D&D Players, What are the character concepts that piss you off! #2 

About the mounted thing, an easy solution would be to play a small rider with a medium mount like a lynx or a riding dog. Halfling cavaliers seem like a fun time

I personally hate tropes like Joss Whedon writing where some characters that are incredibly annoying or stupid never seem to get punished for their action but SOMEHOW when you try to punish or reccomend another idea to them YOU get the blame instead despite what they do before is clearly dumb and

My first game ended because a PC wanted his girlfriend to join. She wanted to play " the most beautiful elven ranger who always hits the target". Started a downward spiral that ended the game. I liked that game because the gm was good at putting us in situations that gave our PCs their time to shine

One of my party members in a previous game made a cavalier, with a specialty for mounted combat... problem was we were never able to keep our horses for very long... He found another solution though... my PC...the moon druid... It actually worked out quite nicely. My favorite form was the dire wolf, which gets pack tactics and thus has advantage on all attacks if an ally is within 5 feet.. and the wolf's back is certainly within 5 feet. Still there were limits...he could not mount up once I turned into a giant elk inside a dungeon... not without slamming his head into the ceiling.

I *love* the Organization Florida Man one, that's fantastic

Reminds me of my first character I ever made, a human rogue who had... loving parents that to his knowledge were still alive. a friendly young man who tried to be kind to everyone he met, he was only 'sneaky' because he had an intense desire for knowledge which led to him sneaking around people to look at books or artifacts that he wasn't allowed near. He was also a joker when it came to things, EX: when in a bar fight he picked up two tankards and said 'you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses would you?' then got decked.

Those “lone wolf” characters that refuse to work with the party. It is ok to have an occassional 1 on 1 rp time, but these guys just want to play 1 Player dnd and treat the others like NPC’s. Go play BG3 or Skyrim if you want a solo game

Surprised the "no fun allowed" paladin isn't mentioned. I intentionally went with a neutral good paladin rather than lawful good and spun my backstory to compliment my naive attitude so I wouldn't step on other players' actions.

For me it’s people who think they can pull of a character that everyone is supposed to hate and then later come to love. It’s good in concept but rarely can one pull it off without just making session not fun or seem like someone who just wants to hog the spotlight.

Every Villain in my campaigns has a 1 per day "power word: silence" in case someone tries to interrupt their monolouge.

There is only one trope i hate that isnt on the list of things you shouldnt do, and thats the character who doesn't interact with the rest of the party. Play your character in anytype of appropriate way you like, but please interact with the party. Shy, Loner, Hardass, give me something more than "They just look at you for a moment then leaves." You dont even have to interact with me, but just someone in the party. Other than that i can deal with most of the tropes people complain about in and out of character but i cant deal with someone who doesnt interact. I have a mute friend i played with and they interacted by typing it out or doing sign language and we took it as the character speaking telepathically.

To defend the Multiple Personas one a bit It CAN be done correctly, and enjoyably. for everyone. I had a player who was possessed by basically a demoness. Swapping permitted them to switch both bodies, sheets, and personality, (always the three together, so you knew who you were facing at all times.) And they both were decent people. The demoness was completly unhinged with enemies, that she basically loved to torture during/outside the fights, but she was chill, and even cute the rest of the time. After a while (since she appeared mid campain to spice up a character that was originaly quite bland) the dude who was possesed by her became super protective of her and she kind of became his adoptive little sister. He was a fighter and she a mage that fired needles. an incredible duo both for RP and fights, and they let plenty of space for everyone. The characters became a recuring Duo in several other campains were they would often do cameos, and were loved by the whole table. However, they had the same HP and Mana/spellslots for both, so there was never any possible cheese with them.

I am guilty of something like this. My group started a new campaign, an 'ancient rome with D&D races' kind of thing. I sadly missed the first month due to work, but I had heard from the other players that all they were doing is fighting undead and no actual greek/roman monsters at all, just some new chaos god disrupting everything. So when I finally made it to the table I unveiled 'Fantiago Rompedor De Los Muertos' (Breaker of the dead) who was a half-orc spanish Luchador Monk in a bull mask and a bodysuit. The DM raised a brow to that and he asked why I was a luchador instead of a more 'Roman/Greek' style character, and I simply stated 'From what I heard, there were no Roman/Greek monsters anyway, so I would fit right in. He just sighed and let it happen. He took the hint, and soon the rest of the group and I were happily fighting minotaurs, harpies and the like, went into the past and killed/ate the first/last ever deer, and ended with an epic battle against the god of chaos.

A personal fun theme of mine that i ran was a strength focused rogue. Put my expertise in Athletics and took the tavern brawler feat. His backstory was that he was the bouncer for the theives guild base, and got demoted when he let an undercover officer in due to low wisdom and intelligence stats. Went to work as an adventure where he could put his fists to use

Yo, the Florida man character concept just sounded like a D&D plot of Rick and Morty.

I had an interesting thought on the multiple personalities idea: Play an eldritch knight. One personality thinks they're a fighter, the other thinks they're a wizard. Neither personality knows about or remembers the actions of the other. The character would become more powerful when they go through growth and both personalities reconcile, so then they start using both magic and weapons in tandem. Important: both personalities are friendly toward the rest of the party!

