So, without further explanation, things that, as a player, make me quite unhappy.
DMs that have an unreasonable concept of "balance"
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So one of the other players is looking at spells for his enchanter specialist to take in a few levels. He finds some enchanter spell that drops the target to -1 on a failed save. It's level 7 or 8 (can't remember). He shows it to the DM who takes one look at it and says "no, that's overpowered". Compared to... finger of death? Harm? Slay Living? So many other save-or-die spells around that level range? A bit unusual for being an enchantment spell, maybe, but "overpowered"?
A monster will wade into your group hurling fighters and barbarians left and right, almost cutting a rogue in half or some such, but when it comes to actually hitting those last few hit points on a PC, the monster suddenly seems to roll minimums or act stupidly for no particular reason. These same monsters tend to never attack a wizard more than once, and typically leave clerics alone all together.
YES, your monster can kick our butts, YES, it did and now you feel the need to justify us beating it somehow. *Sigh*
Badly run DMPC's, esp those that over-power the party.
Story-telling DM's where the actions of the PC's make no difference at all.
DM bragging about how if he/she did etc, that we could have been totally ripped to shreads.
GM"So you head into the room, it is smooth stone floor with greek marble columns lining the sides, the once roof is full of holes and patches to only allow spotlights to rain down on the ground."
PC's "We enter the room weapons drawn."
GM "Reflex saves as the floor is all an illussion over a 50X50X50 pit full of spikes, the floor littered withthe remains of the previous adventurers, you can see the glimmer of what looks like a massive gelationous cube holding the previously mentioned adventurers treasure just outside your reach."
PC's
"What about spot checks?" GM "I already described the room to you."
Have to disagree on the Annis hag. That's what they're supposed to do - and that's pretty much all they do. It's one foot for disguise self instead of 10% by current rules, which is still 7' tall, but still (barely) within the bounds of Medium. Rake also isn't anything obvious until it's too late. Still, you should have gotten an attainable Spot check on it.
and/or knowledge check (note though that you kind of have to ask for this one), depending on how disguised it was
DMs that have an unreasonable concept of "balance"ShowSo one of the other players is looking at spells for his enchanter specialist to take in a few levels. He finds some enchanter spell that drops the target to -1 on a failed save. It's level 7 or 8 (can't remember). He shows it to the DM who takes one look at it and says "no, that's overpowered". Compared to... finger of death? Harm? Slay Living? So many other save-or-die spells around that level range? A bit unusual for being an enchantment spell, maybe, but "overpowered"?
Ok, to be more specific, I have a GM who has no idea how concentration checks work for spellcasters who take damage. His NPC spellcasters simply don't have to make them. But, on occasion, he remembers that the PCs have to make them. Reminding him when his casters take damage just gets us some wierd description like 'No, she doesn't need to make one now. It might occur to you that it's strange, but I doubt she'll explain how she does it to you.' This is his way of making us be quiet.
Also. Attacks of opportunity. And Will saves (sometimes, we have to make will saves against effects that would normally provoke a fortitude save. It's all fairly arbitraty, and is not internally consistant).
Finally, and most intensely annoying, are GMs who confuse 'interesting' with 'fun'. Just because a situation is interesting doesn't mean it will play well. For instance, a GM I ran with decided that a cult would form around a fellow PC because she had healing powers. It involved her getting kidnapped and persued and more or less harrassed every waking hour of every day of the game. The PC's character was an adolescent girl. She killed herself, rather than deal with the pressure. The GM was absolutely floored by the choice. To him, it was both interesting and realistic, and that was the same as 'fun to play'. Had he spoken to the PC, she would have set him straight long before she fellated a gun barrel.
Example: Pearl of Black Doubt, a martial stance. This stance ****** my DM off so much I was forced to change my swordsage character into a fighter of the same level. I was level 5 and he decided to pit the party (consisting of me, a druid who had no clue what she was doing, a drow ranger, and a sorcerer) against 15 orcs with four 3rd level barbarian orcs leading them. I had no issue with the challenge; the DM had an issue with the fact that the orcs couldn't seem to hit me :p
So, midcombat, I had to write up a new sheet (at level 5 this doesn't take long) and we started again...and almost got annihilated. I spoke up postcampaign and got the "if you don't like it, don't play" line, which I guess is fine...but you really should listen to player concerns, and not just say OMG this is BORKED instead of actually reading what does what.
