>a devastating scene just happens
>one of them gets the great idea of trying to "lighten the mood" with a joke

>>96150683 (OP)
God forbid a game should be fun. Get over yourself faggot. Your """"story"""" isnt interesting or deep.

>>96150683 (OP)
You fail to understand the human heart OP and this is why you suck at DMing

>don't speak unless directly spoken to
>don't engage or make plans within the game
>don't take notes, need a refresher a few times per session
>barely understand the rules, checks out if someone tries to explain it

>>96150683 (OP)
Yeah, there are people who do that in response to devastating things happening to them in real life, too. People are people, no matter how much you might want them to be dramatic set pieces.

>>96150683 (OP)
What was the scene?

>>96150683 (OP)

>The contrarian(if it's a low-magic world they want to be the last sorceror or whatever)
>Lone wolf or any variety of "I'm not really part of the group, just traveling with these people for my own ends".
>Wants to rest or return to town after every single skirmish
>The NPC(runs away or wants to call the town guards/police/authorities whenever something bad happens)
>Pop culture spamming(that's what she said, dead alewives etc). A good joke is an amazing thing but these feel like verbal spam.

>>96150683 (OP)
>Things you hate
>players
Short thread. Let's pack it in.

>>96150683 (OP)
Not having their character behave as they should.
I know /tg/ gets bottom blasted when a player has their character do something retarded or dickish and say "It's what my character would do." However, I am of the opinion that is a very valid response. What is bad form is when the player doesn't expect fallout for that action.

As an example, I was playing a legitimate kleptomaniac in a game, so I was stealing shit constantly. Useless shit most of the time that nobody would give a fuck about like flowers in a vase on a shelf. Any time we changed scenes, venues, etc, the first thing I did was swipe something.

All well and good until you steal from a dragon's hoard with the dragon right the fuck there. Got caught. Said "I got a condition. I steal constantly. These other guys have no idea I am doing it. Don't hold them responsible." and was absolutely cool with getting roasted right on the spot and rolling a new character. The annoying players would demand they get away with their bullshit, expect the party to back them in up in a suicide move, and other unacceptable bullshit. Stinkfinger Steve stole the panties of a cloud giant once, getting blasted for trying to steal a fucking skull sized ruby while the dragon was looking directly at him was an appropriate death.

>>96151285
>I know /tg/ gets bottom blasted when a player has their character do something retarded or dickish and say "It's what my character would do." However, I am of the opinion that is a very valid response. What is bad form is when the player doesn't expect fallout for that action.
I believe the core of the "it's what my character would do" problem is entirely predicated on the admittedly-selfish prospect of it only affecting that guy or affecting anyone else in the group.

Have an example of not something I hate, but just the reality of playing with women

>run evil campaign
>have a party adopt a treacherous backstabbing szarkai (albino dark elf)
>the dark elf has repeatedly proven to be extremely selfish, evil and manipulative
>this lasts most of the campaign
>nearing the end of the campaign
>drow starts killing of NPCs (that I find mechanically useless OOC and dead weight)
>women players start literally crying
>"WHY WOULD SHE DO THIS?!"
>"WE WERE SO GOOD TO HER"
>Tell me the whole campaign ending was ruined for them

>>96152212
Now that's funny.

>>96152212
I've seen similar story before. It's almost as if there's a pattern...
Also if this is DnD or one of its derivatives bringing back dead NPC soon becomes just a minor inconvenience.

>>96150683 (OP)
The thing I've been dealing with lately is the DM having a friend who just cannot let anything go ever. Every single campaign he plays a vengeful asshole, but the slightest hint of anyone being an asshole back means the entire story is now about putting that person in their place. It's do fucking tiring, but he's friends with the DM so fuck me. Dude's ego is so fucking fragile its like playing with a teenage girl despite him being a grown-ass adult in his late 20s.

