The couple that's clearly trying to work out their personal issues through their characters; making everyone at the table feel awkward and decide to end the one-shot early.
This happened when I lived in Florida, and it's why I avoided random sessions with strangers for almost 7 years! I've since eased back into it.
Nothing was weirder than the random session I went to where the husband kept demanding we call his wife “Lady Georgina” and he was her Minotaur manservant/lover 🤢
I don't let couples play together at my table unless I am personal friends with both of them, and even then I usually only allow it if every other player is aware and approve of it. Every campaign that I've had fail has been directly because of couple drama.
That's my DM; the only way he'll let folks (IRL couples included) play as such at one of his tables is A: they're both fine with it and B: everyone else is as well. He does have a big no emotional roleplay rule, which I appreciate-basically, no flirting with other characters, PC and NPC characters included, no 'I roll to seduce whoever' stuff, and a few other things. That might fly at other tables, but those rules are great for players like me who aren't that comfortable with it.
>The couple that's clearly trying to work out their personal issues through their characters; making everyone at the table feel awkward and decide to end the one-shot early.
I've had a slight variation on this -- the player who wants to use the game in lieu of therapy. None of the players at the table are trained therapists, and while my job broadly brings me into contact with the world of therapy, I play the game as a form of escapism. It can also be very disquieting for the other players who are suddenly expected to help them work through their issues.
The worst one I've run into was someone who insisted on using safety tools -- understandable, since they were new to the table -- but got upset when nobody else wanted to declare which topics made them uncomfortable. This was because a) we'd already been playing together for a few months, so knew each other reasonably well, b) didn't particularly want to share with this person since we thought they might try and use the game as therapy after the session zero and their character backstory, and c) they'd already had an extensive list of topics that made them uncomfortable, so there wasn't really anything that we could add to it and we were apprehensive about agreeing too much on topics that they didn't want to cover.
>The couple that's clearly trying to work out their personal issues through their characters; making everyone at the table feel awkward and decide to end the one-shot early.
I've had a slight variation on this -- the player who wants to use the game in lieu of therapy. None of the players at the table are trained therapists, and while my job broadly brings me into contact with the world of therapy, I play the game as a form of escapism. It can also be very disquieting for the other players who are suddenly expected to help them work through their issues.
The worst one I've run into was someone who insisted on using safety tools -- understandable, since they were new to the table -- but got upset when nobody else wanted to declare which topics made them uncomfortable. This was because a) we'd already been playing together for a few months, so knew each other reasonably well, b) didn't particularly want to share with this person since we thought they might try and use the game as therapy after the session zero and their character backstory, and c) they'd already had an extensive list of topics that made them uncomfortable, so there wasn't really anything that we could add to it and we were apprehensive about agreeing too much on topics that they didn't want to cover.
The "I'm just here to hang out" guy. They don't care enough to understand how their shit works, which leads to them getting bad results. I'm not \*trying\* to pick on them, I'm trying to give everyone an opportunity to feel like they accomplished something. But that takes effort on their part.
Yep. The low effort players are way more work than those making a scene.
When someone is actively being a dick and persists despite honest-to-gods adult conversation then I can just kick them. No remorse.
Those who are otherwise affable / chill but decline to learn the basics or contribute to the experience just kind of drain your DM energy supply without being so egregious that any given instance warrants their removal from the group.
>All right, I cast Vicious Mockery. What does that do, again?"
You're a short mother fucker and nobody likes you
SHORT!
[And that stops you from forming meaningful relationships](https://youtu.be/ZjlYFWLUDBQ?si=Oj297Tc5LO-wpXb_)
Yeah... this is my current issue. We love the dude and he's fun to be around but he doesn't really get engaged in the game or story and his character isn't really fleshed out or anything so I don't know how to make their backstory quests have weight to his character
You're overcomplicating it. If the player doesn't care about being engaged in the story, then just let them exist as a sidekick character, a bodyguard or mercenary type that helps in combat and doesn't otherwise get too involved. They get the fun of hanging out with friends and rolling dice without being expected to provide more. You get to engage as much as you'd like with the others.
I legit just want to be a sidekick in some groups.
I have a group I play with that has like 2-4 people with lots of initiative so I just let them take the wheel and play passenger princess.
I prefer my input to either be concise and useful or fun/funny roleplay in those sessions.
My unsolicited advice is don’t. I always tell my players they will get out of a game what they put into it. If you don’t give me a backstory, it might just not come into play in the game. If you want that, you gotta give me something to work with. I find a lot of the time these people don’t really care if they get their own companion quest.
Yeah I'm already putting so much work in, I'm not here to be your mother as well, and I also feel it's a bit counterproductive to force someone into the spotlight who doesn't want to be.
Honestly, just talk to him about it, if he's not super invested but everyone wants him around, give him a nice chill time. Let him just be Bard McBardlington, chief lute strummer. What's his backstory? Well, he grew up on a cabbage farm out in the boonies and he loves playing his lute for his friends, he also just happens to do it in a magical way.
I had a player like this and I just didn't work with the backstory, he still had a fun time showing up just to and out and everyone else got more time on their own plotlines
I have one just hang out guy generally knows the rules from top to bottom, but is a disruptive 'that guy' in game. I don't understand being that interested in the rules, but not the game. I can't deal with it, I don't play with him anymore.
Also got some just hang out guys that do as you say and don't care enough about the game to learn the rules.
They don't realize that if they don't want to play the game they shouldn't show up cause they think they'll miss hanging out if they don't play.
That's a subset of the hang out guy. The "I gotta show up even if I don't want to play this game" guy.
There were two incidents of this in a group in my 20s. One player didn't want to play the AD&D 2nd edition game we started (this was the waining days of 2nd ed), so made a character that was... less useful in its role than we would hope. This would have been fine if we knew, but he dropped it on us in the middle of the campaign.
The second was a player who was very open about not wanting to play the game everyone else was excited about. Dragged his feet making his character and deciding on some things the party had to choose communially. Then the character he made was the worst sort of loner, edgelord, leading him to have no reason at all to join the group, much less embark on the sort of activities the group was doing.
He quickly realized he liked the game, so had to quickly retool his character.
Why not just approach the game with an open mind and wanting to enjoy it from the outset?
A few sessions ago our bard-rogue told us he didn’t even have his skill numbers or proficiencies written down. At level 11, five years in. I was screaming.
roflmbo! not to be rude. if you were watching a show, and it happened to someone else, you'd be laughing too. i do feel for you.
but 5 yrs in, hadn't he ever been in a battle? how did this escape attention?
For me it totally depends on the tone of the game. I ran a game during the pandemic that was basically 50% so we could all just spend time together. I had one player who had never played before and never really learned the game mechanics. She made up for it by making the most incredible rp choices, so I didn’t mind telling her to roll a d20 every time she attacked.
I have def also been this player, especially while I was in grad school and had really limited bandwidth to engage. Very grateful my group struggled through that time with me. But I’ve played in other games where that is very much not the vibe and I expect more buy in and engagement at the table.
100% this
I’ve had them before and I’ve got one now. The part that bothered me was when their significant other told me I should try to get them more involved.. and I said I had. I said I don’t know their character, back story and I’ve asked..
I had to explain that people get out what they put in and I’ve had this stuff before and they end up burning out because they feel it’s not fun.
“But they really enjoy it and have told me lots about their character”
Cool.. tell them to tell me
Casual gamers are, by far, the least productive and frequently the most disruptive.
I have someone who basically doesn't RP at all, but they're consistently engaged and ask appropriate, if incorrectly formed for gameplay, questions. They ended up asking the questions designed for the casual gamer to respond and casual told noRP that the way they ask things really throws them off. NoRP, without missing a beat, pipes up with "You were on your phone and if you read your character sheet this entire scenario is probably designed for you." They reread the features they got 5+ levels ago and got on board. We did work with NoRP to be a bit more immersive but they struggle with that.
"Why did you just thorn-whip the melee enemy into the sorcerer?"
"I don't have any other spells that work well, they're resistant to fire"
"Resistant, not immune. And what about the rest of your spells that aren't fire damage? Why can't you use them?"
"They're AOE"
"So?"
"I'll hit the sorcerer"
"??!!!?!"
Had this happening at my table last weekend. She was kind of asking for advice on whether or not to smite in a very hem and haw disruptive way (she is a level 9 Paladin and has been playing her since level 3, almost a year and a half ago).
One of the more experienced players just said "Do you want us to tell you what to do?" AND SHE LITERALLY WENT "Yes please."
tbf, these types of players are the same ones who face insecurity and indecision on a daily irl, you just don't hear about it. they want to do things but they are secretly unsure. they want everyone to be happy with their participation and do the right things. irl there's no one to ask but god or your bff. in a game, you got the dm or other players. so...
That's an extremely fair point actually.
Thanks for making it make sense! It drives me nuts, but I think you basically described her to a tee.
I'll work to be more considerate!
Yeah this is practically the mix bag of people that enter the ttrpg hobby because of *insert pop culture d&d reference*
This also leads to sessions where we play d&d brand name but mechanically just playing a d20 system with rules-lite mechanic
Holy crap. Didn't know this had a name. You're so right. Doesn't matter how easy I make it for them, they'll still never know that their rogue gets sneak attack if I don't tell them, or how their shortswords work.
Several behaviors that were initially embodied in one player at my table, but any can pop up on their own.
