Obnoxious Player Moves

[CrosshairCollie]

This is just something that hacks me off right now.

I'm running the classic 'Microfilm Madness' scenario from the VIPER 4th Edition book, updated to 5th. It's the initial fight at the graveyard, and in the middle of the fight ... IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIGHT! ... one of my players requests to LOOK AT THE VIPER BOOK while I'm in the middle of running a fight out of it!!

I could not believe that anybody would have the sheer unbridled gall to ask me if they could, basically, look up the stats of the villain while they were in the middle of fighting them. The only other time anything of the sort happened, the PCs were fighting Firewing and one of them said, aloud, "Well, I won't use my AP attack, because he's got 20 hardened defenses." I was so ticked off at the blatant use of OOC information that I recomputed FW's defenses to be non-hardened, but the same overall point value. Probably not fair, but I was really upset.

Has anybody else ever had a player pull such an obnoxious, galling stunt during a game?

[Vondy]

Yes, and then I handed the player the book and let him look.

He was a newbie. He learned I change everybody before they make appearances in my game the hard way. The other players (who had been around for a while) had a hard time not breaking out in laughter as the player became increasingly confused and finally blurted out: that's not in his write up!

As for players using OOC knowledge -- I expect them to, which is why I perceive it to be my job to keep them on their toes and be unpredictable. Do it often enough and they conclude their OCC knowledge isn't reliable and stop doing it.

Its the nature of the beast.

[RevHooligan]

If you are running material players may have read, it is not only fair to tweelde the points around, but your responsibility. Your player seems like an idiot. You may want to change when you play and forget to tell him.

When I ran a 50 person White Wolf LARP, I changed the WW mythology as I saw fit. My werewolves weren't furry ecoterrorists and my mages weren't F''ing with reality. I had constant arguments about what powers antagonists had. "But the book says" was offically declared a conversation ender. As soon as I heard it, I just walked away and ignored the player.

[J4y]

I briefly played DnD with some people like that. They made it a point to know all the monsters and min-max their characters. The GM couldn't use the monster manuals because the other players would use the knowledge even though they knew not to. They expected the GM to change things. *sigh*

Another thing they'd do is use information they didn't have about the situation they were in. If half the party was fighting for instance the other half who were off somewhere else would suddenly for no reason rush to their aid despite the characters having no way of knowing WTF is going on. They'd also stop in the middle of action and talk about strategy for half an hour all the time, so they could perfectly co-ordinate. It could take 3+ hours to kill a couple of zombies it was so silly, and the GM did nothing.

[Dr. Necropolis]

In our current campaign, I was stuck in the reverse situation. Our gm almost always uses published villains, and being a total Hero product geek, I pretty much know every character's general stats, relative power levels, special effects...

But I was the only player in the group with this level of knowledge (geeky obsessiveness) so rather than force me to play dumb all the time, or change the way he liked to run adventures, we decided that my character was a complete metahuman fanboy, constantly reading metahuman gossip magazines, watching superfights on the news, and generally keeping apprised of current metahumans (game effects: knowledge skills Known Metahumans and Metahuman Abilities.)
It works great because it fits my character's personality.

I guess my point was that there's always room for compromise. Unless your players are just being pricks and busting your chops. Then cut them loose.

[Klytus]

This is the main reason I almost never use pre-published materials in my Champs games. There are some character concepts that I like so much I import - like Thunder and Lightning - but I always tweak them to my taste.

D&D, on the other hand... its too much work to do custom stuff. I just have to endure players knowing the basics of some monsters - which is why they run into so many PC-class badguys or things like Ogres with levels in fighter. :D

Always keep 'em guessing.

[DocMan]

Bad Player! Bad! Bad! Bad!

It's a ROLEPLAYING GAME! Just because you have OOC knowledge doesn't mean you can use it.

I'm usually very good about keeping character knowledge and OOC knowledge separate. I've even walked my characters into ambushes I've seen a mile away because MY character didn't have the one piece of info that would have made the trap obvious. Of course, usually one of the other characters has that piece of info but isn't mentioning it. We've actually had games stall because the GM was expecting my character to do something and the GM forgot that action was based on OOC knowledge.

Sometimes it seems like I'm constantly asking the GM "what do I know?" because either I'm not sure my character is aware of some piece of knowledge, or because I think the character should know, but the GM never informed me.

To punish that character, I suggest making a string of villians w/ the names of popular heros.

Have more fun! Create a band of villians with the same names as the PC's! Copyright Wars!

Doc

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Klytus

D&D, on the other hand... its too much work to do custom stuff. I just have to endure players knowing the basics of some monsters - which is why they run into so many PC-class badguys or things like Ogres with levels in fighter. :D

Always keep 'em guessing.

I've found describing mosters without using the name (if they've never seen an ogre how do they know its an ogre) can throw players off -- and even scare them.

