Results 31 to 60 of 290
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2016-10-19, 02:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
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- Penthouse Suite
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
I realize now my misstep My other pet peeve is when Player A complains Player B isn't enjoying the game properly. Something like...
Player A: "Player B! Why are you so concerned with your attack bonus?"
Player B: "Were fighting some Orcs. I need to know what my attack bonus is so I know what to add to my roll."
Player A: "God Player B, stop being a munchkin! Just say how you attack and the GM will sort it out."
Bad example it pisses me off. Especially when Player A is being hypocritical.Awesome Avvy by Sizlord!
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2016-10-19, 02:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Probably slightly less common, but "rules lawyers" who are just about always wrong. If you're going to try and be a stickler about the rules or fluff of the game, at least open the book and get to know the setting and rules as applicable?
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2016-10-19, 02:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2015
- Location
- Earth
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
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2016-10-19, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
For the specific example, the question whether someone has the Light Sleeper trait could mean no roll was needed, whereas Keen Hearing gives a bonus to the check to wake up. Or the thing that needed to be rolled for was nothing to do with hearing, but rather temperature or smell, e.g.. And the Light Sleeper trait also meant that surprised or not, Light Sleeper means you go from sleeping to fully awake faster than those who don't have it. So no roll may be in the offing anyway, because the group wakes at night automatically, and you just want to take any Light Sleeper trait into account when you describe what's happening.
It's a bad thing because it's blabbering out of turn with something that could be relevant, but isn't. If the GM needs the help, fine. I didn't, and since this happened regularly, the player ought to have known that.Last edited by hymer; 2016-10-19 at 02:42 PM.
My D&D 5th ed. Druid Handbook
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2016-10-19, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2013
- Location
- Dunmore, PA, USA
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Hey now, for my games that aren't online I regularly keep three pen-and-paper copies of my character sheet, all hand written! My primary sheet that I play with; a DM's copy for them to hold onto or return to me at the end of each session; and a backup copy I keep at home in a folder with other copies, just in cade something happens to one of the other two.
I suppose I keep multiple copies of digital character sheets as well... One on Mythweavers, one on my hardrive, and a pen-and-paper copy... (I usually make my characters on lined paper before exporting it to whatever sheet I'm going to be using, so...)
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2016-10-19, 02:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
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2016-10-19, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2009
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
In my strongly held opinion, offering the DM information that, even though he didn't ask for it right now, is reasonably likely to be relevant in the context is never a bad thing. At the very least, it shows that the player is paying attention, trying to participate, and trying to be helpful.
And she's not demanding anything. Just volunteering information. What you do with it is still up to you.
Tearing up character sheets? I wouldn't do it myself, because I know how invested players can be in those things, but I've seen it happen. It's a dramatic gesture, no more. If you really want to, you can always write up a new one - something I generally do every few sessions anyway, character sheets tend to get pretty dog-eared after 30-50 hours of play."None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2016-10-19, 07:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2011
- Location
- Sharangar's Revenge
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
It has to do with making the player's character look like a fool, without the player's consent. Even if you roll a one on your tracking skill, you are NOT going to mistake bear tracks for moose tracks. It's just not going to happen. If the player suggests it, fine. So let the player correctly identify the tracks, but be unable to follow them.
Be fans of your PCs. Cheer (either openly or secretly) when they pull off an upset, or when they see a solution you hadn't planned for. Give them opportunities to be heroic. You don't need to give them opportunities to make fools of themselves; they'll do that all on their own, without help from you.Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
My Spelljammer stuff (including an orbit tracker), 2E AD&D spreadsheet, and Vault of the Drow maps are available in my Dropbox. Feel free to use or not use it as you see fit!
Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season
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2016-10-19, 10:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
- Location
- The Frozen North
- Gender
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2016-10-20, 03:31 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Paying attention by doing the exact thing he's been asked not to do four times already? Participating by dragging out the proceedings rather than trying to get them to run smoothly? Trying to be helpful by annoying everyone else at the table?
I agree entirely that the behaviour you describe is fine in most cases. But the example I was describing has little or nothing to do with what you describe. Some more examples:
Q: What's your AC?
A: I'm wearing plate armour.
Q: You take ten damage, are you still conscious?