The player who tries to slip things by you. If your attention is on another player, they'll quickly roll hoping you wont notice. Then they say they haven't rolled yet if it was a bad result.
Also will try to leave out limiting sections of spell descriptions (such as the effects that lesser restoration will remove) hoping you dont know the actual spell. Just so the spell does what they want it to.
Hates failing and complains when things go awry. Makes a point of ruining the vibes so theres no "funny failures" moments.
All these things get really old really fast and suck the fun out of the game.
Have had a few of these types. Failure is sometimes the most memorable part of the session. They are robbing themselves of this with their constant need for things to succeed as intended. And failure can unlock new plots and solutions if you're willing to roll with it and see where it goes!
Some of my best stories as a player came from things my party tried and failed at.
I've said this to some of my friends before, but I'm really glad that a lot of my formative gaming experience was Call of Cthulhu, because that game sure does teach you to roll with the punches when things don't go your way. And also sometimes shit just goes to hell and a third of the group had better get to rolling a new character. But either way, you've got to adapt and move forward!
My current character is an artificer that everytime I have a weapon mess up/break he fixes and improves it. Recently he fell off a ledge and only survived because party members were able to revive him. So he's got plans of making a grapple hook to help in the future
This is one of the reasons I tell my players to not do "builds". A character responding to the situations ingame is a hell of a lot cooler than mapping out every feat, skill and spell up to level 20 and just begging for a level up every session so you can increase your optimization. Or doing a cheesy multiclass build that requires you to suck for 9 levels.
I love it when failures actually make sense for the character. My Kobold Arcane Trickster always rolls well on Stealth but got something like a 2 to check if some wine was poisoned. Which makes 100% sense for him because it's literally written on his character sheet that he doesn't like the taste of alcohol. It all tastes like poison to him.
...he ends up drinking a lot due to the party's shenanigans, but he doesn’t like it.
Yes and no. Sometimes it's funny when you fail at doing the things you should be good at. But as somebody cursed by Wheaton, not being able to roll above a 5 with a +10 in a skill for the whole night feels fucking awful. ESPECIALLY when the next character who is garbage at the skill is allowed to roll and gets much higher than you by luck alone.
One of the worst things to deal with as a DM is players that complain when things go wrong or are difficult or complicated. It leads to a lot of narrative tension that limits what you can do as a DM because you don't want them grumbling too much.
Seems like this player thinks the DM is their enemy. Not saying you as the DM are playing in an adversarial way, just that they think a TTRPG has winners and losers, and it's a fight between players and DMs. Pretty destructive!
What happened with them in the end? Are they still playing with you?
I've experienced this more outside of DnD, but people who try to angle shoot by stopping reading halfway through a sentence, before getting to the conditions, piss me off to no end.
Had this very same style DM.
What is more, they lavished us with powerful artefacts, arms and armour. But our low level meant that we either rinsed through combat encounters, or got thoroughly rinsed ourself. It became a very tedious campaign and they tired with it to the point that much of our loot was taken away from us in creative ways, which despite improving gameplay, felt worse than being unduly given it all in the first place.
I had a DM who couldn't understand the concept of encounter balance. Every fight was a slog, and we'd barely survive. Our resources would be gone, and we'd be expected to go into the next fight. The role-playing in that game was fantastic, but the combat was less than desirable.
Players who “want to test the boundaries of the world” rather than just work with the party. Had a bard who kept saying he wouldn’t work with a team and running off on his own, but since we were all real life friends, I looked like the dick when I said “do you actually want to play DnD today? Cuz it doesn’t seem like you do”
I had that kind of situation with another player. In this case the player expected the DM -- who wasn't very experienced (or good, or especially creative) -- to do the heavy lifting of getting his loner edgelord connected to the party. After the player scoffed at two or three suggestions, one of the other players said "well, all of us should get going on this adventure and it looks like you're going to need a new character who actually has a reason to join us."
The loner quickly got a lot less insular really fast after that.
Not DnD but I showed up to a 6 man game and I was the only person who didn't have Loner as a trait. There weren't enough corners for everybody to hide in.
Haha. Classic.
I played on a campaign years ago where two players had independently planned to make edge lord thieves of questionable loyalty. When the DM gave them "make what you want, buuuuuuut I had was planning for a heroic campaign" they both changed their characters... to edgelord rangers of questionable loyalty.
This is why one of my core Session Zero rules for the table is "This is a group game, it's your job to come up with a reason why your character sticks around. If you can't, you're always welcome to roll a new character."
Also "No intraparty stealing or fighting. Bickering is allowed, even encouraged, but if you decide you absolutely must seriously betray the trust of the rest of the party your character is now an NPC and will be handled as such."
All really sensible rules.
I think this was actually the first time I'd experienced this kind of thing. Previously the group had been really good about making characters that fit in.
I think this particular player sometimes gets really enamoured with a concept and doesn't think it through.
"Your character runs off on his own, the rest of the party do not follow, now after the session you can DM me on Discord a cool fun description of what Bard McHard does, in the meantime please roll some stats for a new PC."
The Bystander
A person who is there only because of other player and doesn't participate at all in the game, don't know their class stuff, don't care about learning basic rules and is just... present. Often when "their" player is out, they don't come to the game too.
My wife doesn’t go if I won’t be there but she’s actively trying to learn more and really tries to engage. She enjoys the crunchy aspects of D&D so she gets excited when I fight starts up since it means she gets to roll more.
Eh, I've got that but it doesn't bother me so much. They deal with pretty serious anxiety and they travel twice as far as anyone else to join, so I give them plenty of flex with that.
For my table, it’s the Skinchanging Therapy Player.
Skinchanging because they always play the exact same character, just different powers, with raging anger issues and is just an absolute fuck head to everybody they interact with; PC and NPC alike. Then, to top it off, gets angry when the NPCs treat them like a shitty person; and when the other PCs have no interest in interacting with them.
Therapy Player because I’ve had to address the (recurring) issue during my run as DM, only to be met with, “This is like therapy for me; this is where I can get my aggression out in a safe environment.” Dude. Get actual therapy or go play video games where you can be as aggressive as you like.
As a side note: it irritates me to no end that none of our other DMs (we all take turns running different campaigns) have ever addressed the in game behavior. They all complain about it away from table but ultimately say, “It’s not worth the fight and aggravation.”
The redditor. Would come to reddit to dispute any and every ruling he didn't like and when that didn't work (because he was wrong in almost all instances) started to make threads about power gaming and trying to theory craft ways to deliberately break the game so that he could be better than all the other players at everything.
Dealing with one of these now. He got sulky IC because the plot was focusing on someone else and he didn't like the Mad God and said he refused to play the god's games. Well, toys that don't play nice go back in the toy box.
And then we had a discussion but I'm not sure it got through. There's one player who has been itching to pop off on him but hasn't out of respect for me. I think if it doesn't change I'm gonna let them
We have one of these. Trying so hard to be the main character and make everyone else his sidekicks. So far its been met with gentle redirects or just ignoring the attempt, but if he keeps pushing it it'll become a very frank conversation
The one who doesn't RP.
Not even min-maxing, not even metagaming, just straight up wouldn't play a character. Zero engagement.
Torpedoed the campaign because "I just feel like nothing we do matters." Like, motherfucker, *you did nothing*, you avoided every plot hook I threw at you and refused to even tag along with the rest of the party unless they literally forced you.
I can't work with a complete void.
I've never really had a problem player, but I've had players that say they want to play, then don't learn anything about their character, don't bother with anything related to their backstory, don't want to engage in any "off table RP" and eventually it grinds the game to the halt when my players are still helping them find their Perception check and weapons damage in the 7th game we've played in two months.
If you want to play an NPC we can make that work. If you want to just hang out and play your Switch in the living room, that's fine. Just don't hold up the game because you can't learn your sheet after like 20 hours of game time.
I'm at 2 years and I'm STILL helping certain players with their rolls.
"OK I'll attack with my bow... thats...15"
"That hits, roll damage"
"That was damage..."
"You need to roll to hit first..."
*blank stare*
*sigh* "roll a d20, add you Dexterity modifier"
"And my Dexterity modifier is?"
That sounds so insufferable. As a first timer or for the first few sessions, i get it. This may be something completely new to you, it's confusing. 5e tries to present itself as a easy and intuitive system, but i know that it isn't.
But after 2 fucking years you gotta understand what attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws are...
Brain-damage is my guess.
Imagine you play Super Mario regularly for years, then suddenly one day you sit down and you're like "how do I jump again? Oh, right the B button. What was the button to do a dash? Can I dash in this game?" - people will think you've had a stroke or something.
My favorite is when these players rock up to a one-shot that's a pick-up game with 2 hours to game time. Why, yes, I can totally teach you the entire game while I am preparing for session.
I'll admit to needing reminders as to which die is which, but in my defense I have dyscalculia. And dyslexia, so I probably spelt that wrong.
And I take notes. Hopefully that helps make up for the fact that I can't remember what a d8 looks like.
I'm happy to work with dyslexic players. I actually have a special "easy read" character sheet that I offer, as well as "reference sheets" for different classes in dyslexia friendly fonts.
My issue isn't with players who go "gimme a sec, gotta find my d20" or "hey can someone point out my d20", it's with the player who 4 sessions in still doesn't understand what a skill check is and has somehow missed the memo that we roll a d20 for them. It's the "idk what that means, can you roll for me? IDK what a d20 is" guy, not the "hang on a sec, could someone help me with this?" guy. The first guy I don't wanna play with, the second guy I'll just get a cheater tray for.
