Habits that kill fun in a session.

[Ghost6442]

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

They have rubbed off, the numbers where hard to see before, but some have totally rubbed off and vanished.




Any player can talk to inanimate objects regardless of what they play, the question is, can the object talk back? or even want to?

[Choco]

Mr. I'm Gonna Question Everything/Everyone

DM's that facilitate the above-If the whole group is like this, fine, have fun. But if only one person is doing that, it quickly gets old for the rest of the group when the DM accommodates that one person for over half of the session, every session. You know it's bad when this DM describes <insert whatever the player likes to waste time on> as being in a room, and while said player is perking up the entire rest of the group facepalms, and promptly finds distractions to occupy themselves with for the next half hour.

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.

If I were the DM, I would remind the player that doors can't see. MAYBE it would remember the touch of the person if you could get the suspects to open/enter the door again. Even that's pushing it though.

Any player can talk to inanimate objects regardless of what they play, the question is, can the object talk back? or even want to?

This. Even in 3.5 the various spells that let you talk to plants/animals specify that they, just like normal NPC's, likely need to be bribed, coerced, etc. into talking.

[Knaight]

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.

And see, my point is that you can't just assume the screen is there. Outside of D&D, I've yet to see any system that suggests use of a screen, let alone comes with screens you can buy with tables and such. For that matter, preparation as a universal requirement also seems to show up only in heavier games, plenty of others are made for improvisational play, where you wouldn't even have notes to hide from players, and if you had notes it would be of the sort that documented primarily what the players had done, and anything improvised that wouldn't be remembered easily.

[DropsonExistanc]

Unfortunately, I've had experience with pretty much all of these.

The main culprit? Public play. Yes, it's great to have a store to play at, to connect with other gamers, etc. But once connections have been made, I find that many players take their new friends and make a private group. You can guess the people who will never be invited into such groups, and where they tend to remain playing once all these new, exciting people have moved on.

As a DM and an organizer, it pains me. Sometimes I wonder if it might even drive people away from RPGing that might otherwise find they love it. And it destroys my fun to always feel like I have to take the "problem players" because I'm the store organizer, and I'm afraid that if I unleash certain players on a volunteer DM, they might not agree to volunteer for very long.

On another note, the ones that have affected my home games fall more in the electronics/punctuality categories. Otherwise it's a group of friends that talk to each other about problems before they become big issues.

[Seb Wiers]

Outside of D&D, I've yet to see any system that suggests use of a screen, let alone comes with screens you can buy with tables and such.

What systems have you "seen" outside of D&D? Pretty much every game I've seen with 3 or more rule books has a GM screen. Below that level, its probably not economically viable, so yeah, you won't see it for games sold on Lulu, but hey, even Eclipse Phase has an official GM screen (mostly seen as PDF, but but it exists as a physical product).
And that doesn't cover the ones people make themselves, or the times when the GM just props up an open book.

Unfortunately, I've had experience with pretty much all of these.

The main culprit? Public play. Yes, it's great to have a store to play at, to connect with other gamers, etc. But once connections have been made, I find that many players take their new friends and make a private group. You can guess the people who will never be invited into such groups, and where they tend to remain playing once all these new, exciting people have moved on.

Oh god, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has that feeling. I've always gotten a bad vibe about in-store RPGs, and it HAS kept me from playing in them. I finally broke down and played Encounters when my regular campaign went on hiatus, and am actually quite happy with it, but it seems that crowd is much larger, and even that some of the "RPG regulars" don't join in Encounters.
For the same reason, I've pretty much given up on flyers you see in game shops. Its a problem, really, because I don't know any good alternatives.

[dsmiles]

What systems have you "seen" outside of D&D? Pretty much every game I've seen with 3 or more rule books has a GM screen. Below that level, its probably not economically viable, so yeah, you won't see it for games sold on Lulu, but hey, even Eclipse Phase has an official GM screen (mostly seen as PDF, but but it exists as a physical product).
And that doesn't cover the ones people make themselves, or the times when the GM just props up an open book.

