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.

 

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.

 

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]

Re: Obnoxious Player Moves

 

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 ( 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]

Re: Re: Obnoxious Player Moves

 

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]

Re: Obnoxious Player Moves

 

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]

Re: Obnoxious Player Moves

 

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]

So been there

 

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]

Re: So been there

 

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]

Re: Re: So been there

 

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.