15 Irritating Things Other Players Do - Player Character Tips 

Wow this happened to me too. This became a meme in my group how stupidly that boy acted that day by doing exactly this.

I had a player that did this kind of thing almost every game session, and it would always annoy the GM to no end.

You take in all the wonderful smells and colors in the room. The particular way the lights glints off the edge of a vase in the corner catches your eye, making you notice how wonderfully pointed the edge of the bookshelf next to it is. As you run your eyes through the beautifully arranged books -your high Perception helping you to see their titles even at this distance - you ponder if they may have anything to do with your quest, but realize that they aren't. From the corner of your eye you see your teammates fidgeting, not missing the strange way the vein is pulsating on Faeryn's forehead when he sees you're being distratced from your immediate task by the enviroment again. I feel like you shouldn't just say "you see nothing", it takes little effort to reward the player with some candy prose that highlights how his heightened senses(or habit of looking carefully at things) makes the world look to him. Even "fail" messages should be fun.

This hurts my soul

Gotta control that with a negative consequence: Here's a response: "Great roll, yes indeed you perceive something, you pierce the veil of reality and realize that life and everything you do is pointless and you have no free will. Roll a wisdom check, DC 40, to avoid an existential crisis and if you fail, roll a Constitution check DC 20 to avoid bleeding out from slit wrists. Since you do it in the middle of the night on your watch, your companions are not available to save you, unless they pass a DC 25 perception check to hear your muffled, pathetic whimpers. Good Luck!"

oh my god yes! I had a player say their character was raised by their grandfather, so imagine my surprise halfway through a session to find out the player was homeless because the grandfather was dead.

@@fairystail1 Suffering is just part of being a DM sometimes, I guess, but we do end up putting with some ridiculous things 😂

I make small edits to mine, like I had a long and backstory so I just proof read and minimized words and removed anything that wasn’t important to my character. However, I DO change my characters outfit too much. I don’t tell my DM this for personal reasons...

In that case I'd just say he pulled a Playboy of the Western World and thought the dad was dead when he wasn't.

First, I don't do any backstory related stuff until the characters have "gelled" a little bit (at least 2 levels ups without changing their backstory). I ask the players to give me their revised backstory at EVERY level bnot just on creation. If I see a modified backstory I just say "if you ever want any backstory related stuff to happen to your PC in the game, stop changing your backstory." and then I just concentrate on the others players instead. When half of a game session is backstory related stuff for everybody BUT the guy who changed his backstory, and then he complains that he didn't get much to do, you just say: well, you changed your backstory, and I did not want to risk wasting time prepping stuff just for you that I won't be able to use anyway because you'll just change your backstory again later on. so, sucks to be you, but you'll have your candy when you can stick to one story. Basically you wait until they promise not to change it anymore and that it is now "final". Then if they change it again you just say "Sorry bud, I don't care what you wrote on your Nth version of your PC's backstory, you gave me THIS version (holding YOUR copy of his backstory) and that's your PCs' backstory for now and forever. Not happy with that? Well, maybe your PC is delusional or something and just made himself THINK that he killed his father. I don't care. Asking me to prep stuff expressly for your PC and then trying to ignore it afterwards is VERY RUDE, you know. Now, say you're sorry, or else you can opt to remain free to change your backstory as often as you like, but at the price that I am NEVER going to waste any time again doing any backstory related in-game events for your PC again, and you'll just have to accept to end up having LESS time in the spotlight than the other PCs. Even if they say "ok, *THIS* is the final version now, I won't change it anymore after that one!", you MUST NOT yield. "No deal. Frigging stock dicking around with me and treating me like a wet mop. I made sure your backstory version was stable before spending hours of prep time just for your PC alone. So choose, right now: EXACTLY the version in my hand *OR* you'll get ZERO backstory related events for your PC, ever. Because I really hate being disrespected wasting my time for nothing, you know. (player complains) Hey sorry buddy but this is ALL on YOU. Next time, learn to make up your mind properly right away instead of being such a wishy-washy weathercock that constantly changes direction. Complain ONCE again, and the choice will be made for you and it will definitely become "Zero backstory for your PC, because it's just going to be a source of headaches and grievances for me anyway.". You'd be surprised how quickly they stop that kind of shenanigans. Yeah, they'll complain, but they will respect you WAY MORE afterwards. Otherwise, you're just like a parent sdaying No you can't east candies before dinner".... but let's them eat all the candy they want before dinner *anyway*. It is also exactly like saying: If you harass me and complain to me enough, you'll win". It only encourages bad behavior in the end. Either a player adapts and stops being a dickhead, or they leave. And you're always better off with less players that all respect you as a DM, than having some rotten apples in your cart.

Simple solution. Dice must be rolled on the table or they dont count.

That's why I always take my casino cup with me and roll my dice with it.

At my group we have a homebrew rule where if the dice goes off the table, the player who rolled that dice then has disadvantage on their next roll.

@@gguy3600 That is a good idea.

I had a player that would always, almost every other role sling his dice across the table knocking over our minis and set up. And or fly into others dice getting mixed up with other people's dice.... Fucking hated it.

goddrag me tooooo mine is going to be in three days and I’m excited and nervous

@@messfanfare7126 My friend and some people from school are going to start playing and I'm so excited!

goddrag same 🤣

How was your first session

@@katsunada it went well, tough i wasnt accostumed to the game and rules and all that but other than that it wasnt Hard to play (that might be because of the fact that i've played rpgs that have similar ideas tô D&D)

EskChan19 I just imagine someone going into a one hour lesson on how it combined sands of the sea and the blood of a heroic fisher, both burned over a volcano in his honor and finishing with “in short, it was made of glass”

"Look, at least you found out how glass is made just by looking at it. Cool huh?" xD

Legit, our munchkin cleric had high wisdom and insight prof., but he never suspected anyone of lying to him outside of merchants... he just tries using insight to ask "is the item really worth that much? Is it truly that powerful? Is he stiffing me on the price?" (Yes, good magic items will be EXPENSIVE) Yet I could just lie and even sell him cursed items at a low price freely, insulting the merchant? Congrats, heres a magic shield (that magically directs arrowsand spells right at you.)

I once made the mistake as a GM of accidentally describing what was basically a cleaning closet in a little extra detail and it took me about 20 minutes to finally convince the party there definitely wasn't anything of interest in there unless they were some kind of eccentric collector of vintage buckets, mops and brooms :P

@elgatochurro A bit late but I feel like I've got to ask, have you actually had to hold that shield for the effect to work? Because if not then that actually has a lot of potential to be useful, just throw the shield to the side of the battle at the start, and you can no longer be hit by arrows or targeted spells, forcing enemies into melee range and basically invalidating a number of spells enemies can cast on you

depends on the situation though, just started a new campaign, some are veterans of the game some are sorta new, some are playing their first game, we always have people throwing tips across the table. Maybe we are extremely lucky cause we all know each other through a friend or two, (we're not close just been at the same gatherings and its popped up we were keen to try it). our GM is fucking amazing. so we could have just hit the jackpot where we have a group of 8 that are perfectly suited. its all about the story and having a blast, but this campaign is all about getting the newbies up to speed (I'm one of the brand new guys), slowly introducing mechanics etc each week as a way to learn.

its your fault for not chosing sleep for your first spell. lol

@@Lightgrenadez7777 I agree I had a PC randomly attacks things or I had to convince out of game and his only reason was, that I'm chaotic neutral which in the PC head CN mean I can do whatever I want but in his personality chart that he was honorable. How can you be honorable when your solutions are always kill the bastard and not talk at all

A couple of my friends do this. It's been to the point sometimes where we could give them all the character sheets if we wanted to be assholes and they could do it all themselves.

Playing a character socially or in a specific way, yes, but helping about maybe the general premise of a certain class, it can't hurt unless done poorly

Your DM sounds like a fucking moron. Hahaha.. I feel bad for you guys

He should just write a book. He’d clearly rather do that anyway.

