Habits that kill fun in a session.

[Combat Reflexes]

If it were a matter of six twenties in a row, it would be pretty simple. However, it is much more complicated if you are merely looking for patterns within data. At its simplest there are several steps.
1) Calculate the probability of 3 twenties in a row in the set of ordered data.
2) Look at the probability distributions of where this first case would be.
3) In the rolls before and the rolls after, find the probability of 3 twenties in a row.
4) Combine data as appropriate.

But you're right and win this day's Math award!

UGH, those are my biggest complaints. Here is a variant I am dealing with in my 4e game now:

Mr. Excuses-At first this guy is basically "Mr. I refuse to commit to a schedule". He demands the game be held during a specific time of his choosing. Then he turns INTO "Mr. no my X is cooler/more fun than you guys".

This. My group had to pick a different day to game every week because this one person 'had a busy schedule' and he really expected us to be battle-ready at any time during the week.

Of course the rest of us just picked Saturday evening* to play and ignore him for the rest of the week, and suddenly a blank white spot appeared in his agenda, right at the place of all (or most) saturdays!

*D&D is perfectly compatible with going out, as long as you don't combine them

[GeminiVeil]

Mr. Never Makes it on Time

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I originally got my group together, but got sick of DMing after maybe 8 months of it and wanted to play some. I had over reigns to a player, and everything goes mostly ok for that game. (seperate complaint, really) so the next time he DM's for the group, the first session he requests at his place. I pack everyone up and head there. And then wait 20 minutes for the DM to arrive. At his own home. At the time he asked. (sigh)

[Firechanter]

I played under one DM that used to have critique sessions at the end of each gaming session. I hated it.

I guess that would depend on who is supposed to critique whom, and what comes of it. I don't mind a GM asking what I did or did not like about the game. If I liked it, I'll say it was fine. I'll also stress what I particularly liked, in the hopes of seeing more of that in the future.
But I will also say if there was stuff I didn't like, and then I want the GM to bloody _listen_ and take notes. I don't expect him to say "Oh well you are certainly right and I will do it completely differently from now on", but at least acknowledge my concerns and think about them at home.

What I can do without is a GM first asking for critique and then being all defensive when it comes. Had that in the past, too. If you aren't willing to listen, don't bother asking and don't waste my time. If you keep running a game a way I don't like, I'm gonna bail one way or other.

[Techsmart]

Mr. Excuses - Our group suffers this... ALOT. I come to school to play (15 miles each way, $10 in cash), so when I play, I wanna play. We agree on a day, and everyone guarantees that they will be there. Day of the session, 30 minutes before we start, DM sends everyone an EMAIL (as if I have my email available to me everywhere I go when I make practically no money) saying the session is cancelled. By the time I get to check my email, I'm there and have been waiting. Nobody else minds, because they live nearby, and gets mad at me because they just told me I wasted $10. After three times, i told them "Im not coming back until we can actually meet. You guys are wasting my money."

Questioning DM - One of our DMs questions the players' actions like they are morons. Perfect example...
DM: "You wake up in the middle of a desert, there's a sandstorm."
Me: "How bad is it?"
DM: (Giving weird look) "It's pretty bad"
Me: "Ok, I go looking for shelter"
DM: "Aren't you wondering how you got there?"
Me: "Kinda, but I'm more worried about a bad sandstorm which could be deadly, or at least dangerous, than what happened to me before."
DM: (In a condescending tone) "Oh, its not that bad, why would you think that?"
Me: ....
I think the logic there is pretty much accurate (survival now> survival later)

DM spending most of the campaign with the party separated (Just run 2 separate sessions instead of making me sit there and do nothing for 3 hours while you spend the session with the rest of the group.

[Ashram]

I guess that would depend on who is supposed to critique whom, and what comes of it. I don't mind a GM asking what I did or did not like about the game. If I liked it, I'll say it was fine. I'll also stress what I particularly liked, in the hopes of seeing more of that in the future.
But I will also say if there was stuff I didn't like, and then I want the GM to bloody _listen_ and take notes. I don't expect him to say "Oh well you are certainly right and I will do it completely differently from now on", but at least acknowledge my concerns and think about them at home.

What I can do without is a GM first asking for critique and then being all defensive when it comes. Had that in the past, too. If you aren't willing to listen, don't bother asking and don't waste my time. If you keep running a game a way I don't like, I'm gonna bail one way or other.