I've actually seen an instance of somebody who always plays basically the same character done really well. This guy I played with was always a monster hunter (usually a vampire hunter but sometimes it changed), and despite this all his characters were really unique, and the thing tying them together was that they were all related. He went in depth with it to, he made a whole family tree detailing their lineage and how they ended up in various magical worlds when they started in a grounded setting. The dedication alone made it work

I've definitely been one of those annoying players before. My first 5e character was an attempt at what I thought was realistic. They were an ordinary citizen who got tricked into accepting a boon from an otherworldly source, becoming a warlock. They wanted nothing more than to return to the shire and quit the adventuring business. I thought it would be a cool idea to have this character deal with the temptation of power through their pact, using evil for good, and seeing where the campaign takes me in terms of character development. MFW i realized neither the party or the DM were big roleplayers and I was too dumb to realize that switching tack was probably the better option. No one wanted to deal with a reluctant adventurer or deal with the tyranny of realism - they just wanted to suplex dragons and act as themselves.

The mounted mounty works in dnd if your race size is small because youu can take your mounts in dungeons like koblds riding mastiffs.

I made a character with a split personality. They were both rouge and chaotic neutral, but one was “no one must witness” vs “no witnesses”

I'm a big fan of that last type of player, who makes a well designed character with defined flaws and mortal weaknesses but is very likeable. When they have that tragic death it can incite intense feelings for everyone involved. Tragedy and loss have inspired some of the most beautiful creations, and you have to admit nothing tugs on the heartstrings more than a dramatic death.

For anyone curious, you can actually play a "mounted mounty" and still effectively dungeon delve. I recommend a cavalier halfing riding a giant badger

6:26 I feel as though I did this right in a CoS campaign. My second character, near the end of the campaign, was a Shadar Kai Hexblade 4 arcane archer 5. Being a Shadar Kai, they knew of the Raven Queen, and being a Hexblade warlock, they served the Raven Queen. The Raven Queen is the goddess of death. Her anathemas are basically treat life and death as a natural cycle of life, and do NOT disrupt it. Aka revival/necromancy magic. In the final fight with Strahd, my character was grappled by Strahd and got a natural one on their first death save. Had Strahd killed me, he would have raised me as undead. My friend healed me, and my bow being elsewhere, I grabbed Strahd's sword, and coup de grâce'd himself, lobbing off his own head so Strahd couldn't turn him into a zombie. It is absolutely something my character would do, and it made for an awesome story.

One way to do a warlock in a tech-sci-fi setting is to make the Patron an A.I. Most of his "Spells" are tech gadgets supplied by the A.I.'s cult. The best part? The Ai can communicate with The WLK by nural-implant.

Definitely agree on multiple/split personality characters, they usually end up being disruptive spotlight hogs. The "everyone look at me" personality always seems to turn up when the other party members are having a moment to shine... I'd also add the "contrarian" character. The player who always wants to do exactly what they're told not to do. You know the one, the player who insists on playing that one race the GM banned, the one who absolutely has to be a Jedi in a Star Wars game when the GM asks for no Force users, the one who will make a barbarian in a magic academy setting, basically the one who has to always be the "odd one out" in any group or setting, especially if the GM imposed any rules/limitations on character creation at the start of the campaign. And finally, the "joke" character in a setting that doesn't fit. This applies both to characters who are based off a joke or meme, and characters who have to make everything a joke, no matter how serious the setting or the rest of the group is.

That last guy with the fatal flaws definitely enjoyed Breaking Bad.

The most agreagous character i made was homicidal to goblin kind. And would be all to happy to go on goblin slaying missions even at lvl 15. Became a bargaining chip to get the evil mage to do good things willingly.

The one for me is we will call The Ousider - The character that is so out there, so detached from the game concept/genre that they don't fit in and everything becomes about explaining things to them. Once had someone want to play a Predator in a Star Trek game and I did have to explain eating with a form to them. Things that no matter who hard you try the story always will come back to them.

We have a fighter in the party who just has a bad case of Goku syndrome. They fight literally everything and HAVE to do it RIGHT NOW even when it makes far more sense to wait literally one hour in game so that I, the cleric, can finish my spell prep. Then they have the nerve to go "Well you should've come in to heal us" when I was openly saying "I don't have any more spell slots." Worst part? Fighter's so hard to kill that he just never learns a lesson. I'm starting to seriously debate just *not* healing him anymore till he gets his act together.

I was the “guy with a bunch of pets”. Though they weren’t really pets but rather a growing list of NPC allies, family members, and extended family. It started with a horse my character named Cycloneous. Then he met an NPC named Jessica, they started dating and he moved in with her. He then bought a hunting dog which he named Bjornhard. And later he hired and then became friends with a halfling thief and mapmaker named Pheleous, who became “Uncle Pheleous” when my character had a child with Jessica. Then later on I picked up two former cultists from the Cult Of The Reptile God adventure module, two clerics, Misha and I think the other was named Alexis. Anyways Misha became my character’s secretary once he started running a crime syndicate out of a hideout he had built by some kobolds and dwarves in the city sewers. And Alexis was kind of just there. Oh and he bought his wife a horse too so we each had our own horse and a carriage for personal use. Pheleous was our chauffeur as a cover for why I had originally hired him.

I love bards and to this day have never played a horny one. I've been a secret assassin that uses his music to get into venues, a dancer very into perfecting his art, and even a collector of stories in a quest to uncover history and turn it into educational songs. It's not hard and wayyyy more fun IMO.