Blatant favoritism, or blatant hatred. If you hate , then don't allow it. Don't say "sure you can play a gnome sorcerer" when you hate gnomes and spellcasters, then proceed to grief the hell out of that player. It's rude. Similarly, don't give one person all the cool stuff. Your girlfriend is not going to give you anything in return for her character getting +5 full plate at level 2.
Players who min/max for really stupid things. Congrats! You have a +54 to appraise checks at level 6, and you can't do anything else. Go make something that fits with the party and the game.
Railroading excessively. I understand that a little is needed, especially in the first couple sessions. But when you start painting a dotted line on the ground and flanking that line with great wyrms ready to strike at anyone who wants to go a different direction, we have a problem.
Low power level games. It's just not my thing and I like being made aware of this type of game before I waste my time on it. If your idea of "high magic" is 3rd level spells, we have a problem. If a +2 sword is an artifact, we have a problem. If we use point buy and there's no possible way for me to get an 18, we have a problem.
DMs who deus ex machina and/or feel the need to show off their "uber leet pwnzor NPC". If we're level 8, don't send a balor at us. Especially don't send a balor at us and just before someone gets killed have your righteous level 30 paladin come in and smite him with a single blow. We are not impressed.
And most importantly, DMs who do not enjoy DMing. If you don't enjoy it, don't do it. It's okay. Not everyone has the desire or skill to DM. if you know for a fact you aren't going to put your heart into it, I'd rather just not play.
- In my group I DM with Roleplaying and storyline being INCREDIBLY important. ONE of my 5 players always grunts and groans and yawns and wanders off during the roleplay/story encounters because " DnD is about dungeon crawls and killin stuff". His DM before changed his AMAZING story ( I would have written a novel it was that good ) to a bunch of nameless dungeons to make ONE player happy ( This player has been removed from my games for good for difficulty at the table. He was chattering with people loudly while I was going over important details. )
The DM that refuses to reward creativity
- I was a Rogue/(Whatever the Exalted Deeds Assassin is) in an altered dragon roost ( The evil sorcerer was creating cross-bred dragons for Arcane Experiments, my story but he used it since that campaign finished ). I was sneaking around Invisible ( and I had a backup plan for Scent ). Found the dragon sleeping in a cavern, so I set up a Delayed Blast Fireball orb above it to set off a rockslide, trapping the dragon. The DM then decides that my idea won't work, the dragon wakes up, etc. etc.
The DM allows his ignorance to affect the characters ( From a roleplay POV )
- My former DM ( Before I took over ) never bothered to ask what our characters were like, our alignment, anything like that. My friend was a LE Assassin that had a contract to kill one of the servants of the BBEG. He does his Death Attack business to the Servant and the DM yells " Your now Chaotic!" instead of checking to see why the Assassin did it, if he had reason. Assassins can be LE and the Lawful aspect comes from undying devotion to the Assassins and the Creed.
FINALLY
The DM refuses to test/allow something before saying no to it
- The friend from the first story was DMing a few games and he outright banned Mindbender ( CArc ) on the grounds of " It's too powerful, you just take over whoever you fight and win". I had to outline to him that it only works on anything INT 3 or higher, it has to be Humanoid, I can only do it X times a day, they get a save ( so put things with ridiculous Will in it ), it can be countered by ANtimagic among other effecdts, etc. He then refused to allow me to show him how balanced it is and just outright banned the class.
Thats all for now.
Griefers, whiners, "oooh gimme that" which entails every cool items, obstinate arguers, players that don't listen, personal PC-only POV players, table conflict over petty things that should be easily rectifiable, I could go on and on and on because I'm literally reminded weekly.
+1
He completely throws the magic system out the window and makes up his own, which consists of like...9 spells, and you have to spend a full round before you can even start casting spells.
