Player schticks that grind your gears

[WhatGravitas]

No Immersion: Must name character after a wrestler or some other goofy-ass real world thing that sticks out of my campaign like a sore thumb.
(...)
Lovebirds: The dating players who make out at the game table.
(...)
Badass loner: again it's a group activity. Stop thinking this concept is at all cool to the rest of us because you can't get laid.

Ugh... I've got one of these players in my group... (yes, all three, because she's another player's girlfriend - and her char is called "Mononoke" *sigh*) and she's also:

I *like* him: Comes to every game... not because of interest, but because of *him*.
and (not only her):
I'll take this *personally*!: This kind of player can roleplay. Unless another character is mean to him - then it becomes a personal affair, which almost disallows any party-internal roleplay except "We're a group, we're all happy and merry, but we've nothing that defines us"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

RE: the "writing things down" discussion- personally, I would hope we all aim for the middle ground.

Penalizing the PC, and thus the party, for things outside of the campaign world is, IMHO, bad DMing. Getting lost in a maze (because nobody mapped it) is one thing, but assuming that a PC can't remember what a player has forgotten is quite another.

My personal experience in this was a campaign in which, as we are closing up the session, packing up books etc., we are still discussing "in game" issues, including how we were going to gear up for the next adventure, putting in orders with weaponers, armorers & alchemists, and trying to figure out the interaction of a bunch of symbols we encountered.

Then, in a flash of extraordinary insight, I "connected the dots" of the symbols together and blurted out the answer of the mystery they represented- the DM said I was correct- and we broke up for the holidays. Nobody could game from Thanksgiving to after New Years.

When we next met in mid-January, one day of campaign time had passed, but, of course, I could not recall nor restructure my deduction. Because I had not written it down nearly 2 months previous (while trying to vacate the host's house), my PC was deemed to have forgotten the info.

This ruling, BTW, came courtesy of a guy who (as a player) loses his character sheets every couple of months.

I griped for a few minutes, but let it slide. However, the campaign didn't last long after that- apparently it bugged the others a bit more than it did me...especially since the DM didn't remember the prep work our party had told him we were going to do.

RE: Playing in character.

I do that as much as I can. I've had my Druid/Rgr/MU threaten another player's "archmage" with attack if he loosed his megafireball at the undead in the forest...because of the effect on the forest.

I've had my formerly-artifact dominated PC rush to grab said artifact to rescue it from destruction by another PC...despite the fact that my PC was toting Mordenkainen's kid, fresh rescued from cultists. The kid didn't survive the artifact's destruction.

If you're not playing your character true to him or herself, you're not roleplaying, you're metagaming.

The "Your Cool Character is Broken" Guy

I play with someone who always complains that the other characters are too powerful due to some rule loophole they are exploiting. He never bothers to analyze their weaknesses, just sees their strengths.

I'm still gaming with a guy who hacked me off royally one night. 2Ed Player's Option rules- we're both playing Priests (in an 8-man party). He went for the spellcasting unarmed & unarmored combatant path, with powerful combat spells (including some Wizard spells) from a couple of Spheres (Major Access) and almost no Minor access. I delved into Finno-Russian/Kalevala mythology and came up with an armored Northman Ftr/Priest type, whose spells were all taken from the weaker Spheres- all with Major access, plus Wizard Abjuration spells...and no turning ability. He took one look at my massive spell list and went into MAXIMUM HYPERWHINE "Fighter Armor, weapons, HD & THAC0? Major Access to all those spheres AND Wizard spells? You're playing SUPERMAAAAANN!"...without realizing that of all my spells, only 3 were offensive...and one of those was Bull's Strength which would be cast on the true fighters.

I just looked at him and just ripped up my PC in his face, rolled up a Ftr/Thief in 5 minutes and played that...quite the back-alley thug. However, that player ticked off the DM to the point that the DM ended the campaign...right before my Ftr/Th could kill his PC.

(My notes on that Finno-Russian PC survived- I "resurrected" him for another campaign that started up a month after the other had started. He died in the first combat due to a crit by a skeleton with a 2 handed sword. No kryptonite was involved.)

 

[shilsen]

If you're not playing your character true to him or herself, you're not roleplaying, you're metagaming.

Agreed, but I'll add the caveat that there are very few situations where a character couldn't act in multiple ways and still remain true to him/herself. The average human being in any given situation might react in a number of ways, and that's true for most D&D characters. Which is also why the player who'll screw the party/game and argue "But that's what my character would do" is being both a lousy team player and horribly uncreative. A creative person, in most situations, would be able to find a choice that is true to the character and simultaneously not detrimental to the game.

For example, my PC in Mallus' campaign ran into a succubus last session and realized that she was trying to charm him. I could have had him attack her instantly, because I've established that he's a coward who's very paranoid about his own safety. But I've also established that he's very fixated on the fairer sex and tends to think with his penis. So because of how attractive she was, he cut her some slack and simply asked her not to do it again, which led to a lot of really fun RPing. And probably, at the start of next session, is going to lead to my PC being level drained Those were two very different choices, but I could justify either on the basis of the character.