[winterhawk]

"He can't do that, I've seen his sheet!"

I had one player in an old, bad campaign who utilized this as his battle cry. It got to the point where I started penalizing experience at the utterance.

[TheEmerged]

I'm fond of the "Paranoia" solution to this one.

"And how did you learn this secret information, Citizen? From your commie conspirator allies, perhaps?"

Of course, well over half my material is straight homebrew -- and the other half is usually official characters varied to my own tastes. If a published character happens to take the name of an established homebrew chracter, homebrew wins. Best example of this is "Victory" from Champions Universe; I have a longstanding NPC with this name, AKA the Nova Cheerleader. As such, the Victory of the NeoChampions campaign carries pompoms (of 11d6 NND, complete with Two-Weapon Fighting).

[Dauntless]

Ahhhhh, Paranoia :)

A line like that follwed by a cackling laughter is usually more than enough to set most players straight, and if they are REALLY dense penalize them by giving them harder villains to fight or worse not giving them any experience points (that's my favorite...afterall, XP is to reward roleplaying and overcoming challenges, "cheating" in this manner should void all XP).

Let the players know that using OOC knowledge will penalize their XP and most of them will stop. If some loser keeps doing it and complaining, it's simple...don't allow him in your campaign.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie
...The only other time anything of the sort happened, the PCs were fighting Firewing and one of them said, aloud, "Well, I won't use my AP attack, because he's got 20 hardened defenses." I was so ticked off at the blatant use of OOC information that I recomputed FW's defenses to be non-hardened, but the same overall point value. Probably not fair, but I was really upset.

Has anybody else ever had a player pull such an obnoxious, galling stunt during a game?

Just a brief comment - I think rewriting on the spot in reaction was entirely fair.

I've never seen anything quite as you described but pretty much because I don't use published characters. Most players I've had have been very good about not using OOC info, but a few have. I have found it easy to just say, in a friendly way of course, "Come on, how would your guy know that?" Sometimes they actually have a good reason, other times they go, "Oh yeah, I guess they wouldn't." Then again, other times, I forget myself.

Did you ask the player, "Wait, why are you looking at that? Your character wouldn't have the info, I think it would be better if you stayed away from it."

[Hermit]

Ugh. Metagaming, let he without sin cast the first stone, most of us have done it at least once- if not deliberately then accidentally, but yeah, it's a pain.

My crew is pretty good, and small to boot so it's not a trouble. They don't look at the stats of villains for fear I'll see it as a sign they're willing to GM themselves and I get to take a breather for once ;)

There have been times when I've seen the a##kicking for my character coming, known about it OOC, looked down at the 'Overconfident' lim , and not only walked into it, I ran full tilt because that's what my character would do.

Frankly, I prefer to offer carrots more than sticks. When a Player sets their character up despite their OOC info, I consider it good RP and they get that bonus Exp.

[BoloOfEarth]

Originally posted by Hermit
They don't look at the stats of villains for fear I'll see it as a sign they're willing to GM themselves and I get to take a breather for once ;)


ROFLMAO! Do you think, if I leave my books lying around, one of them might fall into the trap and let me play for a while?

I don't have a problem with OOC knowledge because (a) half of my players barely know the rules, let alone the villains, and (b) the other half are good enough roleplayers to avoid using too much OOC knowledge.

Actually, they don't even use OOC knowledge about each other's characters. I ran a battle between the heroes and Cy-Force (rewritten for Fifth Edition rules), and at one point a character initiated his self-destruct (don't ask) by announcing, "Team evacuate. Self-destruct initiated." Even though most of the players knew he couldn't actually explode, they faltered and some acted as if they thought he might.

My only problem, and it wasn't intentional on the players' parts, was when I changed Champions campaigns. Their old characters had crossed swords with Mechanon, the Ultimates, etc. but their new characters hadn't. Yet they not only acted as if they had battled them before and knew their powers, the new player characters even said some of the same taunts as their old characters. It was just a little mental slipup.

[Kristopher]

As a sometimes GM and a voracious reader with a good memory, I tend to have a lot of the game world in my head.

I know that one of my weaknesses as a player is that I can't set my character up for what I know is going to be a nasty fall, so I typically spend the points for stuff that justifies the character knowing a lot about the setting, etc, so that I'm not abusing OOC knowledge so much when I can't help but act on what I know. This saves up my "benign ignorance" for the things that my character simply could not know.

[Le Schtroumpf]

Fighter Player buys and reads D&D module.
Fighter Player diseminates knowledge to party of what and where the cool magic items are.
Thief Player makes a grab for the robe of blending before one particular battle even ends.
Puree!

I would have prefered to cap the fighter, but while he may have been a jerk the thief was too damn obvious to let live.