Every NPC we come by is immediately hostile to us, and just yells at us, or doesn't help us, and we spend about two or three sessions running away from everything. In these sessions, we were robbed of our "starting gold of 5 silver" two or three times, and when we actually managed to kill the robbers, we couldn't use their equipment because they were all marked, so their gang would notice and just kill us.
Worst DM I've ever played with. In another session though.
My level...Like, 3 or 4 Sorcerer ends up standing infront of the BBEG 13th or so level cleric, who keeps casting Inflict Critical Wounds. I explain to him that he provokes because I threaten his square, and luckily manage to fizzle one or two spells. When I finally go to run, with my remaining 2 HP, I cause an AoO from the new PC who betrays us "Cause he's Neutral" but luckily he fails on the roll. When it looks like I'm homefree, the DM declares that the BBEQ, who wasn't holding or carrying any weapons gets an AoO, when I tell him he can't because he's unarmed, the DM chimes in with "Oh, well he's a high level, he wasted a feat on Improved Unarmed Strike" and then rolls, hits, and knocks out my character, who is then killed in the next session.
But in that campaign, the part that got me the most was when my character was just about to be hung, I ask the DM if I could have a last word or two. (I ask him in PM, we were playing in chat) but in the span of about 5 minutes types "And the lever is pulled, and your character fulls, a gross snapping sound following his fall" and then just says "Oops, I guess not." right after...
It feels good to vent.
COOOOBBBBRRRRRAAAA!!!!!
Also the DM who is never prepared and gets lost in reading the book or adventure or whatever... spaces out, doesn't even read aloud and it just wrecks the play.
Plus I'm enjoying the very old "DMs girlfriend at the table". She is, guess what, a wizard who never gets attacked. Classic!
Amazing that we all still enjoy the game isn't it? I do really enjoy playing with this group.
Players who create characters of wildly different races/personalities/concepts from themselves, but then play the character exactly as though it were the player him/herself.
Players who have to make these ridiculously uber-max-l33t characters specifically designed to require me to go buy more dice to roll for their damage, but who either can never remember or don't truly understand how their one stupid little zomg-it's-teh-bombz trick is supposed to work.
Players and DMs who can't sit down and play a simple old-fashioned non-min/maxed core-only game just for the joy of playing.
Players and DM's who think that a game isn't an equal partnership in a collaborative effort to create a good story, but rather that one "side" is more important than the other.
1)bard gets a ghostouch shortsword (in a temple filled with what are essentially incorporeal outsiders) - handy if we fight a lot of weak incorporeal types. going up against a major evil npc spellcaster (lv.10-ish to our 6-7), we have time to prepare; another player and i work through all the buffs and battle plans and present them to the rest of the party, who are cool with them. except the bard, who demands that she get to use her piddly sword the whole combat( instead of singing and using tasha's hideous laughter) or she won't buff. for some reason, she thought she was on the same level as a fighter and monk both optimized for damage output. i believe she dealt 2 damage that combat.
2)party's fighting a bunch of shadows. cleric is set on using cure spells to kill them. unsurprisingly, the sorceress with 6 str goes down (she has 1d4 rounds before turning into a shadow; 2 in this case). cleric has choice of losing charge (he kept missing with that cure; miss chance can be damn annoying) to cast lesser restoration, or continue his tactics; thank god he hit with that cure, or we'd likely be down a character
it's really not that bad when this kind of thing happens (i.e. we still won), but it's really annoying to watch
Players who are unprepared to play. No dice, books, character sheet, pencil, etc. They spend the first 10 minutes borrowing these items from other players and the DM. Then they spend 10 more minutes trying to remember their character.
Players who have been playing for years but they don't bother to learn the rules. They have to learn one race and one class, so they may play a character effectively. These guys walk out after the game and don't give their character one thought until game time the next week. They don't know the rules and they don't care. They always have to ask how to roll to hit, damage, skills, et. al. They slow down the game to a crawl.
Fool's Gold:
DM that hated PCs with gold, if you didn't spend all but 10 gold whenever you got to town, chances were good that you would be mugged by thieves, shopkeepers, or bill collectors.