This, so very much this. In the first game of D&D I ever played, we had a DM who would ask for criticism and upon receiving said (99% constructive) criticism, would immediately go into defensive "That's not helpful" mode. Essentially, any time we'd say there was a part we didn't like to, you know, help make the next session better, he'd say we were b****ing and not giving real criticism. He was one of those DMs who thought he could do no wrong and his little homebrew world was perfect in every way. He also had a fun habit of making houserules up on the fly and neglecting to tell us until halfway through the campaign.

It wasn't long before we switched DMs.

[archon_huskie]

Mr. Player who actually knows the rules

Now this is an odd one because it crops up in LARPS more often than not. The players don't often read or memorize the entirity of the rule book. When a rule question comes up, the ST or Narrator just wings the answer rather than look it up. This ruling then becomes accepted as if it was actually in the rules.

Until a new player comes along who has read the rulebook and acts based on it. This can kill fun for both the player who knows the rules as he's arguing with most of the group and for the other players, who think this guy is an idiot for not knowing the rules. Then there is great confusion as the rulebook comes out and the player is vindicated.

Examples of this situation I have encountered.

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Vampire the MasqueradeAuspex level 2 requires the person to stare intensely to read auras, some players claimed they were constantly scanning the room looking for obfuscated vampires.
A character with Obfuscate 4 can't be seen by a character with only Auspex 2
There is no rule saying there must be 1 Primogen for each clan of the Camarilla. In fact, there's a rule stating the opposite, that there could be a city with 4 Brujah primogen and 2 Malkavian Primogen, so long as there is a good reason.
Animalism lets you command an animal. You don't have to bargain with it.

In Hunter: the reckoningThe glow generated by Cleave does not generate heat.
For that matter, Cleave weakens the traits in a weapon by one trait each turn until the traits equals 0 and the item turns to dust. (making this the great power of the edge. Handcuffed by the police, Use cleave on the hand cuffs until they disappear.)

[Claudius Maximus]

Couldn't you solve that by having everyone know the rules?

I don't see why this guy is in the wrong unless he's being a real jerk about the arguments or something.

[big teej]

Couldn't you solve that by having everyone know the rules?

I don't see why this guy is in the wrong unless he's being a real jerk about the arguments or something.

I believe you can be wholly in the right, and still kill fun in a session.

[archon_huskie]

I believe you can be wholly in the right, and still kill fun in a session.

That's more or less what I was going for. I've been on both sides of that. It is one of four reasons I don't play in Larps anymore.

[dsmiles]

Yeah. Rules-Lawyers.

Let the friggin' DM/GM/ST/Whatever do his/her job and adjudicate the action.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah. Rules-Lawyers.

Let the friggin' DM/GM/ST/Whatever do his/her job and adjudicate the action.

And that brings us to another matter.

Mr. Storyteller.
This guy wants the game to go a certain way, and that's it. One guy rolls a 15? It misses. Another guy who has the lower attack bonus rolls a 5? It hits. The monsters would've critted someone? Good thing you're rolling behind that screen so the players can't see when you say it was just a normal hit.

[dsmiles]

And that brings us to another matter.

Mr. Storyteller.
This guy wants the game to go a certain way, and that's it. One guy rolls a 15? It misses. Another guy who has the lower attack bonus rolls a 5? It hits. The monsters would've critted someone? Good thing you're rolling behind that screen so the players can't see when you say it was just a normal hit.

See, that's not entirely fair. There's a certain amount of storytelling involved in every RPG. That's what the screen is for. There's just some things the players don't need to know.

[Hiro Protagonest]

See, that's not entirely fair. There's a certain amount of storytelling involved in every RPG. That's what the screen is for. There's just some things the players don't need to know.

But I'm saying neither extreme is good.

[dsmiles]

Here's the other end then:

Mr. Only the Dice Matter Guy:
This guy wants every action determined by a roll of the dice. If it can't be solved with an attack roll, saving throw, skill check, or ability check, it's not part of the game, and needs to stop. Immediately.

