What are the biggest RPG crimes?

[Ralif Redhammer]

Oy gevalt!

I’ve got a player in my one group that always asks a bunch of questions on his turn, stares blankly ahead for a bit while he cogitates his best plan of action…and 90% of the time just casts Eldritch Blast anyway.

Oh man. I played with a guy in 3e who spent like 5 minutes picking out the best path every time he moved. And he was playing a melee fighter with a DM who spread out the monsters over a sprawling battle map, so he was on the move a lot!

. . . looking back, I'm surprised I wasn't provoked into committing a real crime

 

[Immortal Sun]

Almost anything I can think of that would fit this list fall under the general category of, "Stuff someone would do when he or she thinks they (and their fun) are more important than the group."

No matter how it manifests, the "worst problem" you can encounter at the table is based from the same root cause--a sense of entitlement.

In my experience, entitlement becomes a significantly greater problem when it's coming from the GM. A single entitled player can be a bit of a pain, but there's also a number of checks and balances (the other players, the GM's ability to control the fiction, etc.).

An "entitled" GM would cause me to walk away from the table within the first 30 minutes, if not sooner.

This pretty much covers, I think generally, anything I would have to add on the subject.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As a player:

• Meta-gaming.
• Acting out-of-character.
• Making a character that will create conflict within the party.

As a GM:

• Meta-gaming.
• Enforcing preferred outcomes, instead of remaining un-biased.
• Protagonizing the PCs, as though this were some cheap novel instead of a believable world.

 

[Shasarak]

I think the biggest crime I have seen is the DM trying to tell me what type of character I can play and what my character wants to do. Gawd you have the whole world to play with and you just can not give me one thing.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

• Failure to actively participate as a player
• Failure to communicate as DM OR player, whether in-game or meta-game
• Thinking your job as DM isn't providing and promoting entertainment for everyone at the table, but to actually just kill the PC's
• Beating PC's with an alignment hammer
• Beating paladin PC's with unavoidable and insoluble morality traps
• Cheating players (you can't really "lose" if you're having fun, so why do you need to CHEAT to have fun?)
• Cheating DM's (that is, cheating to screw the PC's rather than in an effort to ameliorate needlessly cruel random results or fix the DM's own errors which will harm PC's)
• Players thinking they can enforce rules on the DM (including that PC's must always be able to do anything an NPC does)
• DM's who abuse the fact that players can't make the rules
• DM's who are SO "fair and neutral" that they don't actually place player enjoyment of the game ahead of rules and their own self-restrictions
• Players without learning disabilities that can't be bothered to actually become familiar with the rules, especially the ones applying to their own PC
• Players who are jerks
• Players who make PC's who are jerks
• Players who dictate to other players the manner of their participation in the game
• DM's who try to run a players PC
• DM's who use NPC's or DMPC's to hog the spotlight from the PC's

 

[Imaculata]

While it may not be the worst 'crime', what really annoys me (and pops up often), is one player blocking the action of another player.

For example, one player wants to search a desk, and the rogue in the party immediately declares "I search it too!", or "Let me search it, my search skill is higher than yours!". Just let a player do their own thing. If you want to search something so badly, search somewhere else. And don't copy another player's action because you think you can do it better, please.

Or worse, when a player tells a player to not do something, and to nag and nag until he changes his action. I feel these are moments where I as a DM need to step in, and tell my players to focus on their own actions, not those of somebody else. I get it, you're a group, and you don't want one player to do something that may get everyone else in trouble. But relax, it's just a game, let that player have their fun. Don't block them constantly.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

For me its cheating, not informing the group that you are going to miss, being unable to go 5 minutes without launching into a rant about the President/politics, checking out of the game when its not your turn.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yep, that drives me up a wall, too. In my one larger group, I really need to be better at managing that.

While it may not be the worst 'crime', what really annoys me (and pops up often), is one player blocking the action of another player.

For example, one player wants to search a desk, and the rogue in the party immediately declares "I search it too!", or "Let me search it, my search skill is higher than yours!". Just let a player do their own thing. If you want to search something so badly, search somewhere else. And don't copy another player's action because you think you can do it better, please.

 

[dragoner]

For GM's, it's the attitude of that they are going to "punish" the players for their doing something he doesn't like.

For players, it their not going with the party, such as not going into the dungeon/space-wreck because what is their motivation, or you are going to run some one on one game separately? No. Also, if you Leeroy and die, suck it up, buttercup.

 

[GreyLord]

Killing Black Leaf????

Marcie's spirit was weak though.

And technically, she did fail to find the poison trap...