(Any) Your most annoying player...

[Lhurgyof]

Karl... Just, Karl.
He's loud, obnoxious, stubborn as a donkey, has b.o., doesn't know the rules that well, gets pissy easily and ugh. Dx

I mean, I told him, showed him in a dictionary, and showed him online that "BLACKGUARD" is pronounced "BLAGGARD" but he still fight and whines "But that's the real world, this is D&D, mneh mneh mneh" and he gets the other players to agree with him. He's so infuriating. Dx

And I mean, I wasn't trying to shove it down his throat or anything, I had found it out and told the party "Hey guess what I found out, turns out blackguard is pronounced blaggard"
And Karl comes in "Noooo, it's blackguard. It says right there: Black, guard, I thought you were smart, Dean."

I want(ed) to kill him with a rusty spoon.

[Lhurgyof]

One of the DMs in my University's role playing society nearly got us shut down after an incident. He told everyone but one player (who was female) to leave them room, then backed her into a corner whilst describing how her character was raped. Naturally he has not been able to run any games since and yes, the girl's boyfriend did kick the living s*** out of him.

Thats... just horrid. O.O

[Mystic Muse]

Thats... just horrid. O.O

Yes. Which is why several other playgrounders offered to kick the **** out of him too. We wouldn't really as that would get us in big trouble but the guy deserves it.

Also, the mispronunciation of Blackguard isn't that bad if he just likes the way it sounds better. The other issues are the ones I'd focus on. Although I imagine you are focusing on those and the blackguard one is just the icing on a very annoying cake.

[Lhurgyof]

Yes. Which is why several other playgrounders offered to kick the **** out of him too. We wouldn't really as that would get us in big trouble but the guy deserves it.

I sign up too, then. That's just horrible. D:

Also, the mispronunciation of Blackguard isn't that bad if he just likes the way it sounds better. The other issues are the ones I'd focus on. Although I imagine you are focusing on those and the blackguard one is just the icing on a very annoying cake.

Yes, it is the stick that broke the camel's back. And it's not even that it sounds cooler, it's just that he always has to be right, even if he's wrong, and is stubborn beyond stubborn. Basically, he gets everyone else to agree and then Karl's right, no matter what.

But then again, I did kill his character later in the session. The tainted raver that was fighting him grappled him and then held his face down in mud until he suffocated. Nobody even noticed (or cared, more likely) so nobody saved him in time.

EDIT: Oh, and he's the type of player that plays Kender...
I remember I rolled up a character I really liked, a Dray Knight. And so we're in a dungeon and we're walking along and he starts to play his ****ing harmonica for no reason (he was named Billy Joel). So I tell him to stop, because it will alert monsters. But he keeps playing. After a few warnings, I punch him in the face (knocking him out), stash him in a drawer of a room, and break his harmonica. The DM made me change my alignment to True neutral because Karl whined that it was a chaotic act, so I couldn't be a knight anymore, made the character unplayable. I wanted to kill him with a rake.

[Hague]

Chaotic? Why the hell would that be chaotic? Your knight, a sworn protector, whom has other obligations besides making that one guy happy, punched a guy that he fairly warned (no surprise round, right?) because he was risking the safety of the group. In this case, the group mentality overcame the individual mentality. That's not chaotic in the slightest. Now, breaking the harmonica was probably a chaotic act. His behavior didn't give you the right to destroy his possessions. Stuffing him in the drawer was probably evil, assuming the area is dangerous, but it wasn't chaotic.

[HunterOfJello]

Player who would always get upset when his character did bad and refused to play anything but a monk. >_>

[Rockphed]

Well with me that makes four of us. I recommend we cover him in tar, throw a load of feathers on him, give him half a minutes head start in the form of him being chucked down the hill at Seaton Park, and then commence hunting down the owlbear that has been terrorizing the locals.

I'll be your bard! Nothing could possibly be more humiliating than being tarred and feathered while an imbecile sings a jaunty tune in the background!

[arrowhen]

What you hear "It sure would be fun to do a core only game"

What he means. "Hey, everybody besides me should be restricted to only core"

Sadly, the chargen session where he brought the stack of books he'd already agreed we wouldn't be using was him on his best behavior.

