Things I May No Longer Do While Playing IV: The Decanter of Endless Bad Ideas

[Ksheep]

* I may not send the party on an expedition to the Barrier Peaks
** I may NOT send the party on an expedition to the Barrier Peaks
*** Especially if I only describe the various items they find
**** Doubly so if they've already faced warforged and other constructs built by an ancient, long dead race
***** Triply so if I describe the various robots to sound rather similar to the constructs seen prior.
** No, it is not a challenge to see how long it take the genre-savvy players to realize that they've stumbled upon alien technology
*** Especially if I convince them that the reason their spellcraft checks keep failing is because it magic unlike any they've seen before, and probably very high level.
** I shouldn't be surprised when the fighter in the party accidentally shoots his own face off with a blaster.

EDIT:
* If the party enters an elevator, I may not start playing "The Girl From Ipanema" as Muzak
** I may not then just sit there, letting the music play all the way through.
*** Having a DMPC ask "How long does this elevator ride take" just to point out how long they're just sitting there is just mean.
**** Especially if it causes one of the party members to ask "Wait, did we even press one of the buttons?"
***** If I answer "no", I deserve every and all books thrown my way.

[Guizonde]

*if i ever bring in a pair of dice that makes the dm go blind with their pinkiness again, i will get the table flipped on top of me...
**not allowed to have pink dice
***not allowed to insinuate that the dm is allergic to fun

[DigoDragon]

* I may not send the party on an expedition to the Barrier Peaks
** I may NOT send the party on an expedition to the Barrier Peaks

I laughed a lot at your list. Your version of Barrier Peaks would fit perfectly in my homebrew world. The only issue is my players never trust the elevators and would rather fight warforged for the stairs.


More Shadowrun:

• Not allowed to charge a runner more money to rent a car than it's blue book value. I am gauranteed not to see that car returned.
• The party 12-year old hacker is no longer allowed to have a fembot. Even if it has no weapons, it's never "unarmed".
• The 12-year old hacker is also banned from carrying a gun, least he "accidently" kills another Ares Firewatch soldier.
• The team shaman is no longer allowed to use Ares firewatch soldiers as meat shields.
• When the terrorists wave AK97s at the team and demand we get down on our knees with hands in the air, the response is not allowed to be "I'm not your mom last night!"
• Not allowed to throw terrorists out a 30th floor balcony and then spit to see what hits the street first.

[Deathkeeper]

* Mnem is never to utter the words "secret Illuminati reptile overlord" ever again, unless her character has taken severe Sanity loss.
** ESPECIALLY not as a character concept.


* Mnem is never again allowed to tailor the sound of her sonic weaponry.
** Even - nay, especially - if she provides Youtube sound clips.

*** "Space Dinosaur Spellslinger" is not an actual character concept

*** LDK may not use Youtube sound clips for spell verbal components
****Especially if they're all from mecha animes.

[Karoht]

*Gnome Gninja is not a character concept.
**Replacing any instance of the letter n with Gn is not an acceptable phoenetic.
***Gn is not a suffix.
****Gn is not a consonant.
*****Gn is not a verb.

[Doxkid]

• When the terrorists wave AK97s at the team and demand we get down on our knees with hands in the air, the response is not allowed to be "I'm not your mom last night!"
• Not allowed to throw terrorists out a 30th floor balcony and then spit to see what hits the street first.

*If I watch an Abridged series the day of a gaming session I'm to show up, shake my head, and curl up under the Shame Cube.
**I am not to give anyone a cannon.
***I don't care how much they love cannons.
****The other person repeating that they love cannons later does not retroactively make things better.


*Pawning family members off on my rival is lazy and will get my son killed one day.
**If my rage button is someone mistreating my son I sure as hell better know my son's name.

[Sgt. Cookie]

This is a Shadowrun one.

*Even if the mechanics back me up, I cannot claim that my Technomancer's rugged good looks protect him from harm.

[Man on Fire]

* Cannot reform and adopt comics relief antagonist a your student.
** Familiar, tudent and student's riding animal aren't wizard's harem.
* Cannot go around throwing Charm Person at people.
** Try to find other way to solve murder mystery than Charming fifteen people until one of them admits it was him.

DM:
* No longer allowed making a game with more than 5 named NPCs.
** Even if it's an intrigue
*** If player asked for help gave you detailed describtion of those NPCs' perosnalities and interactions it doesn't mean you must use every single bit of it.
* No longer allowed to make fight with more than two opponents
* No longer allowe to yell "F*** THE DICE!" and make final fight in freeform.

[Falling]

*I may not anger the underworld by making a series of vicious tribes worship a pile of dirty clothes.
**I may not turn the goal of the campaign getting my slightly filthy pile of clothes recognized as a genuine deity.
***I may not proclaim myself the prophet of the dirty clothes pile.
****I may not kill the BBEG by suffocating him with the clothes.
*****I may not introduce another new deity, the all-powerful tent flap, that stops you from looking in a tent and hearing what's on the other side through it's mysterious eldritch powers.