I just recently had the pleasure of DMing a short campaign with one of those "Split personality characters", but I trusted the player who had the idea so i gave it a go. And boy I was not disappointed. The character was well written and played, despite the concept having so many opportunities to fail miserably. Goes to show, almost any idea can be made to work if someone knows what they're doing

My first ever time playing dnd was as the dm. Me and the group decided that each of us should make up a story in our heads and dm that, and once the story is complete, another person would dm their story. I started off as the 1st dm. There wasn't a lot of time for world-building, so I decided to just kick things off with the characters getting news of mysterious occurances in a remote settlement, which would lead to horror-fantasy encounters which seerved as the base for the world-building later on. One of the players had made a dark-elf character and a few sessions in the campaign my brain did a 360 spin after hearing the character talk about Azura the tribunal etc (for everyone that doesn't know, Azura and the resst are based on Elder Scroll lore aka a video game). Man I was so disappointed, cause the premise that each of us would add to the universe together and build a unique world with our stories, was just turned into "fuck it - let's make fantasy soup. I add Elder Scrolls lore as canon to this world". I regret not speaking out regarding it or putting down consequences as the dm (aka every time the dark elf character mentioned Azura or whatever, the locals treating them like a madman, Azura's miracles not working etc).

I've never heard Brian walk onto set with such dripping venomous spite before

2:30 I played a Mounted Mounty once. He was a halfling paladin riding a St. Bernard. D&D 3.5 had "riding dogs" specifically for small characters to ride, and since said riding dogs are Medium-sized creatures, they can easily function in a dungeon.

I played a guy with MPD on one occasion. I wasn't aware that it was such a hated trope. Although my guy was on the lower end of the "abusing multiple personalities for benefits" spectrum. His three personalities just shifted around his mental stats (Int, Wis and Cha) and gave him a different favoured weapon for each personality. He remained a fighter in every personality, (so no "Today I am a Wizard!" shenanigans) and rolled a D3 to see which personality was "out" after every long rest.

When ppl insert themselves into your characters backstor without asking, our rogue did that, it was annoying but yeah I said while I wished he had asked me first before doing so I had to admit it made sense that two characters with a criminal background may come from the same gang, its just my character ran away from the gang, his left amicably then just expected my to trust his when he turned up out of knowehre telling me he had been trackiong me when other gnang members had and had tried to kill me? He didnt mean any malice about it, he was totaly new to ttrpgs and just over exicted

5:06 this time its actually "rouge" (as in the powder) and not "rogue" (the class). the character of Rouge the Bat is from Sonic

Chaotic characters can actually be played without annoying the party. I once played a psychopathic bard in a homebrew cypher system Witcher setting. Bards don't have magic like in 5e, and are really only good at social skills and a few suave fighting moves. My character had a ton of social abilities (Essentially Command and Suggestion, but non-magic), and his whole thing was he was excellent at tricking people. He loved money and saved his own skin alot. And he often pushed the party to do things that would profit them, or him, even at the expense of others. But despite all this, he was never uncontrollably chaotic, because *the survival of the party was paramount to him* If the party died, so did he. And I think thats one of the most important things a person should somehow include in their character if they are making an evil or chaotic character.

7:35 Resisting those temptations should be a WISDOM check, not a CONSTITUTION one.

Anything with a higher level backstory at level 1

Recently made and am test running an "insufferably lawful good" character. He was meant to be a paladin but one of my party mates is running his first campaign and wanted to paladin so i stepped aside and worked his backstory a bit to let him be the paladin. The rework actually helped lean in to how insufferable my guy is. The guy he was going to take his vows for failed to match up to his lofty ideals so he leaned in his natural magical talent and became a wizard and his goal for the adventure is to find a pure god worthy of his worship. Character could easily ruin a campaign because hes 100% a no fun allowed style character but i sat each one of my mates aside and told them what my plans for the character were and asked how much hamming it up they were ok with. Every one of them told me to go all out so i have been. We're two sessions in and as far as RP goes every single character hates his guts, but out of character every one is im stitches when his cringey ass gets going. Hes 100% dying to a fellow party member before we hit level 5 because hes umbearable but everyone outside of it spends half the session laughing at him. Terrible character tropes have their place, its usually the moron behind the character sheet thats making it a bad time for everyone else.

My friends suffered trying to deal with this trope for years: the Selfish Edgelord who uses their backstory as an excuse. Someone who had a fucked up childhood, usually with one or both scumbag parent(s). If one parent wasn't scummy, they were abused and/or murdered. Insert living as a humanoid lab rat/slave/toy. Goes on and on about how much they've suffered, and thinks they can commit as much crime and evil as they want, because "it's not nearly as bad as what I had to go through". Doesn't acknowledge at all how they've become a scumbag themselves, and then gets pissy when guards maul them, or when the other PCs call them out. One iteration was hated so much that the gods themselves promised to obliterate the edgelord's soul at every possible corner. Literally had the God of Death breathing down his neck as he was written out of play. Reading their horror stories, I've banned that trope from my table.

Easy solution to the Menagerie: - Large groups of the same beings get combined into a "swarm" monster that basically counts as all those beings together. Due to being a large group they are easy to target, but have a higher AC then the original monster due to simply being "more", and its health is much higher too. It can't attack all at once as its a huge mass of the same beings, so instead they get multi-attack (so if you have like 20 monsters, you still only get 3 attacks minimum per turn with that) - If you have a large variation of beings, spread out the control of those monsters for the party, so everyone gets to play instead of just the Menagerie player.

I had a bard that used the stereotypical bard ad his "on stage" persona but off stage he resented the hell that he had to act that way. Kept sending the groupies to the paladin to hook him up lol

When I decided to look into a lot of githyanki stuff from the various editions of DnD, talked to the DM about it, and rolled up a character. Someone else saw what I was rolling up, decide they liked the race (or rather, the numbers and abilities of the race since they didn't care about anything else about it), and rolled up not only the same race but the same class only to play like someone who escaped from a psych ward.

