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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thedungeondelver" data-source="post: 4857284" data-attributes="member: 34865">Out of game, but pertaining to the game environment:- Smoking in the house.  No.  Way.- Being a prick to my wife or kids or dogs.  My family is my life, and I will be more than happy to crate up the dogs for the duration of the game.- Disrespecting my house.  Look, you don't like the fact I have an unfinished down-step between my dining room and den?  Come over tomorrow, I'll put the mastic and trowel in your hand and you can fix 'er right up and I'll watch the kids while you do it.  Furthermore, throwing a tantrum and hitting the walls or appliances or throwing anything at them.  Does not go.  The offenders, however, will.- Drugs.  I've gamed with (mildly) stoned (on pot) people before and it's no worse than gaming with someone with a beer buzz.  However, leave both Cheech and Chong at home.  Also don't even bring the harder stuff with you and tell me you've got it.- Fighting/personal issues.  I've had people at the table whose characters were mortal enemies, and obviously they're best of buddies.  Conversely I've gamed with folks who had a real hate on for each other.  Don't want that, don't need that.  If you can't resolve it, don't show up.  This goes for couples, too.- Politics and religion.  I game with one libertarian, one conservative, one democrat and the rest I don't know what their leanings are.  I think it works because we all keep our mouths shut about it.- Personal Hygiene.  I can't MAKE you take a bath.  Sometimes we've all got work to do - I've DMed after having done yardwork before, but paused during a snack break to grab a quick "navy shower" and come back so I don't stink up the room.  But if you're gonna smell like warm bologna?  Please reconsider that stance before coming to the table. Now as to in-game (and assuming I'm the DM)?- No MMO-speke.  I don't mean the occasional joke (which even I make - someone in our current TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL game made the comment that they would just "farm gold" from the random encounters on the emptied 1st level of the temple, and I told them "Yeah but their drops are lousy"), no, I mean constant "Okay I'm moving my striker here, so-and-so is moving his tank and the blaster over there, I'm going to buff the..." Don't do it.  Learn the terms - I'll help you!  But learn the damn game lingo.- CN/LN/TN characters are fine if you want to circumvent my "no evil PCs" rule (see below) but slapping CN on your character sheet and turning around and playing him as CE and obviously so and we'll have to step aside and talk.- No evil PCs.  Yes, like someone else said, I know there's plenty of people who've HEARD of games where evil PCs worked.  I've never seen it.  Typically it becomes a deathmatch that never leaves the city or inn or it's a bunch of nutcakes working out their weird and hateful fetishes through D&D.  So.  No thanks.- Do not dictate to me what is going to be in the game when I've already established the parameters.  Don't show up with a DRAGON magazine character class or race or something from ORIENTAL ADVENTURES or something you cobbled together out of one of the monster books and tell me that you're going to run it and it's Official and that makes it Okay(TM).  If I say: "Using the three main rulebooks with some spells and items from UNEARTHED ARCANA...that's what I mean.  Had this happen the other night in a TWILIGHT:2000 game.  One of the other players decided the party "needed" a SpcOp sniper, so he (prior to the game on the way over) talked one of the folks he drove to the game into assuming the role and just handed me his sheet with "BARRETT .50 CAL SNIPER RIFLE, 50 ROUNDS" on it.  I told him to get bent.  There was this back and forth.  I said, okay, gun but no rounds.  Then a tantrum about how dirt common .50 cal would be in postapocalyptic Central Europe.  Okay, you've got 50 rounds of fifty-cal.  No gun.  And around we go again.  I pointed out the rarity of the Barrett in the equipment catalog.  And on.  And on.  It wasn't that they wanted it, it wasn't that I didn't want them to have it.  It was that I said: I need a driver, a medic, a gunner and a commander.  You guys are a LAV-25 crew who picked up a medic on foot after the collapse of the Kaliz pocket.  Suddenly, they're the friggin A-Team.  Oh, same player also promoted himself to Major, despite me saying the highest rank in the party was the LAV commander (E4) and the gunner (also E4).  God DAMN that was frustrating.  So, to bring it back around:  Do not dictate to me what's going to be in the game when I've already set the parameters.- Don't cheat.  This is self explanatory.  A paladin having a set number of magic items does not mean "carried".  It means PERIOD.  Stuffing the +2 chainmail into your saddlebag doesn't mean you DON'T HAVE IT ANY MORE.- Don't take me aside and ask me to do bad things to another character.  A joke is one thing, but yes, I've had players earnestly request a theft, a curse, a disease, etc. on other players.  If anything it makes me want to do it to the person making the request.- Don't abuse my props.  Don't throw my minis (I have lots of metal minis, some lovingly painted by myself and my wife) don't whack my Dwarven Forge around (yes, it's tough, it's not indestructible), don't use my books for drink coasters.- If I give a ruling and it's wrong but it's consistently wrong for the monsters as well as the characters, you can always tell me about it during a pause in the action or take me aside during a break.  If I give a ruling and it's inconsistently applied and screws the players or worse one player?  Yeah, make mention of it.  But please, no tantrums.  I don't set out to "get" the players; odds are I've made a legitimate mistake.- No tantrums period.  Like my dad says: some days you git the bar, some days th' bar gits you.</blockquote>

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