Problem Gamers

[McKitty]

We've all had them. The guy who railroaded your characters to watching his supa-powa GMPCs rule the world, the player who used your character as a sexual outlet... the munckin who threw a fit when he died in combat.

What are your nightmare tales to share with the rest of us?

[Vendetta]

Too many to count (it's why making players have a game contract is so important IMO.) The worst offenders are rules lawyers though as far as I'm concerned. When I'm the GM it doesn't MATTER what the rules say. Best-case scenario they tend to bog the game down with minutiae, and at worst they can ruin what was a fun game for everyone else.

[McKitty]

The worst offenders are rules lawyers though as far as I'm concerned. When I'm the GM it doesn't MATTER what the rules say. Best-case scenario they tend to bog the game down with minutiae, and at worst they can ruin what was a fun game for everyone else.

Oh yeah.

Werewolf: the Forsaken game. Player goes all GRAH and wolf-man hybrid form to tear through a chain-link fence to save our packmate who's about to be sacrificed to a waterborn god.

...the GM decides, from the rules, that he fails to destroy the rusted, flimsy chain-link fence. Or leap over it.

Cue the tension of the game being zapped right out of it and nothing left but drained drama bogging the mood.

What really sucked? My character was in the near-human form... ripped the fence to pieces.

/sigh

[Vendetta]

There was a guy in Halo 3 who kille dme and my friend just because we had the flag and he wanted to score a capture instead of us.

He betrayed us and we booted him.

Five mins later he started sending messages to my friend over Live goin "f**k you, you f***ing faggot".
Errr, I think we're talking about a different kind of "gamer" here.

[Chiron Jackal]

Errr, I think we're talking about a different kind of "gamer" here.

Same kind of gamer, just different type of game it's being expressed through. You can't think the back-stabbing glory-hog on XBOX will be an upstanding and respectable player in the LARP or Table Top scene.

[Vendetta]

Same kind of gamer, just different type of game it's being expressed through. You can't think the back-stabbing glory-hog on XBOX will be an upstanding and respectable player in the LARP or Table Top scene.
No but they're also usually 12, so not generally in any of the games I would participate in. I think we can all agree that the atmosphere of online PC and console games is a bit different than tabletop games. That's not to say there aren't dicks in both mediums, just that there are more ways to control their dickery in the tabletop arena (and mostly because you're dealing with people face-to-face.)

[Chiron Jackal]

This is true, but I've found that an alarming number of those terrifyingly immature online gamers prone to yelling, "f**k you, you f***ing faggot" are actually in their 30s and 40s.

Things like that make me question my faith in humanity.

[Ves]

The worst player experience I've had was one of the players from my old Masquerade Live Action game who decided to call me at 2am on a work-night to discuss his character's downtime actions.
If he hadn't been on the other end of a phone line, murder may well have been done that night.

Running games for 40+ players will get you fun like this I guess - though this did make it all the sweeter when I watched the other PCs in the game work together to stitch this guy up like a kipper and have his character destroyed by the local Prince :)

[Vendetta]

This is true, but I've found that an alarming number of those terrifyingly immature online gamers prone to yelling, "f**k you, you f***ing faggot" are actually in their 30s and 40s.
I would think it would depend on the game. FPSs tend to have a much more casual, say-anything atmosphere. I'll be honest though, I tend to gravitate towards games with older players, and not once have I heard anyone say something like this, unless it was meant entirely in jest, and that intent was obvious.

The worst player experience I've had was one of the players from my old Masquerade Live Action game who decided to call me at 2am on a work-night to discuss his character's downtime actions. If he hadn't been on the other end of a phone line, murder may well have been done that night.
Sounds like the dude might've been 'spergin. That's another thing that irks me. I know it's not their fault, but the sheer numbers of people with Asperger's in gaming is astounding, and it can often lead to some problems.

Again, it's why I think it's important that the GM sets up a social contract with the players.

[McKitty]

I do a "Ok, here's the themes of the game, and here's what I expect from you."

I haven't had too many horror tales, since I run with my boyfriend, my roomate, and a online pal; but I know I've just got lucky.

[Wolf-Bone]

I almost got into RPing. Yes, I'd finally made enough friends with, y'know, their kind that I could look past the social awkwardness, the obsessiveness and, dare I say it, even the smell. Because it looked like something an artist/writer could gain inspiration from.

So what made me think twice? People thinking their character is them, or on the flipside of that, having their character do things they would do, but their character most probably wouldn't. Or if they do, not having a good/any reason for it. For example, sitting in on a RP session one night (or depending on how you look at it, having this gathering of the socially inept and extremely loud sit-in on our movie night in the communal lounge), someone had this character that was supposedly an archer, but also used guns. Since I was having to hear this session whether or not I liked it, I figured I had the right to ask why someone would be both an archer and a gunman. Now, before I even asked, I thought up my own possible answers. Perhaps because arrows run out and it's more logical for this character to have a gun as his backup weapon since both are ranged weapons (transferable skill somewhat) than say, a sword. And besides, bullets/clips are easy to carry where extra bundles of arrows are not.

