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MrMerchant
June 14th, 2008, 22:52
I'm new here, so I wanted to spread some love around.

So I'm starting a new 4th ed. campaign and I'm a tad nervous DMing because some previous attempts were nuts because of crazy players. My personal favorites include...

The sex-starved maniac. He ALWAYS plays a female character and she's a giant whore. In fact, it's not uncommon for his character to rabidly flirt with the male PC's, and while I encourage people to RP, he makes the whole scene very uncomfortable. The last game he wanted to play a Female Drow Cleric of some goddess of sex. I often find myself striking his characters down with lightning, fire, or owlbears.

Mr. Exotic. Always plays a non-standard PC race, even if it doesn't make sense in the campaign. Drow, Centaur, Satyr, Pixie, Thri-kreen, Yak-man, etc, etc. Now he played a goblin once, that was fun, but he always insist on playing something that can't walk into town without being gawked at or killed on sight. I can't make a campaign that starts at lvl 1, because he always had a ECL.

The Rules Lawyer. He's the most veteran player of the group, and he used to DM a lot back in the day, but he still thinks that D&D is meant to be a contest between the PC's and the DM. As a DM he tries to kill as many PC's as possible and the only thing that stands in his way is the dice and your understanding of the rules. As a player, he does his best to become untouchable. His last character was a warlock who would take flight as soon as possible and snipe from max range. It got to a point where I'd have to tailor fights in order to challenge him.

The Girlfriend. Either mine or someone else's. They're just there because they want to get involved with their guy, but they end up becoming a strange amalgam of everyone else's bad habits. She instantly run to her bf's aid on anything, the sex-starved maniac runs to her aid and agrees with anything she says, Mr. Exotic gets her to play something overly complicated, despite her not knowing what she's getting into, and the Rules Lawyer hates her guts because she's new.

The Momorpager. This is a guy someone knows from WoW or some other MMORPG. He's never played D&D before, so math scares him. RP makes him uncomfortable. He also doesn't understand the mechanics very well, and treats stealth as invisibility.

There's my crazies, what kind of wierdos do you guys play with?

Stuart
June 14th, 2008, 23:02
I think in the past I've met all of those :o
I'd hate to think what the few DM's who have run games with me would say about me.

MrMerchant
June 14th, 2008, 23:24
I think in the past I've met all of those :o
I'd hate to think what the few DM's who have run games with me would say about me.

I've got my share of great players too, they make the game a true delight when the others aren't cramping their style.

I had a player who made six different characters inside of 8-10 encounters, finally settling on a druid. But every time we were in town she HAD to take a bath.

A druid with a bathhouse obsession... wth?

Engar
June 15th, 2008, 06:04
This is funny. I know some of these guys too! Someday you will think back on this and say it was the good ol' days. Of course in my "good ol' days" we laughed about girls playing DnD (unfortunately they laughed about us playing DnD too, lol).

Oberoten
June 15th, 2008, 08:59
Of course... Some of us STILL laugh at people playing DnD. ;)

*grins* ... I mean, WHFRPG only gets you to shell out for ONE major book and updates come every 16 years. ;)

MrMerchant
June 15th, 2008, 19:31
Of course... Some of us STILL laugh at people playing DnD. ;)

*grins* ... I mean, WHFRPG only gets you to shell out for ONE major book and updates come every 16 years. ;)

Also helps when you get some good PDF's and your good buddy is a manager in a print shop. I dare say my 4th ed. books are so sturdy I could hammer a nail with 'em. God bless the internet.

scytale2
June 23rd, 2008, 11:35
The new DMG has a whole bunch of player types and advice on how to ensure they are worked with properly in a group. The role of the DM is fleshed out nicely and I hope people read it and at least try to act on it:)

Adding to your list, a common character DMs come across is the "overly nervous". Every door is listened to, every corridor checked for traps, every room searched for secret doors. For these people, I gently throw in a few things to get them more nervous.... Did they spot that ear mite on the last door they checked? Was that a gas spore that they disturbed while searching that room for secret doors? Is that treasure room door on a timer, so that it can only be opened by people who run headlong down the corridor, without checking for traps....

Xorn
June 23rd, 2008, 13:04
The only player that ever drove me to the edge (and over it) was the Meta-Gamer. I think he got his idea of D&D from the cartoon--it was him, thrown into this other realm. Every encounter was picked apart from the player's perspective, and what the DM would probably throw at the player to keep the game fun.

The last straw was in our second campaign (and wow, I killed a lot of his characters in the first campaign) the rogue said nervously, "I think the chest is trapped, but I'm not very good at disarming them--I think we should leave it."

My metagamer jumps in. "Jason wouldn't put a lethal trap this early in the level, I'll open it."

I guess it pissed me off that he was right. It was a 1 damage spike that had evidence that it used to be poisoned, but the poison had dried up and was harmless now. It was supposed to scare a party that didn't think to check the tiny chest for traps, or didn't have a rogue. (This was BECMI D&D.)

That's when the meteor crashed through the ceiling of the ruins and hit him in the head. (I've told this story before.)

I've had other player types, but the Meta-Gamer is the one that drove me nuts. My current group has a combo Actor-Slayer (using the 4E examples), an Actor-Tactician, a MMORPGer (we'll just say Slayer), a Watcher, and a newcomer that I haven't had a chance to feel out--I'm going to bet on Thinker-Tactician. My MMORPGer was kind of over the top when he first joined us, but he's really turned into a fun RPer to have in the group now--he's definitely more interested in the story than anything now.

Lysander
June 23rd, 2008, 23:17
Mine would be the 'Mad Thinker/Tinker'

Over thinks everything that NPC's in the campaign say as to how it fits into the overall plot (bordering on paranoia...), and have every detail of his character mapped out to level 20, and is constantly trying to improve what he has wrought as we advance.

grimm182
July 10th, 2008, 21:09
The type i cant stand are the ones who *always* want to go opposite of where the storyline should go.

Gm: "In the alley you see the three shadowy figures from earlier they notice you and quickly dart off carrying some kind of bundle."

Annoying type: "I go back to the main street and look for any shops with open windows."

ug...

Oberoten
July 11th, 2008, 00:34
The type i cant stand are the ones who *always* want to go opposite of where the storyline should go.

Gm: "In the alley you see the three shadowy figures from earlier they notice you and quickly dart off carrying some kind of bundle."

Annoying type: "I go back to the main street and look for any shops with open windows."

ug...

Heh, personally I *LOVE* that kind of players, it gives me SO much to work with. Aka the whole "Give them enough rope to hang themselves with."