If players yawn on purpose or do anything similar to make fun of a DM then tell them if they are so bored they can leave. If they don't leave and do it again then say bye bye and never play with them again.
Once you get your first tarot deck, it becomes like dice, you keep getting more and more. And, just putting it out there, there is a dungeons and dragons tarot deck that exists in the world
I'm so excited that you're getting into tarot. The biggest is even if you don't believe in the supernatural part, you can use tarot as a framing device to take a step back from your problems. A lot of people need a different perspective with an issue or use it regardless of spiritual beliefs
the worst player I ever played with was in the first group I joined. They have all been friends since high school. Their D&D group was 15 PEOPLE including the DM. This player was rude, talked over people, tried to instigate fighting amongst the other player and had a problem with not bathing himself.
Getting into tarot and other spiritual practices outside of what I was raised in has seriously been such a benefit to me. It’s made me more intuitive to myself and others; to nature around me. Never let anyone try to tell you it’s nonsense or an invalid form of spiritual practice!!
43:30 I had another player get really angry when I said I was taking Wall of Fire. He kept telling me that "Wall of Fire sucks" and "You should just pick something else." I then proceeded to use Wall of Fire to save him and the rest of the party from being overpowered by a large group of Drow the next session.
The worst player I've ever played with was our Curse of Strahd rogue. He was a classic problem player. He would do chaotic things without thinking about consequences, like attempting to set buildings on fire, and at one point even said that he wanted to go off on a solo adventure, leaving the party to travel to Castle Ravenloft, team up with Strahd, and betray the party. We didn't allow it because it would force the DM to be running two separate campaigns, plus he'd probably instantly die anyway. He saw our party's cleric as a problem, as their player would constantly push back against rogue's terrible ideas. It got to the point where rogue would miss sessions, and when he was in sessions, he would just attack during combat and not do much else. At the end of the campaign, we killed Strahd for good through our sorcerer, who teleported with Strahd's coffin over the thousand-foot canyon surrounding Castle Ravenloft, power-bombing it into the ground. It was nonsense, but also really cool, so it happened. Afterward, myself, the rogue, and the paladin were all hanging out in a room just goofing around while our cleric and another player, the ranger, went outside. Cleric used Sending to communicate with Sorcerer, but got no reply, and then also used Augury to see if we would be able to find Sorcerer & escape, and they were given a very blatant "No" as a response. Cleric's player thought about using a spell that gave them a magic eye that they could send to scout, but then realized that it only had a range of 50 feet or so, and thus would be pointless. Nobody but the cleric knew that they had this spell. This is important, because after Cleric had used up all but one of their spell slots to search for Sorcerer, the three of us who had hung back caught up with Cleric and Ranger, and Rogue immediately started asking where Sorcerer was. Cleric told Rogue that she'd tried to find Sorcerer, but couldn't, and Rogue asked, "Well why don't you use that magic eye spell." Cleric, out of character, told Rogue, "You don't know I have that spell." Rogue continued pestering Cleric about finding Sorcerer, which Cleric explained both that they had been searching for Sorcerer before Rogue arrived, and that they had almost no spells left to do the search. Rogue immediately starts yelling at Cleric, calling her a bitch and saying she doesn't care about Sorcerer, and that he's going to form a search party to scout for Sorcerer. This is the only time Rogue has ever shown any sign of caring about Sorcerer, by the way. During all of this, the sky is cracking open, as the realm of Barovia is crumbling due to Strahd's demise. Cleric is trying to get everybody to leave, but Rogue is trying to get us all to search for Sorcerer. We all go with Cleric, realizing that we have no time to look for Sorcerer and escape, so we get on the back of a dracolich NPC we'd befriended and fly away from the castle. (Short clarifying note: All players in this story are male; the Cleric & Sorcerer characters were female.) Once we land, we're trying to figure out what to do, as the dracolich needs to stay behind to look for something before Barovia collapses. The Paladin decides that he is going to stay, realizing that his oath is to his friends, and that leaving any of