A: We'll see, won't we?
Q: Who's wearing the Ring of Frost Resistance?
A: I've got a potion of frost resistance in my pack.
Q: Do you have ranks in Religion?
A: I can cast Bless.Last edited by hymer; 2016-10-20 at 04:31 AM.
My D&D 5th ed. Druid Handbook
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2016-10-20, 04:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2016
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
The thing I hate is players who take forever to micromanage every encounter. Especially those players who have dozens of different items that might be useful in an encounter one day and spend a good 5 or 6 minutes going through their inventory every time the party hits anything new.
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2016-10-20, 04:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2016
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Guess I'll throw in my 2 cents. Some of these have been mentioned in some form already, but these really grind my gears as a DM.
- Players who don't do the effort of reading up on their class features, feats, skills and other abilities. Knowing what your character can do and how to it goes a long way to making your character more effective. I understand a tabletop rpg can be pretty overwhelming for a beginner and I'll happily coach them, but there are limits. For example, a player in the group I've DM'd for 3 years now was new to the game when we started and while he has improved a lot since then, he still needs to ask questions about some pretty basic mechanics. Questions which could've easily been avoided by a good read of the appropriate section in the PHB, something I've pointed out to him quite a few times.
- Players who arrive at the table unprepared. I'm all set up as DM, the players are all there, we get seated, ready to go, when suddenly "Wait, I still need to update my character sheet" or something or such. Everything grinds to a halt. I don't think I'm unreasonable in asking players to be ready before sitting down at the table, so they don't needlessly waste my time and that of players who did do the 15min homework.
- Players are busy on their phones when it is not their turn or are otherwise not paying attention. Common during larger, more complicated battles or longer talky bits their characters are not directly participating in (through their own choice or not). It's rude towards me who spent a fair bit of time preparing that session, rude towards other players who are paying attention and likely also a timewaster if the unattentive player needs to be brought up to speed with what's been going on.
Last edited by Professor Chimp; 2016-10-20 at 04:47 AM.
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2016-10-20, 04:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
- Location
- In the Playground, duh.
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2016-10-20, 04:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2016
- Location
- Between Bipolar cycles...
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Didn't even know this was a thing that would be a peeve for me until recently, but players falling asleep at games. I realize I might be running an Adventure Path, but that doesn't mean I didn't spend a lot of effort getting ready for the game. You can at least bow out if you are too sleepy to play. Don't sit in my chair and fall asleep and then expect it to be fine because you toss a few d6 of Positive energy on your party after the fight when someone wakes you up.
Players who interrupt the Gm's description of the scene only to have to stop and ask questions about what they missed while they were talking over you.
I've also decided that never again will I run an Adventure Path for a person who has played through it before. Even if they request it. In fact, especially if they request it. Made even more annoying by the fact that since I've run the Adventure Path, I will be unable to properly play it due to my very detail oriented and accurate memory.
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2016-10-20, 05:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2016
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Professional Sorcerer Advocate.
Winner of the Base Class Contest XXXX 'Happy Little Accidents'
Winning Entry: The Antiquarian (Artifacts, Options).
Runner Up for Base Class Context XXXXI 'It's In Our Nature'
Entry: The Egregore (Vermin Companion)
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2016-10-20, 06:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
- Location
- In the Playground, duh.
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
In specific systems, yes. This isn't always the case. (Also, at least in 3.5, that particular critical failure - of getting misinformation - is written into the rules, twice, and at least once more, and again, and once again, and a sixth time. Also, there is an entire skill which is used to spread misinformation, and another one. Other critical skill failures involve falling, falling, making people dislike you, blowing yourself up, falling, drowning, blowing yourself up, blowing yourself up, and falling. There are feats such as personal truename backlash which also allow you to add critical failures to truespeak, of all skills.)
And getting misinformation doesn't have to be unfun. Hell, in FATE, half the premise of the game is the DM and players finding creative ways to screw each other over using the traits written on the character sheet, and it's amazingly fun.Last edited by Jormengand; 2016-10-20 at 06:29 AM.
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2016-10-20, 07:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2015
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
On Destroying Sheets: Don't do that.
On Using your Best Skill: I get it, play to your strengths. Don't argue for different interpretations of stats in skills though and don't recon your actions to try and get a different skill off.
