"....so we tossed the jerk out...."

[BASHMAN]

"Anyway, he still complains that 3e sucks. We just smile and nod and change the subject."- Biggus Geekus

Why not call his bluff and ask him to GM a non 3E game of something? Who knows it may be fun! 7th Sea or Savage Worlds can be a breath of fresh air in between D&D campaigns. My gaming group was in a D&D campaign that lasted 3 years, and stopped because we were getting too powerful, and fighting bigger badder monsters was getting stale. Then we decided to "take a break" and switched to 7th Sea, and now that game is in its 2nd year. LOL! But in between that, we have run plenty of 3E one-shots to appease our need for a good dungeon crawl every now and again!

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I posted this on my blog a couple of months ago.
I'm listing it here, edited and such:

Over the past decade and a half of its existence, this gaming group has had it's fair share of bad gamers.

– He was the standard “I’ve played everything and can’t be impressed” kind of gamer. And he always seemed bored or bothered to be at the game. And boy did he not like it when I ran. I think it was because I wouldn’t allow him to spend half the night dominating the game with his solo-adventuring while everyone sat on their thumbs. Eventually he stopped showing up after people stopped letting him know when I was running a game.

– This gamer simply needed a good old-fashioned “attitude adjustment”. He only liked you if you could do something for him. Otherwise you’re treated like dirt.

– This guy was an awesome player, but had some anger issues. He could join a game and fix all of the little things wrong with it, simply by speaking calmly and pointing out a few things. Unfortunately his patience would run thin after a while. Then if someone got to him or the DM made a call he didn’t agree with, he’d get aggressively angry. He eventually left the group after a couple of months where we weren’t gaming very steadily.

– This guy always seemed like he was just waiting for the opportunity to take over and dominate the group. He always was sure that he was 100% correct about everything. Teamwork meant that you do everything he said. He even went so far as to make character that had a high charisma and a maxxed out diplomacy skill, just so he would be the one talking all the time. When the group collapsed and was reformed, he was not called. He just seemed like a guy who was one step away from snapping at all times.

– Something about this guy just drove me nuts. He would actually make snoring sounds when his character was sleeping. And he would go so far as to be so loud that you couldn’t hear the DM. Plus you couldn’t trust your stuff around him as he was rumored to be a thief. His version of fun was simply to make things more difficult for you.

– This fellow is your standard “old-timer-gamer”. He has played table-top war games long before D&D came along. And when he plays or runs D&D, he’s an absolute jerk. Rules mean nothing unless you can use them against someone else. And if you cheat and you aren’t caught, then it is 100% legal. Would you let a guy like that in your house?

– This fellow told everyone he had cancer. He didn’t of course, it was just a ploy to get sympathy from others, and then exploit them. I never trusted him because something just didn’t seem right (he gave off the snake oil salesman vibe). Eventually he disappeared from the game store. A couple months later the police later came to the game store looking for him. He had allegedly written tens of thousands of dollars in bad checks. There’s another person who I’d never want in my house.

– Although this guy is fun to game with, he’s a little too aggressive and selfish for my tastes. While I would certainly game with him, I don’t think he’s a good fit for the group as it is right now. (We’re more into teamwork.)

– This guy was a nice guy, but thinking before acting was a totally foreign concept to him. He never seemed to understand that actions have consequences, in the game or the real world. He joined group after group, but eventually just drifted off because he never felt he received the respect he thought he deserved.

Nergal (his nickname) – I despised this pile of wretched flesh. He claimed to bathe, but there was no proof of it. You could actually tell if he was in the game store without even seeing him as he wreaked so much, hence the nickname. Another person I would not game with again.

I bet you might recognize some of the player characteristics in your own group.

And that doesn't even go into my high school years...

 

[VirgilCaine]

Our last problem player was beheaded and zombified. He carried around the PCs' loot for a couple of weeks after I kicked him out.

Sure it was petty, but we tried, oh how we tried to straighten him out.

So it's a walking torso? Nifty.

Unfortunately, in the game I'm running, I've got two characters devoted to Wee Jas and a cleric of Pelor, so zombifying former PCs isn't an option.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I've been off re-reading the RPG.net thread on the subject. It's gotten a lot bigger since the last time I read it. Man...

Actually, I have had my fair share of creepy, smelly, awful gamers. Like the guys who were trying to run credit card scams in the days before credit card security got really tight. Or the guy who would stand there with no shirt and wipe the sweat around his pasty torso...just move it from one part to another, then back again...

eew.

But the best story I have I've related before on these boards. It's kinda gross, so if you're squeamish...

It's actually one of the guys who was involved with the credit card thing. He was on welfare and had no prospects of ever getting off his fat, smelly butt and getting his life on track. I'm sure most of you know the type (nothing against the honest people who end up on welfare, of course, I've been there...then I sent in my $30 to Bob, and now I'm rich and married )

Anyway, his apartment was a room in a basement that had a kitchen and bathroom shared among a few bachelor units. It was tiny, and full of porn and trash and the eye-watering smell of "used" tissues that have sat around for months. I and my friend used to go there because we were just kids who needed some friends to game with, and dude did nothing but play RPGs and computer games. The voluminous pornography collection was also somewhat compelling for a couple of 15-year old boys. We basically figured the guy was kind of gross and creepy, but that's it. We could put up with his ickyness if it meant we got to kill some orcs with the gaming group (which contained a whole circus of colourful characters...I'm sure my mom used to fear for my safety, but at least I wasn't on drugs or anything).