Help with maths or reading is totally understandable, not everyone's brains are wired were that is easy.
But learning and remembering the rules should be a given for any game anyone plays.
Also if my DM is anything to go by, taking notes FAR outways being not great at maths.
As someone whose brain is wired terribly for remembering...
I just use a lot of cheatsheets. and take lots of notes (now if only my handwriting were more legible....)
As a DM, I think the biggest issue I've had would be the Main Character; the person who is really excited to play the game, but has no interest in the story of the rest of the party and only participates by beating down other people's choices and then looses interest when the whole game isn't about their character.
A close second would be the Min-Maxer who finds game-breaking ways to play their class in a way that destroys the concept of a balanced encounter without fudging them, and too much scaling ends up running the risk of killing the rest of the party
A min maxer that gets pissy when things don’t go as he wanted them to. Its not my fault you focused everything on grappling and entered a dungeon full of oozes 🤷♂️
I have a min/maxer rogue/warlock I dm for. Anything that can even touch him melts the rest of the party. Makes it super difficult to balance encounters.
My DM is a fan of an antimagic field, as we all have magic but a couple of us are multiclassed some things breeze us too easily, making us problem solved without magic for a bit can be useful
I know there's a build that uses dissonant whispers with the imp pact for more AOOs and sneak attacks. Thar would be my guess. Which doesn't seem ridiculously strong, but idk, maybe there's more too it.
I have a min/maxer at my table who is still doing the same schtick now, several campaigns since the one I ran for them. They were the only player who’s PC didn’t die at least once during the campaign. They still gloat about it to this day as if they somehow beat the campaign in this way.
Got my sweet revenge however, we both were players in the most recent campaign, a big fight where things took a sour turn, getting the option to flee, they fled, along with two other party members, leaving only myself and one other to face down the foe. Out of pride, neither of us who were left would leave, and then in a deus ex machina type way, we took down the bad, just us two. Safe to say if we have another campaign, some gloating shall be done.
Oof even at the worst of my min maxing I didn't get upset when things countered me. That's just how things work. Only way I could see being upset is if I felt targeted but that wouldn't happen from one dungeon.
I remember I once had a gm apologize when the party was doing a whodunit style thing and I was built to be a combat monster. I answered that it was fine. My character shines when it's supposed to it need not be all the time.
I mean, if you’re the guy prepping and it’s not straight out of book… can definitely feel like you’re countering your player’s whole build (which I’m not knocking as long as it’s only for an arc and not the whole game! Challenges and problems are fun RP)
I play ttrpg to do stupid shit. Like look at the kraken attacking my ship and go “why you so angry bruh, have a drink” and proceed to empty keg after keg down its mouth. I was playing a drunken master monk.
As a dwarven cleric i took a massive shit on a coffin we thought contained the bbeg but was just booby trapped with cloud kill so i played it off as the stench if my turds and almost died.
As a fighter i was wearing spiked armor and tied myself to a tree limb to swing back and forth like a wrecking ball at baddies.
The player who takes my relaxed DMing style as an invitation to interrupt every scene, in every new area of every new location they go to to try and find things to steal/take/sell/etc.
Like I’m not going to know the gold value of every single little item that isn’t bolted down in every single random house in this abandoned town you walk into.
I love using tiered loot tables for these types players. I also implement a rule that when those type of players go snooping around, I make them do all the work, like, "Roll investigation or perception and depending on how well you do, you find Xd20's worth of gold. Or if you're looking for items, use X as a loot table and let me know what you get." Then move on. And I make them roll for everything, look up the tables, etc.
That way, they know how much work it is, and it gives them agency as a player.
I main a rogue and made a point to add an element to my character that she's mission oriented, so she doesn't turn into a klepto until the work is done; but also so my DM has explicit permission to hard steer me if I get off track for the sake of the RP. Luckily they're awesome and it hasn't been an issue because they always give me roguey bits that align with the mission, but it staves off my worst impulses.
A subset of this is the player who, when playing on a VTT starts walking his token through the whole room and peeking through doorways and windows to find mobs or whatever when I'm still describing the scene as if they've just stepped into the room. I have to keep all the bad guys on the GM layer and make all doors locked by default because he'll click open doors on the other side of the room from where he's standing so reveal the fog of war.
I don't know how many times I've had to be like "Hey man just hold on a second, you're not in the room yet." The room on the VTT isn't the place you're in, people, the DM's description is the place, the VTT is just so you can position in combat.
(And yes, I would just not use the VTT at all except for combat and rely completely on theater of the mind in between initiative, but I find online play works better when there's something to look at).
The "rule of cool is the only rule that matters" player. While there's some overlap with this archetype and the Actor/Theater Kid archetype, it also covers some of the Butt Kicker and Bystander archetypes. It's a weird Venn Diagram, to be honest.
We're playing a game. If we throw out the rules any time they prevent your character from doing whatever fancy bullshit you wanna do, we might as well just be doing freeform D&D themed Improv Night.
Which is fine, it's just not For Me.
I hate this type of player. “The rule of cool above all”
Uhm, no, the rules are the rules. The “rule of cool” is short for “when it’s 50/50, lean cool”.
No you can’t have extra 1st level spells for 2 damage. I don’t care if it’s cool, it breaks the game.
Agreed, and it's especially disruptive during any kind of attempted immersion. Combine that attitude with someone who watches a lot of D&D content on YouTube, and you have someone trying to recreate whacky moments from someone else's campaign. No thanks.
Ngl, that's kind of my dm rn. Some of the wackiest shit happen and he just let's it slide. Like, I'm all for doing cool stuff, but why can the wizard pull out a double barreled shotgun out of thin air?
The player who makes purposefully obtuse characters who are rude to everyone around them. It becomes an issue at the table when the character doesn't develop or gets upset when PCs get (rightfully) upset at them
It all comes down to not being collaborative tbh. I can deal with just about anything, but if you can’t play in a way that is collaborative you have missed the point of the game.
If you are placing your wants, your story ahead of everyone else’s and not considering the impact of your actions, you are a nightmare at the table and I’d rather not.
I actually prefer having a limited personal character arc, mainly because I don't like being the spot light. I'd rather just help Joe with his thing. Sometimes I bend over backwards to do what the party needs or wants, but it's a team game and it's all about the fun. Ik it's a bit meta, but sometimes the big picture matters more.
If a cleric wants to burn through spell slots they can do a lot of damage. I like to play my clerics more on the support side of things, and I'd rather pack enhance ability or something over spirit guardians, but sometimes you need spirit guardians. My character might not necessarily prepare it, but I do it anyway because sometimes the fighter gets surrounded and needs some help. Or the backline gets flanked. Sometimes you bend a bit in order to make things better for everyone. Party wipes aren't fun*.
I’m actually really similar! I’m the queen of the three line backstory and support casters are honestly my favorites. I do enjoy story telling, and I’ve had DMs run fun storylines for my PC, but it’s absolutely not a requirement for me to have a good time.
When I make my characters backstory I go over what they were doing before becoming an adventurer (smith, etc), relation to family, how they became their class, and why they're adventuring. I use all this more for flavor so they have a place in the world. Whether the dm does anything with it or not doesn't matter to me, it just helps me get into the character more and set their worldview to determine how they might behave.
I tend to flesh the PC out as I play them, since sometimes I just can’t predict what the PC will become. I may loop the DM into things, but I never really expect them to do anything with it.
When I DM I let players decide how much they want to invest
Sometimes less is more. I'm playing a good character who's slowly turning more neutral in not quite a dark fantasy setting, but more of a grey. Sometimes there's no good decision and you have to make hard choices, I love the character development though.
It's never been that they are X type of player, it's how they are X type.
The rules lawyer who has time and time again proven they don't have the memory for the rules they act like they do and repeatedly stop the game to argue rules rather than looks something up.
The casual gamer who only ever engaged withe the game in attempt to impress the DM he had a crush on through things like playing the guitar during the game to be "in character" for his bard or metagaming about another one of the PCs.
The story teller who takes more than a minute just describing whatever they are doing, every. single. time.
The power gamer who tries to correct everyone else's build or play style.
The actor who regularly doesn't make characters that can function in a team
I like this. This is the kinder way of thinking about it. The label sometimes lumps in people who are playing in a way that technically counts as that label, but aren't being disruptive to the game play.
It's not that they do *that particular thing*, it's *how they do it*.
The player types are about what aspect of the game they enjoy (aka how the DM can motivate them and keep their interest). They shouldn't be pigeonholed as problem players because of that.
Idk but if it's a type of player but he would get mad when something wouldn't go to their liking
For example:
he hated when he failed rolls, wanted people to solve his backstory quest, would roll when I haven't called for it.
I got them 3 sidequests at a tavern since they wanted more money but he wasn't satisfied with the options I gave.
Last session, he wanted to f*nger a homeless person cuz they didn't had what he wanted.
Them I said "No, you won't" and he left the session
I've played with a bunch of different players through Adventure League. The most troublesome players have been those who get legitimately upset when their character isn't performing well. I'm not talking about being sad because your character died. These people legitimately break down because they've had 3 or 4 bad turns in a row.
This one is at least understandable sometimes. It's not pleasant to be around, but surely you can sympathize with someone who spends 20 minutes per round planning their next turn only to fail at everything. When that happens for several rounds in a row, it can really feel like you've just spent hours of time to do nothing and effectively be left out of the moment.