My final group is anything that is not acceptable in real life suddenly "becoming" acceptable once the game starts. I don't care that we are playing an role-playing game, lying to me out of character is still not OK.
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2016-10-20, 08:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
I have always had an issue with a certain type of player, or a certain style. I don’t want to say this is even bad play it’s just something that annoys me when I am playing.
I call it a chess master player.
A player who sees all the other characters at the table as his pieces to move to “win” the game / encounter. Its not like I aren’t a team player but if I have abilities that will help let me choose to use them, don’t start ordering up what you need.
Standard Chess Master Talk (Chess Master is Fighty Mcfighterson)
“Ok before we go into the room, Earthwalker you cast spell bulls strength on me and Thiefy McStabb. Then cast Hast on the group. Once we are in the room I will engage the big guy, Thiefy McStabb you get flanking. Earthwalker don’t waste your spells we might need buffs after. Cleric McHealsalot you stay back and burst heal if needed”
Me – “You know we can work out what to do ourselves”
Fighter McFighterson – “I am only doing what’s more effective”.SpoilerMilo - I know what you are thinking Ork, has he fired 5 shots or 6, well as this is a wand of scorching ray, the most powerful second level wand in the world. What you have to ask your self is "Do I feel Lucky", well do you, Punk.
Galkin - Erm Milo, wands have 50 charges not 6.
Milo - NEATO !!
BLAST
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2016-10-20, 09:27 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
I'm guilty of this on a fair number of occasions... And let me tell you, as a chess master player, the worst thing is when someone doesn't do what I say and the encounter then becomes 10x more difficult.
More on topic, players who treat the game as one big joke irritate me, since I tend to be a more serious player. Not to say that casual players are bad, nor that super-seriousness is a better way to play. But, well... This guy takes the cake:
When we agreed that someone needed to cause a ruckus to draw attention away from the rest of the party's stealth mission, the Paladin got drafted in to cause said ruckus. We were expecting trampled tents, a wild chase, and insults to our enemies' parentage. What we got was 15 minutes of him standing around and occasionally shouting Dark Souls references.
His character was like that the whole campaign, by the way. I don't recall a single word of his IC that wasn't a Dark Souls reference.
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2016-10-20, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Hmmm... so many to pick from.
The no call no show.
The "**** initiative, whoever screams out first goes first, right?" (IMO, the GM deserves at least as much blame as the player in this scenario).
The metagamer.
The "I'ma bookmark this page by bending the corner of your book, 'K?" Related to the "I'ma use your book as a writing desk" and "I'ma use your book as a plate".
Alignment.
People who don't understand that "alignment" and "personality" are not synonyms.
DMs who feel the need to change your alignment (esp over a single incident).
The people who would rather have to retcon an entire session than look up a rules question when it first appears.
The veteran noob.
The rules lawyer who knows he's wrong, and is just hoping for a favorable ruling from an ignorant GM. Happily, whenever I've noticed this happening, it was under GMs who took the time to look up the rules.
The nerf bat.
GMs who believe in nerfing the strong, but have no interest in empowering the weak.
Intolerant people.
The PvP player, especially when coupled with the player who can't differentiate IC & OOC.
Alignment.
I'm sure I could come up with lots more...
I don't think I could play with people like that. At least, not and take them seriously. Not without totally abusing the lack of rules.
My signature character, for whom this account is named, is a tactically inept god wizard. His lack of tactical mindset prevents him from overshadowing the party. Happily, I believe I have never played Quertus with a Chess Master in the party - at least, not one who viewed Quertus as one of his pieces. I often play as... odd man out... in group tactics; the Chess Masters I remember playing with Quertus encouraged him to be the unpredictable portion of the party's plan. Although I have had tactically inept players try to order Quertus around, in ways that would make the encounter noticably harder - which is quite a feat, given that Quertus' signature actions are to read from a book or make a sketch.
So, yeah, I'm not sure how having a real Chess Master making Quertus live up to his potential would turn out, but I doubt it would be fun for the party.
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2016-10-20, 06:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
The behavior I most dislike is the passive aggressive negativity of someone who has for some reason not actually declined to play, but acts miserable and tries to make everyone else miserable the whole time. This might be a new player who constantly complains or ridicules the game like, "oh my god, I can't believe I'm doing something this nerdy" or a player who prefers a different game constantly saying, "this would be so much better in DnD 3.5."