I Have a split character in a star wars campaign (a glitching droid). It's interesting as he has no additional benefits or skills and will in fact lock off weapons and abilities dependent on his personality at the time, I roll for what personality is playing but its a D4 role to myself and that's what the dice said, it's what I play. It's lead to some interesting times when I've had to play a healer in a fight instead of security, an engineer in a drug trade or security in a town setting. the other players have found they can force a reroll if they twat me over the head but it doesn't grantee the result they want. I originally made this character to increase the challenge of the campaign for me without inflating the challenge for first time players, I was hobbling myself so I would have fun without harming their play and I NEVER did a "psycho mode that needs to be restrained!"

It was kind of funny- in my Pathfinder game, the Bard was the *least* horny person in the party. (She actually was a bit of an exhibitionist that liked going around in skimpy clothes, or even nude, but sex? Not interested.) She was chaste up until... about level 10 I think? She met an NPC at level 7, had a long romance (Which was interrupted when said NPC got turned into a Death Knight- long story- don't worry, we killed the Death Knight and raised her in her original form), and now they're engaged (and fucking), but both are totally monogamous and exclusive to each other.

Right now I’m playing a charismatic arcane trickster. He’s basically the embodiment of an evasive support, and my motto when making him was “Whatever he stole from you, it isn’t worth trying to get it back.” His entire build is around being impossible to pin down in combat, and then just utility to help the party as much as possible(prestidigitation, mage hand, silvery barbs, etc.). That combined with flight and solid charisma has already been pulling so much weight outside of combat so far since I’m the only caster in this quest, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it does in combat.

This Florida man organization story sounds like such a PERFECT plot for an Unknown Armies campaign.

I made a tortle wizard who got a menagerie because i rolled character trait of loving studying monsters. They help me and the party run the inn we got from volo.

Agreed that is the execution rather than the trope itself what can make or break a character, for example: Our group's Rogue is a kleptomaniac...but only with food, having almost died from starvation in their backstory now they have a BIG issue with anyone leaving leftover food and will gladly put anything that's tasty and people would let "go to waste" otherwise into his bag of holding. P.S: Yes he has a Bag of Holding, No he doesn't uses it for anything other than storing food (The Wizard's bag of Holding is where importan stuff goes to avoid the magic mcguffing getting sticky.)

So another player and I worked together with each other and the DM to pull off the walking veto AND the lone wolf renegade together in a way that didn’t ruin the game, and the whole point of our joint character arc was for me to overcome my status as the walking veto (as the lone wolf renegade character WAS of the group that I hated,) and serve as a vehicle for the lone wolf renegade to learn how to trust and depend on others. by the end of the campaign, the two characters were great friends and my character even sacrificed a chance to see his dead family again in order to bring the other guy’s sister back to life

For me it is more of the players that can't differentiate between the game and real life. Like the characters have to be best friends and can't argue because the players are good friends irl. Basically if your character isn't like you irl, they get upset. But had one that was also the "can I make this my pet?" or "Can I ride that now?"

I tried a 'multi-personality character' with a DM's permission once (character didn't start out that way, but then the DM revealed my character wasn't a mid-20s halfling but an early-100s halfling with brain damage, amnesia, PTSD and was under the effects of various illegal psionic and enchantment effects). Concept was cool, and the backstory I revised that the DM accepted was (while dark & twisted) generally well-received by the party (party didn't have much opinion of the personality gimmick, but that was largely because it barely had a chance to come up as the DM began rushing the campaign to a crazy degree compared to what we were doing, imo). Was set up that each personality (7 in total) had a different goal & outlook, but would generally follow the party & plans until a trigger came up (or character suffered a crit or rested, which had a high chance of changing the dominant personality).

Most hated character concepts: 1. The "LOL-Random I'm sooo kooky, look at all of my belts! You're heading to see the town mayor? I'm gonna blow him up with a million bombs because it's funny. Have I mentioned my fishnet stockings in the last 30 seconds?" 2. "My trauma *is* my character" or the worse variant; "The person I fetishize, and *their* trauma, is my character."

I have been addicted to videos like this or other "horror stories". I've only ever played dnd/ttrpg's with friends, and everyone is pretty casual about it. So hearing all this feels like looking into another world.

The multiple personas could work, but it would require combining many things with the DM, if it were on the table i usually play, the DM would roll the dice at certain moments to determine which persona was in control at the time.

For the multiple personalities one, that one can be so amazing when done right. However it’s done wrong over 99% of the time.

"BBEG killed my parents in my backstory" I like this if it happens in the campaign. Give the player a chance to actually feel the hatred they're supposed to be playing. Whenever it's in the backstory with characters that, for all purposes, haven't actually existed, it just falls flat. Half the time, they forget it happened. Even if it's session 1, make it part of the game.

3 character Types I dont like: - The super cute murder hobo. The player chooses a tiny cute race (like a halfling) pretends to be a barbie doll or something but is secretly the most lethal warrior in the group. - The City Phobic woodsman. Usually a barbarian, ranger or druid but played in such a way that they refuse to enter a city. - The annoying musician. Your typical Bard or Rockerboy that expects just because he starts playing in the center of town that everyone is gonna come running to watch. He expects every building should now be empty, everyone has donated their life savings and their town virgins.