@Stirgid Lanathiel Small issue I personally have with this is that (at least due to my experiences) the players always come up with something totally completely ridiculous, no matter what. We started a campaign (Pathfinder) that switches DM every arc. It's not my favorite system (mostly due to continuity errors and rules that are not universally applied, other than that newbie DMs) but it works. We had a party wipe a while ago and made a new one, doing a session 0 to make sure the characters would cooperate and work together. Session 1 a guy shows up with his minmaxed grappler murderhobo that does nothing but kill (unimportant) NPCs that takes up 1,5 hour of the 4 hour session every single time, and the DMs never try to stop it. (I stopped DMing in that group due to very negative feedback that sucked all joy out of DMing for me for the past 6 months)

@Stirgid Lanathiel I'm going to reply to each paragraph seperately, as it's quite a long comment :'). I've talked about the issue with a few other players. We've decided to give him the benefit of the doubt in the campaign of the current GM as it involves less situations that are disruptable by Murder-Hoboing it up. I'll wait for a while and if the issue persists then I'll share my thoughts at the table. I'm don't think this is some form of insecurity, he is known for liking to "break the game" when playing video games as well, it's just the character he plays this particular time has this kind of behaviour. I'll be fair, our group isn't really a "group" in the sense as for example Critical Role is, everyone made their own character and had no real incentive to trust others with their life or secrets (despite us having a session 0 and me making a character that is best friends with another player's character), and there haven't been any situations where we needed to work as a team to achieve something, so maybe it's partially being a ingame new group. I must say I dislike the switching DM thing, I have personally experienced that people care less about the game as "the campaign will end in three sessions anyway why would I care?", and I think that is detrimental, and I've noticed it with other players as well. I think it is the type ofcampaign that evokes the behaviour, and the players only use it as an excuse. It is a good idea to talk about the issues I and probably other players have with the campaign, thank you. I'll ask the group what kind of campaign we're all expecting. It is clear to me that we have different expectations, I and my best friend expect a campaign that has a bit more mechanics involved (some of our GMs give not a single shit about mechanics, in which case I asked why we were playing DnD at all and not just did a play, no clear answer from their side), and others want nothing but roleplay. It's a set of different expectations, and there should be a form of middle ground. I most certainly won't stop playing DnD, don't worry, I love this hobby way too much to have a few negative experiences destroy it for me. I must say though, I as a DM, have had a lot of shit piled upon me for a few mistakes I made. For example I did a campaign where a monster came throuh a portal and was clearly a strong adversary. Everyone insulted me for how I had made a "bad campaign", that "no one had a reason to participate in this thing", and that I should do better. Sure, it was a campaign I didn't execute correctly, I made mistakes, sure. But they made it sound like I could do no right, while I've had wonderful feedback for the past few years from other players. One of my best friends later approached me and said a few mistakes I made, but that he had seen I was capable of better than that, as he had personally had played a great campaign I did wonderfully. I have one final issue with the "no one had a reason to participate in this thing" sentence. I, as both DM and player, think it is a player/character's responsibility to have interest in things. If your every answer to any plot hook is "I don't care" or "not my problem", then I find you a bad player. Yes, obviously there's going to be things your character does not care about, a Barbarian might not care for a library obviously meant for the Wizard, and the Wizard might in turn not care for the Gladiator Tournament meant for the Barbarian. I meant in the general sense of ignoring/avoiding plot hooks. I am now a player that has shifted her attitude from waiting, seeing what would happen and react to that, to proactively pursue most if not all hooks a DM throws at the group, as basically no one else will.

Guilty of kinda what you mentioned... I was the best dm of my group(four of us) and made a "test" campaign to see of it would even work. My character(wanted to have a big team so they made me make one) mad alot of the decisions cause they couldnt agree on stuff and one would always do the dumbest things he could(as a smart character)

When they confuse meta with what their character knows. PC: "You attacked us first!" GM: Roll deception. Player playing PC: wait what? They did! GM: Yes, but you weren't there yet. You don't know that. Player: oh, I didn't say that then. Kills me even more if they roll that check and then try to argue it. Luckily, this was a learning point for the player and he is much better ^_^

I would a low it if they have the idea before i have them roll.

It's not always that easy to remember what your character knows when you can't actually see through his characters eyes or hear through his ears. There should be plenty of leniency for for that kind of stuff imo.

They're times when it is just a misunderstanding. Last Sunday I did that we were in combat and I had a homeruled wand of "Prancing" Lights that shot out horses of light who pranced around. When we tested this wand 2 sessions ago I shot it at our stout dragon-born fighter who braced himself, and was nearly knocked down when it hit. He was asked to make a Str roll and everything. This was a GM joke, but I didn't know that at the time. Cut to our fight with a drider who stayed on the ceiling and refused to come down. I aim fire and hit with prancing lights thinking ok I can knock the drider down. DM goes you light up the drider. I ask did he shake or anything he asked why and i related the story find out the Knockdown effect was just a joke not real a mechanic. I asked to do something else since it was a misunderstanding. I don't feel bad for doing that, and I don't think any player ever should. Sometimes it is just a misunderstanding on how something is phrased or how something is set up asking for a redo isn't bad.

Even worse when they retcon it after the outcome has been announced and it was a surprising unfavorable outcome. "Oh wait! I didn't know that it works that way... Then I don't do that, my character would've known and done something else"

Had a player shout at me because he tried to do some uber dramatic acrobatics stuff that involved him jumping off the building (about 20ft) using his grappling hook to stop himself from slamming into the ground (which he planned on attaching to the building after he'd already jumped. I said 'ok this sounds complicated, roll on your agility' he failed very badly. so i said you get tangled in the rope of your grappling hook as you go down and it swings you into the building, you take no damage but are stunned for D3 actions. And he went on a right tantrum about it as is jumping (not even trying to abseil) straight off the roof of a 20ft building was an every day action that he'd pass automatically because he had a grappling hook.

I had a ranger in our party do this cause he wondered off on his own in a dungeon waltzed into an enemy encounter got gang beat by elementals and cultists he died and then raged at the party on the DM for letting this happen even though we could resurrect him upon leaving the dungeon

@Rednassie Maybe ask your DM not to use fumble rules, as they are a house rule anyway.

Honestly I find that hilarious because in the end it's like they are arguing with themselves.

@@jamieslingsby9907 Seems like potentially an unfair DM situation. Losing 1d3 turns in a fight is *extremely* drastic (and if there was no fight situation, why STUN the player anyway... Just use normal falling damage, it's a pretty simple situation after all). And what do you mean by "He failed very badly"? Unless he rolled a natural 1, just make it a standard failure. Rolling a 3 on a d20 is not "rolling very badly", no more than having to hit AC 12 and rolling am 18 doesn't make your attack any more "superbly effective". After all, if he had rolled a 19, would you have extra-super-rewarded him like "Ok, not only do you succeed but, as you land, your rope grabs the nearest bandit around the neck and pulls him 20 feet up in the air against the building, stunning him for 1d3 turns?" Of course not. See how ASSYMETRICAL that DM was? I'd throw a tantrum too (and leave). Getting tangled in the rope is just adding insult to injury. How is that even possible unless one is SUPER DUPER unlucky? Like, a natural 1 followed by *another* natural 1 or something? That is as bad as that DM I had that, when my wizard opened a scroll case that the party found, made me roll my DEX to OPEN THE scroll without a problem, and because I failed "badly" (rolled a 6 on a d20), he gave me a paper cut for a whopping 1d6 damage (wow, didn't know slipping your finger on a mere sheet of paper cut as bad as a shortsword wielded by someone actually trying to kill you), plus an insanely high CON Save in order to avoid losing my finger "because it got badly infected" (wow, super fast infection, that one, not even time for a cure wounds spell or just dipping my finger in some alcohol or vinegar or even just use my soap bar and some water, all of which I carried on my PC!). The marks of an adversarial DM that thinks that "exagerating" challenge consequences for failures makes the game any more fun for anybody. Gee whiz, let players have some FUN a little bit! That player reacted in an immature fashion, sure, but it's quite easy to see that here it was the DM that's really the most at fault. Replacing falling damage with STUN condition is too arbitrary and severe. My way to handle it: I warn the player *properly*. Saying "Complicated" doesn't send a clear message. "Hmm, this sounds very tricky and RISKY. If you fail, you'll probably badly hurt yourself and end up Prone. And it's going to be a difficult DEX (Acrobatics) check. Are you SURE you want to try this?" And even then I'd make the final difficulty not that hard anyway. You want to reward cool stuff and "cinematics", not encourage players to never take any risk at all and just keep doing ultra-boring "I swing and roll my attack dice" round after round after round. And if he fails, even on a natural 2, I just give him 10 feet of falling damage (because a *controlled* jump ignores the first 10 feet of falling) + apply being Prone, because THAT is what happens when you badly jump down from a building without anything to stop your fall. If he says he does something else with the rest of his round like getting back up etc. "Nope, sorry but you spent your Move on this manoeuver, and spent your Action on that failed grappling hook attempt. You're prone, hurt, and some the baddies are... (roll a couple dice) shocked into almost-stunned surprise by how badly you failed, losing their next action, while others nearby see you as a very easy target fort their next attack. And if he fails "badly"aka "natural 1 critical failure", then it's the full 2d6 of falling damage, Prone, and a CON Saving Throw vs being Stunned until his next turn. Basically, even a-bit-too-heroic actions should have more odds and potential for reward, than for punishment, otherwise the player must be SUPER CLEARLY warned. the point is to make the game fun, not an exercice in pointless frustration. That player was angry because he wasn't properly warned of the odds and potential risks. He got angry because the consequences for failure were exagerated and too harsh, NOT because he thought it was supposed to be an automatic success. If that had been the case he would NOT have rolled and just said he shouldn't have to roll. Even a 2 on a natural 20 is a NORMAL failure, not a badly failed check.