[J4y]

Mmm, this happened to a couple of friends, amazingly, they stayed friends... The two spent weeks putting together a huge point battle Star Fleet Battles game, with multiple races, customized ships, the works. It was going to take hours to do each turn. They finally got things together, setup, energy allocations done, drones launch, plasmas charging and during the first turn the one guy uses his legendary captain ability to bluff... ending the battle... They stayed friends, but I don't think they ever played SFB again.

[Gary Ciaramella]

Originally posted by J4y
Mmm, this happened to a couple of friends, amazingly, they stayed friends... The two spent weeks putting together a huge point battle Star Fleet Battles game, with multiple races, customized ships, the works. It was going to take hours to do each turn. They finally got things together, setup, energy allocations done, drones launch, plasmas charging and during the first turn the one guy uses his legendary captain ability to bluff... ending the battle... They stayed friends, but I don't think they ever played SFB again.

Well... that was moronic... and if the bluffing player insisted on ending the game like that after so much effort and time, I would not be able to stay friends with him... that type of person would just not be someone that I could understand.

[CrosshairCollie]

Originally posted by zornwil
Did you ask the player, "Wait, why are you looking at that? Your character wouldn't have the info, I think it would be better if you stayed away from it."

Unfortunately, no, I was so shocked at the unbridled gall of it that I rather indignantly and condescendingly stated, "No, you can't look at the book I'm running the game out of while I'm running it," with that tone of voice that basically attaches' you idiot' onto the end of it.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie
This is just something that hacks me off right now.
... one of my players requests to LOOK AT THE VIPER BOOK while I'm in the middle of running a fight out of it!!I can understand how you feel. Most players are at least less brazen about it.

The time it annoyed me most was in a Call of Cthulhu game where another player kept talking about the monster stats/abilities. It didn't really affect the fights but it was severely detrimental to the atmosphere, I thought.

The ideal solution to this whole problem is, I guess, either good roleplayers who won't use OOC information or players who don't read the books. That allows you to use the published material without the effort of changing everything.

Part of the problem is that the players that really like Champions, the ones that are most motivated to play in your games, are also the players most likely to know all the stats.

Speaking personally though as a player I always prefer the GM to create his own worlds and characters. I find it more exciting when the villains are new and unfamiliar.

[Mentor]

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie
This is just something that hacks me off right now.

I'm running the classic 'Microfilm Madness' scenario from the VIPER 4th Edition book, updated to 5th. It's the initial fight at the graveyard, and in the middle of the fight ... IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIGHT! ... one of my players requests to LOOK AT THE VIPER BOOK while I'm in the middle of running a fight out of it!!

I could not believe that anybody would have the sheer unbridled gall to ask me if they could, basically, look up the stats of the villain while they were in the middle of fighting them. The only other time anything of the sort happened, the PCs were fighting Firewing and one of them said, aloud, "Well, I won't use my AP attack, because he's got 20 hardened defenses." I was so ticked off at the blatant use of OOC information that I recomputed FW's defenses to be non-hardened, but the same overall point value. Probably not fair, but I was really upset.

Has anybody else ever had a player pull such an obnoxious, galling stunt during a game? I would have just told the player "No". There are PD values on the villain costumes nor UNTIL write ups of "characteristics" Tell 'em what they perceive and go from there.

[BlacKlily]

I have a player that both upstarts me and my other players. I am very close to telling him to leave, which could cause problems with another player his wife.
This player read anything he knows you have for source material and also game lawyers. Problem is when he game lawyers he read only part of the ruling or explanation mid combat. This often forces me to stop and pull out the book to check the full then have to pass it around to all players to prove I am right.
Next he reads and makes notes on all villains out of any source book he thinks I have, I told the players in the beginning to not count on the villain write ups because I will be adjusting them for my campaign and the safest info for those with KS about villains and mutants should consult me with a roll not the books.
He throws fits when a villain uses something not in the books and often halts the game with his arguments. I am still working around it and the player now back me instead of him on rulings but it is still irritating.

[don]

It's difficult to avoid meta-gaming, but goodness, to embrace it like this guy did? That's an impressive set of brass ones, I must say.

Granted, I've done similar things to what others on the board have mentioned about making my knowledge somewhat accessible to my character, if appropriate to the concept.

The most blatant version of this was in the LARP I play. I had lost my character of over a decade, and was making a new one. Now I have a memory like a sieve for small details, and I KNEW that there was no way I was going to keep track of what I knew, what my previous character knew, and what my knew character would end up knowing. So, as he was a young man with visions of starlight in his eyes, viewing the other adventurers as the greatest heroes of the day (he's really starstruck and naive, it's entertaining), I decided he had been told a lot about things in the area. One of the skills I bought my character, as a result, was Ravenholt Lore, so that I could know everything (or nearly so) my previous character knew.

It's actually been fun unnerving the other characters (and players at times) with this knowledge.