 

[Alec_RA]

there is one i'm suprised hasn't been mentioned yet (or I missed it)

The Self "Medicator"

This person(or group) has to self "medicate" before/during/after the session, and if they don't they end up acting like an insulent child with ADD. Whats worse even after they do there usually to stupid to understand the simplest of concepts... "dude which ones the D10" actual freakin quote while we were playing second edition Vampire!!!

Luckily if you don't smoke the ganga errr... I mean self medicate these guys usually leave pretty quick once they realize you, for some reason, wont let them do it in your apartment or on the balcony facing the street at noon on a saturday while people are walking below shopping (my old apt used to be over a antique store).

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

I have some very strong opinions when it comes to remembering things from the game. personally as the DM the majority of the time i have alot to keep track of and alot of things to do, so if the players cant be responsible enough to remember some basic info such as a story detail, character ability or what have you then their out of luck (i dont really care how they keep trakc of the info so long as they do).
I mean sure, people have alot of real-life issues to deal with, but as the DM i have alot more to deal with as far as the game goes and have the same real life things as the players and if i can remember my part in the game then the players should too.
Another thing that is totally rude and irritating and this is something that has happened to every player i have ever DMed with and every group i have ever played with, someone forgets something a few minutes after the fact and to be honest having to explain the same dang thing fifty times cause some moron wouldnt pay attention or they where too busy messing with their cell phone or game boy to pay attention is really annoying. In the last game i ran i finally said that anyone who was doing something else during the game would not be informed or acknowledged until they had the courtasy to pay attention.
And when it comes to filling players in i make the other party members do it, this is to see who was actually paying attention.
As a personal note i have played so many games over the years that where delayed for weeks or even months and have had no trouble remembering what happened last time when we pick it up again.
Now i have reminded players about things if i know they have a seriously bad memory like one of my friends has seizures that affects his memory , so im not going to be a total jerk about it but if i know there is no resonable reason to not have remembered something then you'know too bad.

 

[pogre]

The Mood Killer

This player has the knack of dropping in an OOC side comment at the most inopportune time. He's usually not a good roleplayer and almost always a hack-and-slasher. When the party encounters the BBEG at the adventure's climax and the DM finishes setting up the scene, you can count on the Mood Killer chiming in with: "Hey did anybody see the Undertaker match on RAW last week?"

Yep, this is the one for me. I set aside time at the start of the game to get this stuff out of the way too....

 

[Endur]

My Character Wouldn't Agree To This

The entire group is ready to head off, except the one player who feels like it's against his character to go along with the plot and leaves. While I'm all for playing the character concept you want to play, teamwork and compramise are a big part of the game.

I don't have a problem with this, and think this is much better than the whole party blindly agreeing to everything. The person who doesn't go along can stay home, do a side adventure, or persuade the party to help him with a quest that the whole team can agree to.

For instance, suppose Mr. NPC offered to hire the party to kill someone. Would you really expect Lawful Good characters to go along with the rest of the party on this mission? etc.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Which is also why the player who'll screw the party/game and argue "But that's what my character would do" is being both a lousy team player and horribly uncreative. A creative person, in most situations, would be able to find a choice that is true to the character and simultaneously not detrimental to the game.

If you really think about the problem, its really a case by case thing. The person playing the PC in character isn't neccessarily the one screwing the party by roleplaying a certain way.

For instance, if, for some reason, the (up until this minute) good party decides to go torture a peasant for info or slay a helpless opponent and the Paladin refuses to participate- or even actively disrupts the party actions- he's not being uncreative. The party is at fault here.

Similarly, if a DM intentionally sets up a situation that "baits" a particular PC (well into the campaign, so everyone knows everyone's peccidillos), its not bad roleplay or a lack of creativity for that PC's player to say "That's what my character would do" if that REALLY is the way the PC would act better than 50% of the time. The DM is the one guilty of screwing the party.

 

[FolcoTook]

I love those players. I think every group should have one. I used to have this one player who was like this AND knew the exact page almost evrything was on AND had some preternatural ability to find a spell in the PHB in under 2 seconds flat. Unfortunately, he never roleplayed, was generally useless in combat and always played a human rogue who liked to go on side quests.

A group I played in had 2 of the Relaxed Lawyers. It was a wonderful thing because you could count on at least one of them to know (or be able to look up in <10 secs) any relevant rule. The downside of that group was that we also had a Jailhouse Lawyer who refused to believe any of the rest of us (let alone the 2 rules experts) even when shown the rule in print in the PHB. But man, did I learn a bunch from those other 2 guys.

-FT

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Actually, I have done this and the GM thought it was very appropriate.

Among the things that the GM told me at the beginning of the campaign that the monks in his world were paladin-like fanatics with a strong moral sense of wrong and right.

What, all of them? That's not realistic. That should be in the "DM schticks that grind your gears" thread.

I've had "the Perpetual Newbie" in my group, too. There are still players who can't optimize worth a damn.