The Worst and/or Best Player You've Ever Known

[KrazyHades]

I want to know your stories about the WORST and BEST player(s) you've known. If you're a DM it can be people you've DMed for, but if you're a player it can be someone you've played with.

I'll start it off:
WORST: I had one player who would ONLY play half-elf paladins who were nearly identical in personality. He was a rules lawyer. And worst of all, he would never get into roleplaying, ONLY caring about leveling up and maxing out his character. If I gave a nice, detailed description of a room, he would say "so basically a small room with some monsters for XP" or some such, taking the fun out of the experience for everyone. We eventually banned him from our sessions because he was a pain to play with, and was a jerk besides.

BEST: One of my players would NEVER play the same personality or style twice, always was great with roleplaying, even with roleplaying combat, and coming up with creative ideas. For example, as a monk, he once decided to jump up, swing from the chandilier, and land right in the middle of a tightly packed formation of soldiers, where they couldn't use their weapons but HE could grapple. Briliant.

Lets hear your stories!

 

[Nyaricus]

Worst: Player who was such an egoist. He'd hit other players (in RL), whine about this and that and the other thing, and once even hit me in the eye with a highlighter. Luckily, he's in the military right now. In any case, he's still an annoying womanizer.

Best: Haven't met him yet. My two best friends play D&D, but I can simply say that I'm likely the best ruleslawyer, role player, and tactician in my group. However, there is one guy who might be a better roleplayer than me, but he's never really had the chance to shine. But we'll see

cheers,
--N

 

[Kurashu]

WORST? Probably my brother or his friend. They never understand anything and it takes them about twenty minutes to grasp the basics of something. Like "How do I learn spells as a Wizard?" Yeah. That was a fun converstation. But, they're getting better!

Best. Probably my minister. He's decent at character building and likes to design concepts and tries to get into character.

Best player I know? Either my old DM or his friend Sean.
Worst I know? I can't say his name, but there's ton of stuff I could say about him that others I know would get right away.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Worst Player: A guy that I was sort of friends with as he lived down the road from me. Big metagamer and tried to powergame wherever possible.

If the game wasn't fun for him he would do something stupid to make sure that it ruined things for everyone else. He seemed to enjoy doing that.

Would try and kill his character if he had decided that his character was doomed or wasn't going to dominate the game like he wanted.

Was paranoid that the GM was out to get him. I took him along to a session of a group I was regularly playing in. This wasn't D&D, it was a game in the Harn world using the GM's own homebrew system. No-one's character died in the whole year's worth of sessions that we had played to that point. He managed to get his character killed in the first session, despite the GM giving him numerous chances to save himself. In the car ride home he claimed that the GM had it in for him. I couldn't believe it!

Best Player: I don't know if I've seen a "best" player so far. One of my current players is a very good roleplayer and his characters are very memorable. However he can sometimes sidetrack the game with his out-of-game comments. He also tries to take a mile when I give him an inch. A good player otherwise though.

I did have one GM that I would consider to be the "Best GM". I only got to play a couple of sessions with him but they were so much fun. I felt like my character could do absolutely anything and he would be prepared for it. He always had a big list of people wanting to play in his games.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Wombat]

Worst: A guy so bad he essentially broke up an entire game group. We could only reform about five months after he left and somehow the group never felt the same. He drew in petty disputes from the real world into the game, shouted people down, etc. An absolute horror. Anyway, suffice it to say he was one of two people I have ever actually thrown out of a game. He was only there two months, but he made an oh-so-lasting impression...

Best: Impossible to say! Do I take the collective group who, after our Ars Magica game session was complete (6 hours), stayed together another 8 to argue out the charter of our covenant and present it to me? Do I take the RuneQuest group who realized the options in the pre-written adventure (the last time I ever used one straight!) were bogus and started their own revolution? Do I choose individual players who had moments of sheer inspired play, getting so deeply into character that it is difficult to bring them back out into themselves while they were still at the table? Do I choose one individual over another when it is the collective table that brought the atmosphere together?

Nah, I'll just say I have been privileged to game with some truly magnificent gamers

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Best: A guy in college. He was a great role-player and problem-solver, had a great sense of humor, got along with everyone. He'd take his turn DMing and do that well too. He was a talented artist, as well, and would do character and group portraits for the other players.

Worst: Well, there was a kid we gamed with in high-school who murdered one of the other players. And yes, I mean player, not character. While strictly speaking that didn't make him a bad *gamer*, he was pretty bad at that, too. Very much a poster child for all the people that think RPGs are a source of evil. The kind of player that would constantly backstab others in game, act inappropriately to female players, bitch and whine and metagame, and (in retrospect) have real trouble seperating reality from fantasy.

 

[Lockridge]

Worst: A guy from back in university who would ONLY play chaotic neutral characters - mostly rogues. He was also very argumentative - just couldn't leave things alone. One night we wasted over a half hour arguing where his centre of balance is while wearing boots of levitation.

Best: I'm tempted to say the guy who never played the same character twice but to be honest it was really the one who would always assist other players as well as being the DM's assistant for keeping track of initiative and stuff. The fact that he was into teamwork was a big plus.

 

[el_skootro]

Worst: Well, there was a kid we gamed with in high-school who murdered one of the other players. And yes, I mean player, not character.

Well. That does trump my guy who refused to play unless he could watch television the whole time.

El Skootro

 

[Bad Paper]

Worst: this guy only played barbarian lesbians. and the rules were waaay too complicated for him (power attack? fatigue? too hard!).

Second Worst: guy refused to play anything but a chaotic evil assassin (1st ed) with all 18s in his ability scores. At the end of the day he would death attack the other players.

Best: tough call. The group I play with now has some very good role-players, guys who will really pump up the energy and get in good character. *And* make "stupid" decisions, based on what the PC knows, as opposed to what the player knows. (the cleric-player moved a couple thousand miles away, to be replaced by someone slightly less energetic, though) I think they're all good, including the DM. The DM plays in my campaign, which tends to be a bunch of wet blankets, and maybe that's my fault. I am certainly not on my best-player list.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Best: Well, aside with some of the people I gamed with at GenCon (I'm looking at you, specifically, Piratecat), I will say that my buddy Joey is probably the best player I've gamed with.

Worst: Me.