So one day we were sitting in the guy's apartment chatting about video games, and he excuses himself to the restroom. When he leaves, my friend, for reasons I'll never know, reaches over and opens a dresser drawer. Inside, we see all these cut out pictures on glossy magazine paper. Looking closer, we realize that they are cut out of Sears catalogues, and are specifically the underwear models for the children's section of the catalogue. All very carefully snipped out in silhouette from the catalogue. Prepubescent boys and girls in underoos and whites. Our blood ran cold.

We carefully and quietly closed the drawer, excused ourselves at the earliest opportunity, and vanished. We didn't kick him out of the gaming group, but we kicked ourselves out shortly thereafter. It was actually the more expedient way of fixing up the situation. Let the bizarre creepos have their game, and we'll survive without it somehow until we find some more friends to game with.

Eew. Eew. Eew. I must go bathe now, to get the memories off me.

 

[Vocenoctum]

If I was that player, I'd be more mad that the group was not honest with me and hid it from me instead of being man enough to tell me the truth.

Yeah, but if they disliked you enough to hide from you, why would they care about your opinion in the matter?

I've dropped out of several games before, I usually give an excuse about not having the time to game. It's basically true, I'd rather spend my time staring into nothingness rather than game with some people. I've only had one player that I kicked out that I recall in D&D, and that was an arguement situation.

I had an illfated Shadowrun game that I simply ended after half the players turned out to be insane, but as long as I keep taking my RepressItAll, I don't have to worry about remembering the exact situations.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I had an illfated Shadowrun game that I simply ended after half the players turned out to be insane, but as long as I keep taking my RepressItAll, I don't have to worry about remembering the exact situations.

Seriously, they were crazy?

 

[Vocenoctum]

Seriously, they were crazy?

More juvenile and self centered I'd assume, but they did a good job of acting crazy, if that helps.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

this one guy we will call him small town thug (or stt).
-He would say he was showing up for gaming and be like 2 hours late and he had asked that you wait for him. You call him when he's late and he was always on his way, after another hour or so he would show up and say he had to leave in an hour.
-he would cheat and cheat, and you knew he was cheating, so i would always up the monsters stats just for him. damage was always more, the monsters always hit and whenever he hit the monster suddenly had damage reduction. surprisingly he never caught on.
-he would ask you to come over and play WOD and after spending the time to make characters youd play for like 15 minutes and then he would say 'well dudes thats all i got"
-he would go into the other room at a friends house and hop onto the computer until it was his turn and then insist you call him, and when you did he wanted a synopsis of the events.
-he would kill PC's if he didn't feel they where contributing to the group enough.
-he always wanted to do solo adventures. i put my foot down on this one. i told him if you want a solo adventure that makes the others wait then you need to find time after the game of before.
-all of his characters where based off of things from games, or other characters directly copied from books or movies.

another player ill call Bunyon is the cousin of another player.
-this guy thought he knew about my home brew world and went through the entire thing and pointed things out that werent allowed.
-he was a extreme core rules only kind of guy and only published campaign worlds.
-always argued over the smallest little thing.
-would whine when he would try something not covered in the rules and i had to think about how to go about it.
-would whine how he had science on his side when magic broke the laws of nature, such as a wooden mercurual great sword. he always would say, "well thats not scientifically possible"
-would try and kill the other PC's if they where better or unique.
-would throw a fit if we did anything other than dungeon delving.
-hated roleplaying, i didnt care if he didnt want to act out his character but dont tell me i cant.
-would presume to know a rule even though he had never read the book.
-whine that we had no food in the house (hey my family is poor, we get groceries like once every 2 weeks and its barely 80 bucks to feed a family of 5), so he didnt understand when i said everyone needed to chip in for food or bring their own, or well not eat anything. and then would criticize the house and what we had not realizing people had either given us the nice stuff we did have or the fact we are pretty good bargain hunters.
-would play paladins to give other player a bad time, he stated it himself that was the point of the character.

another guy ill call animal king
-he would always want to play awakened animlals or anthro furries (shudder).
-would throw a fit if he had to take a LA.
-would whine when i didnt give him xp, hey you dont come for 2 months and it's not my fualt your character is five levels lower than everyone else.
-always wanted unique powers no race or class could give him.
-always wanted technology, despite playing FR.
-always says his sisters husaband is a better Dm because he works for WW (i checked into this, all the guy is is a moderator for the boards and he's a total jerk, i talked to him once).
-along the same lines, he always says well so and so let me do this, well my response was well their a moron.
-always had to have music playing in the back ground, ok i dont mind music but where not listening to men without hats. Hammerfall and Blind Guardian yes. Manson no, Gamma ray yes, billy joel no.

 

[jerichothebard]

I actually had to get rid of one player - who himself was a little weird, and sort of poorly socialized - because of his non-gaming wife. She was so strange, and so unpleasant, that the rest of the girls (my wife, and some of the other player's SOs, who hang when "the guys" are gaming) couldn't stand her. So they both went. And good riddance.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm thoroughly convinced that acquiring compatible gamers is like going on a blind date: you have a good chance of never wanting to repeat that date again. The stories here reinforce that opinion.