Player schticks that grind your gears

[lukelightning]

The Jerk aka the backstabber and klepto. This player has a thief who likes to steal from other party members, or a something similar. He abuses the party dynamic and ignores the fact that you are supposed to be a team.

Face it: Imagine if you were stealing from your coworkers and friends. How long do you suppose they would put up with it? And how long would they put up with it if they were capable swordfighters and death-ray casting wizards?

P.S. Kender are not exempt from this. "It's a cultural thing blah blah blah" Oh yeah, well my wizard comes from a culture in which it is ok to phantasmal killer thieves.

 

[Fishbone]

The Movie Quoter is great. I'm Morrowner at the WOTC boards and I suggested that PC schtick as "Reference Retard." OH, I hate that!!! You're getting immersed in the game staring down the Monster of Legend Dragonne that has been a thorn in your backside for 3 level ups and the RR will bust out an Animal House quote. And normally the Reference Retard is a good gamer, too, which makes it all the more irksome when he says something like "I AM THE LAW!"

 

[sniffles]

The Overthinker: This player has to evaluate every possible danger/barrier and try to overcome them, so every strategy session takes hours.

The Browbeater: I know I've got the best plan and if I repeat it enough times you'll give in.

The Suggestionator: No matter what the other players are going to do, the Suggestionator always has a helpful suggestion for a better way to do it. They mean well, but they cause every action to expand while the recipient of the suggestion tries to make a decision.

The Waffler: can't make up her mind no matter how much time she's had in advance to come to a decision. (raises hand guiltily again) The Suggestionator is the bane of the Waffler.

 

[Set]

The anti-MetaGamer aka 'Well my character wouldn't know that...'

This is the guy who comes to the conclusion that since the Sorcerer held his action and put his Fireball down *after* the warriors had charged out of the area of effect, that everyone else is Metagaming, and then promptly does the most incredibly stupid and self-defeating thing he can think of, like attempting to Grapple the Half-Fire Elemental Vampiric Mind Flayer.

When other players look at him in bewilderment as he's level-drained / brain-sucked / set on fire, he gets haughty and points out that '*I* don't use OOC knowledge, *my character* wouldn't know about level-drain / brain-sucking / elemental fire auras.'

Bonus coupons for the jerk who manages to get other party members killed in the process, or even arrange a TPK through said act of petulance. "Well, *obviously,* my character wouldn't know that the evil Efreeti would try to twist the wording of the Wish. Don't yell at me for playing my character right..."

Unless your character sheet says skill "Steve Erwin, Marlon Perkins or Jim Fowler: 25 or higher"

Thunderfoot gets bonus points for knowing who Jim Fowler is.

The Multitasker: this player can't just sit and listen while the other players take their combat actions or roleplay. She has to be doing something else. Unfortunately she then doesn't notice when it's her turn again. (raises hand guiltily)

Oh man, I have *list* of stuff that has to be done before my players can be trusted to sit down. No laptops. Ever. What a freaking nightmare. Never trust a group of three IT professionals who say, 'but a spreadsheet will make the game so much *faster!*' Cause it NEVER does...

Cellphones away. Computers in the room turned off, no stopping 'just to see who that was' when the IM 'ping' sounds and then spending the next 10 minutes IMing someone. Television off. No exceptions. One of the players can't leave the room and pass a room with a television on, even if it's the five year old watching freaking *Dora the Explorer,* he stops hypnotized and has to be pulled away, protesting 'I wasn't watching it!' and getting all huffy that I'm dragging him away.

It's like being a kindergarten teacher riding herd to a special needs class sometimes...

I used to fear that it was me being a boring GM, but I'm usually a *player* in this group, and I still have to go wrangle the stragglers.

 

[lukelightning]

Gunpowder plotter. This player won't rest until his character has invented firearms. "Ok, so I take some charcoal and sulphur and saltpeter...." More "high tech" ones will try to build railguns out of wire and a shocking grasp spell.