In the first actual game session he'd devolved into the dreaded "just kidding" player, i.e.,:

Idiot Player: I'm going to pick the Fighter's pocket and steal the gem she found.
DM: (heavy sigh.) Fine. Roll Sleight of Hand vs. the Fighter's Spot.
Fighter: If I catch you, you're going to wake up tomorrow morning with my sword sticking out of your face!
Idiot Player: Ha ha! Just kidding!

By the second session he'd sunk even further, making veiled yet unmistakable disparaging comments about the sexual preferences of two of the other players. (A lesbian couple, as if that matters.)

After that, he was invited -- in no uncertain terms -- to never show his face in my home again.

[HunterOfJello]

Sadly, the chargen session where he brought the stack of books he'd already agreed we wouldn't be using was him on his best behavior.

In the first actual game session he'd devolved into the dreaded "just kidding" player, i.e.,:

That's what the "Everything You Say Counts" rule is for.

[Myou]

Karl... Just, Karl.
He's loud, obnoxious, stubborn as a donkey, has b.o., doesn't know the rules that well, gets pissy easily and ugh. Dx

I mean, I told him, showed him in a dictionary, and showed him online that "BLACKGUARD" is pronounced "BLAGGARD" but he still fight and whines "But that's the real world, this is D&D, mneh mneh mneh" and he gets the other players to agree with him. He's so infuriating. Dx

And I mean, I wasn't trying to shove it down his throat or anything, I had found it out and told the party "Hey guess what I found out, turns out blackguard is pronounced blaggard"
And Karl comes in "Noooo, it's blackguard. It says right there: Black, guard, I thought you were smart, Dean."

I want(ed) to kill him with a rusty spoon.

Blaggard's a word, Blackguard is, in the context of D&D, a name. So as a name it's distinct from the word and can have it's own pronunciation. Really, it's up to the players and DM - the guy wasn't wrong.

But that doesn't mean he's not annoying for other reasons.

[Ricky S]

Unfortunately I think I am the annoying player of the group. I get a bit bored sometimes at my fellow PC's taking so long to advance the plot that I do stupid things.

PC1: Ok we need to sneak up on him and knock him out
PC2: Yea ok where should we do this? At the tavern or something?

This discussion goes on for ages

Me: I walk up and attack the character
Dm: ok the character turns around and fire a lightning bolt at you
Me: I attack back while screaming for revenge
Other players: We attack as well.
Dm: No you don't you were arguing about the strategy to attack back at the tavern

It ended up with my character being imprisoned and the other guys going to rescue me. They all died and I managed to escape from the prison. They were so pissed that when they remade their characters they killed mine.

Another time there was a chest at the bottom of pit which was half filled with acid.
Fellow player: I reckon if I was quick enough I could get the contents of the chest. It cant be that damaging.
Me: I push you in!

His character falls in and dies. It is not actually acid but a magical jelly which drains con.

DM: You killed your fellow partymember your alignment changes to CE (from CN)
Other player with a paladin smites me as I am now evil.

There are various other stories like these. It usually just ends up pissing off one person though and making everyone else laugh histerically. I make these sort of stupid mistakes less often now though. I put it down to being a noob before.

[Schylerwalker]

The problem with the most annoying player in my group is that he's also my best friend. I mean, we've got an ADD kid, somebody who plays over the computer (Though not permanently, thankfully), a shy guy who lets others hog the spotlight, someone who gets bored when there isn't enough combat, and two girls who rarely show up - and when they both do, they can't STFU - any yet it's the guy who I'm best friends with that just annoys the bloody crap outta me.

How messed up is that?

His main problem is that he complains a lot and makes snide comments, especially about combat. Fore example, the party had gotten into a fight with a behir, and I noticed half-way through the fight its truly sickening ability to get half-a-dozen attacks on someone it had grappled. When I pointed this out to the startled character who was grappled by it at the time, the player says, in this incredibly insufferable voice, "Maybe you should check your monsters before placing them."