Yeah, I try and have a set for each specific character I play, and only bring more dice than that with me if I know for a fact that I'll need more for whatever reason during that session, if I don't predict that then I borrow dice from other players or the DM for that particular roll For example, I cast ball lightning from my ring of shooting stars. I only made one ball so it dealt 8d8 of damage (as my bonus action that turn I threw it into a tarrasque)

I have a specific series of d20s, which I roll in order. Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper and "Participation". I also have my oh shit dice, which are 2" across for when I feel my roll really needs to make an impact :)

I have a bag full of different dice I have bought individually throughout the years and before every sessions I just mix and match my custom set of 7 dice for that specific session. All the other dice I put in the middle of the table for any friends who need to borrow some dice, or for extra dice in damage rolls.

@@michelemelo6836 that's an awesome way to pick your dice, if I wasn't ocd about things matching I would steal that in a heart beat :)

I tend to be very superstitious with my dice, probably because I come from a wargaming background where everybody sooner or later becomes at least a little bit superstitious with dice. However if I have a favourite dice or something like that, I make sure it's apart from the rest so I can grab it at a moment's notice.

Yes! Sometimes the others are prevented from doing this, but barring that, this is a great way to keep the game engaging and on track!

Fair enough! I'm glad that worked out for you! I had a party member once who had the 'too many characters' issue. Well, one that she brought in was a chaotic evil person sorcerer I think, who wanted to sleep with everything he saw. He nearly made the lvl20 vampire npc shopkeeper kill him. But no matter what the party said to this character they decided the people were either liked or hated in two seconds. Eventually the barbarian (their real life fiance) got so tired of the character that they killed him after a single session. She whined about it saying how much help he could have been to the party if we'd tried to get to know him and reason with him... But she wouldn't talk to any of the party beyond declaring hate of the desire to claim and screw them.

I can understand the frustration on your end, especially when you spent hours prepping said plot hooks and encounters... but honestly I wouldn't fault them, this happens to me all the time with the party I run in my game. It's why I make sure to have loads of potential side quests some of which lead into the main story arc, and if they skip over a specific plot hook to the main story I usually will find a way to circle them back around to it without them even realizing it. Sometimes the motivations they have at that specific moment tend to keep them from wanting to follow said suspicious guy into the alley. Now if they had a Pally in the party and that happened, I would just facepalm at that point.

I... no people actually do that... why... O.O

True. If you don't want to play, just don't come. It's not the dms job to force you to go live an adventure, you should know why your character is willing to jump in.

This strikes home. I was running and adventure in Dungeons and Dragons Adventures League for a convention. The adventure had the obvious hook of a gnome arguing with four people and a light breaks out. The players decide to go to another tavern. Okay, what do I do to get them on the adventure. Well, the roughed-up gnome enters the tavern and says, "you look like you can handle trouble," yadda yadda yadda. The players' response? "Not my problem." What now? Last ditch effort. The four ruffians from before approach the party and ask, "you want to help us steal diamons from out employer?" Nah, we're not interested. Under the new DnDAL rules, players don't actually get to keep the treasure. They earn "treasure points" that can be exchanged for items or gold and earn a small sum at each level. The NPC's offering the reward is not an enticement. I ended the session. "Let's see: you completed none of the objectives, so not advancement checkpoints and no treasure checkpoints." This started an uproar. They had paid for a gaming session, how could I end it so early without giving awards? I explained it was a two-hour slot and they spent one hour ignoring the 20 minute hook. Even if we retcon, we can't complete the adventure and there is another game scheduled for the table so we can't start again. Sorry those are the breaks. I wanted to, but didn't add, "next time, don't jerk the DM around at a convention."

You have to give them an actual plot hook, something that would make their character want to act. What can be gained following shady men with drawn daggers into alleys? A dagger in the gut? Unless your players are police officers/townguard/equivalent of this, why would you follow a knife wielding shady guy into an alley? Have someone hire them to track down a local murderer and promise them a reward for doing so. That is a plot hook that gives the characters a reason to get involved. Unless your players are blackmailers, robbers or other kinds of criminals, letters about lootable caravans are not that great of a hook. A letter about a caravan of stolen goods and the promise of a reward would be a much easier sell to get non-evil characters motivated to act. If a giant was strong enough to smash through the wall of an inn, any but the strongest characters would be suicidal not to run. And even if their characters are high level demigods, why risk death for no gain unless they are paladins? Have the innkeeper cry "300 gold to anyone who helps defend my inn" and you have your hook. Otherwise you are asking your players to have their characters act like braindead adrenalin junkies.

Grey Shard i just realized that i ask players, “are you sure” when i DM, and they’re doing something dumb.

Real orc never backs down.

Lol this reminds me of either my 3rd or 4th session of my first campaign. I was a copper Dragonborn rogue who was with his team up against a young green dragon. Green dragons hated coppers more than any so I tried to find a more stealthy approach...I climbed his tower...from the outside...it wasn’t as tall as it sounds. Anyway, I got to the top and the dm described how it was crumbling and I figured I better get off before it collapsed. I did a plunging attack on the dragon and the dm just kinda slumped over for a while. Apparently he and the rest of the team thought I should stayed and kicked bricks from the top down onto him. That’s the story of how I accidentally broke my dm.

@@sephirothslayer1152 "The plunging attack is the most reliable move in the game!"

@@sephirothslayer1152 Don't worry. DM's have a reset-button. You just have to push it for 10 seconds and then they reboot.

so its either too much like a video game or too little... xD frustrating

I feel you with the bad dice roll player. I've recently gotten one of those. Consistently rolled 1s and 2s (...it was WEIRD) and became a seething cauldron of rage and anger. Ruined the fun for everyone

I mean, if its said in character, its a good quip.

I think you guys get a pass. No one in their right mind can get mad at this.

I think the "don't look at the rules" section of this video was a big miss. There are more than enough situations where it's completely ok to look at the rules, even if it's your turn. Maybe you know the general outline of your action but don't remember some specific and are looking it up right now. I think that's always ok.

Memento Mori and also, maybe you couldn’t look up the rules when it wasn’t your turn because it was a tense situation when you needed to listen to the DM and the players. But there are still plenty of situations in which players shouldn’t be looking up rules during their turns, I have to say.

I think that's completely fine, that's how our game is too, we're very new and the rules are wayyyyyy too much to keep track of at first!

It's normal when you just started playing, you want to do everything right, you don't know what does and what doesn't "normally" work in a game, you guys sure get a pass on this. I'd even give you a pass on the dice bit. ;)

4th wall breach detected lmao.

Best to use major image and then illusory reality lol

I've actually used this before on my wizard to win a dice game, I felt heaps good.

Lemme get this straight, you try to cast a spell that contradicts the wishes of your god of magic, which is basically me, is that correct? (I usually ask my players for confirmation when they do something that could lead to the instant death of their characters)

Roll a D20 for Minor Illusion

I am now stealing that phrase. It's such a cute way to bring an annoyance across

I think that tavern needed a banana added.

AMEN. My current DM does this, and it drives me nuts. Just dropped us off in a new city without any description. Like, what are we supposed to do? We exist in a void right now?

"Tavern stuff" LOL

“One dimensional banana” is now my new favorite Insult

Oh God, I hate that so much...I'm already dealing with a player who is so into roleplaying his character it's interrupting the other players when it's their turns...I can't count how many times I had to tell him to be quiet because I couldn't hear the others...