Don

[Vondy]

Originally posted by BlacKlily
I have a player that both upstarts me and my other players. I am very close to telling him to leave, which could cause problems with another player his wife.
This player read anything he knows you have for source material and also game lawyers. Problem is when he game lawyers he read only part of the ruling or explanation mid combat. This often forces me to stop and pull out the book to check the full then have to pass it around to all players to prove I am right.
Next he reads and makes notes on all villains out of any source book he thinks I have, I told the players in the beginning to not count on the villain write ups because I will be adjusting them for my campaign and the safest info for those with KS about villains and mutants should consult me with a roll not the books.
He throws fits when a villain uses something not in the books and often halts the game with his arguments. I am still working around it and the player now back me instead of him on rulings but it is still irritating.

I would do the following:

1. Inform everyone that you will make the best good faith ruling on the fly in session, and that you will entertain rules discussions after or before the session, not during. Then, unless you yourself want a question answered, leave FRED closed.

2. Inform the players (again) that you reserve the right to edit any write-up you use from published materials and that you have, in fact, changed absolutely bloody everything.

3. Inform the players that blatant metagaming will result in reduced experience awars -- and then follow through.

4. Next time he becomes disruptive tell him "you are welcome to discuss that with me after the session" and then proceed with the game. If he continues -- ignore him.

5. Start using write ups from the books with make-overs. Use the stats, but change the names, appearance, and maybe even the SFX. If he can't identify them he can't refer to his notes -- even if their in his notes.

6. If you know the wife better than you know him you might speak to her about it. Tell her you value her participation, that you'd like for her husband to keep coming too, but that he needs to get on the same page as everyone else and then ask her for her advice. She may handle it for you.

My only concern with number 6 is that I prefer to hash things out "man to man" or "man to woman" as the case may be. Sometimes its good to just snap and get everything out in the open.

For example --

"Okay, that cuts it. I'm sick and tired of your disruptive behavior and incessant metagaming. Stop interrupting the session to dispute good faith rulings. Stop interrupting the session to argue about characters that have been edited. There's a time and a place and this isn't it. I will entertain your rules questions and your complaints out of session. If you can't live with that... well, don't let the door hit you on the way out."

[Tech]

Originally posted by D-Man
"Okay, that cuts it. I'm sick and tired of your disruptive behavior and incessant metagaming. Stop interrupting the session to dispute good faith rulings. Stop interrupting the session to argue about characters that have been edited. There's a time and a place and this isn't it. I will entertain your rules questions and your complaints out of session. If you can't live with that... well, don't let the door hit you on the way out."

I hope this doesn't come from personal experience, D-Man. I'm glad to say I haven't run into this much, actually only rarely.

[Blue]

I had a player once who had literally EVERYTHING in the book. I mean, if there was a skill or power, he had it on his character. Obviously he had a fear of having to roleplay and wanted to just have roll for any situation that came up.

He only played one game with us. My players knew the risks and yet begged me to let him in. After the game session, in which he managed to destroy cities (thinking he was funny, forgetting he's supposed to be heroic), kill villains, and generally screw up the campaign world, I turned to my players after he left...

"This game never happened, and next time we don't call this guy to play."

They both agreed, and for the next three years I played champions with only two players.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Tech
I hope this doesn't come from personal experience, D-Man. I'm glad to say I haven't run into this much, actually only rarely.

In 23 years of gaming I have had 3 disruptive players in games I've run. I haven't had any in the past seven years. Its rare, but you do run across one occasionally. In two of those cases the players elected to meet the expectations and turned out to be positive additions. In one case I asked them to leave.

In games I haven't run... lets just say some groups are better than others.

[BlacKlily]

I really appreciate your reply. It helped me go from pissed off and really leery of this next game where team work will be crucial to my player to some real good logical steps, some of which I can do today before the game tomorrow.
My husband already asked him to leave his game and his wife still plays, but the player bombed both my husband's email and the group site for three weeks straight and we were force to remove him off our game site log.
The player has a habit of really making these things personal.

[umbra]

Originally posted by BlacKlily
I really appreciate your reply. It helped me go from pissed off and really leery of this next game where team work will be crucial to my player to some real good logical steps, some of which I can do today before the game tomorrow.
My husband already asked him to leave his game and his wife still plays, but the player bombed both my husband's email and the group site for three weeks straight and we were force to remove him off our game site log.
The player has a habit of really making these things personal.

Hmmm, I've met some peeps like this in the past, and I hate to say it, they tend to act that way because I'm female.... Maybe that's happening to you. Really, it's not just me, they would treat anyone with boobs that way (and have), by really trying to bluster and fuss so loud and long to try to get you to give in to them. The funny thing is when they have male GM's they shut up.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by umbra
Hmmm, I've met some peeps like this in the past, and I hate to say it, they tend to act that way because I'm female.... Maybe that's happening to you. Really, it's not just me, they would treat anyone with boobs that way (and have), by really trying to bluster and fuss so loud and long to try to get you to give in to them. The funny thing is when they have male GM's they shut up.