He always whines about party incompatibility, fights that are too challenging ("Maybe you should have looked up the ECL beforehand"), and overpowered character classes. The most annoying thing about him complaining about overpowered characters (Especially stuff from Tome of Battle and similar things), is that he'll sneak in a really powerful build that uses more-or-less ordinary stuff in broken ways. It's bloody infuriating.

And don't get me started on the time that he brought in a heavily optimized shape-shifting druid, that, half-way though the adventure, decided he'd "had enough of the island" and decided to bug out and escape. Which he managed to do, even with me desperately throwing obstacles in his way. (He then proceeded to brag about escaping my adventure later on). The worst thing about that situation was, without the tank/blaster/healer, and an additional action per round, what should have been a very challenging fight ended up being a TPK!

Seriously, while I love the guy out of game, I really, really hate gaming with him, but I'd feel terrible saying "Stop playing in my games."

[Lhurgyof]

Chaotic? Why the hell would that be chaotic? Your knight, a sworn protector, whom has other obligations besides making that one guy happy, punched a guy that he fairly warned (no surprise round, right?) because he was risking the safety of the group. In this case, the group mentality overcame the individual mentality. That's not chaotic in the slightest. Now, breaking the harmonica was probably a chaotic act. His behavior didn't give you the right to destroy his possessions. Stuffing him in the drawer was probably evil, assuming the area is dangerous, but it wasn't chaotic.

Indeed, that's what I argued!
And you're forgetting the fact that he was a Kender. When you're race is known for nothing but thievery, the gloves come off when it starts to endanger you in other ways.
And the room was pretty safe, but I wanted to ditch him and hopefully he wouldn't follow us any more. But of course, the big baby (I mean, he's friggin 20 or something) got his way.

The problem with the most annoying player in my group is that he's also my best friend. I mean, we've got an ADD kid, somebody who plays over the computer (Though not permanently, thankfully), a shy guy who lets others hog the spotlight, someone who gets bored when there isn't enough combat, and two girls who rarely show up - and when they both do, they can't STFU - any yet it's the guy who I'm best friends with that just annoys the bloody crap outta me.

How messed up is that?

His main problem is that he complains a lot and makes snide comments, especially about combat. Fore example, the party had gotten into a fight with a behir, and I noticed half-way through the fight its truly sickening ability to get half-a-dozen attacks on someone it had grappled. When I pointed this out to the startled character who was grappled by it at the time, the player says, in this incredibly insufferable voice, "Maybe you should check your monsters before placing them."

He always whines about party incompatibility, fights that are too challenging ("Maybe you should have looked up the ECL beforehand"), and overpowered character classes. The most annoying thing about him complaining about overpowered characters (Especially stuff from Tome of Battle and similar things), is that he'll sneak in a really powerful build that uses more-or-less ordinary stuff in broken ways. It's bloody infuriating.

And don't get me started on the time that he brought in a heavily optimized shape-shifting druid, that, half-way though the adventure, decided he'd "had enough of the island" and decided to bug out and escape. Which he managed to do, even with me desperately throwing obstacles in his way. (He then proceeded to brag about escaping my adventure later on). The worst thing about that situation was, without the tank/blaster/healer, and an additional action per round, what should have been a very challenging fight ended up being a TPK!

Seriously, while I love the guy out of game, I really, really hate gaming with him, but I'd feel terrible saying "Stop playing in my games."

Ouchies... Hmm. Well, if he's really your best friend, he should understand if you talk to him. Or just tell him to quit complaining. If he really doesn't like the game that much, he should leave it. O.o

[okpokalypse]

4 – He’s…well, he’s kind of a bad player and he gives terrible advice and unfortunately, people listen to him. He also has an absolute hard-on for the fighter class. What’s worse is that he hangs out with the group more than me (they all live in the same neighborhood, I live a bit outside of it) so they end up coming to each session with me correcting rules misinterpretations and bad advice when they ask me about certain things.

Player: “So, as a fighter, you basically want to have weapon focus and weapon specialization as early as possible.”
Me: “Actually, to be fair, those feats are fairly weak when you’re playing outside of core, compared to other feats such as…”
Player: “Whatever, I know fighters, man.”