Got a dude like that in my group right now sadly, has several hundred more gold than anyone else in the party (but made me, the rogue with the least money out of everyone, assist the Paladin, who is our tankiest tank atm, with buying Plate Armor because he wasnt going to pay for someone else), and a bag of holding he keeps stuffing the loot into saying he'll split it up but never does. Also had a chance to get three basilisk eggs in our game, I wanted one and he tried to take them all until pretty much the entire table said I could have ONE because he doesnt need three. In short, he's playing singleplayer in a Multiplayer game

I have a guy in mine that has a character that could be really fun, but he takes it too far and it just turns really annoying. At one point he killed all the prisoners we worked so hard to free.

This sort of thing wrecked a campaign against Elemental Evil, the store DM accommodated two drop-ins and they created a trainwreck.

@@BeanLuvsLeon Had a guy like this once. Constantly screwed the entire group. During my night shift I announced that I "tried to slit his throat". He was outraged, but three PC's AND the DM shouted "Finally". When five other players hate you're Charakter and don't care if you leave and don't come back, you probably fucked up.

And he let you do it... good for him!

I'm pretty sure he meant it regarding situations where this happens in the extreme. Obviously taking a while to discuss how best to proceed is fine, but I've played with and DM'd groups where literally everybody is either disagreeing on how to proceed or constantly changing their minds, and it takes an hour or more to settle on a choice. He didn't say that he'd prefer the party "Just do a thing" without thinking, he said that eventually you've gotta settle on something, preferably without needing to take a flow or immersion breaking amount of decide on. And that, at least in my opinion, is completely fair. A campaign shouldn't be debate club, with everyone is making a choice based on their own personal needs and trying to convince everyone to go along with it. A campaign should be a collaborative effort to achieve a goal, where even if your PERSONAL ideals don't fall 100% in line with what is being suggested, you should be willing to give some ground and do what the rest of the party wants for the sake of the narrative and party cohesion.

This being said, it does get ridiculous some times. When players take forty-five minutes to do a single action in combat, or to throw a potentially-trapped switch, then I'm going to have an issue with it. Me and my older cousin switch off DM'ing here and there, and, currently, he's playing as an incredibly direct character that doesn't have much patience for waiting around, purely because of this set up. If, say, the rest of the group is arguing over whether they should go into a potentially spider-infested forest after a missing NPC and takes twenty minutes to say yes or no, he just started walking. Mind, I could just be comparing apples to oranges here. Big scenarios to small ones. Either way, there comes a point where the story does have to move forward. Roleplaying a decision is fine and good, but roleplaying for an hour to do a single action is a bit much.

I currently have a problem with one particular person just wanting to disagree no matter what. The party will take about a half an hour to an hour to make a decision (which has it's own issues because half the party doesn't participate, two people always disagree and the last person wants to play devil's advocate and always agree with everyone...) and when they FINALLY do it, everyone agrees. Then they move on and start to go and the person always objects and starts the debate again. This is particularly annoying because of the person who wants to see everyone's side just agreeing to change everything and then the person who disagrees wanting to stick to the original plan (which then means the DA person is agreeing with both of them at the very same time). It's just a pure mess. This person just absolutely refuses to work in a party setting (even with NPCs) and I feel like they just want to cause trouble. There definitely gets to a point where the arguing and indecisions have to come to an end. Especially when I know it's causing the party to lose interest in the session.

The example you gave is fine. I think the line is drawn when your party starts behaving like the player character in a Twitch Plays Pokemon stream.

I think Guy hates it when metagaming and player indecision causes this. When players are roleplaying indecision, that indeed can be cool. And either way, it is absolutely time for the GM to prepare stuff.

my players would immideately kill that character in the hopes they wont be seen as party to attemted regicide (no sane king in an adventurer rich world doenst have multiple countermeasures to that sort of thing) they do this because we used to have that exact sort of player that would try to steal the kings stuff when the others were negotiating terms of employment. It eventually culminated in a tpw due to this and so ever since they will not hesitate in the slightest to vaporize anyone trying it.

Yeah, that player is an asshat. If their character had such a problem with royalty, they should have said something to the rest of the party BEFORE they went in to try and get work from them. If the story requires they do so, then their character doesn't get to have a problem with royalty, or at least no so much of a problem that they'll suicidally attack. In an earlier comment, I said I had a problem with gm's trying to control the players character, but if I was gm'ing and a player did that, I'd just say "No, you didn't do or say that." If they argued, i'd tell them they don't get to do random asshole things because it ruins everyone else's fun. "Oh, but I want to have fun and I think that'd be cool!" You think your character being immediately killed for attempted regicide is cool? "Huh?". If you attack the highly guarded king, you're going to be slaughtered. You sure you want to do that? "Sure, I can take them!" Roll your dice. Natural 20? Of course. Well, after your character pulls the weapon and fires it at the king, you see that your arrow deflects off of an invisible barrier several feet in front of said king. Guess they have a wizard or some kind of artifact to protect them, too bad. Before you have any chance to respond, you are riddled with arrows and you are dead. I'd have them re roll a character, hopefully lesson learned, or just boot them if they simply HAVE to be an idiot whenever they're playing.

Yet you let the d-bag back into the next session.................

Once I had a problem player in the party, killed him twice in once session.(DnD 3.5) I'd been saving up a tactic I wanted to try. Within 10 minutes of joining the party, and this is after the two times being killed off already, he attacked one of the other players my character had a close relationship with. This was an evil campaign, round 1 I summon a wraith, lucky me the room clears out except the offending player. next round cast owls wisdom. I then cast clutch of orcus on him (will negates, duration is concentration. does d3 damage per round as target's heart or similar organ is crushed, also paralizes, if target dies while under this spell the heart is teleported into the hands of the caster). This is were he says out loud in real life "ah man, I figured out how to talk my way out of this too". He died, I tossed his heart to the player he attacked. Repeat problem players don't deserve leeway.

I remember I joined a party of mostly good characters, I wasn't evil I was lawful neutral and followed mostly good morals but would do things the good hearted king couldn't morally do but I did it for the people. The party and the knights we were fighting with killed me without hesitation because when the evil paladin did smite good it didn't work on me.... are you fucking serious.

Sometimes that happens when you roll poorly, if the DM is attempting to narrate your rolls effectively. If they are doing it to spite you, then I agree.

No I mean, and this is a crude example, if he narrates that there is a bridge crossing a canyon and I tell him I cross it. He then tells me the bridge looks extremely fragile and would likely collapse if one would walk it. I've had GM's who wouldn't let me (or other players) retcon actions like that

Sounds like either the GM is being a dick or is kind of ticked off that you wont let them finish explaining what you see.

Vellan Elessar yeah that's a DM I mean a Dick Move of course lol I think it's shamefull dishonest and imbalanced behavior!

We had a GM do something like this to us. It's really frustrating when it's especially easy to know facts that are characters would know. In this case the GM didn't let us know that the days were 36 hours long instead of 24.

Skepti-Ged I constantly create new characters. Maybe outwardly vocalizing your new character during a campaign with old characters could get annoying to fellow players, but there's nothing wrong with continuing to be creative and being excited about potential characters in your own time. I actually think having a few characters in reserve is great for the rare circumstance of losing a current character. Especially if you play a campaign with permadeath.

I agree with most of that, Mark. I used to play with a guy who made several reserve characters, and there is nothing wrong with that. He just tended to always lose interest in his current character very fast, after creating his first reserve character. My group and I always felt that hurt the game for everyone involved when you have one guy not interested in his own character, and just wants to go on to the next one, and the next, and the next, etc.

Skepti-Ged that's fair. That's why I make sure to always create awesome characters. Haha that way I love them all. I'm sure when the time comes to play my new one, I'll love it, but I'll miss the old one. I basically form a hall of heroes, each unique, but equally amazing and deep story-wise. If someone told me I'd be playing my current character for 6 years I wouldn't be disappointed! Even with several more in reserve.

I have a mental library of character concepts I'd like to play out. I have been building it since I made my first character for a Tomb of Annihilation campaign. I still RPed the fuck out of that character, a Tabaxi Knowledge Cleric/Monster Slayer Ranger, up until he was killed by a combination of horrible factors. Now I have my second character, a Kenku Archfey Warlock, and I am having a blast RPing her - even though I still have my list of character ideas, like a Variant Human Glamour Bard, Firbolg Four Elements Monk, Centaur Cavalier, etc. The character I portray is more important than the characters I plan.