>>96150683 (OP)
>Be Me
>Tell players I want to run a game with a serious or grounded tone
>A few days pass
>Ask players how their characters are coming along
>Every single one is a joke character, last group I did this for one was a literal isekai character

Is finding good players supposed to be this hard? I have filtered through at least two dozen at this point. I know online play is garbage, but I live somewhere without many other options. I don't need Game of Thrones or mudcore, but for fucks sake I just want some players who can be a bit more serious than fucking Konosuba.

>>96152394
sturgeon's law and so on
you just have to get lucky and stumble on the guys that want the same shit as you
I got mine on the third try like 10 years ago on a gamefinder thread and am still playing with the same core group (some have come and gone, including a few shitters and the irony poisoned like that guy that wanted to initiate ERP with his veiled hitler joke character)

>>96152212
>"evil campaign"
Retarded.
>surprised women act like women
Retardeder.

>>96152212
I have two female players in my regular group, and their default response towards any female NPCs is extreme distrust, avoidance, and general bitchiness. That the two players get along with eachother genuinely surprises me, because they both seem to hate other women as a rule.

>>96150752
>le FUN
you're the kind of faggot who plays a rerarded gnome barbarian and acts fucking cringe and useless for the entirety of the game
I want to strangle people like you when I'm at the table but thankfully you always drop out cause you have the attention span of a goldfish

>>96152394
This was me in my last game. The pitch the GM sold us was "You're in a hell-blasted arid mountain continent, resources are scarce, you have to do caveman politics with others and make tough decisions about how to keep your town alive".
I built a gruff, serious orcish cavalryman. Come gameday, I was surrounded by cute little goblins, one of whom had some kind of schizophrenia about his pet snake. This sabotaged a meeting with an important polity when said snake decided to go firebomb their caravan.
But anon, you may ask. Logically, wouldn't the snake be controlled by the character who owns it?
Yes. Yes, it was. And he chose to have an in-character argument with himself via the snake, thoroughly fucking over the entire second half of our first session through a destructive fit of lolrandumb.

>>96152510
Queen Bee syndrome.
Women hate other women, outside of the ones of their own hive, more than anything else.

>>96151188
i have a player who's a contrarian/NPC
>in this game you play as over the top, exceptional people, you aren't gods or anything but you have the potential to-
>oh i'll play a cowardly everyman who runs away at the first sign of trouble and will contribute to any convo only by saying how scared or clueless he is

That one guy that always wants to play a different game. If everyone is down for a TTrpg night he wants to play cards, play cards he wants to play a wargame, play a wargame he wants to play monopoly.

>>96150752
>Your """"story"""" isnt interesting or deep
This, dm's need to stop acting like they're writing the next Lotr
>Noooo stop doing unexpected things during the game, you're ruining my hecking story
Shut the fuck up you hack it's a game not a novel

>>96150683 (OP)
My pet peeve will always be players who don't bother to have even a general understanding of the rules for the game they're playing, expecting either the GM or the other players to spoonfeed them the necessary rules, retaining nothing. Why even play TTRPGs if you have something against reading?

>>96152880
I saw Critical Role and Critcrab on YouTube, I basically know the entire game already. Remind me how I roll an attack though.

>>96151188
Maybe the lone wolf is doing a character arc thing where they'll eventually come to accept working with other people for a cause greater than themself...aw who am I kidding

>>96150752
>being too insecure to take the story seriously
Sad.

>>96152880
Between that and the Rules Lawyer which is worse?

>>96152604
>>96152946
Absolutely malding over a game. Sad.

>>96152212
>Buddy has a wife who wants to try playing D&D
>That's cool, man.
>She joins the game
>Current adventure has the villain being a female elf wizard who is abducting children to use as components for a dark ritual
>Party tracks her down
>The players beat her to death
>Buddy's wife is not cool with that at all and demands to leave
>He tells us later that male characters harming female characters was promoting violence against women and misogynistic values that were extremely problematic to her and she doesn't want him playing anymore
>He still plays though

Honestly one of the few encounters I have had with retarded SJW shit in the wild instead of online. As a general rule, spouses and girlfriends/boyfriends are welcome to play or just come over to game nights unannounced to verify that we are indeed just playing games and not using drugs, getting drunk, or cheating with other people. Other than nicotine and caffeine, our game nights are drug free and we don't tolerate being accessories to infidelity. One buddy's wife joined in and became a routine player that really got into playing barbarian type characters.