Me advising the person trying to play a melee cleric: “You see, with Divine Metamagic, you can eventually persist Divine Power, which grants you full BAB, more strength, more hitpoints…you’re basically a fighter with powerful cleric spells and better class features.”
Player: “See, I never got that…why not just play a fighter? Then you get bonus feats, too.”
Me: “…Because…you…you get cleric casting?”
Player: “Psh, just dip cleric and buy some wands.”

Player: “Never ban evocation as a wizard, it’s your most powerful school.”

He sounds like a 2nd Edition player who never got caught up with 3rd Edition concepts :).

[okpokalypse]

His main problem is that he complains a lot and makes snide comments, especially about combat. For example, the party had gotten into a fight with a behir, and I noticed half-way through the fight its truly sickening ability to get half-a-dozen attacks on someone it had grappled. When I pointed this out to the startled character who was grappled by it at the time, the player says, in this incredibly insufferable voice, "Maybe you should check your monsters before placing them."

He always whines about party incompatibility, fights that are too challenging ("Maybe you should have looked up the ECL beforehand")

While said player is an arse about it, he's got a point. As a DM, you really should hide your suprise at things you might not have fully researched unless you want him doing this more (and worse - feeling justified doing so).

I've had a rough run recently with a DM that threw (at a 5-Member, 5th Level Party) an ECL 15+ Encounter (3 L10 Casters, L10 Fighter and a Construct). And that was after a pair of encounters before that which were ECL 6 and ECL 8. We really didn't have a chance. I spoke afterwards with him (respectfully) that we're really not in a position to fight what he's throwing at us and survive. That he needs to scale things a little more reasonably if he wants to have a campaign and not 5 players who're going to start making pun-pun's to survive - cause it was getting close to that...

And don't get me started on the time that he brought in a heavily optimized shape-shifting druid, that, half-way though the adventure, decided he'd "had enough of the island" and decided to bug out and escape. Which he managed to do, even with me desperately throwing obstacles in his way. (He then proceeded to brag about escaping my adventure later on). The worst thing about that situation was, without the tank/blaster/healer, and an additional action per round, what should have been a very challenging fight ended up being a TPK!

Seriously, while I love the guy out of game, I really, really hate gaming with him, but I'd feel terrible saying "Stop playing in my games."

That antic would have gotten him a first and last warning that abandoning the party in that fashion. If he's going to get "bored" and make his PC leave the game, he may as well leave the group. Period.

However, for the sake of the rest of the party, scale your adventure when a PC does that. Otherwise it just stops being fun for everyone. As the DM, you could have potentially salvaged that with a little tweaking - and left Mr Druid sitting out twiddling his thumbs while the rest of the party had a great time.

In fact, that's exactly what I'd do. Since he left, he has no awareness of what's going on. I'd basically put the rest of the party through a power-levelling session just to spite him for his antics by setting him up to be 2-3 levels lower than the rest of the party...

[Provengreil]

I'm running a 3 man campaign right now(our 4th stopped being able to come just last session) and fighter really annoys the c**p out of me.

first off, he pretty much decides when to play and when not to, and this will change in the middle of the session. for example, I'm running Red Hand of Doom right now and during the encounter where you learn about the northern roadblocks, he was out in another room shooting at pretend terrorists with an airgun and calling for support while wizard got all the information. later, when he had to explain his presence to the elves of starsong village, he blurts out: "a massive goblin army is coming for you" despite the fact that the Red Hand, had it cared about the elves, would have had to completely change direction and go about 60 miles or so out of it's way. this fact is obvious to anyone who looked at a map.