I'm very bad at that. I call it 'Ohh-Shiny syndrome'. I'm aware i do it, so i tell the GM, don't let me switch character in game. No matter how much i ask, don't let me. It's just the Ooh shiny, i'll stop after a while.

Dms who base the dc on the naked die roll not the modified one. I have plus 20 to search. Got a 5 on dice, so 25. You don't see anything. But someone gets an 18 on dice with plus 3 can see everything. Dc was based on whether you seemed to roll high

Another aspect of this, players who may or may not have a decent backstory, but who aren't engaged at all with either the mechanics of their character, or with the story, or both. I hate reminding players sessions later that "hey, we leveled up, you should probably pick spells" or "So, what barbarian path were you wanting to take?" after going over all 3+ of them with the player 1 on 1...

Murdered parents are a bit overdone. Really so are tragic backstories in general. One campaign I'm doing now has my character and another PC who I have a joint-backstory with having a pretty good life before the campaign started. One of us did have parents who died a while back, but that was years ago and the grieving process is long since done and now we're living happily running a weapons shop. The GM is having a right old time getting us to do stuff, but in a good way, we're not ignoring plot hooks, we're actively hiding from them and the local situation ultimately built up to our city getting destroyed which finally made us do something, which just made for a generally better plot overall which both players and GM were happy with.

Now try playing a system with a sanity bar.... A pacifist player slits a shopkeepers neck , when i tell him your hands and clothes are covered in blood , As this is the 1st time youve killed so ruthlesly you cannot dope with this so you storm out to clear your head . Then when i tell him roll A d3 SO WE SEE HOW MUCH IT AFFECTED YOUR MENTAL STABILITY he asks , Why would it affect my mental stability.

@@bainbonic "Murdered parents are a bit overdone..." yes but when you murdered them? That is the backstory of one of my characters.

@@ademiranda2 Interesting twist on the trope, I like it.

Typically this is the action of young or bored players that aren't interested in playing a fun game for the same reasons as the other people involved so...it's easy to either discuss it with them or not include them. I'm not shy to say that the DM turning people into the village idiot is a DM no one likes. Nobody likes that kind of arbitration. Nobody.

Hahahahaha... I have a guy in my group that does that shit, his character in our current iteration literally only started out as a 1st level Paladin, yet somehow his Dwarf is 350 years old and in his backstory he has battled demons and dragons beyond the wall and already traveled half the realm and apparently has several scars to prove it. He also likes to constantly remind us of these things throughout the campaign, and not to mention he is the son of a very powerful King. That kind of stuff amuses me and annoys me at the same time, but I know he just has a lot of free time and also likes to make his characters rich in lore, so at the end of the day i just let it go.

@@Underleaf76 That dwarf is just a late bloomer is all. being a novice adventurer who has adventured around the realm I would ask who's squire he was the entire time, or things like that. I'm not a jerk player, but I call out things that don't fit usually (so i'm sometimes a jerk I guess, even to myself out loud). I was playing a pathfinder game once, A player made a dwarf of the Battlehammer clan (We were not in the forgotten realms). I was playing a Dwarven cleric of hanseath. When he introduces himself to me he says "You would recognize the name as me being a noble of Mithril Hall, and would have great respect for my character", My response was "Actually I would not as i'm not from that plane, and even if I was my deity is kind of rebellious" Followed by "If you wanted to be from a respected noble family, you should have researched this campaign setting instead of using something you know but doesn't matter here............. or talked with the DM about it". I could tell by the DM's look to the other player, that he already had this talk with him. To be honest got along great with him in game. Funny mistake I made once was playing the oriental adventures 3.5 stuff, I mistook the mask stated for scorpion clan to be a metaphor. So 3 sessions in I finally realized and had a hilarious DOH moment.

Half demon half angel? Those conflicting alignments really would make a character crazy!

@@firefly7076 that's what the nephalem are, and they are pretty powerful, and maybe a bit crazy too.

Omg. We got to a pit. Baddies on other side. Melee jump across. Cleric is perfectly safe on the other side. DM says he tries to jump across the pit and ends up falling in and getting attacked by an ooze and dieing. DM tells us the cleric was just a doppleganger to retcon his own mistake.

My dm does it the other way around: DM: "the absent wizard runs and hides" Us: "no, she casts fireball, she always casts fireball" DM:"Well I don't want to use her spell slots and she's a squishy wizard who would hide from the big scary thing" Us:"she is lvl 11 with several spell slots with which to cast fireball and several other higher lvl spells. And name one fight where she has ever spent a turn hiding and name one fight where she has NOT cast fireball" Dm: "...well she isn't here to tell us so she hides"

To be fair as a DM it annoys me when people don't show. If you want to be mad at someone be mad at the player for not showing up. Creating a game takes hours of work and doing a great job should take all of your effort the last thing you want is to play a PC personally I just write the character out and the party can get mad at the player or just suffer. DMing done right is a lot of work lets show a little love for the effort.

Even though it can kill emersion a bit, when I have a missing player they just don't exist for all intents and purposes until they are back. I'm of the opinion that real world takes precedence over game so as long as they are serious about playing, their character stays with the party. No reason they or the other players need to be punished due to a cold or family emergency.

Ooh ouch

The problem with making them use a lv1 character, is that you are now indirectly punishing the other players by making them babysit this now useless hunk of flesh.

@@MayHugger true, but it works because the other players don't really work hard to protect that player until he learns to get his act together, and in the meantime, the encounters are scaled around the new party. and if the new guy dies again, he gets asked "have you learned your lession?" and if I think he's suffered enough for fucking up another player's reveal, I'll let him swap out that character for a level equivilant character and rejoin the party at their level glory. it's been a process in the making, with its fair share of roadbumps, your example included. Still, i thank you for this insight. Dude's changed his tude, made a new character, not one minmaxed for combat and actually made something that fits the game and has been a lot more helpful to the overall party, and as a reward to him for that, I've added more combat encounters to suit his likes. it was a very rough process, and he and i actually screamed at each other, but in the end, we all remained friends, and i think we're actually having even more fun now than before

@@justinpriebe6737 looks to me like you went on a huge power trip when you could have just prevented all that either in game with npc actions or out of game by talking to him.

​@@sirundying I will very much admit, looking back on that, I could have handled it a lot better. I still stand by the fact that people should use common sense and not get in the way of progression the others of the party are trying to accomplish. from my viewpoint, if one player screws something else up for another player, especially if it has lasting in game consequences, it isn't fair to that player who worked so hard for that goal just for it to be snatched away like that.

We play online via voice chat and I'm a mom of 2 kids, I did one time fall asleep during a session while my party was at a tavern. SO my DM had my character get blackout drunk, and the next campaign featured everybody laughing while I played The Hangover, Shire Edition to find out what the hell happened and why I woke up naked in a barn on the far end of town; meanwhile the others were on a different side quest.

I had one player pass out drunk before the game started.

@@robertdubois3448 oof.

@@robertdubois3448 Frankly, in an instance like that, that player would be banned from the table and might even have the authorities called on. That's not just wrong, it's illegal.

@@DoubleMcZombie Yeah, after I determined it was NOT just a bad movie I told him it was time to game and to shut it off. Naturally on the way home I informed all the other players we would not be repeating that experience again. I should have informed my parents as well considering the further fallout that happened around that particular individual.

Oh, I HATE that! I was in one group AGES ago, where one player, no matter if he was a player or he was the GM, he seemed to take utter delight in giving others grief. I finally left that group, after having one game too many that I was running scuttled - it was a shared campaign world, and I decided to hand GM duties off to him and leave. When I told him I was handing things over to him, he told me to role up a character for the following week, that is when I said I was going to take a week off...at which point he said "Okay, we'll play Battle Tech. Put together a couple of 50-ton mechs for next week." One other player took me aside and said "Look, I know what you're doing here. You realize that if you do it, he wins." to which I replied "I just don't effin' care anymore."

I have a talk with everyone before they sit down at my table, it goes something like: "Look, I am okay with there being tension in the party, and I like my player Characters having real relationships, and honestly, it is okay if your character is a complete and total asshole. But if you build and play your character in any way that makes ME have to FORCE you to be a member of this party, you are not allowed back at my table. Period. and if I feel like you are doing things to make your companions' lives miserable for any reason other than something related to the story we are telling... well... rocks fall. you die. Understand?" That normally makes sure they understand that a party is a group, a team, if you will. And not a gathering of individuals that may or may not do things together.