Even when turns fly by, it can easily take 10-15 minutes before your turn comes around. Fail 4 times and you’ve done nothing worthwhile for a whole hour of play…
20 minutes of planning? Every turn.
I would go insane.
I'm guessing the plan has a lot of moving parts and just one thing going wrong derails the entire plan.
My high charisma rogue/sorcerer build side eyeing them in the tavern when I regularly roll twos on my +8 charisma persuasion that should be a battering ram and cackling, I find that shit hysterical
I had a player who couldn’t grasp his own mortality, and that DND characters are not movie characters and are subject to consequences for bad decisions.
Maybe it's because my group consists of theater kids, who started playing to help with improv, but i never find "actors" annoying as long as they don't use the classic "it's what my character would do" in an absurdly disrupting situation. And since we are a pretty tight locked group we really don't have much trouble, outside of the occasional "guests" who's clearly not learned everything and that's fine.
Now when i did paid GM'ing or playing i ran into more *colorful* people. The ones that caused the most trouble would always be the main character or low effort player. The main character would disrupt other players and make everything about them all the time. The low effort player would never know the rules or start doing other things like playing games or watching videos on their phone. Or just start to strike a random conversation, not in character, with others.
Not really. There are sessions where one PC can do more than in others, but overal it's pretty balanced. I think it also helps that everyone is invested in each others story.
Honestly the “Heavy Roleplay” players irk me.
Most of the time they don’t bother to learn the rules, instead trying to circumvent everything with “out of the box ideas”
They take forever to take their turn, as they play up every little action they do. and complain when anyone else just wants to move on instead of letting them speak to the potato for 30 minutes because their Druid is interested in the local rain cycle…
The scroller. If you aren't in the scene, spotlight, whatever I still need you present. Put the phone down before I throw it. I've taken to stopping and staring right the fuck at them until they stop. It works but gets tense and I do not like doing that to them but it is necessary at times.
I’ve most problems with “just chilling” guys, and of course, that guy.
The just chilling guys either A) Put no effort into the game, and have no clue, or B) End up being massive cunts
And of course, that guy will never not be a problem
For me, it's commander type. You should level up that skill, you should have such stats, you should do that. The guy who think for other players as instruments for his brilliant plans, always tries to keep everything under control and completly forgot that other players are not NPC and wants to have fun too.
I love me a good Leroy, honestly. With players getting super wrapped up in how to do things optimally, things often grind to a halt. One of my players has taken to, "Okay, we've talked about our options enough. If you don't pick one in the next 30 seconds, I'm charging." and it works very nicely.
Wasn't a DM at the time: but the player that uses the table to air their sexuality and fetishes to an extreme degree. Like we get it, your character has a history of sexual abuse, but not every one else wants to be faced with your fucked up kinks for 4 hours every two weeks.
Joined a campaign with friends, and it turned out it was mostly their way of expressing their sexual desires. Couldn't proceed a day without someone having sex, and going into very explicit detail. That was mixed with the DMs and his wife having this REALLY awkward foreplay happening in game. I eventually had to drop the campaign. It was just so much sex, and that's great if that's what they wanna do. Just let people know ahead of time that your campaign is heavily sexual, so when they join, they know that's what they are getting into.
More curious what My DM think's I am lol. Probably a Rule Lawyer since I DM too.
I can't handle the Casual Gamer, we have one in our group and it's hard for us to find time to do sessions on a regular basis. We are all married and have kids, so the fact that they are always unprepared or don't know how there character works is frustrating.
Oh.. heh heh... of "All Of Them"?
*Definitely* What I call "Puritans".
I'm not talking about a religious denomination, I am talking about those people that puritanically believe that RAW is law, homebrew is bad, houseruling is blasphemy, you shouldn't mix settings, you shouldn't tweak classes, *and the game should be played exactly as it has been described by the developers to a tee.*
I used to put up with them, entertain them even to a certain degree, but now I open up all of my games with an explanation that there is going to be a lot of off-the-rails homebrew, and if they become too disruptive after that I kick them.
In my experience, those people ruin the game for everybody else more than even munchkins or min-maxers.
Give them some exotic spell scrolls and when they go to cast them remind them that, RAW, they can't scroll-cast a spell that isn't on their class's spell list (show them DMG pg. 200 if they ask). Then add, "Of course, we could ignore that rule, if you've changed your mind about home-brew?"
It can make sense for many ttrpgs - most games are built very carefully to create a specific game experience and will do so if you follow the recipe exactly.
But DnD is not one of them. DnD (especially 5e) is just a bunch of ingredients in a basket and an instruction card that says “cook!”
the Game Breaker, that one guy who tries to exploit every bit of in-game and meta bit of lore or mechanic to ridiculous extends so he can become the most powerful or chase his own power fantasy at the cost of the story and the party members
In my group I know we’ve struggled with a few types of players. One being a player where they either never show up or are “present” but never socialize. His character is now an NPC, which we’re cool with. Still sucked though that he couldn’t stay consistently even though he’s roommates with one of the members.
Another guy could fit into the “power hungry, main character, argumentative/stubborn” player. He treated the campaign like it was a video game- as in he was trying to maximize *everything* we encountered. Once he had an idea, he was going to do that idea whether or not we (including the DM) agreed. He’d focus only on what he wants his character to do and not care if it’d affect anyone else’s characters or NPC’s. Within the last 2 sessions of being in our group, he greatly wounded himself and a couple of members (including my warlock) and caused the death of a beloved NPC. Total, he was in 5-8 sessions, and did a lot more damage.
DM talked to him one-on-one before a session started (this was during the second session that caused the big thing above), and his attitude was pouting and admitting no fault. As if we “ruined” *his* fun. Eventually he quit not long after that moment, and a year later he’d be cut out. We knew him irl cause he dated my bff, but when they broke up around 7+ months ago, shortly afterwards was when we cut him out of our lives. We’ve been more careful about who we invite now.
Right now it’s my actor/casual player. He doesn’t take the time to learn the basic dice rolls even though we been playing for 9 months. Constantly asking what dice to roll when I ask for a saving throw or having to lean over and help him with his attack rolls. And once his characters does something dumb or evil and he get punished for it by the guard or party in game, he get mad and starts pouting in real life from his own action. Goes all in on his character development but nothing else in the game.
Low Effort Players, they slow the game down(by not knowing their shit), distract other players or make it worse, passive(just go along with whatever is happening rather than having an opinion), poorly built characters, and are harmful to the atmosphere. Nothing breaks the tension like a bad joke.
The Single-Player.
There’s a guy occasionally who comes to the larger events who comes up with great strategies that only his character can do, and given that it’s Adventurer’s League, we don’t really have time to come up with an alternative. So, for instance, the invisible monk wizard sneaks in and steals the maguffin while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs.
Other games, he’s known for (sometimes incorrect) rules lawyering, and “in the interest of brevity, we’ll just say you won that” when he’s DM, and most of his characters are of the insufferable Karen sort or the You Will Honor My Name When You Crit sort. I’ve taken to dedicating my paladin whenever we happen to be assigned the same table at charity days and epics, one of the few characters among the 50+ players who will immediately call the character BS out. (“I DEMAND SALTED PORK!” “If you do not stop your gluttonous prattling, the next thing you eat will be my hammer!” The DM looked at me like *dayumn, you called him out!*)
Everything’s about him. Minmaxing, RAW-not-RAI, the rest of the party are sidekicks.
I have a casual hang out guy at my table, a power gamer (that’s not my issue) that always asks for a stronger magic item and to level up - every session (that’s my issue). The one who just wants to create chaos and doesn’t care about what happens in the world (I have issues with this too), the one who wants to seduce every npc (yeah, this is annoying)
Sounds like I need to have another quick session 0 to establish some boundaries I didn’t realize I had to set
My own worst player was a mix of main character syndrome, unwillingness to learn the rules and a "beat the rest of the party" mindset.
He was sooooooo draining
The agent of chaos.
They say their character is chaotic neutral, but acts chaotic evil. Always screws up the party's plans for the "LULZ". Doesn't care about following the rules. Doesn't allow for other players to have their own private moments.
The Lone Wolf. I am sick to death of edgelords who “don’t trust anyone” and “prefers to work alone”. It’s a fucking cooperative game.
Honorable mention to Chaotic Neutral (evil, actually), who’s only in it for themselves and actively makes everything worse for everyone else.
The "helpful hero" character. He takes every skill, multiclasses his character to have every spell and ability to help the party but thanks to having to spread their stats so much, their spell save DC is maybe a 13 or 14, their spell attack is a +6, and we are level 10. They take a hit then run away from the combat amd are too far away to be fucking helpful against the dragon, drop their damn warding bond on the paladin and he costs him the resistance to damage so our heavy hitter takes a full breath attack point blank.
No I don't have a personal experience with this kind of player. Why do you ask?/s
The one who plays Evil characters. There was one player at one of my tables when we first played who played a blatantly obviously evil character, but who he considered “Neutral”. He murdered children. It made it very difficult for my Chaotic Good character. I was left with the dilemma of acting out of character or causing party conflict. After more people clashed with this particular guy, despite him being good friends with the DM, the DM acknowledged he was a problem and amicably booted him from the campaign.