Another behavior I can't stand is the type of player who is there just to lord how much smarter he is over the other players. This type can be especially bad if it's the GM.It always amazes me how often people on forums would rather accuse you of misreading their posts with malice than re-explain their ideas with clarity.
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2016-10-20, 10:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
One thing that annoys me though this isnt table behaviour, is when a player says something like
Player:"Hey DM, you are wrong, Beholders dont travel in groups, they are exclusively solitary creatures."
Me: "I know. "
Player: "So why are they?"
Me: "Why dont you ask that in character?"
Player: "Because its stupid they dont do that. You are wrong"
Me: "No Im not wrong, they are illusions you imbecile! You dont think I read the paragragh on Beholder evology!"
Player: "Oh so they are illusions now. Bet they werent until I said they were."
Me: *Wishes this was an in person game so I could put a bullet between this A-hole's eyes"
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2016-10-21, 12:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
I had one of these once as well. He had an argument with one of the other players (not even during the game, we were doing something else that day), so in dramatic fashion he announced he was quitting, went home, tore up his character sheet and burned the pieces. Then he calmed down a couple days later and still wanted to play, so he made a new character.
I have one of these too (not the same player, though the two of them are close friends). This guy has nearly 14 years of gaming experience and still can't even level up his character by himself, let alone build one from scratch. He has to be regularly told how his abilities work, what the things on his sheet mean, and whether a certain ability he has will work in this situation (if he remembers the ability at all). Lately he hasn't been showing up, so we've just been gaming without him, and not much of value has been lost. But he's our friend so we'd feel bad kicking him out (well, most of us anyway).
Another one that I really hate is the "oh, (player's cousin, SO's friend, etc.) is coming over. He doesn't play but can he watch?" I'm by no means antisocial, but when it's game time the only people around should be the people involved in the game. If the SO of the person hosting the game comes in for a minute or two to say hi when they first get home or something, that's fine (it's still disruptive but we're in their place after all, so it's fine as long as it doesn't completely grind the game to an extended halt). But other random people dropping in, or worse yet wanting to "watch" is annoying as hell. "Watching" inevitably leads to one of two things: either they want to participate (in which case you have to give them an NPC or a monster or something and then waste time trying to teach them how to play it), or they become a big distraction by talking about unrelated stuff or asking a million questions or something.
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2016-10-21, 01:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
i don't like to play anything with massive penalties - i threw out a set that contained a 6, 3 and 4 and ya know an 18, 16 and 10 purely because I don't find it fun. i say that because something that irks me endlessly about my particular group is that two of them roll their eyes and tell me to man up and play the massive penalties and then pointing to the six one of their characters has with pride. Sure guys its fun for -you- but it isn't for me okay ?
the same kind of eye rolling crap i get for playing Marines/soldiers/special forces types......i don't like playing other stuff, i have tried playing other stuff and any time I've done it the game has crashed and burned because I've ended up trying to lead and one person in the group always has problems with my character leading or the characters where just not fun for me to role play.
let's see i don't want to play a particular adventure, I've told them at least three times i don't think its fun and its not my bag.....i get told by the person that DM's that particular adventure to 'man up' and 'stop being a wuss' and 'suck it up'. also i pulled a character because i couldn't figure out why they'd stay with the group after crap they did, get told the exact same things despite trying to avoid the inevitable PVP that would result if the character stayed with the group.
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2016-10-21, 03:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2008
- Location
- Duitsland
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
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2016-10-21, 03:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2016
- Location
- Between Bipolar cycles...
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
On the Alignment issue, there are also many Classes, Prestige Classes, Archetypes, Feats and things you can lose for having your alignment shifted, rendering your character very difficult to play or impossible to play as well as compromising your concept.
Spoiler: Alignment Rant
I choose to interpret alignment as a "behavior pattern." Your first offense will never cause your alignment to shift (barring completely insane actions like "I cast Fireball into the town square for the lolz." ) Even a good character can slip into committing an evil act every now and then. Perhaps he lost his temper or something. His World View won't change because of that one action. Only after he commits several such actions will he look back and go "Man, I haven't been very good recently." Three Major Violations in a particular direction is usually what is required, with three minor violations counting as one major one.
