Hussar
Legend
Oh I’m sure there are terrible players out there. There can be no doubt.
What I’m getting at is folks who are constantly running up against it (look around here…there are folks that have little on offer save for lament…after lament…after lament)? Might want to do a little personal inventory/house-keeping! Our nerd culture clearly has an abundance of bullies and misanthropes…but it’s not THAT pervasive.
Its kind of like some twisted version of the Poker saying “if you sit down at a table for an hour and you can’t spot the sucker…well…you are the sucker.”
There are plenty of ways to perpetuate a positive micro-culture in your own “gaming house” (no matter if you’re a player or a GM). If someone is constantly having trouble, might help to focus on that rather than ritually lamenting how awful all your players are.
And if your gaming sucks and you think your players are playing crappy all the time? Maybe focus on your own GMing misplays and clean that up (I’ve been GMing forever and I’m still annoyed with personal misplays after every session)?
I’m guilty of this.
I am very vocal about bad DMs. I have argued about it pretty at length and probably far too much really. Mostly because my formative gaming years are characterized by a rather alarming number of really bad dms.
But even if I’m not blaming all my gaming problems on dms. Lots of my problems are of my own creation.
The key here is to always try to reflect on your own contributions to problems and then try to solve the problems typically by burying your ego.