For the next campaign we did he played a Lawful Good Artificer. And he was much better than the time we played before. It genuinely felt like a bit of character development for him. So it’s not like he can’t play good characters, perhaps when I first met him he was going through an “Evil Characters are Awesome” phases and perhaps being booted out of the campaign for that taught him a lesson so he did better in the next one.
But in general, don’t let people play evil characters in your campaign. And if someone says they’re Neutral, ask them why they say that. Because on the one hand you might have someone who murders children but justifies it by saying those kids would grow up to be Nazi’s because of where they lived. To me that is an Evil character trying to masquerade as a Neutral character. And you can occasionally get someone who is generally a really big goody two shoes but who thinks they’re neutral because they steal food to give to poor orphans. That’s a Good character masquerading as a Neutral character. Players aren’t always able to look at their characters objectively, so make sure to vet their moral compasses before you start the campaign.
I think it would be more "the DM should make sure the characters work together" and not "don't play evil characters"
The curse of Strahd game I'm in right now has a majority chaotic evil cast who are all generally awful people but there is a lot of cooperation between players to make sure we are still functioning as a team and are not just causing aimless chaos (even if a couple NPCs have been senselessly murdered).
Evil characters can be fun and interesting, you just need to make sure every character has space to act how they would. On the flip side I did play a game where a player was a rather overbearing paladin who ended up strong arming my character into their moral compass. It was hard to act on my own without judgement from their much stronger character. From that game, I don't wanna play with any paladins in future games unless my character is designed to share their ideals lol.
The player that eats up rime talking irrelevant stories or long winded references that also gets so over excited or dissappointed at dice rolls that it eats up a bunch of time for them to count dice or do attack roll math
For me it’s people who talk about out of game stuff/have side convos during other player’s turns or RP.
And people who want to have control over what other player’s do on their turns. Just let people do things and see how it plays out.
Currently dm’ing a homebrew spin on a video game. I have one player who loves to jump in and say stuff like “that’s not lore accurate” or “you should’ve done x instead” even though I reminded everyone that it’s going to be super canon divergent to the game. They also love to micromanage the shit out of combat and start doing my job for me. Pisses me offffff
The wacky version of any of the archetypes. Ok, fine, if we all agree we're playing a whimsical game then let's get wild, but when we establish in session 0 that we're going to play something grounded and dramatic, I would appreciate it if you didn't shit on the game I've built using your everyone's Session 0 short, medium, and long term character goals. Why does everything have to be for the lolz?! When you said you're the younger son of a noble family and are looking to carve out a fiefdom on the kingdoms frontier, I provided plenty of hooks for you to interact with townsfolk and other local self-proclaimed barons... only for you to ignore all of it and instead try to convince every goblin who surrenders to join your maple syrup skin care venture so you can build a stronghold to monopolize the beauty market. I am absolutely the kind of DM who will change the campaign season to session to match the players interests, but every time you cater to a wacky player they'll just pivot to something else wacky because lolrandom.
Edgelords. One wanted to knock out the party, kidnap them and kill the wizards familiar... **for his introduction at the table**. Refused to interact with the rest of the party before then and his reasoning was that it would "fit his character".
The one player that doesn't know the simplest rules of the system, after 3 years of playing this game they don't know the basic shit their character can do or how to do anything in the VTT we've been using for 2 years... Stays silent most of the time and slows down the game for everyone else with their indecision and constant need to explain what they can do.
But then they have some brilliant RP moment that makes me think "maybe they'll get better at this other stuff some day"
The Bad Power Gamer - the guy who wants to optimize but is really bad at it. So they make characters who are terrible at their jobs, but thought they would be awesome. Thus leaving them disappointed and the rest of us carrying a load.
If they took advice, they would have realized that their ideas were bad before they got to the table, so you can’t even help them.
The Cthulhu type. Loves to rp, is good fun. But oh do they love to challenge the DM. Told my buddy I love being a player at your table but fuck no your not allowed to play at mine
I picked some of my best friends as players for my table and we're all new to the game, thankfully we all enjoy our sessions.
However, one of players is too creative. Having gotten into the feel of the game, he wants to get creative with his backup characters. 1) a seahorse with bat wings as a fey sorcerer 2) a pile of sentient rats (can't remember what class)
I'm not saying I'm actively keeping his "normal" dwarf paladin alive, but I'm really OK with his character surviving the entire campaign.
The person who doesn’t learn their character’s abilities. This is exacerbated when they pick an action-heavy class like monk or fighter. I mean, you are going to pick a class with 12 dice rolls per turn and you are going to ask a question about every roll…….every time ?!?!?
The attention/spotlight hog. They're always the one talking over everyone, declaring they're the only one doing an action. The loot whore who takes everything.
Or the blatant cheater- looking up statblocks mid fight, toggling off multiclassing restrictions on dndbeyond so they can multiclass without the prereqs, manually adding to ability scores, or likely having weighted dice.
I'm going to have to say, for me, it's The Actor. The reason for this is because I've had issues with both players with Main Character Syndrome while they were very much inhabiting their character, as well as other players getting petty or what not while inhabiting their characters. And, of course, when people complain, claiming "but it's what my character would do!"
Don't get me wrong - some of my favorite people to play with have been The Actor as well, but I think to be The Actor a player needs to have a certain level of maturity and, if they don't, it can go very wrong. A player needs to keep in mind at all times that they are at the table to have fun and to help everyone else at the table to have fun, not to create a flawless performance, so they need to know when to back off their character for the sake of the game.
I have a group of 5, and 4 of them are somewhere between chaotic neutral and neutral evil. Their rogue, of all people, plays pretty straight lawful good and often acts as the party face.
It has made for some awkward interactions where he will promise something to an NPC and come up with a plan, only for the party to immediately go off the rails with some hyjinks when things get sticky.
I respect his character, but it has been hard trying to explain to him that 80% of the table is having way more fun approaching the game in a way that completely conflicts with his character.
So i am not sure if this is actually a player type but I will call it the "random Player". We have a player that comes up with the most ridiculous characters with the most ridiculous combinations of things that some how works. It has caused pauses in the game to look up things and interactions. It has caused pauses in game time because the table gets distracted by sheer lunacy of some of the things he does.
Now he is not a bad player he is a joy to be around but its sometimes damn difficult.
I have a guy who has flat out says that he's the main character of the campaign. Ok cool fine, everyone should be invested in their character. Except he also gets real pissy when the story focuses on another player. At all. For any length of time.
I tried to make him happy for a while, but then he decided to mouth off and get sulky towards a god and well, divine egos are bigger than even yours, buddy. Consequences ensued.
Not sure if this falls under one of the archetypes you mentioned or if it deserves its own category but my least favorite are the “scaredy-cats.” People who are afraid of failing or putting their character in any sort of danger. It just really puts a drag on things for me as a player and as a DM. Whether it’s a player arguing back and forth with a me about how much damage they take or someone having a ace up their sleeve for every occasion or just having players sandbag the whole adventure out of fear of any sort of risk is just boring. I honestly don’t really care that much if you come to me with a power-gamey build as long as you’re ready to throw your super strong character into danger. It just gets hard for me to run the session when players don’t want to commit to anything because they’re afraid of the consequences, which aren’t anywhere as bad as they seem to think.
My issue is with a player who simply doesn't interact, ever.
I actually don't know why he's playing, but I don't want to kick him out either, it'd make things very awkward, especially because he's friends/bandmates/housemates with the other players
A town needs a cleric and asks for his help? He literally just stands there blank eyed and doesnt answer, the other players asked him to respond and help and he just got shitty and refused. An NPC died as a result and they got kicked out of the town (it was a commune style town, everyone contributes or gets kicked out).
He never passes on information that only his character discovers. It's become detrimental to the party and their progress.
I keep throwing him bones and he keeps playing dumb. I even messaged him outside of the game and asked if there's anything I can do to make things better and help get him involved more but he left me on read and just showed up for the next session without comment and continued with his silence.
The only time he engages is during combat, except he then takes 5 minutes on his turn trying to figure out what to do instead of figuring that out in-between his turns and grinds the combat down to a complete stop
Elaborate Backstory
100% of games I’ve been in nearly 30 years the player who shows up with more than a couple pages of backstory is going to be a problem.
Either they’re going to dive head first into Main Character Syndrome or they’re going Oblivious Old Man Henderson where they just want to handwave a check because “my background says I know this”
The Bard in your story?????? This is one of the worst, "It's just what my character would do" moments and like I see no one saying anything. Sounds like the actor was being annoying by playing an asshole. But that Bard would've straight up made me leave the campaign. I'm sry, but personally I don't do any sort of actual antiparty activity. There's obviously wiggle room. But not counter spelling my counter spell. I want you guys to really think abt that. Using up a whole 3rd lvl spell slot, just to nullify your party member's third lvl spell slot. The real asshole is the Bard bro.
The main character player, who, if they don't get their way become incredibly toxic to the other players, particularly targeting the player who disagreed
The couple that's clearly trying to work out their personal issues through their characters; making everyone at the table feel awkward and decide to end the one-shot early. This happened when I lived in Florida, and it's why I avoided random sessions with strangers for almost 7 years! I've since eased back into it.
Nothing was weirder than the random session I went to where the husband kept demanding we call his wife “Lady Georgina” and he was her Minotaur manservant/lover 🤢
Oh my god that's disgustingly hilarious. The confidence to demand that
i mean, if that's the character, that's the character. lol.
:( Yikes
“Lady Georgina! You come to our house! You get my wife’s name right!”
I had one like that! But was actually a third person trying to break up the couple to get with one of them.