Yep... that's what I call a "Troll" PC. I've been in a few games that had one, but in every case without exception it lasted one session and one session only, for one reason... or another. P.S. Did you know that trolls are not immune to "giant rock" damage?

Yup. Fucking hands down. The PvP aggressors

4444Chunkymonkey but making other players miserable, is what adds spice to the game 😂

At that point, it's a huge miscommunication between what the DM wants from the game and what the players want/expect. The DM should be upfront about what type of game they want to run. If they just spring it on you....they're a dick.

I like when players do this. I hate when they later say, oh, that was too easy. After their pretty cool plan works, and I adapted everything to deal with the consequences. then they say "oh, it should have been more challenging. "Okay, next time, charge in frontal assault guns blazing." "No, that would be stupid." "Okay then how about you be the DM." "No, it is too much work." "Agreed. "

Some times it is okay to try to kill the players. I have a campaign planned involving a demigod betraying and killing most if not all of the party, only to have then brought back by the goddess of death with a quest from her.

No I mean, make each NPC hard to kill with made up attacks that are bullshit. He made this one attack called "Rally" which made every enemy in the room attack for free, it didn't even count as a turn, meaning the enemies would attack once again as their real turn. Your campaign makes complete sense because you eventually bring them back if we die he would have us restart the dungeon or area. Yes, I agree with you, if you can execute it succesfully then go ahead, but if you're only doing it to kill the party and to try and make your dungeon seem hard even though the enemies and abilities are BS then shove it.

'lets smoke them out and surprise attack them' sometimes a good idea but then a player i played alongside decided to do it to smoke a creature out of the hole it had burrowed into the cities cemetary with. he set fire to a cemetary in the grounds of a major temple to the god of death!! and then got pissed off with the Gm when the priests called the town guard and had him arrested for blasphemy and had him flogged.

Yes! I was playing with a group of people in Princes of the Apocalypse. We arrived at the Earth Temple (spoilers incoming people so flick past the comment if you dont want spoilers) and then the paladin unleashed Thunderous Smite... which causes a sound everyone in 300ft can hear... so naturally the whole temple came down on us. The priest let us go, warning us that if we returned... the next fight would be to the death. So we left.... gathered a trio of knights from a nearby place and returned to find the top floor mostly empty. Head downstairs deeper into bad guy territory and get attacked by quite a few monks, a few bulletes and one freaky monk woman who was crazy effective. All the named NPCs managed to get away as we slew their minions. Then we found the High Priest... and all the mini bosses were there with him... TPK. We were warned. And when we returned the mini bosses kept escaping.... and ran to their boss... It was our mistakes that lead to the TPK... not that half the players there agreed.

had a player get pissed at the Gm when he was arrested and charged with blasphemy (and later a flogging) because he set fire to a cemetary in the grounds of a major temple of the god of death (which got out of control) so he could try and smoke a creature out of the hole it had used to burrow into the city.

I once did a detect thoughts in front of a archwizard to read to throghts of a troubled person. Let's just say that said archwizard hated me a lot, and even if the party tried to persuade him to forgive me, he didn't. At least I didn't get killed, but I learned my lesson there. Though, at that time i was not aware of the many aspects of the lore of D&D.

Especially when they're experienced players. I don't mind the DM fudging the damage roll to show the new guy that his actions have consequences without outright killing him. But if the player has several campaigns under their belt, I expect them to know that fumbles happen, risks don't always pay off, death is permanent, and we're not retconning everything just because it didn't turn out in your favor.

My group regularly blames the DM as a joke because we're all good IRL friends. The DM will usually joke that he could just Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies us. The DM tends to get the last laugh.

That's not what he's talking about though. He's talking about players who aren't paying attention on an immediate level, in a way that has nothing to do with their character, such as: DM- Player 2, your turn. What do you do? Player 2 *having been looking up memes on his phone and no paying attention to the combat* "I umm I fireball the Orc" DM - Player 1 just killed the Orc on his turn. Player 2 - oh, umm i..I... *then takes 5 minutes trying to decide what to do*

And if you fail one of those initial roles you are screwed forever.

@@e4Bc4Qf3Qf7 A number of other games explains failed rolls a bit different than the well known 'you fail to do whatever you wanted to do'. It can succeed but with consequences. Acid splash corroded the box, but the fumes are detrimental to the adventurers health. Breaking the weakened wall? The boards bulge but seem to hold together just so... Maybe if not only one hero tries to break it down it might work. Climbing ontop of the box - why not ask the barbarian to help by lifting the druid? Dice rolls aren't a binary thing of success and failure everytime. They can also be gradients of consequences. Or in very short: If the roll succeeds - the player tells what happens, if the roll fails the DM tells what happens.

@@shreeeze I have a bit of ptsd regarding failures - or even fumbles. Playing in a group who took the whole concept way to serious. Like "You kneel above the enemy, who is on his last leg" "I'd like to end his suffering quickly" "Make an attack roll" Rolls critical fumble, "You nearly decapitate yourself instead - because the critical failure table says you take double damage from your attack on yourself." While kneeling over an unmoving dying enemy. Who couldn't fight back. Which wasn't even a combat scenario. But no. Fumble rolls are IN THE BOOK!!! Either that - or the DM took the liberty to make it as embarressing as possible for the victim of the fumble. Like snipers who shoot themselfs in the foot alarming the whole base to their presence. Like fighters not only loosing their blade but bury it in a comrade standing 30 feet a way - for double damage of course. Because the table says: "You hit the next ally for double damage..." Sorry, for the outburst :D

This is a major concern. As a DM - and an organizer for games in general - I find it is imperative that one shows a shifting and equitably distributed attention to and affection for all players, regardless of relationships outside the game. However, individual players may want more than you can readily apply - again, regardless of relationships outside of the game - so I also want to maximize the attention I can give, so everyone feels they get a good amount in itself.

I was once in the receiving end of this, much to my frustration. I was actually the first person to leave the game.

The only way I would accept that one player would've gotten more magic items than others is if the player has the fewest magic items or if the DM rolled for the loot and the magic items in the loot happened to favour one or more players than others. When rolling for the loot, the DM can't really fudge the dice too often without it being chaught by the players.

My old GM started off this way. He had a favorite, his girlfriend, now wife. She got the bulk of the role playing time, all decisions on what the group should do, went through her, what kinds of interaction we would have with the NPCs, ect. It got to the point where hardly anyone was engaging in the Game, at all. He go so frustrated, and fed up, that he sent a group email, telling us about his frustrations, about how no one seemed to be interacting, or doing anything in his campaign. Well, I immediately, but respectfully, pointed out, in my response, that the main reason why no one was paying attention, or engaging, in his campaign, was because he was only letting one person do so, his girlfriend; we tried several times to do so, but he kept brushing the rest of us off, and focusing on her, only. That was his wake up call. The next session, before we started, he apologized to us, saying that he would endeavor to try and make sure everyone got equal time, when it came to role playing, and interacting with the story. To his credit, he did, and our gaming sessions improved immensely; now, the girlfriend was not too keen on this, having been used to be the center of attention, all the time, and occasionally would pout in her little corner, but that was an entirely different problem.

@@ziggy78eog well, as shitty of a thing he did, props to him for trying to improve

Also, my character who was a Kobold, got drunk for the first time, and the DM had him black out and wake up in some random orc naked lady's tent, and I was like whaaaaat? I had never had my character behave in any sexual maner at all, never specified his sexuality, and had kinda thought of him as asexual, since according to kobold lore, they only mate to breed and expand the clan. And the eggs are collected and nursed in a community nursing nest, which really doesn't make them sexual creatures, but rather creatures that only has sex when they need to reproduce. Also Kobolds can change sex according to their surrounding environment, so if they are in a group of only males, they will change their sex to be able to reproduce. And my kobold was sort of aloof and more interested in shiny things and collecting than anything else, plus the rest of the party was males. So that DM ruling really weirded me out. I mean, it was kinda funny but in a weird way and it made *no* sense what so ever.

You mean the whole thing was his way of saying, "Can I play another character?"

@@Vinemaple Maybe. Once we started a new campagne with new characters, the DM forced us to roll for each stat and use it as it was roled. No way to change. I wanted to play a knowledge domain cleric. But with INT 6 and WIS 8? Not really funny... So I told the DM, I want to roll another character but - again - was forced to play the weakling. So from the first moment on I played him suicidal and threw him from the next cliff. The DM was shocked and asked me, why I have done that. I just replied, that he forced me to play this character, but he can't force me how to play my character.