Breaking Rule 0:
A player that consistently says stupid things "I'm gonna go give the ogre a hug" and the DM that takes him seriously. (Rule 0: Don't give the DM ideas)
DM class restrictions/rail-roading:
I had a DM where no one EVER wanted to be a Cleric after what he did to the first one someone tried. This DM believed that all Clerics MUST give all their earnings to their church (to the extent that everyone else had to pay for his room/lodgings/travel), that clerics could not wear any armor, that clerics must roll randomly at dawn to determine what spells their deity gave them, and that clerics were only to be used as walking band-aids (bad things happened when he attempted combat).
Same DM, if you were melee character, no matter what your 'style' you would always find an uber-powerful sword (rapier,long, or bastard) that would usually try to take over your mind. That would be the ONLY magic item you ever received that was worth a damn (imagine a level 10 ranger in Leather Armor +1).
Same DM, if you were a sorcerer, you would be able to find and afford every magic item under the sun. Eventually a sorcerer would have an unbuffed AC higher than the party fighters (in this game rings of AC stacked).
Same DM, Druids would always receive a companion whose CR was higher the party's combined CR. Paladins were the only class that would acquire fame, prestige, or full plate. Rangers were treated (and rewarded) like Rogues.
TPK Lovers:
DMs that will try hard to kill the players in the 'final' session rather than let everyone have a satisfying session and retire their characters. Recently had to kill an aspect of Bahamut in hell. Survived, barely. Then when we teleport back to civilization party members pop back to hell because they were tainted when they failed one of the 17 (I counted) random saves through the hall of spanking (my term, but that's what it was, a long corridor where we would occasionally roll a save or start gibbering in place) (random: DM says 'roll your lowest save').
Ever-repeating characters:
Players who like only one particular character build and will only ever play that build in exactly the same manner; will often use the same character name as well.
ALL of this was under the same DM/group for over a year .......... I think I need a hug
Makes magic shops false identify them as not cursed. Than laugh when you trust the shop owner.
Gender changing ring that can't be removed.
Oh, the Shop keeper offered for 10x the cost to remove curse... not like that compensates. Sadly, we had a 1/2 Celestial Fighter (acted like a Paladin), or I would have killed that shop keeper for extortion.
I had a DM where no one EVER wanted to be a Cleric after what he did to the first one someone tried. This DM believed that all Clerics MUST give all their earnings to their church (to the extent that everyone else had to pay for his room/lodgings/travel), that clerics could not wear any armor, that clerics must roll randomly at dawn to determine what spells their deity gave them, and that clerics were only to be used as walking band-aids (bad things happened when he attempted combat).
bleccchhherechhh. so...bad...
a friendly owlbear approaches. it initiates a grapple, and then attacks with a cookie as a light weapon, and critical fumbles. you may now disarm the cookie as an immediate action. is this comforting (y/n)?
1- Unbalanced magic items in the hands of enemies. For example, an ogre Scout with a mighty composite greatbow that can cast True Strike at will. (In a game where beating your target's AC by 10 threatens a critical, which can be confirmed by beating the target's AC by 10 again.)
2- One day, he got tired of a player (not me) arguing with him. So, in the middle of an argument between the PC and an NPC, the NPC kills the PC-- no attack rolls, no saves. Sometime between then and the next game, he updates his website with the rule that PCs will be unavoidably killed if the player is unnecessarily disruptive.
Only campaign I've ever quit.
2)party's fighting a bunch of shadows. cleric is set on using cure spells to kill them. unsurprisingly, the sorceress with 6 str goes down (she has 1d4 rounds before turning into a shadow; 2 in this case). cleric has choice of losing charge (he kept missing with that cure; miss chance can be damn annoying) to cast lesser restoration, or continue his tactics; thank god he hit with that cure, or we'd likely be down a character
In case it matters, positive energy is supposed to ignore incorporeal miss chance. (Check the Incorporeal subtype in the Monster Manual.)
and as a DM the one thing I hate the most is a player who was told about any specific rules changes to my campaign world(hell i even e-mail my players a file consisting of any and all up-to-date character classes and magic changes) who then say they understand them and completely ignore them and then whine when something happens that they can't change(the barbarian debacle comes to mind)
Ok, so you made a misstake as a DM and gave out a shiney that you in the cold light of the morning realise will break the game. Or you have added up the loot you've been scattering around for the last two months, and oops! too much gold for our level.