Don't forget the OWoD products. I know for a fact that V:tM, and W:tA each had one. I don't recall if they put one out for Mage, Wraith, or Changeling.

[Silus]

DM's that facilitate the above-If the whole group is like this, fine, have fun. But if only one person is doing that, it quickly gets old for the rest of the group when the DM accommodates that one person for over half of the session, every session. You know it's bad when this DM describes <insert whatever the player likes to waste time on> as being in a room, and while said player is perking up the entire rest of the group facepalms, and promptly finds distractions to occupy themselves with for the next half hour.



If I were the DM, I would remind the player that doors can't see. MAYBE it would remember the touch of the person if you could get the suspects to open/enter the door again. Even that's pushing it though.



This. Even in 3.5 the various spells that let you talk to plants/animals specify that they, just like normal NPC's, likely need to be bribed, coerced, etc. into talking.

Well it's a problem when the player treats every NPC or anything may be a NPC (inanimate objects, animals, plants, ect. ect..) as Mr. Exposition.

[Pika...]

This has probably already been mentioned, but:

Powergaming in a group of non-powergamers. The DM either lets you solo everything, or has to raise the encounters up so high it's extremely difficult for the other players, and you STILL usually kill it or at least do most of the work/damage.

[Pika...]

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.

Dood, did I do anything you ever liked/agreed with?

I genuinely hope your new group in Texas is what you want, because apparently I left you with nothing but complaints to talk about. Not something I am proud of as either a DM or player.

[Silus]

I'm just gonna stop this right here and say that I'm not going to get into this with you.

[BRC]

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.

Hey, sometime this can be fun, the trick is to make a character out of the
Heh, my last campaign we had a Gnome, every time he used his racial ability to talk with burrowing animals, he got the same one: The Mole. The Mole would pop out of the ground and nervously give what information he could get from his "contacts", I played The Mole like an informant in a spy movie, giving information in a dark corner booth, constantly worried that he might be overheard and assassinated. He was lots of fun.

[Silus]

Hey, sometime this can be fun, the trick is to make a character out of the
Heh, my last campaign we had a Gnome, every time he used his racial ability to talk with burrowing animals, he got the same one: The Mole. The Mole would pop out of the ground and nervously give what information he could get from his "contacts", I played The Mole like an informant in a spy movie, giving information in a dark corner booth, constantly worried that he might be overheard and assassinated. He was lots of fun.

Well using it, let's say, normally, is fine. It's when you use the ability to milk NPCs for information that things start getting ridiculous.

Asking a tree or a deer for directions out of a forest? Fine.

Questioning an inanimate door (with some ability that lets you speak to inanimate objects) on a detailed description of the last person to enter before someone was murdered in the room the door leads to? Not so fine.

[Archwizard]

I once had a player that was constantly texting at the table. Damn that drove me nuts. I talked to him and he pretty much refused to stop, so I kicked his butt out.

And yes, I've seen DM screens for just about every single game out there of any real complexity, but DM screens are passe, check out this link:
http://www.geekchichq.com/Co_Store/T...he_Sultan.html

Seriously badass.

I use 2 laptops now when I DM, I find it's much easier. As long as the players pay attention, I don't really care what they do in terms of electronics, etc.

The food/chat/etc at the beginning is really obnoxious. I get that we're all friends, and we want to chat, but in a situation where you see these folks outside of game (which is true for most groups I play in), we are here to game dammit, so why don't we focus on that. Though, last campaign I ran this got a lot better when I figured out that having a "catchphrase" to draw attention to the game worked a whole ton better than anything else I'd ever tried (I would just say "When we last left our intrepid heroes..." and they would all settle down and clue in. Some even started finishing it with me. It was a tad surreal.)

Metagaming really is a pain. I tend to impose XP penalties now on players that go "well, I've read the MM, so I know that X is vulnerable to Y" or some equally stupid thing. Your character should know what your character would know, not what you, the player, know.