EDIT: Oh, and this one:

Mr. The DM isn't Allowed to Fudge. EVER.:
No, not even then. This guy ragequits if the DM/GM/ST/Whatever even thinks about fudging a roll in order for a player to see his/her character's plotline through to the end. Or for a monster to miss a crit on the guy who only has 1 HP left. Or for a monster to fail a save they should have passed because the wizard cast Hold Monster on it so they could get information out of it, and it would make a good plot device for the characters to get the information they need to complete their quest. No, not even then.

[Knaight]

See, that's not entirely fair. There's a certain amount of storytelling involved in every RPG. That's what the screen is for. There's just some things the players don't need to know.

Ignoring the fact that the screen may or may not be present, that extreme is at least as annoying as the rules lawyers. The rules are a point of largely agreed upon, defined ground, likely made by professionals.

[Gamer Girl]

The Wave Motion Gun Player--This player wants to have an ability or item that is way, way, way beyond the groups power level. They will often try to work it into their backstory of how they got the item or ability. And it's almost always a homebrewed ability or item like ''I can make a magic charge in me that does 1d6 damage per round I charge" or ''The sword of Super Sharpness can cut anything!".

And the real trick to this player is that they will absolutely promise to almost never use the ability or item unless they really, really need it. They might even say "I save it for big, important fights, but I can use it all the time, of course.


This type of thing is VERY popular in anime and even a lot of fiction. Like the one I chose for the name, The Wave Motion Gun. In the long ago before time, there was a show called Starblazers. The heroes of the show had a ship, The Argo that was a Battlestar(basically) and it had a hugely powerful weapon, the main gun:The Wave Motion Gun. Just about every show had the ship being attacked and massive damage and explosions and fire and smoke. Yet the crew would just sit there and fire back with the smaller weapons. Until the very end of the show when they would 'suddenly' remember they had the Wave Motion Gun and fire it and obliterate all the bad guys and save the day.

Voltron is another classic example. Every show:The lions attack the ro-beast and fail. They form Voltron and attack the ro-beast and fail. And then they finally from the blazing sword and destroy the ro-beast in one swing.

[archon_huskie]

Voltron is another classic example. Every show:The lions attack the ro-beast and fail. They form Voltron and attack the ro-beast and fail. And then they finally from the blazing sword and destroy the ro-beast in one swing.

I had read a parody of this. The Power Rangers formed the megazord and use their final attack first. They missed. Zordon them imformed them that it takes about an hour for the power sword to recharge.

[big teej]

Here's the other end then:

Mr. Only the Dice Matter Guy:
This guy wants every action determined by a roll of the dice. If it can't be solved with an attack roll, saving throw, skill check, or ability check, it's not part of the game, and needs to stop. Immediately.

EDIT: Oh, and this one:

Mr. The DM isn't Allowed to Fudge. EVER.:
No, not even then. This guy ragequits if the DM/GM/ST/Whatever even thinks about fudging a roll in order for a player to see his/her character's plotline through to the end. Or for a monster to miss a crit on the guy who only has 1 HP left. Or for a monster to fail a save they should have passed because the wizard cast Hold Monster on it so they could get information out of it, and it would make a good plot device for the characters to get the information they need to complete their quest. No, not even then.

funny thing.... I use a screen, I even violently defend the sanctity of the space behind it.

but I'm a DM who "never fudges" on dice.

my players trust me when I say "yes, I really did just roll 3 20s in a row and your guy is dead"

just as much as they trust me when I go "well.... that's embarrassing" -long description of bad guy flubbing it big time.-

so I mostly use my screen as a die-stop rather than "hiding the rolls"

that, and hiding open sourcebooks/maps and stuff.

I keep telling the party paladin "you're not allowed to die!" because so far he's single-handedly driven my plot.

this makes my life difficult as he has this tendency to be the first one to run up to the baddies and engage in melee.

thankfully he'll be taking a back seat to the Dwarf for the next arc....

unfortunately, he's only behind the paladin because of his wee legs.

[Knaight]

This type of thing is VERY popular in anime and even a lot of fiction. Like the one I chose for the name, The Wave Motion Gun. In the long ago before time, there was a show called Starblazers. The heroes of the show had a ship, The Argo that was a Battlestar(basically) and it had a hugely powerful weapon, the main gun:The Wave Motion Gun. Just about every show had the ship being attacked and massive damage and explosions and fire and smoke. Yet the crew would just sit there and fire back with the smaller weapons. Until the very end of the show when they would 'suddenly' remember they had the Wave Motion Gun and fire it and obliterate all the bad guys and save the day.