Talk to me, outside the game, okthx, I don't bite. At least not very often. If you've made a misstake, we can sort it out. It's not big deal.
But don't spring some stupid arse ingame stunt (like that horrible horrible spell) on me to take away my toys, it makes happy pretendy times very much un-fun.
A DM, intiating the "Kill the baby, or doom the world" scenario. OH, HOW I HATE THAT!:hoppingma
Thats happened to me, I killed the baby and then because i was a paladin he automatically cursed me, made me a blackguard and then that character became an NPC and the next BBEG, I was P.O.'d, and I'm slightly ashamed to admit this point, but I spent the next few sessions purposely doing whatever i could to A) break his game and B) derail his narrative at every turn
1)bard gets a ghostouch shortsword (in a temple filled with what are essentially incorporeal outsiders) - handy if we fight a lot of weak incorporeal types. going up against a major evil npc spellcaster (lv.10-ish to our 6-7), we have time to prepare; another player and i work through all the buffs and battle plans and present them to the rest of the party, who are cool with them. except the bard, who demands that she get to use her piddly sword the whole combat( instead of singing and using tasha's hideous laughter) or she won't buff.
I hope you both know that the bard can sing AND swing her sword at the same time.
Thats happened to me, I killed the baby and then because i was a paladin he automatically cursed me, made me a blackguard and then that character became an NPC and the next BBEG, I was P.O.'d, and I'm slightly ashamed to admit this point, but I spent the next few sessions purposely doing whatever i could to A) break his game and B) derail his narrative at every turn
While getting screwd out of a character isn't fun, I have to say that's a pretty cool thing to do with a fallen paladin ... after the player retires him of course.
While getting screwd out of a character isn't fun, I have to say that's a pretty cool thing to do with a fallen paladin ... after the player retires him of course.
I'd have had no problem if he did that but I was forced to retire on the spot and make a new character to join the party at level 1, the rest of the party was all around level 15-18
9 random dumb/cruel DM rules or made-up dumb/cruel equipment/class/situations/etc.
4 whiners/arguers/babies
4 unprepared players
2 banning "overpowered"/etc. things for no good reason, random nerfs
2 PCs that stick to one single character concept
2 favoritism
2 railroading / no world / adventure after adventure
2 pulling punches, battering then saving party
The 2nd & 3rd ones are kinda related. So there you have it. If you DM don't make up random BS just to hurt the PCs. They hate it. If you're a player then come prepared and don't whine when things go wrong b/c u didn't plan.
As for blatant favourtism, last session it turned out that the rogue (the DM's son) had had a bit of a solo game during the week. Now ... obviously he'll get XP for that. The DM seems pretty sensible, but if we wind up with the DM's son playing a rogue with a truckload of magic items and three levels higher than the rest of the party, then I will certainly consider dropping out.
Fingers crossed, because he's a competent DM that runs a good game.
I hope you both know that the bard can sing AND swing her sword at the same time.
we were trying to give the npc as little preparation time of her own (fight was to take place in a small room, so singing right outside the door kind of gives yourself away). we knew that the npc had a way out (magic mirror or something), so standard actions were in limited supply if we actually wanted to get to kill the npc. the main problem is that the bard didn't want to spend her first standard action to sing; she wanted to go right on in with the sword.
Well, firstly, players who don't pay attention. We got 2 of those in our current campaign, me being the 3rd player and the only one paying attention to anything. In 5 hours, all we did were 3 more or less meaningless fights, and we barely role played. The fights didn't last long either. We literally had 1.5 hours of playing withing those 5 hours, maybe 2 hours tops. Yep it's that bad...sadly, I'm dealing with this almost on a weekly basis, and the DM (my brother) doesn't seem to be doing anything about it.