>>96152915
It's worse when the player takes on a mechanically-complex role, like playing a hacker-type character in either Cyberpunk or Shadowrun, without knowing how to even do any hacking in the game, and that's on top of the rules for hacking being notorious for slowing games to a crawl.
>>96152987
I believe that there are "degrees" to being a Rules Lawyer, with the lower end (i.e., players who love reminding everyone else about RAW) being more tolerable. It can certainly get to the point where it becomes intolerable, such as a player who actively fights with the GM and the other players over the rules, but, in my experience, I'd certainly take that kind of player over someone who knows absolutely nothing.

The player who doesn't make an attempt to learn even the most basic of rules is a player who I'm certain is not as invested in the game as they might claim to be and will drag the game down with their need to be instructed at every turn.

>>96152979
You can easily shut down a rules lawyer if you just put your foot down. Getting a lazy slob to read three to five pages of a book is harder.

>>96153065
>TFW the female players are the most violent two in my group, ESPECIALLY towards female enemies.

The metagame police always get way more annoying than actual metagamers. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that players would have learned basic lore about common monsters from other adventurers or share basic non-secret information between scenes. Like, don't you have anything better to do than constantly pumping the brakes to point out one of the PCs stepped was outside the camp when a conversation happened or insist we RP not knowing what a troll is?

>>96152394

Online play is like the equivalent of how public events at the LGS attract all the gross troll-creatures who couldn't find a prviate group but with the entire internet as your pool of players.

>>96152979
NTA, but rules lawyers are worse.
A player who doesn't learn the basics still has a chance of learning while playing and becoming competent over time. Most systems are actually really easy to learn once you understand the primary conflict resolution mechanic (d20 roll over, d100 roll under, etc) but some just stay retarded.

Rules lawyers are retarded 99 times out of 100. Damn near 100% of them are trying to break the game and using rules incorrectly. For example, we had a guy who had built his character around using Shadow Step to teleport behind enemies and get situational bonuses to backstab the hell out of them with his attacks. He got super fucking salty when it was explained he has to use a standard attack action to use extra attacks and Shadow Step cost that standard action. His entire broken ass build was revolving around not understanding basic rules. This was back in 3e and is still in effect in 5e and mother fuckers still keep getting it wrong.

>>96152672
I would leave the group out of embarrassment from seeing something like that. I don't know how you guys have such a high tolerance to this kind of shit.

>>96151285
I don't think people ought to design their characters to be the kind of retards who do ridiculously stupid things like that

>>96152510
>default response towards any female NPCs is extreme distrust, avoidance, and general bitchiness.
Ah thats an easy fix. Just make your female NPCs goth. Simple as.
>>96153065
Thankfully, I live in the Balkans so SJWs are few and far between.
>>96152300
This is why I mostly play/run low fantasy with resurrection banned. Best that can happen is short term animate dead. People really need to be taught not to get attached to characters

>>96153145
I don't view players knowing what monsters are as metagaming most of the time, unless they are in area they have never been before and it's local flora and fauna. Even then, if the character is some kind of academic, has other buddies that have been there, or some other excuse, a basic check to see if they might know it second hand as an free action is permissable. In Starfinder, it should be treated like the characters know what 99% of shit is because they would have access to Space Google and essentially have a fucking PokeDex on hand.

>>96153071
Meant to reply to >>96152979

>>96153149
>rules lawyer
>that doesn't read the rules
That's not a rules lawyer, it's just a retard.

>>96153172
What does making them goth have to do with anything?

>>96153149
>what's worse, a rules lawyer or a guy who doesn't retain rules over time
>well, if the guys who doesn't retain rules over time eventually does retain rules then the rules lawyer is worse
Riveting posts as usual /tg/

>>96153218
I have no idea but it worked for me and all the females I played with..

