So, what breaks your suspension of disbelief?

[Someone]

All (most?) of us can turn off our critical thinking and skeptical abilities of our brains when it comes to people conjuring huge balls of fire with some gestures and weird incantations, or a warrior trading blows with a 15 feet giant and winning. If we couldn´t, we wouldn´t be playing D&D.

However, I´ve noticed that there are details, not neccesarily more fantastical or inherently less plausible that always irks some of us. Some can´t stomach the idea of a fighter wielding two greatswords akimbo, others can´t wrap their minds around the idea of a clerics not getting powers from deities but philosophies. Me, it´s the idea of CR 10+ war machines in the same battefiled as spear-and-shield low level warriors (MM III have a ton of those), among other things.

So, what´s your limit?

 

[Piratecat]

Anachronisms and silly names. If I run across Phred the ranger, or an NPC named Ash who's weilding a big chainsword on his hand, my suspension of disbelief gets stomped on.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Someone shouts a challenge to you, so you must respond and attack them, regardless of how smart you. Silly knight class.

 

[The_Gneech]

Anachronisms and silly names. If I run across Phred the ranger, or an NPC named Ash who's weilding a big chainsword on his hand, my suspension of disbelief gets stomped on.

Ditto. Joking among players, good. Joking between characters, good. Characters / setting elements / plot elements that ARE a joke, bad.

-The Gneech

 

[ThirdWizard]

A game with NPCs are played inconsistantly.

Lack of reprocussions for PC actions (good or bad), or an episodic game.

A DM who describes things in metagame senses instead of in character constantly (every once in a while is okay).

A boring game. If its boring, my mind will wander away from the game, hurting my SoD.

 

[MojoGM]

I'll second the silly names. I hate that.

Another thing is something obviously "borrowed" from a well known movie or tv series. Not a subtle thing, but a characters or place that is a carbon copy.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah, i wasn't too keen on that "mocking quip" ability the knight has. Or maybe i should call it goading insult. Whatever.

A DM that reads from a pre-determined script REALLY takes me out of a game. A little flavor text is fine, but drawling verbatim sucks me out of the fantasy like greased lightning. Whenever i DMed i tried to make as much eye contact as possible.

 

[Aesthetic Monk]

A game with NPCs are played inconsistantly.

Lack of reprocussions for PC actions (good or bad), or an episodic game.

A DM who describes things in metagame senses instead of in character constantly (every once in a while is okay).

A boring game. If its boring, my mind will wander away from the game, hurting my SoD.

Pretty much nails it for me.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Many things, but I'll pick two.

Inability to attempt a straigfhtforward action because my character lacks a feat. ie, "I try to shoot the rope to sever it." "Do you have Ranger Sunder?" "I have a +25 attack bonus, my bow shoots flaming arrows, and its an ordinary rope pulled tight by what its holding up!" "You need the ranged sunder feat." *headdesk*

PCs being treated as leaders because of their player's position in the group heirarchy as opposed to any mechanical RPed or backstory reason for the other PCs to do so.

 

[Nebulous]

Inability to attempt a straigfhtforward action because my character lacks a feat. ie, "I try to shoot the rope to sever it." "Do you have Ranger Sunder?" "I have a +25 attack bonus, my bow shoots flaming arrows, and its an ordinary rope pulled tight by what its holding up!" "You need the ranged sunder feat." *headdesk*

How often does this happen in gaming groups? I would never make such a call as DM, but maybe it occurs more than one would think.