Jakub Janicki we have a player in one of my groups that “knows all the rules.” He can tell you anything you want to know out of any book.. but if there is any question, he will spend hours looking through books to find the answers. He does this as a player AND as a DM-grinds the progress to a halt as well as a brick wall does to a car.

I think that’s just a shitty person in general

This is one of the things a player that I had asked to leave was somewhat doing... in my comment earlier I stated several of the things on the list that he was guilty of.. and the straw that broke the camels back was just before we took our food/bathroom break he wanted to TALK OVER ME interrupting what I was saying to a player that rolled a 1... In my games in or out of combat 1 is a failure, 20 brilliant success. (this rule was spoken at our first session, he brought it up a few time elsewhere in the campaign) but once he got to talking louder to the player I was narrating the failure for then I was to "explain the rules" I had to call him by his REAL name 3 times to get him to stop talking... to which I responded with "This is a house rule I explained in the first session, you've brought this up several times, and each time I've said that it's how I play, it's MY GAME and if you don't want to play by MY RULES, you're welcome to leave the table."

I know a player like that. They’ll either confuse 5e rules with Pathfinder and try to argue or they’ll pull something out their ass and try to play like they think it’s a rule (just so they can do something that gives them an advantage). Then they pout for half an hour when the dm shuts them down. -__-

Jakub Janicki I leave groups like that

william w I had a DM like that. He was so petty if you did or said something in the real world that he was disgruntled about he would take it out on players characters. He would then leak story details to other players and have them turn against the player he was upset at...or my other pet peeve DM's that dont know how to deal with characters abilities so I have them robbed of all the gear that enable that characters abilities making them basically a commoner fighting monsters within first ten minutes of group being assembled. Or a DM that wants to play as well but make the most OP meta character....DM's DM let the players play.

My GM is great, if we the player do something stupid on our turn but immediately realize "wait my character would have known not to do that" he allows a ret-con if it was still our turn and nothing actually happened yet, happens all the time with stuff like "I made that knowledge check and know it is immune to mind effects, I accidentally said I was casting a mind-effect spell I would like to have not done that." So long as it does not happen too frequently we are all fine with it, though we usually show the same courtesy to the GM if they are controlling like 20 enemies and forget that guy waaaaay over on the side that he was having stealth over and we notice the token has not moved for several rounds.

Shining Darkness I would like to get back into DnD but don't know anyone in my area that plays. Do you know any good online e groups?

yes

Shining Darkness ....link?

Aww, as someone who just finished my first campaign, sometimes I hoped that maybe my Rogue hadn't looked hard enough or only looked in a half-assed way and wanted him to look better. That makes a lot sense when it's put like that., I'm glad I never pushed it to any kind of extreme like that.😅

Roll for them and add their modifier

why would you allow them to roll multiple times?? that's literally just cheating. tell them they already did and refuse.

Paul Cornett even more frustrating is the player who insists they aren’t salty, but everyone knows they are

I had a player yell at me that he hated me.....all because the big baddie had Ray of Enfeeblement and used it on his barbarian. Every single combat with him, if I didn't let him just dominate and not be targeted by anything, then I was "singling him out" and trying to ruin his fun. It got old real quick.

when your player's plan fails and they call you out saying you're targeting them... wut .... you decided to attempt to rob a powerful wizard, you mean to tell me that this wizard isn't supposed to attempt to disintegrate you, when you are literally in his home, stealing his magic items, killing his minions and destroying his property???

To be fair, some gripes are legitimate. One-shotting the same player's characters twice in a row in ways, by your rules, they could not avoid, both just barely into level 2, is a bit much. Having one's first two characters in a campaign unavoidably one-shot less than a handful of days into their lives as player characters is not fun. Though, it's important to note that you should never just flip your shit at the table. After the session, even if it means refusing to roll a new sheet until its been addressed, you pull your DM aside so as not to cause a scene and you talk it out. If issues remain unsolved, you weren't going to enjoy that campaign anyway and its best that you seek another table rather than stay just to ensure everyone else is just as miserable as you. That's when you become the asshole. Don't be that guy.

Guilty...but I'm getting better! I wanna be the guy, 'nuff said. So when I get KOed from being in a 1 vs 4 situation, miss multiple times, or fail rolls to do clever things I cry inside. If anything, D&D teaches that not everything will go your way and you have to deal with that.

Hahaha that is weird. I can see Player Characters making suggestions to another character in game, but not actually describing your actions for you. I've seen DMs do this though, and it's pretty frustrating. The player says, "I want to punch him in the face so hard that he just stands there, then I look away as he collapses." and the DM says, "no, you punch him and he falls down so you get above him and crush his face until it's unrecognizable." like, really?? Why was the player's idea not good enough? I thought it was cool.

Mark Byrd - Well, when you roleplay, you can only roleplay for yourself, so you wouldn't actually get to pick what happens when you do something. What you just referred to would be godmodding, or some such other name, where you explain your action and it's effect. You don't really get to pick the effect, only the action. Now, the gm picking your actions? Hell no. I'd just say "No, my character didn't do that, I don't care if your the gm, I control what my character does." The only way it's acceptable for the gm to control your actions would be if your were hypnotized or charmed or some such. The gm merely deciding his thing was cooler is blatantly stupid and I'd be out the door pretty quick to any gm who did that.

Mark Byrd This reminds me of something else that gets under my skin: DMs who treat failed rolls as your character being inept and incompetent. Nat 1 means my Fighter tripped and fell onto his own sword. Please stop, DMs.

It's like they want two turns, theirs and mine.

I had a DM do that to me. She also dictated on what I could and couldn't do for the class I was playing as. I can understand a magicless ranger, but taking out major things that make a ranger, a ranger (ex. can't use tracking) is no fun. What I could do was attack, and that is it. She also was dictating what attack I should use or not.

Hippocampus fkn thank you

Maybe make a rule that if someone's late their character is dragged along by the rest? It sort of works sometimes :p

Usually my group just starts without me, and I show up after work, or whatever I've got going on.

we do autofollow if you arent there and you bring cake if you are late and havent said so like a couple of days before

Im always late because i go out and bring snacks

Dragon in the town? Welcome to skyrim

Alternatively, having a player who hogs the GM's attention to do things and doesn't let the other players do anything. Have had this problem a couple times in a campaign I'm in currently where I was trying to learn some more information by visiting a library, but another player jumped in to go to a brothel or something and wouldn't let me get my research done until they were satisfied.

oh yeah! I have developed a way to fight this. I keep a worksheet that describes where the players are at the end of next session, what is set up next to do during next session and then make lists of encounters, role-play moments and times-to-shine for each PC and make sure that they get to at least one each during the upcoming session.

Or make your own time to shine. Don't wait for someone else to hand it to you. Life doesn't hand you things unless you just got lucky.

yeah this must be hard for a DM. but it's pretty important for ppl to enjoy the game.

James Kyle Travis is that you?

Lol. I have a d20 from back when I bought the original Expert DnD set decades ago. The dang thing rolls a 20 about every 5 rolls. But it also rolls a 1 about every 6-7 rolls. I save if for emergencies. Glorious, glorious emergencies. I do not believe in "getting the bad rolls out" though. That is just superstitious nonsense!

James Kyle man...mine does the opposite. whenever i just randomly roll it, it always rolls high. whenever i'm rolling for the game, i roll a 3.

I would recommend a tablecloth lol. They're cheap

Lmfao that person is totally in my group.

That's the right thing to do.

Morleond The Mystic true, i think i've never seen him this agitatet for so long...

Nah I think his camera is overexposed.

Maybe he saw a ghost.

Jefferson Robsion grabing a smoke during play? He should be more into the game

The game store situation is a tough one. You do not want to ostracize patrons. Even if they are annoying and suck. He is likely to stir up more trouble if you give him grief than others. My best advice would be to get your 6 players beforehand so when you show up, just tell him the party is already full. But he can hang out and observe. Then if he gets annoying, he is the one who is likely to get into trouble.

unfortunately, it's Adventure League and each player was assigned a group. there isn't anything anyone can do other than the DM, and I don't know her well enough to predict what she will do.

Well if he gets up to smoke, should have his character NPC'd and knocked out/killed. =)

Speaking as an ex-smoker, that is NOT a good enough reason to be killing someone's character. In fact, it's kind of bitch-made. Granted, guy should grab a smoke during a natural lull, such as a bathroom break or take a quick couple drags during someone else's turn on combat, but that's not a reason to kill him. That OTHER behavior, however, means that dude needs to fry.