In combat, he never thinks, and constantly assumes thing retroactively. he usually asks me how he can best move to attack the closest enemy, or else how to get other people healed. Actual example: he is blocking the way into a room, behind him are 2 casters with no spells remaining. there is a hag outside but he cant see it due to invisibility. the following conversation ensued:

Fighter:"i swing at it"
me:"you cant see it"
Fighter:"then i charge it"
me:"what, the wall?"
Fighter:"no, the hag"
me:"you don't see a hag"
Fighter:"i roll a listen check. (fails)...OK i charge this square(moves out of the doorway to charge a random square)"
me:"...fine. you miss"
Fighter:"so where's the hag?"
me:"its now attacking the wizard with no spells(hits the wizard, dropping invis)"
Fighter:"wizard, use your potions"
Wizard: "we have potions?"
Fighter:" I bought like 9 of them in the last town"
Wizard: "good for you, why didn't we know this"
me: "wait, what? when did this happen, did you steal them or pay?"
Fighter:"i bought potions and gave them to him"
me:"was this before or after you got pickpocketed at the front gates for all you cash?"
Fighter: "when did that happen?"
me: "we shouted it to you when you were playing marine."
Fighter:"sorry, i was busy. so I have no potions or money?"
::headdesk::

also, if my PCs aren't easily beating everything, they get pretty dejected. in fact, the best way to make everyone give up for a session is to let one of them die. it really kinda sucks cause I have to hold off and do odd tactics that put them in bad situations that have no real threat to them if I want the session to continue.

[okpokalypse]

also, if my PCs aren't easily beating everything, they get pretty dejected. in fact, the best way to make everyone give up for a session is to let one of them die. it really kinda sucks cause I have to hold off and do odd tactics that put them in bad situations that have no real threat to them if I want the session to continue.

Well, I won't read into the whole Fighter thing. At least he was trying... How he didn't know he both ddin't have coin nor that he didn't have potions is an odd circumstance.

As to your party not dealing well with challenges - they've got to learn that it's a game and sometimes a PC will fall. It's not the end of the world. I always have a DM-approved 2nd character ready to roll in if something should happen to my primary PC. Hell, it doesn't even need be death. There may be a tangent adventure or RP issue that my PC would leave the party for legitamately. I'm not going to short-hand the party so I've got a roll-in ready to go at all times.

Then again, I play in a relatively open environment. I've had as many as 4 active PCs in a single campaign - all alive and kicking in different parts of the world doing different things. If they ever met, I had one that was "primary" over others and the rest reverted to NPC status and the DM either controlled them, or found a reason for them to no longer be there.

As a DM I always make players roll at least 2 characters to start and tell them to continue to level them up as the game progresses to keep them in line with the active party. When a party member falls, getting them back in usually takes about 30 minutes of time to do so, depending on the circumstances. In "fortuitous" circumstances, where the party's mage fell during a castle seige (they were working their way up through the dungeons) they just happened to free the replacement character not 5 minutes later, and fought one battle to get his items back from the lock-box it was kept in by the warden. Conveinent. And it kept the party balanced and all people involved despite the death.

[Provengreil]

Well, I won't read into the whole Fighter thing. At least he was trying... How he didn't know he both ddin't have coin nor that he didn't have potions is an odd circumstance.
...
As a DM I always make players roll at least 2 characters to start and tell them to continue to level them up as the game progresses to keep them in line with the active party. ...

That's a good idea, having two characters. Wizard and cleric have decided to shave time off by leveling up the session before they could expect it, so i just have to look over their sheet real quick and make sure they didnt make a mistake. extending that to a second character per player could easily work.

as for fighter, there are two separate problems. one is getting him to pay enough attention that he stores new information, like getting pickpocketed. the other is getting him to translate that he wants to do certain things. shortly after the headdesk bit of that conversation, i looked over his character sheet and he had, in fact, paid for potions(we had long established their price at this particular shop); he just hadn't told anybody. which, of course, was a problem compounded by the fact that he didn't register that he had no cash. it can get quite irritating, and it' made worse by the fact that these things always arise mid-combat, like when he needed the potions he didn't buy to be in wizard's pockets.

[Roga]

I had one for a long time. He would act like he knew everything, since he had most of the books, but the moment you challenged him he'd fold and say "Well I guess I don't know anything." At which point he was the equivalent of the "melting child." He'd refuse to add up his numbers for anything, since he'd "obviously get them wrong."