>>96151285
Have to agree with the others, and it leads me to mine:
>Player doesn't build their character's personality to engage with the game set in front of them and their fellow party members.
If I put a tree in front of you and say "Your current session's backstory is that you're in front of this tree to climb it," the absolute last thing that is going to endear me to you or your character is if you turn around and spend 20-30 minutes splashing in the river, or if you shit talk the NPC to get him to attack the party.

I know as a DM I'm expected not to railroad you, but the complete inverse is true. I expect you as a player to railroad yourself and only to go off the track when you have a great in-character reason for doing so and you understand it will not drastically alter the story in a negative way for your co-players.

>>96153307
I don't mind players avoiding prepared stuff to do something else that interests them, what I do mind is when they don't do FUCKING ANYTHING

>>96152987
You don't even play games, you're just here to be a rancid piece of shit.

>>96153345
And he still gets (You)s because fa/tg/uys can't stop themselves from feeding trolls even if their lives depended on it.

>>96152394
>>Tell players I want to run a game with a serious or grounded tone
>>A few days pass
>>Ask players how their characters are coming along
Did you give them anything other than “a serious or grounded tone” to work with? Setting details, major conflicts, backstory that their characters would be aware of? Or did you just say “more serious than usual, guys” and leave them to figure it out?

If you have a particular vision in mind for the kind of campaign you want to run, it’s your responsibility to communicate that to the players. That can mean providing them with background material, sitting down with them to workshop their character concepts while they’re in development, or dictating certain restrictions in advance. If you just send them off to make their characters with only vague instructions, there’s no reason to assume that they’ll be able to read your mind.

>>96153242
His main argument was people who didn't read or learn any rules with rule retention being a secondary qualifier.

The person who doesn't retain rules? Yeah, they didn't come to play games at all and just want to be in a group of people. Those guys are the worst because they actively steer shit away from why people got together in the first place.

When broken into guy who didn't learn shit vs rules lawyer? RL is worse.
RL vs hobby distracting shitheel? The latter is infinitely worse.

Got one worse than either of them though. The guy who DOES know a game, is good at the game, and is a dismissive and belittling douchebag to newbies trying to learn the game. Ran into a lot of these guys in MtG groups. Not tournament plays but casual groups where newbies were kinda common. Hobby bullies.

>>96150683 (OP)
Players inserting new-speak, zoom-speak or modern knowledge about our world world
I had a player having a kleptomaniac char and when he got caught in the act by a fucking dragon steeling from his hoard he literally went
>I got a condition. I steal constantly.
the midwit couldn't think of something fun and setting appropriate like
>I'm possessed by the demons
he had to go with modern lingo

>>96153149
You're describing a munchkin, not a rules laywer

>>96153612
>broken english
>reddit spacing
>incomprehensible point
Are jannies botting this board after they scared everyone away with overbearing moderation?

>>96152472
Yes, you are retardeder.

>>96152394
I feel like a lot of people see posts on social media about funny D&D characters and decide they want to try the same.
I have to wonder, are joke characters even fun to play? I can't imagine a joke that wouldn't get old quickly.

I was playing a game once and the guy with the joke character dropped from the campaign minutes into session 0 while the DM was giving a rundown on the world.

>>96153801
Most dnd 5e campaigns last a few sessions, it is in these environments that joke characters thrive

>>96153801
Joke characters are not fun to play because D&D 5e itself is not fun to play. The person you're replying to was playing 5e, I guarantee it. When the system sucks ass, people make joke characters in an attempt to squeeze some amount of fun out of a void that offers none.

>>96152831
>playing with group
>that one guy won't shut the fuck up about how we'd absolutely love playing another system
>it's always some lightweight/ultralight itch.io crap
>trying to substitute our wargame with this

>>96150752
I'm a fellow playoid and I hate Whedon quipshit, and I hate the people who badly imitate it even more. Go back to playing World of Warcrap.

>>96150683 (OP)
>have a player who has clearly shown that they struggle with playing mechanically complex characters
>every turn, let alone every session, they have to relearn their character
>among other things, this results in their turns taking a LONG fucking time, just for them to default to the same basic cantrip cast, just like every other turn
>they refuse to play anything other than mechanically complex characters
We once had a session where each round took an actual hour because of this.