I hate to burst your bubble on this one but if you read her post its pretty clear that he had the same problem with her husband, who is presumably male, who booted him out of his game.

There are men such as you describe in the universe, but its not always the best course to immediately assume the issue is sex or gender bias. It quite frequently is something else entirely.

He didn't shut up with a male GM (the husband): he decided to bump chests and lost. Now he's moved onto the next GM. I've had a few players who bumped chests with me over the years. The fact that I'm male didn't stop them.

This guy has bigger problems than gender bias. He has general behavior issues that indicate a deeper emotional turmoil he needs to address in his life.

Pointing the PC finger at him won't stop the problem. It requires a rational and fair approach that can, if it fails, leave the GM with a good conscience when they say:

Don't come back.

[umbra]

I'm sorry, from her first post it sounded like she was the GM, not her husband, if she wasn't never mind.

[Karma]

Originally posted by RevHooligan
When I ran a 50 person White Wolf LARP, I changed the WW mythology as I saw fit. My werewolves weren't furry ecoterrorists and my mages weren't F''ing with reality. I had constant arguments about what powers antagonists had. "But the book says" was offically declared a conversation ender. As soon as I heard it, I just walked away and ignored the player.
I suppose that's O.k. if you tell eveeryone that you've changed the mythos and probably you shouldn't call it WoD. The problem with this attitude is that many people will use their knowledge of the mythgos to base their RP on, not because its OOC but because much of the mythos is IC. Werewolves 'know' they are fighting to save the world from destruction, Mages 'know' that reality is consensually based and 'if you believe enough you can do anything' so unless you described exactly waht the differences in the mythos were it was you who was being obnoxious about things. They may have been prefixing the sentence "In the book it says blah, so is that correct in the game or is it something different?" and by telling them to 'talk to the hand' you've simply made them continue to rely on their inaccurite knowledge.

Of course if they were complining about the powers they were supposed to have then more power to you.

[Enforcer84]

We had a guy like this (read all the modules before hand) in a group that I played with. I gamed with these ladies and gentleman for about 4 months, I was an elven ranger who was nobility and often picked on by the more expierienced characters...I started at 1st level they were all about 7th or 8th.
Anyway, everytime we went into a canned dungeon (the gm had his own world but often used existing adventures) this guy would run off on his own and get treasures he knew were out there. The DM would grumble but he never really did anything about it. I was getting pretty ticked because even though we passed notes to the DM it wasn't hard to see what he was doing.
So I started to talk to the other players about how his charactger always disappeared, and always seemed to have more money and cool things than the rest of us. They had known but never really worried about it, but their characters were upset. It was a roleplaying thing for them. I basically convinced them that he was stealing from us and that he might be working for our enemies (always disappearing and stuff). So we lynched his character after finding all sorts of magic items on his person.
The player left shortly afterwards.

[Karma]

I usually don't have this problem, I'm the 'keeper of the books' for the system I run and even if there is an argument I just say 'golden rules (1. the GM is always right, 2. when the GM is wrong see rule 1) and put up with no argument. Since I'm like that from the get go the players understand me. Sometimes I'll look up the argued rule later and discover I'm wrong and then apologise to the player next time, but during the game 'My Word Is Law'.
As for my own metagaming, I've been in situations where I have had knowledge of attributes etc. in my memory (I never look up the book during the game). For these situations I have the 'Metagame' skill ("Villian Lore" whatever) which I ask to roll to see whether I can use my knowledge. If I make it I say or do something that relies on my metaknowl;edge but sounds like its IC "I've heard he has specially hardened armor we should put more force into our attacks." If I don't make the roll then I keep my fool mouth shut and use a generic attack until I 'discover' that it isn't working.

[AnotherSkip]

Heh to give you an idea of how bad i was about AD&D 1st edition this really happened:

Gm Opens MM book where I can't see it.
He points at a critter (keep in Mind I dont even have the page #)
that I still cannot see.
He tells me "-8 AC, what is it's hit dice?"
I tell him "16"
He says" your wrong, its 200 hitpoints"
I respond with "The DMg Maxes out it's Thaco Chart at 16+ HD, all Greater Deamons with listed hit points fight at 16+ HD level according to the DMG... and since you told me it has 200 hitpoints it's Demogorgon on page 16 or 17...."

that forever made me in that group for any rules questions.

[BlacKlily]

For Referance I am the Gm of both a scarred Lands and also a champions game.
We game twice a week with me and my husband alternating weeks on who game it is. He is just running a D%D game now.

[umbra]

Originally posted by BlacKlily
For Referance I am the Gm of both a scarred Lands and also a champions game.
We game twice a week with me and my husband alternating weeks on who game it is. He is just running a D%D game now.

Just wondering, did he treat you differently then he treated your husband when your husband GM'ed? Not trying to start an gender flame war, just interested in the guy's psychology.