He'd argue about the dumbest things and would disagree with a plan merely because he didn't come up with it. Example:
Party consists of a Half-Dragon Warforged (There's a backstory), a Pixie, a Warforged Artificer (He was booted from house Cannith for wasting funds on making the Half-dragon Warforged) and a human sorcerer.

My Artificer was a golem master, so I had a workshop built into a portable hole. To help the group I had a Flesh Golem named Helga. Long story short, travel was a major hurdle, since the Half Dragon could fly (Feats) and the pixie could basically ride on his shoulder. Helga would run tirelessly along the ground, and we had to figure out what to do with the sorcerer.

His idea was for me to make a Harness so he could ride Helga like he was a backpack, but he quickly got annoyed because Helga would follow base instructions to the letter. He would actually start yelling at her, calling her retarded, but would never actually give her an order. We had to explain for 30 mins for him to understand what mindless means. Needless to say he didn't want to be carried anymore.

His solution is to buy wands of fly. He doesn't even want me to make them with a discount. We try to explain why that would be horribly inefficient. I offer to make him an Effigy Hyppogriff, as it would fly tirelessly with the warforged, but he insisted he wanted his wands.

We started writing down every bit of nonsense that came out of his mouth. Some examples:
"How do they know I'm a centaur? I'm wearing a mask!"
"But what about non-magical spells?"
"If I were to take a boulder....and...polymorph it into a pebble....and...put it in a cup...could I lift it?"
"I cast stone shape to make a wall between me and the drow" (We're fighting in underground tunnels, and he just cut himself off from the rest of the party) "Okay, now I cast disintegrate on the wall so I can attack the drow" (That was 2 consecutive rounds, he made the wall, and then destroyed it, wasting 2 spells for no reason)

[Fitz10019]

sure.
the change of not getting a natural 20 with one dice roll is 0.95
this means that the odds of not getting one, with 2 dice rolls is 0.95*0.95 = 0.95^2 = 0.9025 (since we need the roll combinations where neither of the rolls give us a 20)
if we then extend this to 10 rolls we get

0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95 = 0,95^10 = 0,598737
as the odds of NOT getting a natural 20, there fore the odds of getting at least one 20 is 1-0,598737 = 0,401263, which then was presented in % and rounded off to get 40,1%

Ah, but those're the odds of rolling a 20 only once in ten tries. You should also consider that 2,3, or 9 20's will come up during those ten tries. So.... 40,2%

[Math_Mage]

Ah, but those're the odds of rolling a 20 only once in ten tries. You should also consider that 2,3, or 9 20's will come up during those ten tries. So.... 40,2%

This is incorrect. The chance of getting exactly one 20 in 10 rolls is (1/20 * (19/20)^9) * 10 = 0.5*(19/20)^9 ~ 31.4%. That is, it's equal to the odds of rolling 20 and then not rolling 20 nine times, multiplied by the number of possible arrangements. As vegetalss4 says, the probability of rolling at least one 20 in 10 rolls is the complement of the probability of rolling no 20 in 10 rolls, or 1 - (19/20)^10 ~ 40.1%.

[Roga]

Let's worry about math elsewhere, I wanna hear about more bad players. This is like a support group for me :P

[Psyx]

We started writing down every bit of nonsense that came out of his mouth. Some examples:

Dumbest one I ever heard: Barbarian is standing in a cave, looking at writing on the wall saying 'Beware the East wind'

"Which way is East?"

Party member standing outside points "That way"

"No; I mean which way is East in here!"


He was dumb as a box of rocks sometimes, but funny.

Players with laptops are annoying. Very annoying. iPhones are possibly worse, because if you call a player up on fiddling with one, they invariably try to tell you that they were looking at their dice roller/spell list.

[okpokalypse]

Players with laptops are annoying. Very annoying. iPhones are possibly worse, because if you call a player up on fiddling with one, they invariably try to tell you that they were looking at their dice roller/spell list.

My entire campaign setting (characters, custom content, maps, house-rule docs, etc..) in on my tablet PC as are all my 3.5 Materials in PDF format. I don't lug 50 lbs of books with me when I play, I use technology. Sorry. I'm even contemplating writing a nice big-display custom die-roller for it...