I also totally agree about game stores. Most stores I've ever been to seem to be host to a group of people that are very well established with each other, and I find it intimidating to try and join an atmosphere like that. I've even been in stores where people were making characters for a game (L5R, Hackmaster, Pathfinder, D&D), and expressed an interest in the game/system/character/etc, and while getting cordial answers, have never had anyone ever appear to even think about inviting me to play, or suggesting other ways to get involved.

I also find the idea of answering a random "wanna play D&D?" post on a wall to be totally unappealing.

OH MY GOD forgetting character sheets. It's just 2-5 pieces of paper, how do you forget that (all the time!)? I now keep every character sheet from my players, all the time. If we need to level up we have the player(s) in question show up 30-60 minutes early.

I think that's it for now.

[Pika...]

I'm just gonna stop this right here and say that I'm not going to get into this with you.

Fine. That is fair.


I have one to add to the pile then:

A player trying to pull off munchkin crud that would ruin a game. Had one that tried the whole wishing for infinite wishes through Pun-Pun like shenanigans. Then he got upset, and two of us had to explain to him why some DMs would get upset at that kind of stuff.



edit:
Oh and Silus. Sorry, but if you are going to post things about me on these forums I will likely reply to them. So I humbly ask that you resist from doing so, especially if you have nothing nice to say.

[IsaacTheHungry]

Fine. That is fair.


I have one to add to the pile then:

A player trying to pull off munchkin crud that would ruin a game. Had one that tried the whole wishing for infinite wishes through Pun-Pun like shenanigans. Then he got upset, and two of us had to explain to him why some DMs would get upset at that kind of stuff.



edit:
Oh and Silus. Sorry, but if you are going to post things about me on these forums I will likely reply to them. So I humbly ask that you resist from doing so, especially if you have nothing nice to say.

you 2 should back off. as one there I agree with most of silus points but after sitting down with them i find most the the problems stem from what one person thinks is the obvious is not always obvious to the others. he kept pointing out the biggest ship in all his disriptions of the place and expected us to go for the biggest and best so he made it so we could use it. instead we went for good enough which he was not expecting. he just wasn't used to our style yet (and you had very bad luck)

the door insident was more of a clash of a tecnical interpitation when the loose oned was needed, an easy mastake as he was new to the system and playing something exotic. too often both you and him started playing player vs. DM instead of party vs. the DM as was asked for.

O and the wishing thing was not intensional he was a fairly new player and this was his first experiance with multible wishes. lots of people try what he did and learn the hard way to be careful with the wishes. you just sometimes see him (and the rest of the party) as more experianced then he aculy is. and the things we sometimes pull of tend to reenforse this veiw making you forget some times (and we do the same to you expecting you to be a true expert DM when you are closer to the skilled but raw one so there is falt on all sides)

EDIT: this is a popular forum so you both have the right to be here. if you can't play nice with each other don't respon to each other... Please

[Silus]

*Facepalm* And the drama starts...

*Slinks out*

Edit: @IsaacTheHungry: No offense intended about the above comment. Just didn't want to drag a group argument onto the forums again.

[IsaacTheHungry]

i have a habit that can kill the fun. playing my dump stats too well. a dump stat can be fun to play and make it an enjoyable game but they can also kill it. Truth to be told, i knew the answers out of characer but i was playing my 6 wis so well i was out running the DM. that was were a lot of things went wrong, it was mainly my fault truthfuly and i don't think eather of you have fully relized that

anyone else have a game go south due to someone playing a dump mental stat too well? Or a hi one? (i got banned from using my highest or lowest in wis or int in one group )

[Silus]

i have a habit that can kill the fun. playing my dump stats too well. a dump stat can be fun to play and make it an enjoyable game but they can also kill it. Truth to be told, i knew the answers out of characer but i was playing my 6 wis so well i was out running the DM. that was were a lot of things went wrong, it was mainly my fault truthfuly and i don't think eather of you have fully relized that

anyone else have a game go south due to someone playing a dump mental stat too well? Or a hi one? (i got banned from using my highest or lowest in wis or int in one group )

*Chuckles* The turtle =P

[RandomLunatic]

Hey, sometime this can be fun, the trick is to make a character out of the
Heh, my last campaign we had a Gnome, every time he used his racial ability to talk with burrowing animals, he got the same one: The Mole. The Mole would pop out of the ground and nervously give what information he could get from his "contacts", I played The Mole like an informant in a spy movie, giving information in a dark corner booth, constantly worried that he might be overheard and assassinated. He was lots of fun.