That does sound like a fun group though!

Dylan de Wit yeah we play all the time with a lot better co-op and less chaotic characters

That would require multiple checks. Intuition, heightened hearing, direction sense. Then MAYBE.

Meta gaming

Exactly. Or as I would put it, "bloody annoying".

awmperry oh my god all of my this. It's the most obnoxious... I've had a few players try it, then I put them back. I say, "no, bad" so they decide to explore that area... 'innocently' and "oh hi you're here?" I give them a look. _The_ look. Alternatively, having other NPC's note their absence of self-control (in cases where their interruptions and self-injections could be viewed as outright rude) is a good way to curb this. It's always better to find a real explainable reason for why their habit isn't necessarily as beneficial as they thought.

@discoandherpes Taking over a scene that another character is handling and that his character couldn't possibly have known about? Yeah, that is bad. It ruins the fun for other players who are actually trying to stay in character and play the information their characters know. It's across that line into disruptive.

That is just explaining mechanics.

Any player who answers a question directed at the GM should be bitch slapped hard and fast for doing so. As that question was phrased I could call for an INT check to check if they were smart enough to stop drinking before they reached the point they could not handle it.

I had a bad case of that once. I didn'[t even get to finish asking my question before the faux-DM started answering. That was after other cases of that earlier in the session. It ended the campaign, at least for me.

I'm actually quite bad for that. My DM will say "do this" and I'll say "isn't that normally done like this?"

This is a race of players known as "Backseat DM,s"

first one is just stupid. The second one might just be because the Player is not comfortable with talking in charakter. for some its not as easy as for others, espaccaly if your new

If they're passively roleplaying like that, they might as well just actively roleplay, maybe they don't feel like they can act well enough, Guy made a good point about that here.

Ethanerd or forgetting that the game is about everybody's fun not just theirs.

ketrava0425 Agreed.

Ethanerd Totally agree. This is one reason I like forming groups from strangers over friends. In my experience, strangers seem to take it more seriously because they show up to play DnD, not just to hang our.

Anonymous H Yes. Everyone at the table should be willing to let everyone else have fun, be in the spotlight. Otherwise, yeah, they should play on on one or go play Skyrim or something.

How many times can I thumbs up this?

That's genius.

In your latter example I think that sort of thing depends on two things. #1. Whether it's the player saying this out of character (I often do this with some of my GM's albeit mostly in a "Oh we're so screwed" manner-- eg. "Oh bugger, that's a Displacer beast isn't it?") and then playing character appropriately (my character gets confused when his attacks aren't hitting the Displacer beast until he figures out its tricks), or #2. In longer adventures when characters have time to get desensitized to these sorts of things. My GM made a similar complain to you once in a Dark Heresy campaign, when my character expressed almost outright apathy, and only mild irritation to the party getting attacked by a pair of Spectral Daemonhosts. My answer was essentially; "By this point in the campaign, my character has seen and been attacked by eight foot tall green fungus men, elves, zombies, giant centipedes with cerberus-heads, some horrifying abomination made up of way too many corpses, living shadows, parasitic worms with lamprey mouths, actual demons, and Chaos Space Marines, among countless other horrible things. I think he's seen enough that I can justify this is just another Tuesday to him at this point." It's definitely a valid pet-peeve if this is a relatively fresh campaign and the players are actually meta-gaming though, I agree.

It's hard for people to separate themselves from the knowledge they have IRL, I wouldn't get to upset about it, it happens all the time. Just gently remind them that their characters have never encountered said creature. Also remember that legends exist in that world too and people could have heard of such creatures in tales. It is possible to know what something is even if they themselves haven't encountered it, just like I would know what Bigfoot was if I managed to see one.

"That's a demogorgon just like in Stranger Things!!!" says the noble Gnome.

It’s a Ghoma!

Easy answer: "does your character have knowledge (dungeoneering / religion / nature / whatever...) and can actually know these things? Yes? Roll for it - if the check is passed - great it's PC knowledge and perfectly in character. A Character doesn't need to have encountered everything in order to be able to know about it. I sure as hell have never seen a blue whale, but I know what a blue whale is. If the character has no such knowledge skills or fails the check - shut up.

I never really got that. It's easier to shoot something if it's right next to you. D&D sure is weird.

Zear, well it's only when they're already in melee with you, meaning they're close enough to slap you in the face, and it'd definitely harder to hit someone at that range.

At that point, the player characters should just leave the poor soul to their devices and venture forth.

On the flip side, if you have lazy players, or players who just want to kill things, there isn't anything wrong with a gm giving them what they want. If they don't need some grand story or motivation, why bother? If you as the gm WANT their to be something more to it, you can have the players be traveling mercenaries, taking whatever work they can find. They aren't adventurers, looking for adventure, they're people looking for work so they can get gold and survive. A good gm could make this more interesting by spicing things up a bit here and there, but if your players just want to bonk heads and collect gold, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it.

rageoftyrael i agree but in my recent games it is the other way around. I am the player and i want to interact with the world and engage in a story. Yet the dm does no preperation. All he does is put monsters in front of us and expects everyone to have fun.

Having this exact problem rn with my newest group. The dm hasn’t even read the campaign book yet and we’re about to have our second meet. The first meet, I was the only one on time, with a prepared character sheet, and extra dice. We started 3.5 hours late because people were late and unprepared and the nine of us were sharing my 4 sets of dice. Everyone was talking about random shit, leaving randomly mid game, not listening, and only two other players were actually role playing.

It's fine if you know where the rule is, it's worth looking up instead of ruling, and it'll only take a moment. If you have to hunt it down through 12 manuals, what Guy said. And also, the system needs better manuals.

I presume he slept on the couch for the next week

I think I've done most of these things

@@kevinsullivan3448 they really shouldve put those warnings in the beginning of the module

Gad, yes, I still don't understand why people don't sit down for half an hour and get this organized so they either have easy access to it, or have it memorized. It's EASY. It's disrespectful to the group if you don't.

Could you clarify a little? Are you talking about realistic consequences of dumb actions or insane nonsensical punishments for not mind-reading the exact solution?

*cough*tiberiusstormwind*cough"

Omfg, yes. Yes!

Paul H I remember Jackie Chan Adventures. I accidentally downloaded malware when I was young, and some anime player popped up one day and I started watching that show. The Mac soon fuckin died and I havent watched it since

Oops sorry that is me... Often. :S

Yup. I'm in a group (fixing to quit) that meets online. I cant get a word in. Every idea I've presented gets shot down. Rather than do some planning between sessions, I was told it ruins the immersion atmosphere if they cant spend nearly an entire session planning. I cant follow their plans or the story because they change their mind so often I need a board to track it all. I'm basically playing an NPC. Also we spent three sessions in a row "shopping." I cant get the group to consider getting a job so we can get income or go treasure hunting. I'm literally stuck in a tavern playing cheers.

I really love the 1. style descriptions, but they should be saved for the actually important moments. Some people have their characters call upon their god and channel the very last fiber of their being every single session, it's ridiculous.

thats hilarious Sounds like something I would do

Thats cool, the person is putting the sandbox aspect of the game to use and exploring its boundaries.... I would not penalize them for trying to have fun, unless of course it starts detracting from the story or becomes a theme which could land the party in trouble, Player: "Oh, is that a chicken?" DM: "It sure looks like a chicken." (A Cockatrice). Player: "I grab it and put it in my bag of holding....."

Then you have a small group of Druid animal activists or a party of tracking rangers hired by the farmers who've gone hungry due to their lost livestock.

@@ivorymantis1026 PETA druids, that's scary.

Farm animals can save lives! I once played a half howl dragon, who had an obsession with sheep. Secured sheep so he could drag them with him wherever he went as a snack. Went through a door, found it led to a ancient red dragons lair (party secured the door behind me, jerks). went back and forth with the dragon, eventually ending up on "leave all your stuff, and I'll let you leave". By this time I had noticed that there was another way out way above, So I started flying that way. Several real lucky rounds of being chased by the dragon, who kept rolling low on attacks, damages, and even minimum damage on his breath weapon. I'm at 0 hit points and the dragon is going for the swallow whole attack, I notice and go to "lodge myself in it throat, to choke it out". It chokes to death, but only because of the secured sheep that didn't get swallowed and yanked me into place like a fishing hook of dragon slaying!

And that is exactly what he meant by talking out of character.