Player schticks that grind your gears

[Diremede]

The Intelligent Idiot, My character has an Int of 6:

This is the player, typically playing a fighter class, who has dumped all his points in str, dex, con, and wis(need that will save), and short changed himself on int and cha, which is a playable fighter if you play them as, "Hulk smash, cause you make ugly face". The problem is that when the game starts, this character suddenly becomes a frickin genius and comes up with intelligent solutions for getting past traps, opening doors, and even complicated puzzles, none of which would reflect his/her characters barely more than dog like intelligence. However when put in a roleplaying situation the player quickly slips his character into idiot mode and says, "Me no not understand talk of smart folk, me smash stuff!"

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Mr. Borrower

Um, could you loan me a rulebook, and some dice, and a pencil? I came to the game with nothing but a character sheet.

Mr. Willfully Stupid

My character isn't that smart, so of course he won't wait for the rest of the party...he'll just burst through the next door while everybody else is examining this room.

Mr. Mastermind

My plan will make the next encounter much easier! First, we need three ducks, a Bohemian ear spoon, and a toga...oh, and we have to grind up those 5,000 gp diamonds we found in the last room...

 

[Thunderfoot]

Mr./Ms. Half & Half
I'm a half-celestial, half-dragon, half-elf, half-demon, half-drow, half-dwarf, half-giant, half-ogre, half-troll, [insert class here] Personally, I think they're half-BRAINED!!!! Running a home brew campaign with specific ideas of racial and monster interactions, and published house rules on what is allowable, it still amazes me when someone comes to the table with the latest mutant of the week. I might be willing to call this a sub-race of the Min/max or Power hungry gamer but, this is a special case; its all about the bloodlines (and the bloodline specific feats, of course).

The Non-specific Specialist
Somewhat covered in Dragon a few months ago, this person has a level in nearly every base class and quite a few PRCs as well. At level 20 he/she still hasn't passed 2nd level in ANY class.

But the Monster Manual says...
This player has the gaul to bring a DMs only book to the table and then begin to quote line and paragraph when I have made modifications to thwart such "guidebook" mentality. Unless your character sheet says skill "Steve Erwin, Marlon Perkins or Jim Fowler: 25 or higher" on it, don't even start. It would be different if players actually spent skill points on things like Knowledge (Dragons, Undead, Oozes, etc), but have you ever seen this? If so please send a copy of the character sheet via fax to 555-.....

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

The Show Off
This player has a character with some ability, power, or spell that he/she will just whip out at random for no reason other than to do it. An example was a psionic character traveling with a party via sailing ship. Right in the middle of my descriptive dialogue about a valuable NPC onboard, he chirps up, "I jump over board and run on top of the water around and around the ship." I look at him dumbfounded and ask, "Why?". The answer, "No reason, just because I can and it looks cool. What do the rest of the crew do?" (This in a world where psionics and magic are fairly common and such displays don't cause much ruckus).

Mr./Mrs. Loot the Body!
No matter what's going on anywhere else in the game, as soon as this player drops a foe, he/she stoops to loot the body. If I say an opponent now has a chance for an AoO, they become indignant about my plot to "keep them from the good stuff". And looting doesn't have to come from the bodies of foes. These players will descend on fallen comrades like vultures on a wildebeest before any other player can stop them. I had one player who'd loot an unconscious companion, and then refuse to give back what she'd stolen.

If these character types have been mentioned before, I apologize for the repeats.

 

[Captain Howdy]

The WoW Player

Four of the six people in my group play World of Warcraft. I don't have anything against it (heck, I play it too) but can you leave the WoW talk for after the game? When I am trying to describe the next room of the dungeon or roleplay the captain of the town guard, I don't need you to start a random conversation about how far in Blackwing Lair your guild is, or the funny story of what happened earlier in Arathi Basin.
It's D&D time now. Save the LAN party for later.

*Note that I'm not saying all WoW players are like this, or that is exclusive to WoW players vs. any other video game.

 

[The_Gneech]

The Intelligent Idiot, My character has an Int of 6:

This is the player, typically playing a fighter class, who has dumped all his points in str, dex, con, and wis(need that will save), and short changed himself on int and cha, which is a playable fighter if you play them as, "Hulk smash, cause you make ugly face". The problem is that when the game starts, this character suddenly becomes a frickin genius and comes up with intelligent solutions for getting past traps, opening doors, and even complicated puzzles, none of which would reflect his/her characters barely more than dog like intelligence. However when put in a roleplaying situation the player quickly slips his character into idiot mode and says, "Me no not understand talk of smart folk, me smash stuff!"

Well, if he's got points in Wis, then there's no reason why he can't make clever plans. Int is education, not savvy.

-TG

 

[Thunderfoot]

The WOW player - is actually a sub-class of the...

Movie Quoter
This player cannot go more than twenty minutes in the game withouot quoting a line from a movie, usually Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Other perennial favorites include: Lord of the Rings (any), Willow, Star Trek (any movie), Star Wars (usually a "Luke/Vader father/force reference), Pirates of the Caribbean, Nightmare on Elm Street (any movie), and whatever Sci-Fi TV show is hot this week (from Hercules to Stargate)

 

[Thunderfoot]

Well, if he's got points in Wis, then there's no reason why he can't make clever plans. Int is education, not savvy.

-TG

Yeah, but his articulation of said plan should sound something like this....

"We take da thing and shove in dat place and then we do dat other thing to them guys...whut?

 

[Thunderfoot]

As players of an RP Game, one of the most useful skills is called "writing stuff down." In the past, this role was assigned to a Party Chronicler by the Party Leader, while the Party Mapper made sure they weren't lost and the Party Caller communicated to the DM.

In short, it is a game, and the participants are responsible for keeping track of important information.

Above quote is a good paraphrase of the AD&D PHB (C) 1978- by G.Gygax - pg 7 - 8 section THE GAME. (I'm looking at it as I type.)

Sounds like lazy players to me.

 

[mmu1]

The Sneak

This is the guy who spends more time spying on other PCs and hiding his various extracurricular activities from the rest of the party than actually playing the damn game, and always claims he's simply playing out his character concept. He uses more paper for secret notes to GM in one session than he will for writing stuff down in the course of the campaign.

When (after the party has spent three months sleeping in shifts around campfires and sharing cramped living quarters in flea-infested inns) you finally get fed up with him acting sneaky and being insufferably smug about it (because it's not half as fun unless he gets to rub it in everyone's face), and try to catch him in a lie, he claims you're metagaming, because you have no evidence.