Basically I'm not allowed near any fabric ever again.

[Ksheep]

* I may not play as a little beggar man
** I have not lived on the Isle of Green for the past 60+ years
*** I am not known from the Liffy down to Segue
**** My name is not Ol' Johnny Dhu
***** I may not sing the story of my life whenever we reach a tavern
****** I may not actually sing the song, the other players might throw stuff at me.

[TuggyNE]

*I may not anger the underworld by making a series of vicious tribes worship a pile of dirty clothes.
**I may not turn the goal of the campaign getting my slightly filthy pile of clothes recognized as a genuine deity.
***I may not proclaim myself the prophet of the dirty clothes pile.
****I may not kill the BBEG by suffocating him with the clothes.
*****I may not introduce another new deity, the all-powerful tent flap, that stops you from looking in a tent and hearing what's on the other side through it's mysterious eldritch powers.

Basically I'm not allowed near any fabric ever again.

"'The Bolt' will re-upholster the world…".

[Man on Fire]

From X-men game I'm in:

* My character cannot be member of Greenpeace, Amnesty International, UNICEF or any other such organisation
** Asking GM if any of them has something against Doctor Doom and what exactly, is considered bad taste.
*** If it would likely result in GM stopping the game to make deep research about North Korea, I'm not allowed to do it.

From my pathfinder game:
* Yes, you can reform more than one enemy
** Not doing it because you don't want to make DM's life harder is cute, but c'mon guys, I'll live.
* Cannot explain out of character moment from last game in a way that will make GM terrified of True Neutral for the rest of his life.

GM:
* Before stating antagonsit for huge battle I must ask myself a question "Why do I hate myself so much?".

[Fibinachi]

• As a DM, I'm no longer allowed to make a magic shield whose magic property is being enchanted to have a really maginificent magic aura
• That same shield cannot also have a enchanment to go "Bing!" whenever someone hits it
• Magic wand of Greater Tickling is right out
• No, the magic spoon of perfectly heated soup is not an artefact people are willing to die for
• I may not attempt to run the party through a dungeon crawl based on Singularity, Bioshock or System Shock
• If I ever find myself muttering the words "recursive" about anything, I should stop, drop and roll.
• The Greater Dungeon of the Jesterlord is not trapped with endless traps that are really just pies on top of doors, air horns and pop out foam snakes.
• Making players depressed with descriptions of the treatment of NPCS is right out
• Constantly having the party arrived just five minutes too late to stop the other, slightly higher level NPC party from defeating the bad guy in the dungeon is only funny three times in a row.
• "Fiendish Dire Ant Swarm"? No.
• "Fiendish Half Fiend Dire Ant Swarm?" No.
• "Fiendish Half Fiend Commoner"? ... No!
• When playing in a Low Fantasy campaign, cannot have the party suddenly encounter the UN Peacekeepers assigned to bring peace back to the collapsed African State the players are actually in.
• *The big reveal cannot be that all the magic was really just giving morale bonuses
• **Especially not if the UN peacekeepers start holding them to task for their murder hobo'ing ways
• ***As the same track, having a off world race of aliens arrive in the middle of a medieval campaign and bring "Civilization" to the place is a bad idea (even if its a good joke)

[Slipperychicken]

• The Greater Dungeon of the Jesterlord is not trapped with endless traps that are really just pies on top of doors, air horns and pop out foam snakes.

Now I really want to know what the loot in there was.

[Scizor]

*Gnome Gninja is not a character concept.
**Replacing any instance of the letter n with Gn is not an acceptable phoenetic.
***Gn is not a suffix.
****Gn is not a consonant.
*****Gn is not a verb.

Gn is, however, the shortened form of Good Neutral, for those not used to saying Neutral Good or True Good :P

* I may not play a True Lawful character that specialises in improvised weapon (Book). This will get the book thrown at me.
** May not set the DM up for such an obivous pun.

[Zahhak]

I may not play a True Lawful character that specialises in improvised weapon (Book)

Maka Albarn?

[Sith_Happens]

Maka Albarn?

* Loud boasting does not give me a bonus on Stealth checks.

[Zahhak]

* Loud boasting does not give me a bonus on Stealth checks.

** Infact, loud boasting gives severe penalties to stealth checks
*** Infact, boasting at all gives severe penalties to stealth checks
**** OK, you know what? You're just not allowed to make stealth checks anymore

[vasharanpaladin]

* Loud boasting does not give me a bonus on Stealth checks.

**Nor does constant mention of how "big" I am give a bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or any other skill check, really.