C'mon, it's D&D, not that episode of Star Trek when Kirk fights the Lizard Guy. If the DM wanted guns in the game he'd put them in.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Gunpowder plotter. This player won't rest until his character has invented firearms. "Ok, so I take some charcoal and sulphur and saltpeter...." More "high tech" ones will try to build railguns out of wire and a shocking grasp spell.

C'mon, it's D&D, not that episode of Star Trek when Kirk fights the Lizard Guy. If the DM wanted guns in the game he'd put them in.

Which is precicely why my latest game is set in Dragonstar, and the players are on a black-powder level planet. Rifles are not universal, but they are present, and the players have allready met a shotgun-toting cleric (albiet in a non-combat aspect. He was delivering a sermon on the justification of resistance, they were trying to regroup with the main invasion force hehehe.)

oh, i should add a grindy player...

The "Stain"

This player's character sheet has more orange cheeze-puff powder on it than character information. Mustard, Mr. Pibb, BBQ sauce, Engine grease, Spaghetti-o Sauce, and a few of a color you don't want to think about... no substance is too exotic for the stain to get it on his character sheet. In spite of this, he will stubbornly hold on to this sheet like it was the only paper that proved his innocence. Consulting the stain's character for any reason is an exercize in futility, since nothing is legible enough to decypher.

The Immaculate Sheet
Every game session, this player has a fresh, new character sheet, perfectly filled out. It's just a little erie.

 

[dpmcalister]

But it's what my character would do: Not the same as the Chaotic Disruptive type; this person is a good roleplayer, but thinks roleplaying his character faithfully is more important than being cooperative with the rest of the group.

As a player who's done that very same thing... is it really that bad? Maybe I've been missing some obvious signals from my old group (only old in the sense that I moved away recently - they didn't kick me out )

The Immaculate Sheet
Every game session, this player has a fresh, new character sheet, perfectly filled out. It's just a little erie.

Oops... me again! Err... do I have a problem...?

 

[Fishbone]

The Antagonizer: This guy will play characters that just don't go with the group. Every bloody time. This guy will show up with a Chaotic Neutral Kender klepto when the rest of the party is a lawful band of caravan bodyguards and treasure seekers who are hired to recover objects of great wealth for their powerful employee. If the group consists of Jim Righteous the Paladin, Ranger Rick who has Favored Enemy:Undead and a druid who detests the undead as blasphemies against nature 20 buck says this guy shows up with a variant necromancer with his skeleton familiar and a fistful of memorized Animate and Summon Undead spells.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

As a player who's done that very same thing... is it really that bad? Maybe I've been missing some obvious signals from my old group (only old in the sense that I moved away recently - they didn't kick me out )

Oops... me again! Err... do I have a problem...?

In my group, if your character didn't want to join the group on the adventure, that would be the end of your fun for that night.

I recently made a backup character in the event that the party concensus would go against my current PC's ideals. So rather than try to hold the campaign hostage, I accepted that this PC might no longer be with the group.

Role-playing is one thing.
Role-playing to the detriment of the fun of the group is something else entirely.

 

[Chimera]

6. Seventeen-Action Slim. Provides lengthy descriptions of all the various things he's going to do in a single round, and can't understand why he can't do it all.

I had a guy like this.

Round 1 (mid combat, with others still fighting):
Him: I'm moving over to the wagon (loaded with trade goods) and searching it for X.
GM (me): Ok, you move over and climb up on the wagon.

Round 2:
Him: I search the wagon and find the X. Then I'm going to...
GM: Stop. Roll a Search check. (rolls) Sorry, you didn't find it.

Round 3:
Him: Blows up at me because he's "been searching this #%$# wagon for a half hour now!"

Mr. Predictable: Regardless of game or genre, you can count on this guy to always play the same character/persona.

Hey, you knew him too?

The guy I knew was a LotR freak who always played a Ranger. Badly. Never had any goals or ambitions, never had any background, never had any any clue.