Well, that only makes sense. Moles have a well-established underground movement, after all.

*Rimshot*

[Pika...]

*Facepalm* And the drama starts...

*Slinks out*

Edit: @IsaacTheHungry: No offense intended about the above comment. Just didn't want to drag a group argument onto the forums again.

If you know someone surfs these forum, like, hourly, why mention them in such a thread?

Honestly, in the end if it was not us someone would have posted something about another member on here. It was bound to happen with such a thread I figure.

[Knaight]

Guys, this is why we have the PM function. Please, take it there before the peanut gallery starts getting involved, neither of you want that.

[Pika...]

Guys, this is why we have the PM function. Please, take it there before the peanut gallery starts getting involved, neither of you want that.

Probably too late, but understood.

[Ashram]

i have a habit that can kill the fun. playing my dump stats too well. a dump stat can be fun to play and make it an enjoyable game but they can also kill it. Truth to be told, i knew the answers out of characer but i was playing my 6 wis so well i was out running the DM. that was were a lot of things went wrong, it was mainly my fault truthfuly and i don't think eather of you have fully relized that

anyone else have a game go south due to someone playing a dump mental stat too well? Or a hi one? (i got banned from using my highest or lowest in wis or int in one group )

In a past 3.PF game, something kinda similar to this happened, only in reverse: We had a barbarian who was from the "North" (Basically, he was pretending to be a Viking), which was all well and good. He also was a Neanderthal which meant that he got more Str and Con, but penalties to his mental stats. He had, I believe, a 6 or 7 Int. Remember that in Pathfinder, 10 is the base in any stat. Naturally, in return for getting this race, he was expected to play his Int believably. However, the player had a habit of ignoring his dump stats.

We ended up getting Conan the Philosopher, who typically spoke more eloquently and intelligently than anyone else. It got old, fast.

[Gnoman]

And yes, I've seen DM screens for just about every single game out there of any real complexity, but DM screens are passe, check out this link:
http://www.geekchichq.com/Co_Store/T...he_Sultan.html

I've always intended to build one of those, but with a screen in the top to run a virtual tabletop on.

[Choco]

Unfortunately, I've had experience with pretty much all of these.

The main culprit? Public play. Yes, it's great to have a store to play at, to connect with other gamers, etc. But once connections have been made, I find that many players take their new friends and make a private group. You can guess the people who will never be invited into such groups, and where they tend to remain playing once all these new, exciting people have moved on.

As a DM and an organizer, it pains me. Sometimes I wonder if it might even drive people away from RPGing that might otherwise find they love it. And it destroys my fun to always feel like I have to take the "problem players" because I'm the store organizer, and I'm afraid that if I unleash certain players on a volunteer DM, they might not agree to volunteer for very long.

THIS is exactly why I don't go to game stores (anymore). Everything in that quote is 100% truth from my experience. I couldn't get started in a game store for those reasons, and in fact I was one of those n00bs that was almost pushed away from tabletop gaming. Luckily I had a group of like-minded friends and was able to form a D&D group. None of us had experience at the time, but now, many years later, all but 1 of us are still gaming.

I did go to a game store before that had the potential to be better: The owner had a HUGE "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" sign right by the door and he enforced it (quite hilariously, that was honestly one of the main reasons to go there ). That got rid of a lot of bad players, but unfortunately one of his best friends, who hung out at the store all the time, was among the worst of them. So not only was he not kicked out, he basically had free reign to do whatever he wanted and if anyone tried to argue with him, THEY got kicked out. I stopped showing up after that got old.

If you know someone surfs these forum, like, hourly, why mention them in such a thread?