>>96150683 (OP)
Write a book if you can't handle players acting out your plot up to and including how their characters react to events.

>>96153842
That is a fair point. Not sure how many jokes can last a few session tho

>>96153867
1. Why bother joining a 5E game in the first place if its so terrible?
2. What system would be better then?

>>96150683 (OP)
Showing more than 15 minutes late
Not announcing ahead they will skip the game
Inability to schedule their life with the sessions

Everything else is trivial bullshit when compared with those three

>>96154164
Nta, but top of the top of my head
>Why joining
The only game in the area, the only working schedule, the only group speaking same language, the only place you can get with ease (or get back after the game)...
>What system
Any system that isn't just DnD clone is going to be better than DnD. Even the shity ones

>>96150683 (OP)

>Playoids don't want to skim the rules or even watch a short YouTube lore video
>Alright, I guess I can gradually roll the lore out and teach the mechanics with a simple adventure ala a vidya tutorial level
>Playoids are still confused or get bored

>>96150752
Eat shit and die Whedon.

>>96152604
Tee Hee Hee, Macaroni Macaroni!

>>96150752
FPBP fags mad

>>96154105
If they could they would.

>>96154164
5efags have an INTENSE hatred for any other game/previous edition of D&D. Even discussing the possibility of playing something other than 5e makes them confused and fly into a wild rage.

OP is a fag for letting one player's comments to throw them into a bitchfit in the first place at all. What did you expect? An applause for your melodrama trash like some special-ed kid? I'd be insulted if I were praised for every single stupid thing I've made.

>>96150683 (OP)
Try running more interesting games.

>>96151188
All good.

>>96151285
Why do you choose to make characters that aren't appropriate for cooperative games?

>>96152394
>tell players I want to run a game that sucks, is boring, and isn't fun

Try making different choices.

>>96152604
Sorry you hate having fun.

>>96152672
Based, that player is good and you're trash

>>96152946
>being too insecure to have fun
Sad.

>>96152979
Why did you buy a rulebook if you don't want to use rules?

>>96153065
Why doesn't she have a problem with violence against men?

>>96153145
Why are you using monsters out of the book?

>>96153307
Why is there a track? If you want a story, write a book. Games aren't stories. If the players aren't free to make any conceivable choice, there's no reason for them to show up.

>>96153630
Condition is a D&D term, it's perfectly appropriate for the game.

>>96156724
Wrong. You will play the game I want to run. If that's a problem, leave. I can pick and choose my playoids, and you'll spend the next 6 months trying to find any GM willing to give you a crumb of game.

>>96157084
Nope, you'll do as you're told with a smile.

>>96152979
A good rules lawyer ensures that you're consistent in your rulings. Since they try to rely on the written and intended rules, all you need to do if you disagree with them is say that you're the DM and your word is law.

This isn't like actual legal practice, where a judge who makes a stupid ruling can get appealed.

>>96157421
Nope. The book overrules the DM.

>>96157465
Enjoy getting kicked out of your group

>>96157483
Nope, the group belongs to me.

>>96157485
So you're the DM?

>>96157499
No, I'm simply more powerful than all other human beings. You cannot kick me, and even if you had perfect access to all energy that has ever existed in the universe, you still wouldn't be able to move me a single nanometer.

>>96157508
Enjoy the entire group leaving you, then

>>96157511
How are they going to leave with no legs?

>>96156644
>Why
Random flaws make for more interesting roleplaying sessions. In a more serious, everything counts kind of game? Yeah, I'm playing that shit straight. Survival is hard enough as is. Shadow of the Demon Lord? I'm playing it straight because I will more than likely get fucked in the head through the game anyway. 5e? It's already power gaming story shit right out the gate. Even then, going for a character with flaws like that is only on the table with vets who also find such stuff interesting.

>>96157573
Stealing everything isn't a flaw, you just want to be a cunt because you're desperate for attention. Don't bother replying, I won't read it.

>>96157580
>Stealing everything
Not at all what I said.