The walking veto isn't inherently bad. It's the player's responsibility to either somewhat go with the party or realize that there's no way the character will work with everyone and roll up something new. If the DM doesn't want to deal with it, then they should be the one doing the vetoing. The menagerie: more of the DM's fault. The moment a player wants to do it, DM should either veto or start putting down the restrictions that would make it acceptable. Don't even bother arguing from a realism standpoint. Just let the player know that sort of thing has a good chance of making combat encounters exponentially longer and makes balancing things a pain. Subvert Stereotypes: This is just as annoying if the "subverted stereotype" is the personality. Don't try to "subvert” when making the character. Just ignore them instead. Also, it's weird that "a rogue who isn't a kleptomaniac" is a subversion. There are so many types of rogues it's stupid. Even if sticking to "crime," just look at all the kinds of crime that doesn't consist of stealing random shinies. The guy making his characters lovable, giving them a fatal flaw almost guaranteeing some tragic fate, and then angling towards it when tired of playing the character is hilarious. More power to his maudlin ways.

I struggle with players, who either want to play a character that does not fit into the universe created or that tries to shoehorn in ideas from other settings. It’s frustrating to me how many times I experience people who want to bring in Pokémon to a high fantasy game, or who would like to use their anime character in a sci-fi world. I also do not like when characters try to use a disability or mental health issue that they have no context for. Sometimes I think this one bugged me because I am a psychologist and so I am constantly fighting in my head. What someone with that mental health issue would do versus what that character is doing. as far as disabilities, I often see characters who want the disability for the interest that I give their character but they don’t want to seriously consider the implications that having that kind of disability might have in the setting that they are in. For example, someone who wishes to play a blind character but then also wants to play a warlock of the Thome character. Unless you work it out with the DM how are you supposed to read the book unless you have come up with your own system a Braille. I have a blind player at always cracks me up seeing what people try to do with blind characters.

I’m very uncomfortable with characters that are based off of things split personality, schizophrenic, and other mental illnesses because they “think it’s cool”. Most of the time from the 15 years of playing and DMing in and off seeing those concepts often fall into a gross stereotype of those disorders. I know that it’s possible to rp those types of characters, but more often than not, I don’t think most people (including myself) have the ability to play those characters without going into deeper research into those things. And on average, I rarely see people doing heavy duty research on the DSM, watching documentaries over certain disorders, etc. in order to accurately depict what they want while still making it fun for themselves and the table.

1:38 Don’t be mistaken, dual personalities/split personalities can be good if you play it out well, a character in a campaign of mine had multiple personalities as a result of their patron shattering their mind upon coming into their life. It’s less like “ohhh I get to swap characters and skills based on the scenario” but more exactly of a personality switch that was flicked on. Think of V and Johnny from cyberpunk. Appearing in your peripheral vision, berating you, and the points in time when that persona takes over are few and far between story moments that are planned by the DM and PC beforehand. I absolutely loved seeing that roleplay and I actually used their character as inspiration for my BBEG in my next campaign. Tldr multiple personalities can be cool, just they have to be played really well and shouldn’t give the player bonuses without drawbacks.

Kinda want to hear other people's take on a sorcerer I made for a pathfinder campaign a couple years back. Was told that a high charisma means good at talking, or very attractive, and i'm bad at talking, so I just made her drop dead gorgeous, this was contrasted by the fact that she was asexual, and also generally an 'eccentric' person. She fully understood she was conventionally attractive though and tried to use it in her own awkward way to persuade people to let her into places or to buy things. She had an obsession with magical items, to the point where I put a large portion of her stats into crafting related skills, her whole thing was she was fascinated by her innate magical ability, and wanted to learn more about how it could be manipulated into items using natural magics (AKA she was a magic item nut, not for having them, but just to see how they worked and how she could replicate or create the items herself.)

The worst is by far is a character that isn't motivated to go adventuring. A close second is the lone wolf that doesn't want to work with the party.

Whenever I have a weird character I want to run, I _always_ run it by the DM first, so that everything runs smoothly.

I've seen a few of these. The Mounty is challenging, unless the character and mount are small. A grugach blink dog rider is fun. We had a real mess up in a 2E game where one character was horse-oriented and another had Dream Journeying; you can't take animals on a Dream Journey and if the party has that ability they will use it for long-distance travel. The menagerie problem is special to 5E; it is a major issue with the system that it can't handle large numbers of creatures in combat. In earlier editions the menagerie was almost expected; see the rules for Followers that have been around since there were 3 little booklets. My pet peeve - Pythonisms; there's always one player who thinks it's clever to recycle 50 year old humor.

"It's what my character would do" when doing something insanely stupid or mean to another party member. How about you roll up a character that wouldn't do that?

Split personalities yaaaay......I love when somebody shows up essentially playing 2 characters to everybody else's 1. Doesn't cause issues or seen spotlight hoggy at all.

A half vampire, half dragon, half werewolf, half demon, halfling. Sorry, but I just couldn’t accept the math of it.

The only concepts that really bother me are the ones that a player can't actually commit to. Don't play a dumb or unwise character unless you are willing to hurt yourself, don't play a brilliant tactician if you don't want to bother reading and understanding the base rules of 5e and remembering your allies capabilities, don't play a healing and tender care cleric if your only going to take healing word and forgo the other healing spells because they aren't "optimal". Etc, etc. If you like the aesthetic of a character concept but not the mechanics just choose a different but related concept that allows you to do what you want (ex: a cleric that started with a healing focus but wants to broaden their understanding of their deity through the spells it grants them).