He mentioned things you did, but did not bring your name up (at least not that I saw, perhaps I am more blind than I thought). If you had not responded, none of us would have known it was you specifically who he was referring to. I know of plenty of instances where people I know IRL were talking about things I did that they didn't like online, but they did not mention me by name so I had no reason to respond to them on the forum. I actually was kinda flattered that they took HOURS out of their day to talk about me .

And while I'm here, may as well pay the topic tax:

The Recruiter-This guy is constantly trying to force his personal views on the rest of the group, despite them telling him repeatedly to cut it out. These views can be anything from real life like politics, religion, and dietary choices (I respect a vegetarian's choice to not eat meat, but if I ever get another one try to tell me what I am allowed to eat at my own table, someone is gonna get choked), to in game things like optimization level, metagaming, and general playstyle preferences.

[Knaight]

He mentioned things you did, but did not bring your name up (at least not that I saw, perhaps I am more blind than I thought). If you had not responded, none of us would have known it was you specifically who he was referring to. I know of plenty of instances where people I know IRL were talking about things I did that they didn't like online, but they did not mention me by name so I had no reason to respond to them on the forum. I actually was kinda flattered that they took HOURS out of their day to talk about me .

Can we please let this line of conversation die out?
I see religion/politics level of drama ensuing if we don't, and I doubt I'm the only one. Nobody wants that.

[Lamech]

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.

If someone has the ability to ask inanimate objects questions, then let them use it. It should take like a minute.
"I'm going to ask the [inanimate object] if it knows [information required]."
"Uh, how does that even make sense?"
"I have [ability]."
"Okay, it tells you [what it knows]."

Or your example, he asks the door who was the last person in, the door tells him.
If you don't want players to have certain abilities in the books you let them use, either tell them before play starts.

[Gravitron5000]

So apparently kender are incorporeal and can manipulate matter at a subconscious level so as to steal anything, anywhere, at any time without intending to do so? Damn, I want to play a kender!

Kender ... Hobbits that kill fun in a session

[The Glyphstone]

Can we please let this line of conversation die out?
I see religion/politics level of drama ensuing if we don't, and I doubt I'm the only one. Nobody wants that.

Great Modthulhu: Not Religion or Politics, but External Baggage is an equally weighted offense. Any further commentary or public comments by any party on this line of discussion will be treated as such.

[Choco]

The Double-Standard Prima Donna-This person breaks (or at least tries to break) group/table/campaign rules, then when things don't go as planned expects the rest of the group to enforce those same rules to save him.

Example:

I am playing in a cooperative, non-PvP campaign. No PvP is actually one of the unwritten but universally understood rules of the campaign, and as a derivative of that so is the expectation that the party will make characters that get along with each other (or at least don't disagree to the point of wanting to kill each other). Another player in the group is the type of player (that I mentioned pages earlier) who's characters all have the personality type of Colossal Condescending Butthole. My character "talks back" to him and he decides that is an offense punishable by death.

He knows he wouldn't stand much of a chance against me in straight up combat, and since he IS an assassin decides to do the assassin thing and try to kill me in my sleep. Soon as he makes this plan known the rest of the group flips out. After arguing for a good half hour, the rest of the group is tired of him repeating variations of "that's what my character would do!" and my patience wears out, so I tell him he is welcome to try (I am used to playing in games where PvP is common, so I never really cared, I just didn't want to break the group apart). The rest of the group reluctantly agrees to just let this play out, and he successfully sneaks into my tent undetected and delivers his death attack.

At that point I reveal my trump card: I am immune to critical hits (ANOTHER symptom of me being used to PvP games, I make sure to always have ways to defend myself against the other PC's most commonly used attacks). At that point my character wakes up, with the assassin standing over him holding the sword that has been implanted in his chest, and it's obviously not too hard to figure out what just happened. As I proceed to tear him a new one, he totally loses his **** and starts screaming about the no PvP rule that he just spent half an hour arguing against, calling me a munchkin, and looking to the rest of the group for support. I tell him this is what my character would do and proceed to finish him off, and he throws a big enough scene to be kicked out of the group.