I asked them to pay attention and I got the legendary "if we're having fun, then it's ok" response, although they forgot to ask *me* if I was having any fun, and I obviously wasn't, which was quite obvious from the fact that I asked them to stop. I mean, if I was having fun, I wouldn't ask them to stop, would I? And the player who said this considers himself more intelligent than me to top it all off...if he was so intelligent, he would have come to the conclusion that I wasn't having fun o_O
Next in line are the Stupid Evil players...yep they burn down everything, they kill people for no reason, they burn forests, steal from every possible shop, and that's just the beginning. I find it stupid because in 3 years of playing D&D these people *still* think that evil people actually behave like this.
Next are DMs who don't care...as above, we have disruptive players in our current campaign, and the DM just doesn't do anything about it, I don't know why he bothers making the campaign for these people. I actually wanted to DM instead of the current DM, but when I saw their behavior I figured I'd be wasting my effort with them. They are just purely uninterested in the campaign, their only source of amusement is the constant chatting between themselves and cracking jokes like 80% of the time - nothing against jokes, I enjoy them, but when a 5 hour playing session is reduced to a 2 hour playing session, and 3 hours get wasted because of their lack of interest in the campaign, then it's gone too far.
Well I guess that's a bit of venting there. Interesting thread this is btw
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We were playing in an Eberron game, and I volunteered to be the "healer" role, since no one else wanted it. I decided to go with a crusader, though, because I like punching things and the idea of doing that while still healing appealed to me. So we had all of three encounters before the campaign ended...
The first one largely consisted of running around, fighting some Emerald Claw soldiers, but most of the time I just had to double move or charge (without any charging maneuvers), so I didn't really do much, though I killed a mook or two. Second encounter was with two shocker lizards, who we killed thoroughly and without any real effort (though taking lots of damage), so I didn't get to use much of my cool stuff.
The third encounter was nothing but us running away from a gigantic animated statue and dealing with Drow along the way. I'd set up charges (picked up some charge maneuvers so I could deal with situations like this) and the other players would get in my way, or the (newly joined) psion would nuke the closer enemies so I couldn't get into a position to attack. I made all of two attack rolls the entire session, one to little effect (I didn't have any decent maneuvers at that point) and one that the players just "gave" me because I hadn't gotten to kill anything. The rest of the session, I just double moved to avoid being creamed by the uber-statue monster. That was just... not fun at all.
The first one largely consisted of running around, fighting some Emerald Claw soldiers, but most of the time I just had to double move or charge (without any charging maneuvers), so I didn't really do much, though I killed a mook or two. Second encounter was with two shocker lizards, who we killed thoroughly and without any real effort (though taking lots of damage), so I didn't get to use much of my cool stuff.
The third encounter was nothing but us running away from a gigantic animated statue and dealing with Drow along the way. I'd set up charges (picked up some charge maneuvers so I could deal with situations like this) and the other players would get in my way, or the (newly joined) psion would nuke the closer enemies so I couldn't get into a position to attack. I made all of two attack rolls the entire session, one to little effect (I didn't have any decent maneuvers at that point) and one that the players just "gave" me because I hadn't gotten to kill anything. The rest of the session, I just double moved to avoid being creamed by the uber-statue monster. That was just... not fun at all.
DM: So, you wake up.
Player 1: Sweet, after waking I think Ill head outside into the village to look for my friends.
DM: Righteo, the rest of the villages stare at your nakedness. One woman *rolls a D10, coming up with a 2* points and laughs at you.
Player 1: WTF?! I put clothes on obviously.
DM: You didnt say that.
Player 1: Oh and I spose that I am dead now for not telling you I started breathing?
DM: *Picks up a percentile die*
Player 1: Im breathing, Im breathing!
And as for the speech impediment.
Same DM, to new player: We're gunna play D6 star wars, what did you want to play?
New Player: Id like to be someone with a ship, whose good at flying, possibly part of the Rebellion.
DM: A rookie sounds really good for you.
Player: A rookie? Like, they fly starships?
DM: Yeah yeah, a rookie, a rookie.
Skip forward ten minutes into game time, the new player interacts with another for the first time.
DM, to other player: You see before you a huge mountain of fur, do you have Alien Languages?
New Player: What?! Im only 5'11 and relatively thin guy.
DM: Nah, you're a Wookie.