Of course, classes and features with a "one Evil Act and you lose it" rule or what have you, the rules are meant to be a little more strict on. Example: Paladin violating their Code of Conduct.
And I've seen acts where the violation was only in appearance. For example, in Kingmaker, I had a Paladin shout "Surrender!" and the bandits, being low hp and having had their leader slain while the ranger had made it clear they couldn't escape, surrendered.
Paladin: "Alright. I hang the prisoners until dead."
Whole table: "Wait, what?"
Paladin: "It's very clear in our charter. The Lawful penalty for banditry is to be hanged until dead."
Me: *blink* "Wow. Okay, for future reference, your paladin feels he has to tell people that surrendering to him will not get them any mercy from the law."
Paladin in next fight: "Surrender and be hanged!"
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2016-10-21, 08:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2015
- Location
- The Smoke
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Players using my dice.
It sounds dumb, but I find it really irritating.
If somebody forgets theirs, I'll gladly lend them some, but I don't like sharing the dice in front of me.Last edited by harlokin; 2016-10-21 at 08:13 AM.
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2016-10-21, 08:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
I view this as the trust minigame. To keep this situation from happening, I intentionally make a small "mistake", and reveal the secret, ideally IC*, as to why it follows the rules. Repeat until the players have been trained to simply ask, "you know X, right?", where they expect that I do, and it's therefore mystery solving time.
Because, yeah, horrible DMs are horrible, so it's important to demonstrate the difference.
* and, if they ask, I try to read them, and either suggest their character look into it (if their character had the appropriate skills to notice that something is amiss), or I tell them the secret, and ask if they wouldn't have had more fun finding out in character, and suggest that they do so next time (hint, hint).
That's your good for trying other things. You should do so occasionally, say in one shots, just to test other ideas. I, for one, play mages, almost exclusively.
So... Why does every character you create who is not a soldier have to lead?
Why they'd want your character to stick around in that kind of scenario is baffling.
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2016-10-21, 09:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2014
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
Oooh, that's another one, thanks for bringing it up! I absolutely detest switch-shamers.
I'm here, playing a tabletop game (ostensibly with my friends), in order to have fun. Now, I'm fine with having that fun in multiple ways. Heavy-RP politics games, light-RP dungeon crawling, survival horror, lots of options. If you're gonna ask me to try and stick it out in a campaign whose premise/genre I'm not sold on, I'm gonna do that for you. You're (ostensibly) my friend, and I'm willing to give a new experience a few tries. I'd prefer if you asked politely, but there comes a friendship level in some people's brains where "please do this for me" and "don't be a wimp bro" stop having distinct meanings, and I can respect that too.
However. My character? That's my gateway into whatever game we're playing. There's no way to anticipate which of my characters I'll enjoy playing until it starts to happen, and it can change based on circumstance. And maybe this is a personal fault (though I doubt it), but I doubt I could enjoy even the most perfect game, DM'd by the goddess of tabletop games Herself, if I don't like the character I'm playing in that world through.
Don't tell me to stick it out with a character I don't want to play any more. Trust me, I respect your story and the difficulty switching characters may cause you in reframing your plot. I've already agonized over if it was worth the ripple effect that would happen, and I probably only came to this decision because I'd rather leave the game than keep playing this guy in it. Just let me switch without getting crap for it and I will bend over backwards however you need me to to accommodate your plot reconstruction.
Edit: @alignment: lol, I think that Paladin should just stop suggesting surrender. Although I'm pretty sure Paladins as written are meant to be "Good before Lawful." Then again, why further restrict such a restricted class?Last edited by Melville's Book; 2016-10-21 at 09:38 AM.
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2016-10-21, 12:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
- Gender
Re: Common Aggravating Table Behaviors
It's never happened to me, but I've seen it happen to others at adventurers league, it really strikes me as highly disrespectful when people try to grab up and use dice that don't belong to them.
In a similar veins with respect to property, I also feel like a GM taking someones sheet and ripping it up as an aggressive act and definitely a no-no. I don't care if the person has multiple copies or not, it's a crappy move on the GM's part.