"He just is, okay? Jesus fuckin' Christ!" Yeah, ok, douchenuts. Seriously, if you want to vicariously be Robin Hood or Legolas and something out of a Jet Li movie at the same time, just admit it. And while you're at it, justify it with something that at least makes sense to this character who has to co-exist with other characters whose players struggle to suspend their disbelief as it is. It doesn't have to make sense for you to want to be several awesome things that contradict all at once (http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Divide_by_zero). You like what you like because you like it, and Jesus died so that you won't go to Hell for whatever your true motives probably are for liking it. Which is a shame, really, because when you got there, you'd see even this place you thought was a fairy tale, and very much resembles one in fact has an internal logic dictating all its actions.

[Chriz]

I almost got into RPing. Yes, I'd finally made enough friends with, y'know, their kind that I could look past the social awkwardness, the obsessiveness and, dare I say it, even the smell. Because it looked like something an artist/writer could gain inspiration from.

So what made me think twice? People thinking their character is them, or on the flipside of that, having their character do things they would do, but their character most probably wouldn't. Or if they do, not having a good/any reason for it. For example, sitting in on a RP session one night (or depending on how you look at it, having this gathering of the socially inept and extremely loud sit-in on our movie night in the communal lounge), someone had this character that was supposedly an archer, but also used guns. Since I was having to hear this session whether or not I liked it, I figured I had the right to ask why someone would be both an archer and a gunman. Now, before I even asked, I thought up my own possible answers. Perhaps because arrows run out and it's more logical for this character to have a gun as his backup weapon since both are ranged weapons (transferable skill somewhat) than say, a sword. And besides, bullets/clips are easy to carry where extra bundles of arrows are not.

"He just is, okay? Jesus fuckin' Christ!" Yeah, ok, douchenuts. Seriously, if you want to vicariously be Robin Hood or Legolas and something out of a Jet Li movie at the same time, just admit it. And while you're at it, justify it with something that at least makes sense to this character who has to co-exist with other characters whose players struggle to suspend their disbelief as it is. It doesn't have to make sense for you to want to be several awesome things that contradict all at once (http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Divide_by_zero). You like what you like because you like it, and Jesus died so that you won't go to Hell for whatever your true motives probably are for liking it. Which is a shame, really, because when you got there, you'd see even this place you thought was a fairy tale, and very much resembles one in fact has an internal logic dictating all its actions.

This post is full of yummy winness.
:whee:

[McKitty]

I almost got into RPing. Yes, I'd finally made enough friends with, y'know, their kind that I could look past the social awkwardness, the obsessiveness and, dare I say it, even the smell. Because it looked like something an artist/writer could gain inspiration from.

So what made me think twice? People thinking their character is them, or on the flipside of that, having their character do things they would do, but their character most probably wouldn't. Or if they do, not having a good/any reason for it. For example, sitting in on a RP session one night (or depending on how you look at it, having this gathering of the socially inept and extremely loud sit-in on our movie night in the communal lounge), someone had this character that was supposedly an archer, but also used guns. Since I was having to hear this session whether or not I liked it, I figured I had the right to ask why someone would be both an archer and a gunman. Now, before I even asked, I thought up my own possible answers. Perhaps because arrows run out and it's more logical for this character to have a gun as his backup weapon since both are ranged weapons (transferable skill somewhat) than say, a sword. And besides, bullets/clips are easy to carry where extra bundles of arrows are not.

"He just is, okay? Jesus fuckin' Christ!" Yeah, ok, douchenuts. Seriously, if you want to vicariously be Robin Hood or Legolas and something out of a Jet Li movie at the same time, just admit it. And while you're at it, justify it with something that at least makes sense to this character who has to co-exist with other characters whose players struggle to suspend their disbelief as it is. It doesn't have to make sense for you to want to be several awesome things that contradict all at once (http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Divide_by_zero). You like what you like because you like it, and Jesus died so that you won't go to Hell for whatever your true motives probably are for liking it. Which is a shame, really, because when you got there, you'd see even this place you thought was a fairy tale, and very much resembles one in fact has an internal logic dictating all its actions.

Oh how true this post is.

:whee: I had to use this guy. Chriz made me.

[Vendetta]

I do a "Ok, here's the themes of the game, and here's what I expect from you."

I haven't had too many horror tales, since I run with my boyfriend, my roomate, and a online pal; but I know I've just got lucky.
Well basically you've already got a social contract. With strangers or people you don't know as well, I find it's best to sit down and actually discuss for 10-15 minutes what you as a GM expect of the players and what your players' expectations are for the game.

[LV426]

Only gaming issue I really had was one guy who would throw a fit when we took pee breaks. Apparently he expected us to just hold it for 9-10 hours.


The other guy was Eddie. Eddie always had to play a paladin or a jedi and yet had no idea how to play a real paladin or a jedi.

So sad.