[tmutant]

I guess I've been lucky. OOC knowledge has rarely been an issue in the games I've played or run as GM. I've always made it clear from the beginning that OOC is tabboo, though, because that was how I was brought into roleplaying by my first GM. In Champions, I've had my character recklessly attack Juggernaut because he had overconfident, and had no way to know it was Juggernaut. After recovering at GM's option, he called for help.:D

[Al_Beddow]

Originally posted by Klytus
D&D, on the other hand... its too much work to do custom stuff. I just have to endure players knowing the basics of some monsters - which is why they run into so many PC-class badguys or things like Ogres with levels in fighter. :D

That's why when I have problem players using OOC when IC, I do things like..
- give the monster a few more hit die
- Modify their natural attacks
- change the color so it looks like a new variant
- NEVER confirm or deny misconceptions on the players parts.

This last one is a great when used right. I was running a HM game pitting the characters agains "Orc Brigands." Now what the PC's had "heard" (read what the experianced players "remembered" is that "all orcs hate sunlight/bright light". I secretly made wisdom rolls for them and since most of them made it, confirmed that by saying "yep, you remember that the average orc hates sunlight/bright light."

Based on what they "remembered" they chose to attack the orcs just after sunrise so they would be groggy AND affected by the sunlight.

NOTE: Orc Brigands DON'T suffer from this. :D

Boy were THEY surprised!

[CrosshairCollie]

Or, better yet ...

"Hey, why are all those Orc Brigands wearing Ray-Bans?"

[zornwil]

Originally posted by BlacKlily
I really appreciate your reply. It helped me go from pissed off and really leery of this next game where team work will be crucial to my player to some real good logical steps, some of which I can do today before the game tomorrow.
My husband already asked him to leave his game and his wife still plays, but the player bombed both my husband's email and the group site for three weeks straight and we were force to remove him off our game site log.
The player has a habit of really making these things personal.

Sounds like his wife is in a really awkward position, I feel sorry for her.

[proditor]

I've been very lucky with my players in Table top. So far, I haven't yet hit a single determined rules lawyer or OOC fiend. Part of this has been taking a long time before adding anyone to my group on a permanent basis, part of it has been my speech (see below) but the lion's share has been a huge helping of pure luck.

I find the following speech works pretty well when starting with a new group though.

"I'm the GM. That means what I say goes. If you think I did something wrong or got a rule wrong, NICELY explain your point of view to me. After you have stated your case, I'll make a ruling on the spot. Sometimes it will be in your favor, sometimes it will not. BUT the matter is closed until the end of the session. If we spend the next hour arguing over the rules, no one has fun. And since that is the only reason I do this, it won't be allowed to happen."

Yes, it's pretty draconian, but after the first session most folk realize that this is about the only thing I am draconian about when I run a game. My main concern is for all of us to have fun and to tell a good story. Arguing facing for 2 hours achieves neither of those two goals. ;)

As a sidenote, I staff on a MUX and OH LORDIE WHAT A DIFFERENT BEAST! I can match (and in some cases surpass) most of the stated horror stories on here. Of course, my online mantra has become "Why would I run for some of these people when in RL, I'd kick them out of my apartment?"

[Farkling]

A pont to AnotherSkip:

I am the rules lawyer for the group I GAME with. It's strange, I can handle superheoric/cyberpunk games just fine, but my Exalted games feel like Machiavellian Mage...I just don't seem to GM actual Anime sword 'n' Sorcery well. Our current GM does, but doesn't get all the nuts n bolts. If someone wants to use a Charm (read that as Power) in a way he doesn't think applies, he checks his index, and asks me to look it up. I understand the rules really well, and interp just as well. Such is the group opinion. Heck, White Wolf is a piece of cake next to HERO.

On the HERO side of it, I butted heads with the last GM I played with. He did NOT give me a listing of the house rules, and if he'd told me it was a Silver Age romantic campaign up front, I never would have played. Two of the players were very, um Bronze to Iron though...so I thought it was a Bronze or Iron gamee. I opted to spend my defense allotment on SPD and got to play a bona-fide speedster. That was a blast, that character concept hasn't shined so much since he was an NPC in 3rd edition days. I even spent 30 pts on the Transform to do Superspeed effects in an area.
Anyway, to reflect my knowledge of the rules, and that I frequently will figure DCV's in my head from the hit/miss rolls (combat is so sloooow in his HERO games), I bought a KS:Metahumans and a SC:Powers and SC:Power Suppression. Eidetic memory, Rapid senses (x100), and other sundry support to reflect how slow the world "seemed" to the speedster.