And I'm also in the process of writing an iPhone character sheet & spell / power list app. I think I'll have it done by the end of the summer. Technology is your friend.

What does it matter if a player is staring into space or surfing a website on an iPhone. If the player is so out of touch one of two things needs to happen. 1) The DM needs to get his character involved or 2) (If he is involved and just not paying attention) Give the player a talking to about being considerate and actually playing the game.

If both of these have been done, then you politely ask him to not play.

[Lhurgyof]

How about trevor? We're essentially a low-OP group, and roleplaying is quite important in the game, but he makes a friggin' Goliath Barbarian that can deal so much damage that he turns monsters to mush. No backstory, no roleplaying what so ever, pretty much.

Or Dillon's healbot. He makes it so we literally can NOT die. And it takes the fun out of the game. Even if we do die, he can rez us without level loss with that stupid spell. And if he cant do that he can just regular rez us.

[Psyx]

My entire campaign setting (characters, custom content, maps, house-rule docs, etc..) in on my tablet PC as are all my 3.5 Materials in PDF format. I don't lug 50 lbs of books with me when I play, I use technology. Sorry. I'm even contemplating writing a nice big-display custom die-roller for it...

Fair enough for a GM. I'll bet you don't sit there playing RTS or anything though.
I don't want anyone surfing the web on their phone, because it slows the game down for others, as they have a tendency to still have their nose in it when it comes to their initiative count, or to miss boxed text. It's them putting their time above 6 other people's. I don't put up with it, or any other displacement activity at the table, to be honest. Players spending half the session looking through equipment guides [Chromebooks specifically] is also annoying.

That said, a GM starting to do 'boxed text' and a player who was already talking raising their voice to continue talking over the GM is even worse.

[DarkEternal]

I am more or less pretty satisfied with my group. When they do annoy me is either by taking advantage of some stupid typo in the books, getting high as kites and not remembering what the hell they need to do, or wanting to "haste" the entire plot to the next encounter or something. Also, sometimes I confess I have my own visions on how certain classes should be played(I know they "could", but in my opinion rangers should not be starting sodding forest fires as a diversion or have friendly chats with the undead that are his favored enemies), but I am at a loss with how to punish them. Sometimes I want to get them to a fight soon as well, but sometimes also it is good to just sit back, look at how they interact with each other and have a good laugh.

Incidentally, the best roleplayer out of them all is the guy who knows the least about the game. He memorizes some stupid arse spells(plays a dwarven chaotic neutral cleric) that he can't use properly or didn't read very well, has a pretty poor knowledge on which feats to choose and generally forgets stuff(forgot to add his hp a few times on level up and such things), but as a roleplaying mad cleric, he's awesome. It fits his character. He goes around in a skirt, with a pirate head on his head and a puffy shirt, cones his beard all the time and plays the mandolin(without knowing to play the mandolin by the way) next to the serious wizard, much this chagrin.

He has ideas about raising undead to have a danceoff with them, thinks about using some alignment changing spell on the before said wizard wih whom he has some sort of a rivalry with(or other cleric to screw him up a bit) which has a casting time of 10 minutes or something and involves drawing symbols on their bodies just for the fun of it and is greedy, witt like over 50 000 gold carried in various bags of holding all over his body(hates to spend a gold on wine/meal/night lodging and tries to get it for free first).

[Sliver]

have friendly chats with the undead that are his favored enemies

You know that the Favored Enemy class feature does give you social skill related bonuses as well as fighting? 'Favored Enemy' is not only about hate, it's about training and focusing on knowing the group.

[DarkEternal]

You know that the Favored Enemy class feature does give you social skill related bonuses as well as fighting? 'Favored Enemy' is not only about hate, it's about training and focusing on knowing the group.

I do, but I always gathered those bonuses were there for tactical reasons, to understand more about the enemy before sticking a knife in his back, and for being buddy-buddy with him without said motivation that would end with horrible death.

[Khakhan]

No more? Crud. I was enjoying this thread.