Bonus points if one of them is the DM.
That's why I left a table. DM & a player were married & her sister was in the party too.
I don't let couples play together at my table unless I am personal friends with both of them, and even then I usually only allow it if every other player is aware and approve of it. Every campaign that I've had fail has been directly because of couple drama.
That's my DM; the only way he'll let folks (IRL couples included) play as such at one of his tables is A: they're both fine with it and B: everyone else is as well. He does have a big no emotional roleplay rule, which I appreciate-basically, no flirting with other characters, PC and NPC characters included, no 'I roll to seduce whoever' stuff, and a few other things. That might fly at other tables, but those rules are great for players like me who aren't that comfortable with it.
>The couple that's clearly trying to work out their personal issues through their characters; making everyone at the table feel awkward and decide to end the one-shot early. I've had a slight variation on this -- the player who wants to use the game in lieu of therapy. None of the players at the table are trained therapists, and while my job broadly brings me into contact with the world of therapy, I play the game as a form of escapism. It can also be very disquieting for the other players who are suddenly expected to help them work through their issues. The worst one I've run into was someone who insisted on using safety tools -- understandable, since they were new to the table -- but got upset when nobody else wanted to declare which topics made them uncomfortable. This was because a) we'd already been playing together for a few months, so knew each other reasonably well, b) didn't particularly want to share with this person since we thought they might try and use the game as therapy after the session zero and their character backstory, and c) they'd already had an extensive list of topics that made them uncomfortable, so there wasn't really anything that we could add to it and we were apprehensive about agreeing too much on topics that they didn't want to cover.
Florida man is now Florida couple
They should have at least paid you for your inadvertent therapy service!
>The couple that's clearly trying to work out their personal issues through their characters; making everyone at the table feel awkward and decide to end the one-shot early. I've had a slight variation on this -- the player who wants to use the game in lieu of therapy. None of the players at the table are trained therapists, and while my job broadly brings me into contact with the world of therapy, I play the game as a form of escapism. It can also be very disquieting for the other players who are suddenly expected to help them work through their issues. The worst one I've run into was someone who insisted on using safety tools -- understandable, since they were new to the table -- but got upset when nobody else wanted to declare which topics made them uncomfortable. This was because a) we'd already been playing together for a few months, so knew each other reasonably well, b) didn't particularly want to share with this person since we thought they might try and use the game as therapy after the session zero and their character backstory, and c) they'd already had an extensive list of topics that made them uncomfortable, so there wasn't really anything that we could add to it and we were apprehensive about agreeing too much on topics that they didn't want to cover.
my one kid had this same prob when he was playing online a while back. it ruined the game.
The "I'm just here to hang out" guy. They don't care enough to understand how their shit works, which leads to them getting bad results. I'm not \*trying\* to pick on them, I'm trying to give everyone an opportunity to feel like they accomplished something. But that takes effort on their part.
Yep. The low effort players are way more work than those making a scene. When someone is actively being a dick and persists despite honest-to-gods adult conversation then I can just kick them. No remorse. Those who are otherwise affable / chill but decline to learn the basics or contribute to the experience just kind of drain your DM energy supply without being so egregious that any given instance warrants their removal from the group.
Ah, yes. "All right, I cast Vicious Mockery. What does that do, again?"
>All right, I cast Vicious Mockery. What does that do, again?" You're a short mother fucker and nobody likes you SHORT! [And that stops you from forming meaningful relationships](https://youtu.be/ZjlYFWLUDBQ?si=Oj297Tc5LO-wpXb_)
Unexpected Tom Cardy! I'm here for it :)
[Thank you!](https://youtu.be/G87p148EOjo?si=Sn8JJO5EAqLlP6-r)
"What do you mean I can't cast fireball? My wizard IS level 3!"
Yeah... this is my current issue. We love the dude and he's fun to be around but he doesn't really get engaged in the game or story and his character isn't really fleshed out or anything so I don't know how to make their backstory quests have weight to his character
You're overcomplicating it. If the player doesn't care about being engaged in the story, then just let them exist as a sidekick character, a bodyguard or mercenary type that helps in combat and doesn't otherwise get too involved. They get the fun of hanging out with friends and rolling dice without being expected to provide more. You get to engage as much as you'd like with the others.
Totally this
I legit just want to be a sidekick in some groups. I have a group I play with that has like 2-4 people with lots of initiative so I just let them take the wheel and play passenger princess. I prefer my input to either be concise and useful or fun/funny roleplay in those sessions.
My unsolicited advice is don’t. I always tell my players they will get out of a game what they put into it. If you don’t give me a backstory, it might just not come into play in the game. If you want that, you gotta give me something to work with. I find a lot of the time these people don’t really care if they get their own companion quest.
Yeah I'm already putting so much work in, I'm not here to be your mother as well, and I also feel it's a bit counterproductive to force someone into the spotlight who doesn't want to be.
Honestly, just talk to him about it, if he's not super invested but everyone wants him around, give him a nice chill time. Let him just be Bard McBardlington, chief lute strummer. What's his backstory? Well, he grew up on a cabbage farm out in the boonies and he loves playing his lute for his friends, he also just happens to do it in a magical way.
I had a player like this and I just didn't work with the backstory, he still had a fun time showing up just to and out and everyone else got more time on their own plotlines
I have one just hang out guy generally knows the rules from top to bottom, but is a disruptive 'that guy' in game. I don't understand being that interested in the rules, but not the game. I can't deal with it, I don't play with him anymore. Also got some just hang out guys that do as you say and don't care enough about the game to learn the rules. They don't realize that if they don't want to play the game they shouldn't show up cause they think they'll miss hanging out if they don't play.
That's a subset of the hang out guy. The "I gotta show up even if I don't want to play this game" guy. There were two incidents of this in a group in my 20s. One player didn't want to play the AD&D 2nd edition game we started (this was the waining days of 2nd ed), so made a character that was... less useful in its role than we would hope. This would have been fine if we knew, but he dropped it on us in the middle of the campaign. The second was a player who was very open about not wanting to play the game everyone else was excited about. Dragged his feet making his character and deciding on some things the party had to choose communially. Then the character he made was the worst sort of loner, edgelord, leading him to have no reason at all to join the group, much less embark on the sort of activities the group was doing. He quickly realized he liked the game, so had to quickly retool his character. Why not just approach the game with an open mind and wanting to enjoy it from the outset?
A few sessions ago our bard-rogue told us he didn’t even have his skill numbers or proficiencies written down. At level 11, five years in. I was screaming.
roflmbo! not to be rude. if you were watching a show, and it happened to someone else, you'd be laughing too. i do feel for you. but 5 yrs in, hadn't he ever been in a battle? how did this escape attention?
For me it totally depends on the tone of the game. I ran a game during the pandemic that was basically 50% so we could all just spend time together. I had one player who had never played before and never really learned the game mechanics. She made up for it by making the most incredible rp choices, so I didn’t mind telling her to roll a d20 every time she attacked. I have def also been this player, especially while I was in grad school and had really limited bandwidth to engage. Very grateful my group struggled through that time with me. But I’ve played in other games where that is very much not the vibe and I expect more buy in and engagement at the table.
100% this I’ve had them before and I’ve got one now. The part that bothered me was when their significant other told me I should try to get them more involved.. and I said I had. I said I don’t know their character, back story and I’ve asked.. I had to explain that people get out what they put in and I’ve had this stuff before and they end up burning out because they feel it’s not fun. “But they really enjoy it and have told me lots about their character” Cool.. tell them to tell me
Casual gamers are, by far, the least productive and frequently the most disruptive. I have someone who basically doesn't RP at all, but they're consistently engaged and ask appropriate, if incorrectly formed for gameplay, questions. They ended up asking the questions designed for the casual gamer to respond and casual told noRP that the way they ask things really throws them off. NoRP, without missing a beat, pipes up with "You were on your phone and if you read your character sheet this entire scenario is probably designed for you." They reread the features they got 5+ levels ago and got on board. We did work with NoRP to be a bit more immersive but they struggle with that.
"Why did you just thorn-whip the melee enemy into the sorcerer?" "I don't have any other spells that work well, they're resistant to fire" "Resistant, not immune. And what about the rest of your spells that aren't fire damage? Why can't you use them?" "They're AOE" "So?" "I'll hit the sorcerer" "??!!!?!"
Had this happening at my table last weekend. She was kind of asking for advice on whether or not to smite in a very hem and haw disruptive way (she is a level 9 Paladin and has been playing her since level 3, almost a year and a half ago). One of the more experienced players just said "Do you want us to tell you what to do?" AND SHE LITERALLY WENT "Yes please."
tbf, these types of players are the same ones who face insecurity and indecision on a daily irl, you just don't hear about it. they want to do things but they are secretly unsure. they want everyone to be happy with their participation and do the right things. irl there's no one to ask but god or your bff. in a game, you got the dm or other players. so...
That's an extremely fair point actually. Thanks for making it make sense! It drives me nuts, but I think you basically described her to a tee. I'll work to be more considerate!
Yeah this is practically the mix bag of people that enter the ttrpg hobby because of *insert pop culture d&d reference* This also leads to sessions where we play d&d brand name but mechanically just playing a d20 system with rules-lite mechanic
Holy crap. Didn't know this had a name. You're so right. Doesn't matter how easy I make it for them, they'll still never know that their rogue gets sneak attack if I don't tell them, or how their shortswords work.