I have a few. Here's 3. 1. Outragous Accents! I have met certain people who's characters I have had to threaten to kill because they want to, purposely, speak in the most annoying versions of accents. I have Banned players from accents before and I probably will again. 2. THE UNPRINTED! Once in a while, I'll run into someone who wants to play a race not included in Printed Material, and I'll normally be amenable to working with them... But if every character you want to play is a talking Dinosuar, Goat, or Gryphon, and you do this multiple times in a row... get ye butt out. 3. Please Play a Different System! 5E is popular, and what everyone wants to play, and nobody wants to learn a new system... but gods damned, there are Systems you could use to play your Mech Pilot, or a Werewolf, or a Super Hero, there are other TTRPG systems for it! Please! Ask me to run that! Float the idea of playing Battletech, World Of Darkness, or Mutants and Masterminds to the group! Maybe we can try a new system for once! But if you try to run a Cyberpunk Badass in my Medevial Fantasy Game I... I don't know man, it sounds like you just wanna play Cyberpunk or Shadowrun.

EVERY time I have EVER seen anyone playing a Rogue, they must always try to steal everything that isn't nailed down that they think they can get away with, or absolutely MUST sneak around everywhere and disappear from the group at every possible moment. This, apparently, is mandatory of the Rogue class, even though that is not stated anywhere in the books.

Honestly, the “it was me” part was just funny

Personally, I'd have to say that the worst would be a party that outright refuses to work together, all because folks of certain races are supposedly evil or because dwarves are supposed to hate elves, or because members of certain races are not native to the setting. Now, give me an orc that's trying to go, "Just because orc raiders destroyed your home, doesn't mean that all orcs are evil" or a dwarf that's willing to put aside his dislike in order to work with the elf, and maybe the giff is just someone trying to locate the means to head to their home, and the party as a whole decides to work together.

I must admit I'm a bit of a Menagerie, though the key to doing those types of things right is to make the turn order more concise through various rulings. For example small minions could share a singular turn in Initiative, or you could just focus on summoning 1-2 large minions so they don't effect turn order as much, or just act as extensions of yourself if they go after you or share a turn with you.

I was a little disapproving of the mounted combatant objection. I am currently in a campaign playing a cavalier. A dullahan actually. First time experiencing playing an undead too. As a dullahan I have lore reasons for not wanting to be without a mount. It's a staple of the character. So far I've found: The type of setting is what limits a cavalier's effectiveness for mounted combat. If you're in a tight cave fighting some kobolds, your dragonnel mount probably won't be effective. On the flip side I would say it's perfectly reasonable to bemoan a DM who constantly forces a cavalier into situations where their mount is incapable of following. Especially for important boss fights. Cavalier is too nuanced of a balance and setting issue to completely place the burden of responsibility on the player when things turn problematic. A DM has to realize who they're running the game for. If a player has a requirement that needs to be met, it's in good faith to try to meet it within reason. Introduce options for the players which gives them opportunities to use the class features that they invested in.

My mate tried making a love child between a vampire and a golem his character and have the riches of 30 generations of his ancestors wealth while have super strength as well. I ain’t having any Mary or Gary Sues in my game.

So, myself and another player played the "we've fought in 2 civil wars, been level 10 at least twice, slept with strad's bride, and owe sheogorath 3 yet to be decided favors" at level 1. The gimic is we where the worst bards ever, (a fighter and rogue) and keep stumbling into situations amid a get rich scheme. Then binging away all the riches on good times untill we're out of shape and owe every bar on the storm cost so much gold we have to go find a new scheme. Having wasted away our levels in the process. We started in witch light, and had a great time. Now we're actually doing strad (with the same party and GM). We are playing the same characters and have to figure out how to not just survive but also sleep with his bride. Hilarity ensues.

In my youth I was a member of a roleplaying club of sorts. The club had taken its name after a character was the most wrong type of character the founders encountered, well someone made. The story goes as this character was of a class not supposed to be in that world/campaign and IF they existed, of a the least likely subclass. Try rolling a wizard specialised in necromancy in a Star Trek campaign and you get the idea of the level of wrong.

Honestly type of player I really dislike is the type of player who goes above and beyond in the subversion of the expectation of your character based on your race or class to the point where they are detrimental to themselves and the party mechanically. For example I can get the idea of being a warlock but doesn't want to use elfish blast but a warlock that doesn't wants to use any spells whatsoever and they completely disregard their Patron to the point where they always get into situations where spells that they have would be solved and yet they do not cast them. Or A barbarian who refuses to do any sort rage mechanically because their character isn't actually mad even though raging doesn't necessarily need to be anger. ( at one point I played a barbarian who was a very jovial man but was also a masochist so he enjoyed actually being attacked and the gleeful excitements to be in battle is kind of what the rage was for that character)

The walking copyright infringement, who is always played by the Edge lord.