[Sith_Happens]

* I may not have a comically long list of increasingly ridiculous conditions that the rest of the party must meet in order for me to work with them.
** Especially not if I'm so overpowered that they actually agree to it.

[Slipperychicken]

**Nor does constant mention of how "big" I am give a bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or any other skill check, really.

***This goes double for checks made to seduce NPCs.
****In that case, it applies a penalty of -20 to the roll.
*****If I succeed despite this penalty, my character is banned for being OP.

[Zahhak]

* It doesn't matter how strong it makes me, going insane is not an option. Ever.

[DigoDragon]

****The other person repeating that they love cannons later does not retroactively make things better.

My southern shaman gal character was given a "cannon" because of that. What can I say? The GM loves that abridged series.


Shadowrun!

• No longer allowed to suggest the shaman wear my fembot's clothing as a disguise.
• Not allowed to laugh at the mage for jumping out of a 14th floor window without a parachute.
• I can no longer go 'Base Jumping' by defaulting on a Base Jumping skill.
• No more running down 14 flights of stairs thinking it'll be 'a walk in the park'.

[Man on Fire]

* When party Wizard sends his familiar to call for your help, the proper reaction is to let it lead you to him, not casting Sleep on it!

* No longer allowed to trick storeowner into thinking you want to buy illegal animal and then "confiscate" it.
** No longer allowed then to go to the library, research local law and submit to local office application for premission of releasing said animal into it's natural einvorment in indetermiante time.
*** This entire point goes double if you're a Paladin
**** No longer allowed to do anything that would make npc call Paladin "f***ing d***".

* Charm Person is not for making you get common goods and services for peanuts.

* Casting fireball on beings made of fire is simply bad idea.
** DM: Fireball's verbal component in such situation is not "Make my monster grow!"

* When two most diplomatic embers of the party are negotiating with city guards wanting to arrest them, it's going to require more than just trying different approaches, giving up after first, failed attempts at each, without trying harder and casting obcuring mist.
** That burning, child-murdering ghost was there so you could have defeated it and somehow repay for amount of collaterall damage your run fro mthe guards caused. Not for you to bribe it into attacking the guards. Or for you to turn it into a Godzilla and unleash upon the city.

DM:
* No longer allowed to make suggestions for wizard what to summon.
** No longer allowed to suggest Gibbering Mouther just because it's my favorite monster
* My love for crazy chase scenes should be tragic, star-crossed one.
* No longer allowed to deperately try to get the game back on track with guards armed with googles of seeing invisibility.
* Magic users in city guard are offensive to wizard's religion, even if he doesn't have any.

[Sith_Happens]

* Just because I can Polymorph most of the party into hydras at once doesn't mean I should.
** Especially not when the party includes a rogue, a scout, and a bard.
* After setting the above two rules for myself, I should not be surprised when the very first encounter for which I have 4th level spell slots is the one exact situation in which I'd decided it would be okay to break them.
** That still doesn't mean I should do it.
** I may not complain when I'm the only one for which loot does not appear out of the thin air after the fight.

/actuallyhappened

P.S.- War Weaver is best prestige class.

[Mnemophage]

* May no longer place uncooperative d20s on the corner of the table so that the bigger, stronger dice can mock them; less aware players may not be following along and try to roll them.

* If, at any point, I am capable of derailing the DM's elaborately-constructed session-spanning scene with my lunch, I am required to inform them before deploying it.

* Cannot use telekinesis to: tie shoelaces together, see if the Sith Lord is wearing anything under those robes, make sure a restaurant fails their safety check, invent deep fried coffee, split the atom, start a new religion.

* If at any point during character creation the DM recognizes my character as Ziltoid the Omniscient, my race is restricted to human.

[Man on Fire]

* Elven Wizard cannot convince dwarven guard he is ghost of his ancestor and he should let him free
** Even when using Charm Person

[Doorhandle]

* My love for crazy chase scenes should be tragic, star-crossed one.

.

Check this out.

[Zahhak]

If, at any point, I am capable of derailing the DM's elaborately-constructed session-spanning scene with my lunch, I am required to inform them before deploying it.

Say what now?

* A three person, 6th level party does not play with the Drow in the Underdark. It scares them
** They especially don't play with Drow "politics" by spying on or assassinating important Drow
*** And especially not by getting hired by the disgraced former Drow matriarch/high priest of Lolth
**** Oh, the current head of the Drow in question happens to be a fallen Paladin, turned Blackguard, turned Death Knight? Yeah, yeah, let's not do that.

Current campaign. Set in the world of the Order of the Stick, with some stuff from JourneyQuest/The Gamers to flush out some of the details.

[PaperMustache]

*We are not allowed to settle conflicts between characters by derailing the plot and plunging the entirety of the game world into a full scale war.
**No matter how long we've seen it coming.
***On that note, I am not allowed to have my broken diplomacy character slowly take over the majority of the world in her free time ever again.