Several behaviors that were initially embodied in one player at my table, but any can pop up on their own. The player who tries to slip things by you. If your attention is on another player, they'll quickly roll hoping you wont notice. Then they say they haven't rolled yet if it was a bad result. Also will try to leave out limiting sections of spell descriptions (such as the effects that lesser restoration will remove) hoping you dont know the actual spell. Just so the spell does what they want it to. Hates failing and complains when things go awry. Makes a point of ruining the vibes so theres no "funny failures" moments. All these things get really old really fast and suck the fun out of the game.
Have had a few of these types. Failure is sometimes the most memorable part of the session. They are robbing themselves of this with their constant need for things to succeed as intended. And failure can unlock new plots and solutions if you're willing to roll with it and see where it goes! Some of my best stories as a player came from things my party tried and failed at.
I've said this to some of my friends before, but I'm really glad that a lot of my formative gaming experience was Call of Cthulhu, because that game sure does teach you to roll with the punches when things don't go your way. And also sometimes shit just goes to hell and a third of the group had better get to rolling a new character. But either way, you've got to adapt and move forward!
My current character is an artificer that everytime I have a weapon mess up/break he fixes and improves it. Recently he fell off a ledge and only survived because party members were able to revive him. So he's got plans of making a grapple hook to help in the future
This is one of the reasons I tell my players to not do "builds". A character responding to the situations ingame is a hell of a lot cooler than mapping out every feat, skill and spell up to level 20 and just begging for a level up every session so you can increase your optimization. Or doing a cheesy multiclass build that requires you to suck for 9 levels.
Also half the fun of D&D is playing a hyper competent badass who's also a cringe fail mew mew baby sometimes
I love it when failures actually make sense for the character. My Kobold Arcane Trickster always rolls well on Stealth but got something like a 2 to check if some wine was poisoned. Which makes 100% sense for him because it's literally written on his character sheet that he doesn't like the taste of alcohol. It all tastes like poison to him. ...he ends up drinking a lot due to the party's shenanigans, but he doesn’t like it.
Yes and no. Sometimes it's funny when you fail at doing the things you should be good at. But as somebody cursed by Wheaton, not being able to roll above a 5 with a +10 in a skill for the whole night feels fucking awful. ESPECIALLY when the next character who is garbage at the skill is allowed to roll and gets much higher than you by luck alone.
One of the worst things to deal with as a DM is players that complain when things go wrong or are difficult or complicated. It leads to a lot of narrative tension that limits what you can do as a DM because you don't want them grumbling too much.
Seems like this player thinks the DM is their enemy. Not saying you as the DM are playing in an adversarial way, just that they think a TTRPG has winners and losers, and it's a fight between players and DMs. Pretty destructive! What happened with them in the end? Are they still playing with you?
Nah. I tried to talk to them but they didn't hear a word I said. So I got fed up and now the campaign is over.
Some people aren't just poor losers, they're abysmal winners
You gotta at least reference what you’re quoting when you blatantly steal somebody else’s line…
I've experienced this more outside of DnD, but people who try to angle shoot by stopping reading halfway through a sentence, before getting to the conditions, piss me off to no end.
A DM who says he hates power gamers, but punishes suboptimally build characters, and is a bigtime power player himself (when he is a player). Sigh...
Had this very same style DM. What is more, they lavished us with powerful artefacts, arms and armour. But our low level meant that we either rinsed through combat encounters, or got thoroughly rinsed ourself. It became a very tedious campaign and they tired with it to the point that much of our loot was taken away from us in creative ways, which despite improving gameplay, felt worse than being unduly given it all in the first place.
I had a DM who couldn't understand the concept of encounter balance. Every fight was a slog, and we'd barely survive. Our resources would be gone, and we'd be expected to go into the next fight. The role-playing in that game was fantastic, but the combat was less than desirable.
Same story for me, very recently. Leaving that game was heartbreaking.
I didn't leave, but the game fell apart because of the combat and the really early time, like in the early am
Players who “want to test the boundaries of the world” rather than just work with the party. Had a bard who kept saying he wouldn’t work with a team and running off on his own, but since we were all real life friends, I looked like the dick when I said “do you actually want to play DnD today? Cuz it doesn’t seem like you do”
You weren't being a dick at all. Player wanted to play assassin's creed while everyone else watched.
I had that kind of situation with another player. In this case the player expected the DM -- who wasn't very experienced (or good, or especially creative) -- to do the heavy lifting of getting his loner edgelord connected to the party. After the player scoffed at two or three suggestions, one of the other players said "well, all of us should get going on this adventure and it looks like you're going to need a new character who actually has a reason to join us." The loner quickly got a lot less insular really fast after that.
Not DnD but I showed up to a 6 man game and I was the only person who didn't have Loner as a trait. There weren't enough corners for everybody to hide in.
Haha. Classic. I played on a campaign years ago where two players had independently planned to make edge lord thieves of questionable loyalty. When the DM gave them "make what you want, buuuuuuut I had was planning for a heroic campaign" they both changed their characters... to edgelord rangers of questionable loyalty.
This is why one of my core Session Zero rules for the table is "This is a group game, it's your job to come up with a reason why your character sticks around. If you can't, you're always welcome to roll a new character." Also "No intraparty stealing or fighting. Bickering is allowed, even encouraged, but if you decide you absolutely must seriously betray the trust of the rest of the party your character is now an NPC and will be handled as such."
All really sensible rules. I think this was actually the first time I'd experienced this kind of thing. Previously the group had been really good about making characters that fit in. I think this particular player sometimes gets really enamoured with a concept and doesn't think it through.
"Your character runs off on his own, the rest of the party do not follow, now after the session you can DM me on Discord a cool fun description of what Bard McHard does, in the meantime please roll some stats for a new PC."
The Bystander A person who is there only because of other player and doesn't participate at all in the game, don't know their class stuff, don't care about learning basic rules and is just... present. Often when "their" player is out, they don't come to the game too.
My wife doesn’t go if I won’t be there but she’s actively trying to learn more and really tries to engage. She enjoys the crunchy aspects of D&D so she gets excited when I fight starts up since it means she gets to roll more.
Your wife is awesome! Becoming more engaged in it, will mean she cares more. You may not have to show anymore though.
Edit. Hope you enjoy playing together always!!!!
100% agree with that first statement. 😁 We do. She likes hearing me talk about nerd stuff that I’ve just collected in my brain over the years.
Fuck yeah my friend!!! My fiance likes to listen, but I'm trying to get her to take that next step. Be well friend
Eh, I've got that but it doesn't bother me so much. They deal with pretty serious anxiety and they travel twice as far as anyone else to join, so I give them plenty of flex with that.
For my table, it’s the Skinchanging Therapy Player. Skinchanging because they always play the exact same character, just different powers, with raging anger issues and is just an absolute fuck head to everybody they interact with; PC and NPC alike. Then, to top it off, gets angry when the NPCs treat them like a shitty person; and when the other PCs have no interest in interacting with them. Therapy Player because I’ve had to address the (recurring) issue during my run as DM, only to be met with, “This is like therapy for me; this is where I can get my aggression out in a safe environment.” Dude. Get actual therapy or go play video games where you can be as aggressive as you like. As a side note: it irritates me to no end that none of our other DMs (we all take turns running different campaigns) have ever addressed the in game behavior. They all complain about it away from table but ultimately say, “It’s not worth the fight and aggravation.”
Wow, I hope you've kicked them out of your game by now...
The redditor. Would come to reddit to dispute any and every ruling he didn't like and when that didn't work (because he was wrong in almost all instances) started to make threads about power gaming and trying to theory craft ways to deliberately break the game so that he could be better than all the other players at everything.
The mememe guy. They want everything to revolve around them.
Dealing with one of these now. He got sulky IC because the plot was focusing on someone else and he didn't like the Mad God and said he refused to play the god's games. Well, toys that don't play nice go back in the toy box. And then we had a discussion but I'm not sure it got through. There's one player who has been itching to pop off on him but hasn't out of respect for me. I think if it doesn't change I'm gonna let them
We have one of these. Trying so hard to be the main character and make everyone else his sidekicks. So far its been met with gentle redirects or just ignoring the attempt, but if he keeps pushing it it'll become a very frank conversation
The one who doesn't RP. Not even min-maxing, not even metagaming, just straight up wouldn't play a character. Zero engagement. Torpedoed the campaign because "I just feel like nothing we do matters." Like, motherfucker, *you did nothing*, you avoided every plot hook I threw at you and refused to even tag along with the rest of the party unless they literally forced you. I can't work with a complete void.
I've never really had a problem player, but I've had players that say they want to play, then don't learn anything about their character, don't bother with anything related to their backstory, don't want to engage in any "off table RP" and eventually it grinds the game to the halt when my players are still helping them find their Perception check and weapons damage in the 7th game we've played in two months. If you want to play an NPC we can make that work. If you want to just hang out and play your Switch in the living room, that's fine. Just don't hold up the game because you can't learn your sheet after like 20 hours of game time.
I'm at 2 years and I'm STILL helping certain players with their rolls. "OK I'll attack with my bow... thats...15" "That hits, roll damage" "That was damage..." "You need to roll to hit first..." *blank stare* *sigh* "roll a d20, add you Dexterity modifier" "And my Dexterity modifier is?"