It's funny how you mention "Main Character without consent", in one of the posts you read. I hate players that do that to their party without making sure everyone was okay with it (especially since 9 times out of 10, they aren't), but I had the reverse occur to me, or at least perceived it as such, in a group that I had joined. On session 0, We all entered the Discord call to discuss our characters and sort of acquaint ourselves with one another, since most of us were mutual friends with at least one person in the group, in one way or another. The chemistry between us, I felt, was pretty great. Until it came time to talk about our characters. In a completely homebrewed setting, One player had created a Goblin Cleric, who worshipped a Dwarven god. To keep it brief, the idea of the character, which I had helped them to write, was one who was raised by Dwarves and grew to love their culture, and was disgusted at the one they had been born to. Second player was, by mere coincidence, a Goblin, but the class was either Sorcerer or Druid? I don't actually recall, but I do remember the first player being rather disparaged at the idea of not being unique, since the original plan, according to the DM, was for everyone to play different races, but because Player Two was not part of a tribe, and was isolated, from what I remember, there wasn't really an issue between the two players-- they both actually seemed to like the creative spin each player had put on their racial background. Player Three, myself, was a Half-Orc Fighter. Without deeping too hard into my backstory, My characters mother was killed by his Father's tribe, and his father died trying to avenge his lover. I had put a lot of effort to make sure that my character would serve as a disciplined advisor, and a shield, because he knew the consequences of allowing emotion and tension to boil over. Player Four was... a Goblin Rogue. I do not recall getting much more of a backstory than joining the group because it viewed my character as a father figure. I already felt singled out as the only non-goblin in the party. It could have been a very interesting game, if I had stuck it out, and I regret it deeply, but I think what really pushed me over the edge to leave the game before session 1 was the fact that a player had outright said, during session 0, that their character would default to my judgement, as the strongest/biggest member of the party. It just made me really uncomfortable, because this would have been my first group outside of school. I think I told the DM about a week or so later that I would not be participating, though there is a lot more to the story than I can share without consulting the rest of the party about their thoughts on the matter. I know this'll get buried because your video is 3 months old, but I just wanted to share because I sometimes wonder what could have been, and because of my discomfort, I backed out before I could find out.

I think a lot of character concepts CAN work with the right roleplayers so it's hard for me to say "I hate edgy loner rogues" I think it gets annoying for me when it's a character concept that simply can't work under the basic rules. Like one time I started a campaign and the character pitched to me was this wolverine style warlock who was essentially immortal and had no memory. Luckily he was cool when I explained that it's not a bad premise for a character just that it wouldn't necessarily work in D&D because mortal peril is part of the game. If you can't functionally die there's no challenge you just get up and keep fighting. But I did assure him that I there is resurrection magic in the game and even created a mechanic where his patron could return him but would ask a price of the party trying to resurrect him. Essentially the resurrection as a quest bit.

You can totally do a mounted character in a dungeon campaign. Just be small and ride a medium. Like the dog riding guy in Labyrinth. :P

I just started playing a bardbarian with a sort-of split personality, but it’s just the rage vs calm type that mostly differentiates between in combat vs exploring. Also, our party has a disrupting player that constantly runs ahead, never waits and acts wayyy too naively because "iT‘s WhAt ShE wOuLd Do" and I am sick of it. Even worse, her player really likes her and the current campaign already sees her reusing the char from a previous one, so I don’t think I‘ll be rid of her anytime soon.

I love playing against stereotypes I will even pick sub optimal races to play into that. My favorite thing to do is actually work with the DM and leave holes in my back story for them to fill I will create a skeleton that fits everything else, but there will be one or two pieces of details I don't fill in this way I can often be surprised as a player for what direction the DM takes.

People playing an idealised version of themself never ends well, especially in LARP. The character bleed is always a problem. And yes I did that with my first LARP character and learned the hard way.

Had a group ban out emulating/role playing established characters, but weren't against it as long as you didn't use their name. Played a Human Arcane Trickster Rogue based on Usopp from One Piece, using illusions as cheap tricks like a 10 Ton hammer illusion. Later on, a different DM made "A Hero for Fun" a quickly unsubtle Saitama reference which everyone lapped up.

7:20 I've got a 27th level Half-Orc Rogue-Barbarian who has never stolen a thing in game (he did in his backstory but simply to survive when kicked out of his tribe). He's got a 16 intelligence and while he may not know the proper fork to use with desert, is a top-notch military strategist and knows not to interrupt the negotiations with a dragon -- but instead maneuver into a position to maximize his sneak attack should negotiations fail.

On the topic of, "It's what my character would do." Yes, but no. That's all in the rationalization of the dumb decision in question. There was a campaign where a character of mine, a new leader of a struggling small time thieves guild, (made up of various instances of societal run-off and assorted disenfranchised individuals who weren't really given much option,) returns to the town he left to seek funds and experience to come back and take for all it's worth, only to find that it is an anti-crime dystopian utopia, where even small time criminals are mind-wiped and reintroduced into society under different names and personas who would never dream of criminal activity of any kind. This was a moral nightmare for my chaotic neutral leaning-toward-good character, who I personally described as 'chaotic light-grey', valuing freedom and camaraderie beyond all. Sure, they were finally given places to fit into society, roles to fill, but it wasn't by choice, and it was at the cost of every bond they had forged, every fond memory they had cherished in spite of their hardship. In response to this perceived injustice, he hastily planned a broad daylight, 'snatch-and-run' jewelry store robbery, aided by a distraction from an NPC companion and love interest, for no reason other than spite, a burning rage over those he considered family being basically mentally destroyed and their skin being given to strangers to wear, and maybe to remind something buried deep in all those brainwashed to somehow start kicking and screaming against whatever programming, magical or otherwise, that they were put through. This heist ALMOST goes off without a hitch. Almost. I chose the wrong exit direction once I got out onto the street and ran straight into the archmage who was enacting these radical new criminal punishments and was captured, dragged off while ranting and raving about mind wipes, and not fair, and "I'll make this whole damn town remember who we were!" and generally looking like a madman. Thankfully the party just barely managed to rescue him from the holding cell before his sentence was carried out. Of course, sans basically all of his gear because they were lucky enough to just manage getting HIM out, and that was already with a bit of DM fiat and looser interpretation of the rules. I genuinely did stand by it as a valid in-character decision because he was blinded by hurt pride, and was grieving the loss of practically family who jarringly lacked that glimmer of recognition in their eyes when he greeted them and carried no recollection of the heists they had each other's backs on and bonded over only a handful of months prior. But I wouldn't exactly call it the smartest, most well-thought out decision. It would have been perfectly acceptable for that to have been where I needed to roll up a new character. Having fucked up gloriously the amount of times I have for the sake of, "It's what my character would do." I feel that you can most certainly inconvenience the party once or twice, even in big ways, without being an inconvenient character, but holy shit, some people just wake up every day and choose violence right away. "It's what my character would do." doesn't mean it's not a mistake, and trying to excuse it away and being upset when it doesn't work is probably the least graceful way to respond to the failure or rejection of these actions.

