What way of playing D&D is completely incompatible with your way?

[hemera]

For me, it's the super optimizers that are just totally alien to my way of playing. Both as a player and a DM.

 

[billd91]

Elements of style I don't enjoy:

- rules lawyering
- attitude that D&D is a competition with other players and can be "won"
- all options must be included entitlement
- focus on just table-top combat sim, I want to go occasional sessions without combat
- grindy combats
- super-optimization
- Star Wars cantina parties and PCs that are too bizarre in concept to even fit into the Star Wars cantina
- interplayer jealousy issues that are built around anything other than participation and spotlight time (NOT luck at dice or builds)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm pretty flexible as both a player and DM, but two things are likely to have me looking for a polite way of not returning:

• Compensating/capricious DM - we are here to have fun, not see if we can "beat" you....we know you could with a whim, and have trusted you to create a fun time, instead. There is no good "lesson" to be learned from high character mortality and "letting the dice fall where they may" is not a virtue. It can't fix the DM's threatened masculinity...just expose it.
• Ignorant DM - ignorant as in "ignoring your players' signals." If most of the folks sitting across from you are playing casters or sneaky types...why not have an adventure that plays to what they are interested in, rather than a stand 'em up then knock 'em down dungeon crawl? (vice versa also applies.)

I didn't even think about listing things like that. If the DM is like that, then not playing D&D with him is the least of my goals. I don't want to spend any time with him, whatsoever.

Twice, I have walked away from potential games, everything else untested, because the DM indicated in no uncertain terms that he viewed the game as a means to "educate" us poor benighted players on some pet issue of his. While walking away, I was thinking, "I might even end up liking the players and the game itself well enough. But then you won't shut up about X, and we all lose it for a few minutes and end up on the 5:00 news. Better to not risk it... "

 

[Ratskinner]

I find it interesting that after several pages...very few of the things people have listed are actual mechanics that we argue about online. Most are personality and group dynamic problems.

 

[Lanefan]

I find it interesting that after several pages...very few of the things people have listed are actual mechanics that we argue about online. Most are personality and group dynamic problems.

Largely, I suspect, because the OP and thread title both refer to playstyle and way of playing, which implies we're talking about *how* we play rather than the more mechanics-based *what* we play.

Lanefan

 

[Libramarian]

I'm curious what exactly it is about "I don't use XP" that keeps you from doing your thing?

A big part of "my thing" is having the players feel a sense of responsibility for their advancement.

 

[Sunseeker]

Attempting to force real-world physics in a fantasy universe.

 

[airwalkrr]

I cannot play at a game where there is nothing but one long string of uninterrupted combats after another. I totally get (and respect) that D&D was founded on the basis of war games, but there is more to D&D than just combat. It is about characters. Combat AND characters really. Truthfully, I cannot stand sessions which continue entirely without the roll of a single die either. I want to play a game, which means dice, and I want my game to be populated with lively characters who have motivations, backgrounds, and heroics!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

A big part of "my thing" is having the players feel a sense of responsibility for their advancement.

Oh, so it's just that you have to give out XP as DM? You don't mind no XP as a player? Sorry if this seems nitpicky, but I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

I want "D&D: the rules system", I don't want "D&D: the campaign setting". I realize I am likely in a minute minority in this wish.

I think I'm onboard here with you. Rules and setting are two separate things for me, and I'm not attached to any particular D&D setting. (Well I love PS, but I hardly ever play it.)

 

[Mallus]

Tough question.

Probably the only totally incompatible mode would be a full-on PvP campaign.

I'm not a fan of any number of things --hyper-optimization, fantasy effing Vietnam, mega-dungeon crawls-- but I could easily enjoy those sorts of things w/the right group of people.

edit: oh, I and I doubt I could play in a campaign that didn't accept a fair amount of humor. Gravely-serious (or worse, faux-grandiose) and "pretending to be an elf" do not, in my estimation, mix.