I need to get this off my chest...
<begin rant> I quit playing shortly after I was smacked down by GM fiat. Rapid senses, no PER roll (17-), and knocked unconscious by a power application that was PUBLIC knowledge, visible, and well documented to the heroes and superhuman databases of the game universe. Everyone knew except the metahuman expert who was established as a Stronghold consultant. Wasn't even given a chance to notice the attack and run. That would've been much more dramatic than knocking me unconscious for a few hours (real time, not game time).
His excuse? Planting explosives in the sewer tunnels under the villains warehouse headquarters wasn't heroic, so I was punished. The character had a Hatred of the leader, a dislike for the villains, and was trying to protect the city from the nefarious plot. The evacuation of the few people in the area was even arranged. One of the heroes was even helping him!
<end rant>
Ooops. Sorry. My apologies. That shouldn't be bothering me so much...it was just a game after all. It is just so exasperating to be punished for playing IN character, especially if you are an experienced GM.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by BlacKlily
I have a player that both upstarts me and my other players. I am very close to telling him to leave, which could cause problems with another player his wife.
This player read anything he knows you have for source material and also game lawyers. Problem is when he game lawyers he read only part of the ruling or explanation mid combat. This often forces me to stop and pull out the book to check the full then have to pass it around to all players to prove I am right.
Next he reads and makes notes on all villains out of any source book he thinks I have, I told the players in the beginning to not count on the villain write ups because I will be adjusting them for my campaign and the safest info for those with KS about villains and mutants should consult me with a roll not the books.
He throws fits when a villain uses something not in the books and often halts the game with his arguments. I am still working around it and the player now back me instead of him on rulings but it is still irritating. Tell him to stop, and the next time he does it ask him to leave the table.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Blue
I had a player once who had literally EVERYTHING in the book. I mean, if there was a skill or power, he had it on his character. Obviously he had a fear of having to roleplay and wanted to just have roll for any situation that came up.

He only played one game with us. My players knew the risks and yet begged me to let him in. After the game session, in which he managed to destroy cities (thinking he was funny, forgetting he's supposed to be heroic), kill villains, and generally screw up the campaign world, I turned to my players after he left...

"This game never happened, and next time we don't call this guy to play."

They both agreed, and for the next three years I played champions with only two players. Champions can be extremely fun with just 2 players. You can pull off Cloak & Dagger, Power Man and Iron Fist, even Batman & Robin (if 1 player doesnt mind being less points) or other Dynamic Duo type adventures....

[BlacKlily]

I never mess around with house rules. In respect to another rules Lawyer
(two I will call him) in my campaign who will hold his rules complaints off until after the game and brings the book with him and shows me his problems with my interpretations of the rules. I always do a type copy of the house rules for each player.
I wish that my other rule lawyer (the obnoxious game halter one) was more like the other one, because rule lawyer Two will at least wait until games end, and find all the rules he disagrees with to both show me and discuss them. Sometimes he is right and sometimes I am right, and sometimes it is open to interpretation, and he can accept that...too bad he cannot train the other rules lawyer in that.

[Arandmoor_Keet]

I used to play with a group of powergamers and left when the line "my LOWEST stat is an 18" was uttered in a D&D game that had been converted from ADND to 3rd ed.

The final straw was a fight against some undead that, and I quote, "should send everyone...even that panzy dwarf...running for their mommeys!". My elven fighter/mage just sat there and let the dwarf paladin (lowest stat 18 guy) kill everything after I missed one of them on a flanking attack rolling a 19. That was the LAST time I ever played with them.

Arandmoor

"If you ever hear the words 'Central Casting'...run like hell!"

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by proditor
I can match (and in some cases surpass) most of the stated horror stories on here. Tell! Tell!

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by Arandmoor_Keet
"If you ever hear the words 'Central Casting'...run like hell!" What's bad about Central Casting? I haven't used the books myself, but I was trying to find the superhero one a while back.

[proditor]

Originally posted by Doug McCrae
Tell! Tell!

It's a DND MUX, so....

We had the sorcerer who insisted she could lob 400 arrows in one attack with the telekinesis spell, each of them doing 1d8 damage. (The actual rule is 1 arrow per caster level)

We have the folk who want to make Prestige classes that are a combination (all abilites and a few more for good measure) of wizard and cleric.

We had the player who insisted I was trying to tell him how to run his PC when I informed him "You realize, if you try and stab that vampire, there is a good chance you'll hit the PC holding it in her arms". Funny, I thought my job as a DM was pointing out the possible repurcussions so that the PC didn't accuse me later of shoehorning them into bad actions...

Daily we have people who use the perform skill in rooms with no audience since they found a loophole in the code that means you can apparently get gold from heaven for a performance.

We had people abusing the CR system so that they were taking 18th level PC's on adventures with 1st level PC's so that they could fight something midway in between their levels and both would benefit. (Normally an 18th level character gets nothing in XP from a CR9 encounter, and a 1st level PC would just get slaughtered).