them behind would betray that oath, and so he is going back in to search for Sorcerer while the rest of us escape. It is truly an amazing character moment and a great sacrifice. Rogue, who was a noble and Paladin's friend, asks Paladin to kneel, and knights him, making him an official knight of his realm, an honor that Paladin graciously accepts. Rogue then turns to Cleric and says, "Now you, kneel." Cleric, both in and out of character, says, "I'm not doing that." Rogue continues: "As you kneel..." "I don't kneel." "As you kneel, my character whips out his dick, and pisses on the ground next to you, saying, 'You aren't even worth me pissing on.'" Completely deflating the entire epic sacrificial scene that Paladin had just made, while Rogue laughed to himself like he'd just made the funniest joke in the world. Paladin gets on the dracolich's back and flies off, as the rest of us try to figure out what to do. We were in the woods a few miles from the gates to Barovia, and while we're trying to figure out the best path to take, Rogue just says, "I leave the party behind, go through the gates, and lock them behind me." At this point, all of us, including the DM, are ignoring him, but the DM does have him confirm that he leaves the rest of us behind. We head onto the road, as it's roundabout but a much safer path than cutting through the woods, and we happen upon a means to get us to the gates extremely quickly. The DM even describes how we watch ourselves pass Rogue as he tries to get to the gate ahead of us. Ultimately, Rogue didn't escape Barovia before it was annihilated. The DM told us that Rogue died and that his soul was embedded in a wall or something; it's some sort of afterlife thing in D&D I'm not super-familiar with. Not long afterward, the player was permanently kicked out of our group's Discord server for just being an asshole in general. It's sad, because he's Paladin's irl friend, and Paladin had invited him in hoping he'd learn to be a team player and get along with everyone, but he took every opportunity he could to be chaotic and mess everything up. I honestly think he did it to force our DM to quit so that he could get Paladin back playing video games with him on Saturday nights again.
Sixth Story: Considering that OP said they couldn't believe they played six more sessions with "that group" rather than "that player", it makes it seem like the group was a problem. But if it was just that player, OP should've asked, "Does everyone not care about what's going on right now?" to gauge the group as a whole. And not that this player deserves this level of attention, but OP could've asked what they -do- care about at this moment in-game, during a castle siege the party is losing, because I guarantee it's nothing that really matters to anyone else. Like they just want to move on to the next fight, or are more interested in the next objective or whatever, rather than the thing that's currently happening, probably because they weren't actively involved in it due to being asleep the whole time.
My own take. I hate players and DM's that say... 'I don't have time to read the rulebook' (players) 'I don't have time to read your guys RP text between sessions' (DM) Like... your telling me, you can't skim read some of the above while your sitting on the jhon. Or on the bus. Also, these are the *same* people I've seen spending 9 hours playing overwatch or some other game on steam. You don't have to read it all in one, or if you want a TL:DR version, ASK, someone will give a bear bones version.
I play solo and you guys wouldn't believe my worst player stories. This girl shows up completely unprepared, cooks and eats during sessions, lets her cat get on the table, etc etc. It's just a mess.
I don't know if its a good solution for you, but the Corsair HS80 MAX are AMAZING wireless headphones. They have a dedicated wireless dongle plus blutooth, so you can switch them from one main pc to another with one button to change to blutooth. They have amazing sound quality and mic is great, they are also super comfortable. I think they also have some software through ICUE to enable noise canceling for the mic. They are a fair pricetag but they are my absolute top pick :)
Im currently having a takeout, after a not so good week, and as a illustration student I have a love hate relationship with screen print, love the outcome hate the process .
I don't know if it's an option for you, but! if you can put your computer up on top of something that'd help keep Bully out of the computer cords and keep his hair and dander out of the computer. It's insane the difference that can make. All the cords can go in a cord tray behind it then and it's all off the floor and out the pup's reach. It looks pretty nice too. You get to enjoy all the little rgb instead of the light just going across your legs.
