. Embarrassingly, these players were not teenagers but in their 20s. This is D&D, not Beavis & Butthead.

This behavior probably belongs in the same group as attempted suicide by city guard or some powerful npc, especially antagonists that have the party at their mercy. I think these players are testing the GM, trying out whether they actually can bring bad things down on their character's head, instead of everything being on rails that conveniently veer them away from head-on collisions.

That makes it a player problem (rather than a player character problem), which shouldn't usually be resolved in-game... but I would tempted to make an exception and let them have it.

 

[Lanefan]

I bet you've never DM'ed a session in your life. You realize how much work we put into running a game, and then you can't even be bothered to take notes, or take an interest?

Lazy players are the worst.

In defense of [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] - from what I can tell he (she?) has done quite a bit of DMing.

As have I - well over 30 years worth - yet when I'm a player I'll be the one who has to look stuff up on my sheet and-or forget my abilities time after time. Why is that, you ask? Because when I'm playing - particularly when I'm playing a melee-based character - game mechanics tend to annoy me and get in my way. Playing 3e was the worst for this - I'd always forget my melee feats and what they did (never liked feats anyway). I just want to swing my weapon until my foe falls down and have done with it, while trying to keep an eye on the battlefield and stay in character as best I can. Fighters aren't usually literate*, thus to be in character I-as-player shouldn't be taking notes.

Playing a caster is different. Casters - particularly wizard-types - have the advantage of (usually) being literate, and thus I can take such notes as my character would. For this same reason a caster's player is usually held responsible for mapping as well.

* - reality check: most non-casters in a medieval society, or those without a background or profession that forces literacy (e.g. scribe, author, high nobility, etc.) would normally be illiterate, and our games follow this.

Lanefan

 

[Caliban]

I bet you've never DM'ed a session in your life. You realize how much work we put into running a game, and then you can't even be bothered to take notes, or take an interest?

Lazy players are the worst.

Someone hasn't been paying attention. Before you make accusations like that you should really check their posting history and see if you are correct. Guess you couldn't be bothered to put in the effort, or take an interest before going off half cocked.

Lazy posters are the worst.