We had the guy with 5 stats at 14+ who dumped his INT to 6. After making this choice, he decided her got "cheated" by the rolls and actively tried to get other players killed becuase his initial stat rolls weren't high enough. (This is the same guy who insisted he deserved a +5 STAT increase book due to his "excellent RP of an INT 6 PC." He was 3rd level and asking for an item appropos for 18th+ level PC's). Now it all made more sense when he told us that in his TT game he got +5 books and +6 items for EVERY STAT at 1st level because his buddy was the king of the elves....

On the rules lawyering...well, I deliver the same speech at the start of every scene I run. I also let folk know that if they spend the time arguing during a plot, they face expulsion from the plot and the chance that I will never run for them again. Knowing the rules is a good thing. But, there are too many instances when a good GM has already considered what the rules lawyer is going to argue and made a judgement. That should be the end of it. On a MUX especially where any conversation is per force MUCH longer in duration because people have to type and this slows things to a crawl. If someone told me that they were leaving a game because they thought that I had cheesed them on a rule, without knowing the why, well, I'd hold the door for them and let them go with a smile on my face.

Basically, if you can name a rules hole in 3.0, they found it and exploited it for all it was worth.

[Farkling]

I'm with Doug....what's so bad about central casting?
I find it top be really useful for people with no idea HOW to create a character background....

[lemming]

Originally posted by Doug McCrae
What's bad about Central Casting? I haven't used the books myself, but I was trying to find the superhero one a while back.
It's bad if you take everything literally. Just like with any random generation method. I've got the full set and they're fun distractions.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by proditor
We had the sorcerer who insisted she could lob 400 arrows in one attack with the telekinesis spell, each of them doing 1d8 damage. (The actual rule is 1 arrow per caster level)Ouch! Now we're firmly in the realm of the superhero.

[CrosshairCollie]

For the player who complains when villains do things that aren't on their character sheets ...

Tell him villains get XP too.

[Arandmoor_Keet]

Well, the Dwarf paladin in question was granted status as "the son of a god" by central casting...

We had another character in another campaign who was a Highlander (like from the show...could only die by beheading and regenerated like crazy)...

We've had characters come from high nobility and start with tons of money and/or magical items (sometimes multiple...the dwarf i've mentioned multiple times started at first level with a sunblade, full-plate armor, and several thousand gold pieces in gems...)

We've had characters recieve spell-like abilities useable once per round (magic missile, burning hands, charm person, invisibility, etc)

I personally had a Streetfighter character (oop game by whitewolf) start with a dex and apperance of 9...

Character in the same game started with a Wealth background of 6...

We've had cyberpunk characters start with futureistic plasma weapons, combat lasers, personal Aerodynes, favors from corporate CEOs that could not be refused, patlabors, heavy ACPA suits, 'borg bodies and no humanity loss, and of course...tons of cash...

Starwars characters started with their own personal starships (i don't mean fighters or transports...one character started with a salvaged Stardestroyer! He claimed it was due to central casting...)

This is just what I could think of off of the top of my head...the list goes on...

My biggest problem with the whole thing was that characters never seemed to get any disadvantages to balance the "goodies" (as the other players put it.) At least, nothing to match the scale of the advantages the "wondrous backgrounds" gave them (god forbid that they did! The character might very well be unplayable!)

Maybe it's just my personal experiences with Central Casting, but I haven't allowed it anywhere near my games for nearly ten years (I'll allow people to make histories with it, but all those special goodies and IMHO perverted personality characteristics are not counted.)

Arandmoor

[lemming]

Originally posted by Arandmoor_Keet
Maybe it's just my personal experiences with Central Casting, but I haven't allowed it anywhere near my games for nearly ten years (I'll allow people to make histories with it, but all those special goodies and IMHO perverted personality characteristics are not counted.)
I remember some disads, but then again, actually playing characters rolled up via CC. That would be slightly insane. At the very least, the GM should be there and when a roll happens that the GM doesn't want to deal with, they veto it.

Like any tool, it can be abused. See these nail clippers? :eek:

[umbra]

I was in a Champions game (4th ed) where there were 2 GM's and 4-5 players. At the very start of the game we had a fellow player I'll call "Tad". The basis of the game is that through various means we had all agreed to go through surgery and become cybernetic crime fighters. As soon as we met up in the room for the first time with our new powers, "Tad" was off on is own, using up one GM's complete time. We found out later that he was spending his time changing cars, identities, the way he looked etc for hours. His paranoia reached such a high level he ended up bugging everyone's rooms and spying on them. That lasted 2 game sessions.... Then he dropped out of the game. The GM's decided to make him a villain, and our Arch-Nemesis was born. Eventually he became soooo hated that whenever something bad happed to our characters we would say "crap, we just got Fentoned!" (the character's name was Robert Fenton).

[Enforcer84]

I play D&D with a fellow, who owns the shop we play at. He doesn't really know the rules and then he throws tantrums when he feels he's been "Taken advantage" of. It annoys me to no end.