New Player: Huh?! No Im not, Im a rookie! You said I could go a rookie.
DM: Yeah, thats right, a wookie, youre the co-pilot who helps fly the starship, and who is part of the Rebellion.
New Player:
The anally pedantic DM with a speech impediment:
DM: So, you wake up.
Player 1: Sweet, after waking I think Ill head outside into the village to look for my friends.
DM: Righteo, the rest of the villages stare at your nakedness. One woman *rolls a D10, coming up with a 2* points and laughs at you.
Player 1: WTF?! I put clothes on obviously.
DM: You didnt say that.
Player 1: Oh and I spose that I am dead now for not telling you I started breathing?
DM: *Picks up a percentile die*
Player 1: Im breathing, Im breathing!
I have to agree with this one. Until recently (Yesterday's session, actually) our DM was exactly like this. If we didn't state everything exactly as possible he assumed the worst. It got really bad when one of our characters decided to walk up to a wall and almost fell into a pit of lava because he forgot to 'check the floor'.
He is actually retarded to some degree, he does not have a player's handbook, and every single game plays a raptoran summoner. never causes damage.
my current DM is not prepared, the previous four games have been:
1)Intro, psionic home brew player (basically a spy) infiltrates the enemy base
2)I rip a gnome in half, the prisoner knows nothing, our infiltrator kills the enemy leader, contact re-established.
3) DM and half the players fon't show up, play PVP, best game session in a month
4) nothing happens, we decide that I will DM the next game.
DMs setting DCs arbitrarily : jump over a 5 foot pit? gimme a 20. Mhm, Disable device lets say 30 ( coveres pi trap again.
No, the stairs are wet, balance check of 15.. good times for the Lvl Fighter in Fullplate...
DM so drunk that he intermingeled two diffenent adventures.
Having to kill the same BBEG 3 Times becuase Drunken DM forgot we already did that 5 minutes ago...
Once we had this experimented player who wanted a more dramatic character concept after the death of her Paladin. She actually seriously defended the following as a viable and interesting character for more than 30 minutes. When the DM finally said it was enough she said he was prejudiced against handicapped people. Here goes:
A deaf Bard missing her left arm. Instrument of choice : a little drum so her character could feel the vibrations and know she was playing properly...
DMs' who force the paladin to violate the CoC via the the "Kill the baby, or doom the world" scenario. OH, HOW I HATE THAT!
No lie.
"Whoop-te-doo! You've figured out the inherent weakness in Kantian philosophy! Big
deal!"ObUnhappy: My DICE + my bad rolling luck. I tested my new d20 and it's imbalanced and even the one that is not imbalanced I can't roll decent double digits in the game. Two more to test and the prospect of 400+ more rolls is making me unhappy as well!
It ruins them because you have N-1 people who can handle a fight with an ECL+2 encounter, and 1 player who'd be lucky to survive and ECL-2 encounter. So you either have to gimp all the encounters, watch the party run from appropriate encounters, watch the gimp get clobbered into the negs half the time, or metagame why said character isn't getting their yarbles removed by enemy X every time. It puts undue stress on the other players, not to mention that they have to come up with a reason as to why they keep said gimp around when ditching them would mean they could accomplish much more than they could with them there.
Fortunately, I've never had players who want to play the deaf blind mute paraplegic commoner; although I have been in games with people like that. The games never lasted long.
And the player who said this considers himself more intelligent than me to top it all off...if he was so intelligent, he would have come to the conclusion that I wasn't having fun
High INT, Low WIS.. :P
Complaints..
1) Munchkins (mild powergaming is ok, but to a point)
2) Players who take insane class/race combos but play all characters the same
3) Players that complain about any house rule, on the basis it's a house rule
4) DMs who houserule and don't inform the players before hand
5) Rule Lawyers who assume the texts are infallible
6) DMs who don't adapt to a party (leaving weak encounters vs an optimized party, or too strong ones against a weaker one)
Add to my list people who think that a character has to be gimped in order to be worthy of roleplaying, or that you can't RP a strong character, or that people who make their characters unnecessarily weak are "better" roleplayers than people who don't, etc. It seriously ruins games.