The "I'm just doing what my character would do" characters

Hate the evil priest trope. I understand some may not be faithful or have problems with irl religion but for Christ sake (he he) not everyone who believes in a higher power has to illogically evil. DM d a game where I had a priest in a village besieged by an evil god. The players thought he was the one summoning it and they tried a thousand methods to find out his “evil” plan, but all said and done he was the only thing keeping the villagers alive. Also it’s always Christian based, I want to see an evil Bhuddist or Rabi or something not just “Pope bad”

6:45 So random story. When One Punch Man was new a player joined at a fairly high level and wanted to play Saitama but fantasy. I had never seen the show but the character description sounded like it could be a fun monk backstory. So I designed a magic item for him which was a Glove of Striking so he could do extra big punches with it. But the funny part was, in all the reference images I got for the character, only one hand was visible. And because of his name, for some reason I thought he only had one glove. So the magic item was literally one red glove.

I was that player that wouldn't get rid of her mount. I was a Halfling Cavalier with a Dire Corgi mount, who I was bonded to. Our DM was guiding us through an entrance to the Underdark. At one point we came to an obstruction blocking the entrance which. apparently, I could get through and the rest of the party could get through, but somehow my Corgi could not. I took it as, we weren't meant to go in that way and we had to find another way through. I don't know maybe my DM had a special hate for my Corgi because a few sessions later my Corgi ended up getting killed in a Death Mist. Of course, I was the one who rolled a 5 for their dex save and the DM felt bad enough for me that they imbued my lance with my Corgi's soul and I ended up with a war horse that I could somehow ride.

I don’t necessarily hate them but character concepts that I don’t allow at my D&D table are fully Blind or Mute characters (especially if they are a Spellcaster). I run D&D 5e games and the mechanics of the game just simply don’t accommodate that kind of character. Spells in particular almost all require the ability to see, and or speak in order to be used at all. If you want to play a blind or mute mage then there are really only two or three spells that you could actually use in the entire game.

For me the one that pisses off the most is the "i can't do anything at all so you have to protect me/carry me pc" I've come across it a few times but it's a player pc where they've intentionally made the pc bad at whatever thing they are supposed to do (barbarian with no strength, wizard with dumped intelligence etc. The one that comes to mind is a guy that actually asked if he could have even lower stats than what he had) and so the rest of the group basically has to spend their entire time protecting this person making the game an escort mission. In addition to this they tend to play it like the wacky "I didn't know what I did was stupid" mentality which just grates on me *edit* this isn't me saying that a pc has to be min-maxed to be fun. This is specifically people that make pcs that can't do what they are supposed to do and put the weight on others to carry them because of it.

Some of these feel like a partial GM issue more then a player-only issue. Its partially their job to curate the characters to be able to prevent disruptive play. Like, all these ones needed was a "hey, this character you brought in doesn't seem to fit the campaign, would you perhaps want to try with a different concept?" And should they not, then perhaps they should sit this one out and wait for a game that more suits the characters they want to play. Like, I'm all for removing problem players, but the best time to reduce issues related to character build or personality is before the beginning of the game, where you settle expectations. The first one in particular screams "I don't actually look at the sheets or characters before accepting them", and thus is easily solved by doing so and using logic like "the other players are all playing elves, perhaps I should point this out to the player who wants to play a character that hates elves for whatever reason". Or the Meneagerie, where you can see that the PC is grabbing every summon spell under the sun. Perhaps you could realize that they're looking to being a massive summoner and talking to them about how many creatures you're feeling okay with running to keep combat running smooth. Or the "mounted mounty". If they made a mounted character and you primarily have indoor and dungeon-type encounters in mind for the game, why didn't you point out this problem before Session 1 so that they can adjust, or step away themselves once they realize they can't drag their horse into Moria so that the Cavalier can do things? 8:15 immediately fits what I'm seeing. GM saw an issue with the character concept in context of the setting, didn't immediately treat the player as if he's wanting to be the "i'm special and unique and will bully the setting into accepting it" character, and they work on something that was more appropriate for the story the GM was trying to tell. If character build issues actually ended up being an issue, *why did you let them bring it to the table anyway?* Some of these are 100% just disruptive players, like the edgy witch girl or the "moment-chaser", but that's a player issue, and can only be discovered through play. Other note: "Hey, subverting stereotypes good!" No, your Ace bard isn't inherently interesting just because she's not interested in sex. They become intersting when they have something inherent within themselves that is interesting other then "look, my character isn't like the other bards". You also don't need mechanical penalties to play character flaws. If you wrote into your backstory that your character is a recovering drug addict, I shouldn't need to bully you through Con saves into fighting the urges, since you are clearly interested in playing out that story *considering that you wrote it* and should be willing to "take the bait" as it were.