I love tarot! It might be woowoo bs, but I don't much care if it is. It makes me happy. I like the random nature of it and it is nice to interpret a series of symbols and then think how that might apply to me and what I've got going on rn. A lot of times I don't take time to think about my life because I'm busy trying to get through it, right? Tarot is a nice tool for that kind of introspection.
How about not only being chosen to be leader but chosen BY the person who is causing problems every week? Every decision you make being wrong, so you ask what that person wants to do and they have NO SUGGESTIONS. "OMG why do the paladins and fighters on the front line protecting me have to interfere with my ability to cast hypnotic pattern?" "THESE are the questions you should have asked in speak with animals when I wasn't present to suggest it." "Why did you healing potion the paladin back up when we were being overrun with enemies? You should have attacked. It was only round 3, he was probably fine."
"We have had people leave the group for various real life reasons and needed to add two new people to round out the party." Me: "They didn't leave. They're hiding."
Third Story: Man, these people sound like a nightmare, but are teachable. Have them go into a room in the dungeon: "You enter a room." "What's in the room." "Stuff." "What kind of stuff?" "Stuff that you'd be bored by me explaining, probably." "What can we do?" "Go on and play and find out." "Okay, I walk into the room." "Roll DEX." "Why?" "Roll DEX." "...12." "You take 15 slashing damage." "What? Why?" "Something hurt you." "What did it?" "It'd probably be boring if I explained it." And so on and so forth. Just don't describe anything. They want the game to just be "roll dice, get number", not realizing that they're making what they perceive as a boring game ten times more boring by not listening to the DM's explanations of what's around them. What idiots.
Came here because of the short, gotta stay because of the Headset-Problem. Do you have avalable USB-Slots on the PC? Because if yes I'd actually recommend going with a Razer Headset. They are a bit on the expensive side, but they come with everything you need and their mic-quality is really good for headsets. I've been going through cheap 20€ headsets for quite a while, replacing them bi-yearly at least, but since 2019 I've been using one and the same Razer-Headset. Even though I don't use the headset-mic at my current setup (I wanted some really really good stuff, because as a teacher I had to start giving classes online) I still use the headphone for sound-quality and actually plugged them into my standing (elgato) mic with a very small cable that came with the headphone, so I never really have problems with cables hanging down the table (though I can't just roll a meter away from my desk, without a terrible chain-reaction that happens way to often :D :D :D ) Edit: Just to clarify, I'm using the Razer Nari Ultimate (little advise, the flashy lights at the side are cool and all, but they do drain the battery. Turn them on the lowest possible brighness with the software provided and it's not problem, if you go for full force and changing colors, that will drain it faster than you want.)
First Story: Yes, 100% reeks of only child/bully energy. OP should just straight up give their friend $100 and say "There you go. Game's paid for. It's mine now." Or be even more petty: take them out to meals and/or pay for gas & other stuff over time, and keep a running tab, and by the time they reach the cost of the books, pull out the receipts and say "I've paid you for the value of the books, the game's mine now." Like, such an insane leap in logic for this player, who clearly wants to run the game as a player and make it all about him and his own personal fun. This person sucks.
For the 5th story, I don't actually think that's really a bad player. That is just a very very different playstyle. That was normal in the 80s and 90s. That would even have been mainstream then. Not everyone has fun the same way, not everyone wants to play the same way. Thats normal, you just got to be aware of that and not try to force people into a group, who have fun in very different ways, because then one player having fun comes at the expense of the fun of others and the other way around.
23:20. TTRPG is like the cheapest hobby ever tho. All books are free. Minis are free if you play online or with a piece of gum. You can litterally play ttrps for decades without spending a single dollar. Cheap af
I'm too petty, fake yawn and blah blah blah me.....let's see how entertaining it is to watch you play with a point of exhaustion, since you're so tired and all 😑