Yes! Sure, a little character flaw does make for good RPing. Or even a couple. But the Character does not have to be gimped. Look at Lancelot. Or Beowulf. Odyssus. Or any of a thousand other mythological heros. Flawed- yes. Gimped- no.
Yes! Sure, a little character flaw does make for good RPing. Or even a couple. But the Character does not have to be gimped. Look at Lancelot. Or Beowulf. Odyssus. Or any of a thousand other mythological heros. Flawed- yes. Gimped- no.
Even better are the ones that think it isn't a "flaw" unless it cuts into your stats. Character with a severe distrust of ? Nope, not a flaw. Misogynist? Nope, doesn't hit me in the dice bag (double entendre notwithstanding), not a flaw. There's whole circles of friends that I love to hang out with but would never RP with because they all hold this elitist ideal of "my character is weaker than yours, thus is better!" crap.
Ex.- level 7, my party of 3 (cleric, rogue/ranger, fighter) ran into a couple of cr 12 creatures that we were supposed to have the broken npc with us to fight. unfortunately, all our characters hated this guy, made the point that we hated this guy, and wanted to do things on our own as players anyway, but the guy had to always "be walking that way with us and help us out because he was that pious" so that we didn't immediately die on 75% of our encounters.
As a side note, after he was done dming, he later used this character as a pc, at least of somewhat appropriate level now, and we still only tolerate his presence as he's somewhat useful to us.
Even better are the ones that think it isn't a "flaw" unless it cuts into your stats. Character with a severe distrust of ? Nope, not a flaw. Misogynist? Nope, doesn't hit me in the dice bag (double entendre notwithstanding), not a flaw.
True, but also the analog: players who consider any character that isn't min/maxed to be gimped ("what, you totally gimped your character by taking knowledge: history instead of maxing spot")
True, but also the analog: players who consider any character that isn't min/maxed to be gimped ("what, you totally gimped your character by taking knowledge: history instead of maxing spot")
Yes. Even worse is when it's the DM who looks at you with the
face. "what? why would you take craft? it's so useless!" Because skill points are at such a premium, being human with a huge int? 
or like someone who is very strong but has a bad back (me! except the "very" part :p )
Let me guess - you are tall, right?
DMs who don't know something as simple as the fact that force effects affect incorporeal/ethereal creatures with no miss chance.
DMs who allow any and all splatbooks, but don't bother to actually read the material the player(s) want to use to make sure it's being used correctly. Which leads to ...
DMs allowing a brand new, first-time player to play an LA +3 exotic race at 1st level, when even the DM doesn't understand what "LA +3" means. In my last group, we had a complete noob who didn't even know how to play yet playing a stonechild (from Races of Stone) with the same number of class levels as the rest of the party (making his character effectively 3 levels higher than the rest of the party). Can't blame the noob in that situation - he didn't know any better. That's pure DM ignorance/irresponsibility.
For a variety of reasons (which I won't go into here because I've already complained loudly about them in other threads), the PCs always ended up several levels behind the Encounter Levels in the published adventures the DM used.
Honestly, I had no intention of becoming a Rules Lawyer when I started playing with that group. But it simply happened that I actually read the !@#$ rules and it was clear that the DM hadn't. I realized after pointing out errors several times that I was just going to start looking like a whiner. Add in the fact that the DM's screwed up understanding of the magic rules had rendered my wizard totally ineffective. I simply politely retired from the group as soon as we finished the particular adventure we were on. I wasn't having any fun.
If, for example, you have a female player who you know was sexually assaulted (perhaps because 2 weeks ago the weekly session was cancelled so some of the other players could help her move out of the apartment with the easily accessible windows), you might perhaps want to consider giving up the whole "have her character be raped and make her roleplay it" plotline. Or at least, don't get all pissy when she walks out of the campaign (and any game you DM).
Put me off rping for a few years, that one did.
and I thought it was bad when a player kept having his cleric PC preach to another PC run by a very christian player, who was obviously both offended and uncomfortable... he liked to play but when the other player was over-playing his worhsip of an in game diety it got bad....
that now has been taken down several steps on the obtuse/being-a-bad-person gaming chart