Of curse, in most cases the power actually has major disadvantages, that never seem to get transferred. Details like leaving the target vulnerable to being flanked and taken out, shields being down when firing, huge energy drains, so on and so forth, no, these are never included.

[Silus]

funny thing.... I use a screen, I even violently defend the sanctity of the space behind it.

but I'm a DM who "never fudges" on dice.

my players trust me when I say "yes, I really did just roll 3 20s in a row and your guy is dead"

just as much as they trust me when I go "well.... that's embarrassing" -long description of bad guy flubbing it big time.-

so I mostly use my screen as a die-stop rather than "hiding the rolls"

that, and hiding open sourcebooks/maps and stuff.

I keep telling the party paladin "you're not allowed to die!" because so far he's single-handedly driven my plot.

this makes my life difficult as he has this tendency to be the first one to run up to the baddies and engage in melee.

thankfully he'll be taking a back seat to the Dwarf for the next arc....

unfortunately, he's only behind the paladin because of his wee legs.

Another variation is the "No way out and I'm not gonna fudge anything" DM.

Your party has been plotted/railroaded into a corner, and the DM won't throw ya'll a bone for the slim chance to get away.

"Nope, the dice have thus decreed that the lvl 18 Psion/2 Rogue with a pair of Astral Constructs will steamroll your lvl 4 group because ya'll made the mistake of trying to destroy the time/space portal (which was the mission) instead of running and avoiding her. Oh, also, ya'll don't get magic or magic items because I, the DM, am a jerkface and am running a low wealth, low magic game where you're likely to never get out of single digit levels.

Oh also, that Spelljammer ship you ran to is one you can't pilot, but I did put one in the dry dock you guys are fighting next to. You could have taken the time to find it, but the previously mentioned DMPC is butchering your party."

Ya can't really make this sort of stuff up.

[Combat Reflexes]

Mr. The DM isn't Allowed to Fudge. EVER.:
No, not even then. This guy ragequits if the DM/GM/ST/Whatever even thinks about fudging a roll in order for a player to see his/her character's plotline through to the end. Or for a monster to miss a crit on the guy who only has 1 HP left. Or for a monster to fail a save they should have passed because the wizard cast Hold Monster on it so they could get information out of it, and it would make a good plot device for the characters to get the information they need to complete their quest. No, not even then.

I'm a bit guilty of this.
When I DM, the dice always go before the story. When not rolling, the story goes exactly where the players want, but dice are dice and results are results. It does make the game more deadly, but a lot more real: in real life, the average life span of a band of anarchistic, violent adventurers isn't that long either.
If a PC gets one-shotted by the BBEG, so be it. Saying 'it was just a normal hit after all' seriously detracts from the realism of the game.
It also works the other way around - if a player insta-kills the boss-villain, I'm not going to fudge just to save my BBEG.
Maybe he'll return later, as a zombie/vampire/ghost/demon/whatever.

The party does have a 3-charge True Resurrection staff, though. This little thing really helps: the players don't have to roll up a new character (but still fear death because the staff has charges) and the game still feels real.

[dsmiles]

I'm a bit guilty of this.
When I DM, the dice always go before the story. When not rolling, the story goes exactly where the players want, but dice are dice and results are results. It does make the game more deadly, but a lot more real: in real life, the average life span of a band of anarchistic, violent adventurers isn't that long either.
If a PC gets one-shotted by the BBEG, so be it. Saying 'it was just a normal hit after all' seriously detracts from the realism of the game.
It also works the other way around - if a player insta-kills the boss-villain, I'm not going to fudge just to save my BBEG.
Maybe he'll return later, as a zombie/vampire/ghost/demon/whatever.

The party does have a 3-charge True Resurrection staff, though. This little thing really helps: the players don't have to roll up a new character (but still fear death because the staff has charges) and the game still feels real.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the characters can't die (even though in Iron Kingdoms, Raise Dead is a 9th level spell). Especially in a BBEG fight. I'm just inclined towards players being able to finish amazing plotlines. If a character dies in the middle of some awesome personal plotline, nobody gets to find out how it would end.