>>96157515
they're gonna emotionally leave you

>>96157645
Nope, enslaved them with neuralink.

>>96157652
do they care for you if they're just a puppet saying what Elon thinks you want to hear? Can you grow as a person if your interactions are with husks that pretend to be people?

>>96157659
I don't need to grow, I'm already perfect in all ways.

>>96156724
>Why is there a track?
There isn't. You are in one town and the next town is labeled and marked clearly on the map, and I expect you to put the rails down and then drive yourself to that location because that is the task I spent 30 minutes building 32 minutes before the session started, and you are expected to build characters that want to build those tracks and go to that town or you will find yourselves trackless and townless in the middle of the woods without a DM.

>>96157861
So there is a track, then. Why?

>>96157909
What?

>>96158226
What, are you deaf as well as stupid as ugly? READ THE FUCKING POSTS.

>>96156724
Because not every GM is an ingenious master of improv able to come up with anything at a moment's notice, and there is only so much time in the day to be able to plan stuff out in.

>>96150683 (OP)
>funnyschizo copycat on /tg/
I've seen it all.

>>96158389
If you can't do your job, stop GMing.

>>96156724
You play with different GMs to get different experiences. Same reasson you watch movies from different directors. If every GM just acomodated the players you'd end up with people playing the same characters over and over again.

>>96158601
No. Games aren't stories.

>>96158626
You play table talk role playing games to have a board game? Most ttrpgs are bad board games sustained by a narrative.

>>96158665
Role playing games. Not role playing stories.

>>96158626
go be retarded somewhere else

>>96158670
You first.

>>96158230
WHAT? What the f-wait a minute...I'm white!

Ha. Ha ha.

Concession accepted.

>>96154035
>We once had a session where each round took an actual hour because of this
put the dude on a minute length hourglass or something holy fuck that is completely unacceptable

>>96150683 (OP)
>Partyface Maincharacter decides to split the party again so he can have yet another long solo scene
>He does this every session
>Even when the party is together, he takes over every social interaction and directly tells the rest of the party to stay quiet
>Decides most of our plans and battle strategies, treats party members' suggestions with suspicion
>Goes out of his way to clarify that he is intentionally preventing other characters from getting involved because they're dumber, clumsier, less charismatic, and less homosexual than him
I must be retarded. That's the only possible explanation for why I tolerate this game.

>>96150683 (OP)
Aside from the regular ghosting, being late, going AFK, there is:
>Trying to be the strong, silent type, but that translates to never contributing anything to a scene, unless being shot at.
>Complaining about player power differences. I don't mean the edge case, when someone can do everything and someone is plain useless, I mean fucking jealousy of what other PCs can, and ignoring what they are good at.
>Completely collapsing on the spot if they meet a challenge. This monster is taking more damage and hitting stronger than I thought? This door is not open? It's over, it's all over! We are doomed!
>Not knowing how to roll your skills, use abilities, and basic rules 5 sessions in.

>>96162011
desu if you're putting up with this every session instead of telling him to stop doing that then after a certain point it's just as much on you guys

>>96150752
FPWP

A lot of bad player habits can be cured once they DM a game.

>>96165512
In my experience bad players make even worse GMs. Still showing same disegard for order or consistency but now with much grater authority.

>>96162275
I generally agree with you, but I've been in the position of having someone take over a game and it kind catch you flat footed. I was already half out of a group, but the last couple months were just about the new player taking over everything and the DM fellating him. I talked with another player months later and he had also left beause the table vibe turned into each player having a solo game and that dude taking over 50% of the session.

I think there was some time to stop it before it became an issue, but if you jump the gun then you're the asshole telling others how to play and if you wait too long the general mood of everything has changed and you have to make it a confrontation and drama. Unless you really care about the people in that group outside of game or something it's easier to dip out.

>>96150752
FPBP

I can't really think of anything at the moment, I must be blessed with good players.

>>96165512
I have to agree with the other anon's reply. The last time I let a bad player run a game, he was just an even bigger menace. I had even swapped into his character and played his character as himself, and he kept punishing me doing what his character had historically done.