[Winds]

RE: DM dice fudging-
The few times I've DM'd, I would just fudge stuff that was incredible bad luck. With the exception of one time that I saved a character from death because the player was new and didn't understand why he shouldn't have done that. (He was a rogue, and he led the way into a warehouse that they already knew contained a greatsword-wielding fighter and no traps.) Normally, I only fudge to keep the party from dying against something they should be beating just because the monster is getting huge numbers of hits while the PCs are rolling 5s. No-one likes to see the party get wiped out just because the dice went against them for 3 minutes. So yeah, take a wild guess where I go in this argument?

[Firechanter]

That's what the screen is for. There's just some things the players don't need to know.

Bah, screens are frowned upon in my group. We call them "GM Castles". Even if a GM uses a screen to keep his notes/maps etc. hidden (personally I prefer a clipboard with a cover sheet), he is still expected to make his rolls in the open. Exemption for rolls where it's important the players don't know the results, such as "does the NPCs believe my Bluff?" etc., but combat definitely has to be played straight. Group contract.

Only one of us flouted this agreement when he GMed, and rolled everything under a dice cup. I found it extremely annoying, especially as you could see his face twisting and contorting when he was looking at a roll that he thought would kill you (which he didn't want to), and after several seconds of moaning and groaning, declaring "it missed". Okay, that's still better than the other way round, but I still don't want it.

[Ghost6442]

I don't use a screen cos, 99.999999~% of the time I'm doing everything on the fly, and I use a clear d20, if my players look closely enough they will find half the numbers are missing

As a player I use a black d20 with white numbers, easy to see and read.

[Winds]

... I use a clear d20, if my players look closely enough they will find half the numbers are missing.

Would you mind clarifying that? What do you mean by missing numbers?

[dsmiles]

Bah, screens are frowned upon in my group. We call them "GM Castles". Even if a GM uses a screen to keep his notes/maps etc. hidden (personally I prefer a clipboard with a cover sheet), he is still expected to make his rolls in the open. Exemption for rolls where it's important the players don't know the results, such as "does the NPCs believe my Bluff?" etc., but combat definitely has to be played straight. Group contract.

Only one of us flouted this agreement when he GMed, and rolled everything under a dice cup. I found it extremely annoying, especially as you could see his face twisting and contorting when he was looking at a roll that he thought would kill you (which he didn't want to), and after several seconds of moaning and groaning, declaring "it missed". Okay, that's still better than the other way round, but I still don't want it.

I don't think I'd like that group very much. No offense, intended, there.

Even as a player, I prefer not to see what goes on "off-screen," as it were. It kind of breaks my disbelief if I see things I shouldn't. Even just an accidental glimpse of the DM's map, notes, or rolls throws me off for the rest of the session.

[Knaight]

I don't think I'd like that group very much. No offense, intended, there.

Even as a player, I prefer not to see what goes on "off-screen," as it were. It kind of breaks my disbelief if I see things I shouldn't. Even just an accidental glimpse of the DM's map, notes, or rolls throws me off for the rest of the session.

See, you assume that the GM even has a map or notes, and moreover they are easy to see. Neither of these are typical in my experience, and when notes do show up its usually the GM writing things down as the players change them, often in an illegible scrawl.

[dsmiles]

See, you assume that the GM even has a map or notes, and moreover they are easy to see. Neither of these are typical in my experience, and when notes do show up its usually the GM writing things down as the players change them, often in an illegible scrawl.

Not to sound rude, but I honestly don't care what other DM's keep behind their screens. That's why the screen is there. I don't want to know.

I know what I keep behind my screen. Maps, notes, handouts, running copies of certain character stats (stats, HP, skills, saves, etc), monster statblocks, minis (for upcoming encounters), dice, die rolls, just about everything. Granted, my screen has a few tables and charts on it, but it's mostly there for three reasons:
1. To hide all my crap from the players, who don't have any reason to see that stuff.
2. To paper clip most of that crap to, so I don't have to shuffle through a stack of papers every time I want to see something.
3. We have a strict 'no electronics' rule at the table, so it all has to be on paper.

[Silus]

Mr. I'm Gonna Question Everything/Everyone

I'm sure you know the type. Has access to magic or abilities that let them communicate with plants/animals/inanimate objects and abuses such powers.

"I'm going to ask the [inanimate object] if it knows [information required]."
"Uh, dude, it's a [inanimate object]."

Example: OWoD game. Guy spent a good 20 minutes trying to interrogate a door (apparently Pooka can communicate with objects) on who was the last person to come into a room.