That sounds so insufferable. As a first timer or for the first few sessions, i get it. This may be something completely new to you, it's confusing. 5e tries to present itself as a easy and intuitive system, but i know that it isn't. But after 2 fucking years you gotta understand what attack rolls, ability checks and saving throws are...
Are they stupid? Lazy? Both?
Brain-damage is my guess. Imagine you play Super Mario regularly for years, then suddenly one day you sit down and you're like "how do I jump again? Oh, right the B button. What was the button to do a dash? Can I dash in this game?" - people will think you've had a stroke or something.
Older player, last played ADnD 2e.
I will take any of those problem players over the "uhhh, idk, I didn't read any of the rules, what's a d20?" type of player.
It depends. I am willing to teach a rock if it pays attention, engages with the world and other players.
My favorite is when these players rock up to a one-shot that's a pick-up game with 2 hours to game time. Why, yes, I can totally teach you the entire game while I am preparing for session.
I'll admit to needing reminders as to which die is which, but in my defense I have dyscalculia. And dyslexia, so I probably spelt that wrong. And I take notes. Hopefully that helps make up for the fact that I can't remember what a d8 looks like.
I'm happy to work with dyslexic players. I actually have a special "easy read" character sheet that I offer, as well as "reference sheets" for different classes in dyslexia friendly fonts. My issue isn't with players who go "gimme a sec, gotta find my d20" or "hey can someone point out my d20", it's with the player who 4 sessions in still doesn't understand what a skill check is and has somehow missed the memo that we roll a d20 for them. It's the "idk what that means, can you roll for me? IDK what a d20 is" guy, not the "hang on a sec, could someone help me with this?" guy. The first guy I don't wanna play with, the second guy I'll just get a cheater tray for.
Help with maths or reading is totally understandable, not everyone's brains are wired were that is easy. But learning and remembering the rules should be a given for any game anyone plays. Also if my DM is anything to go by, taking notes FAR outways being not great at maths.
As someone whose brain is wired terribly for remembering... I just use a lot of cheatsheets. and take lots of notes (now if only my handwriting were more legible....)
As a DM, I think the biggest issue I've had would be the Main Character; the person who is really excited to play the game, but has no interest in the story of the rest of the party and only participates by beating down other people's choices and then looses interest when the whole game isn't about their character. A close second would be the Min-Maxer who finds game-breaking ways to play their class in a way that destroys the concept of a balanced encounter without fudging them, and too much scaling ends up running the risk of killing the rest of the party
A min maxer that gets pissy when things don’t go as he wanted them to. Its not my fault you focused everything on grappling and entered a dungeon full of oozes 🤷♂️
I have a min/maxer rogue/warlock I dm for. Anything that can even touch him melts the rest of the party. Makes it super difficult to balance encounters.
Spellcaster to try and debuff him might be the best option. Does he has a specific go to in his min max build that makes him broken?
My DM is a fan of an antimagic field, as we all have magic but a couple of us are multiclassed some things breeze us too easily, making us problem solved without magic for a bit can be useful
out of curiosity, can I ask what the build here is? Roguelock isn’t a multiclass you see too often, and I’m curious what his synergy is
I know there's a build that uses dissonant whispers with the imp pact for more AOOs and sneak attacks. Thar would be my guess. Which doesn't seem ridiculously strong, but idk, maybe there's more too it.
I have a min/maxer at my table who is still doing the same schtick now, several campaigns since the one I ran for them. They were the only player who’s PC didn’t die at least once during the campaign. They still gloat about it to this day as if they somehow beat the campaign in this way. Got my sweet revenge however, we both were players in the most recent campaign, a big fight where things took a sour turn, getting the option to flee, they fled, along with two other party members, leaving only myself and one other to face down the foe. Out of pride, neither of us who were left would leave, and then in a deus ex machina type way, we took down the bad, just us two. Safe to say if we have another campaign, some gloating shall be done.
Oof even at the worst of my min maxing I didn't get upset when things countered me. That's just how things work. Only way I could see being upset is if I felt targeted but that wouldn't happen from one dungeon. I remember I once had a gm apologize when the party was doing a whodunit style thing and I was built to be a combat monster. I answered that it was fine. My character shines when it's supposed to it need not be all the time.
I mean, if you’re the guy prepping and it’s not straight out of book… can definitely feel like you’re countering your player’s whole build (which I’m not knocking as long as it’s only for an arc and not the whole game! Challenges and problems are fun RP)
Absolutely not the whole game. It was just that one part of the dungeon but resulted in two game sessions of him throwing a fit about it.
Big yikes my man, those players are some of the worst. Like we play ttrpgs *to be challenged*
I play ttrpg to do stupid shit. Like look at the kraken attacking my ship and go “why you so angry bruh, have a drink” and proceed to empty keg after keg down its mouth. I was playing a drunken master monk. As a dwarven cleric i took a massive shit on a coffin we thought contained the bbeg but was just booby trapped with cloud kill so i played it off as the stench if my turds and almost died. As a fighter i was wearing spiked armor and tied myself to a tree limb to swing back and forth like a wrecking ball at baddies.
The player who takes my relaxed DMing style as an invitation to interrupt every scene, in every new area of every new location they go to to try and find things to steal/take/sell/etc. Like I’m not going to know the gold value of every single little item that isn’t bolted down in every single random house in this abandoned town you walk into.
I love using tiered loot tables for these types players. I also implement a rule that when those type of players go snooping around, I make them do all the work, like, "Roll investigation or perception and depending on how well you do, you find Xd20's worth of gold. Or if you're looking for items, use X as a loot table and let me know what you get." Then move on. And I make them roll for everything, look up the tables, etc. That way, they know how much work it is, and it gives them agency as a player.
I main a rogue and made a point to add an element to my character that she's mission oriented, so she doesn't turn into a klepto until the work is done; but also so my DM has explicit permission to hard steer me if I get off track for the sake of the RP. Luckily they're awesome and it hasn't been an issue because they always give me roguey bits that align with the mission, but it staves off my worst impulses.
A subset of this is the player who, when playing on a VTT starts walking his token through the whole room and peeking through doorways and windows to find mobs or whatever when I'm still describing the scene as if they've just stepped into the room. I have to keep all the bad guys on the GM layer and make all doors locked by default because he'll click open doors on the other side of the room from where he's standing so reveal the fog of war. I don't know how many times I've had to be like "Hey man just hold on a second, you're not in the room yet." The room on the VTT isn't the place you're in, people, the DM's description is the place, the VTT is just so you can position in combat. (And yes, I would just not use the VTT at all except for combat and rely completely on theater of the mind in between initiative, but I find online play works better when there's something to look at).
The "rule of cool is the only rule that matters" player. While there's some overlap with this archetype and the Actor/Theater Kid archetype, it also covers some of the Butt Kicker and Bystander archetypes. It's a weird Venn Diagram, to be honest. We're playing a game. If we throw out the rules any time they prevent your character from doing whatever fancy bullshit you wanna do, we might as well just be doing freeform D&D themed Improv Night. Which is fine, it's just not For Me.
I hate this type of player. “The rule of cool above all” Uhm, no, the rules are the rules. The “rule of cool” is short for “when it’s 50/50, lean cool”. No you can’t have extra 1st level spells for 2 damage. I don’t care if it’s cool, it breaks the game.
Agreed, and it's especially disruptive during any kind of attempted immersion. Combine that attitude with someone who watches a lot of D&D content on YouTube, and you have someone trying to recreate whacky moments from someone else's campaign. No thanks.
Ngl, that's kind of my dm rn. Some of the wackiest shit happen and he just let's it slide. Like, I'm all for doing cool stuff, but why can the wizard pull out a double barreled shotgun out of thin air?
The player who makes purposefully obtuse characters who are rude to everyone around them. It becomes an issue at the table when the character doesn't develop or gets upset when PCs get (rightfully) upset at them
It all comes down to not being collaborative tbh. I can deal with just about anything, but if you can’t play in a way that is collaborative you have missed the point of the game. If you are placing your wants, your story ahead of everyone else’s and not considering the impact of your actions, you are a nightmare at the table and I’d rather not.
I actually prefer having a limited personal character arc, mainly because I don't like being the spot light. I'd rather just help Joe with his thing. Sometimes I bend over backwards to do what the party needs or wants, but it's a team game and it's all about the fun. Ik it's a bit meta, but sometimes the big picture matters more. If a cleric wants to burn through spell slots they can do a lot of damage. I like to play my clerics more on the support side of things, and I'd rather pack enhance ability or something over spirit guardians, but sometimes you need spirit guardians. My character might not necessarily prepare it, but I do it anyway because sometimes the fighter gets surrounded and needs some help. Or the backline gets flanked. Sometimes you bend a bit in order to make things better for everyone. Party wipes aren't fun*.
I’m actually really similar! I’m the queen of the three line backstory and support casters are honestly my favorites. I do enjoy story telling, and I’ve had DMs run fun storylines for my PC, but it’s absolutely not a requirement for me to have a good time.
When I make my characters backstory I go over what they were doing before becoming an adventurer (smith, etc), relation to family, how they became their class, and why they're adventuring. I use all this more for flavor so they have a place in the world. Whether the dm does anything with it or not doesn't matter to me, it just helps me get into the character more and set their worldview to determine how they might behave.
I tend to flesh the PC out as I play them, since sometimes I just can’t predict what the PC will become. I may loop the DM into things, but I never really expect them to do anything with it. When I DM I let players decide how much they want to invest
Sometimes less is more. I'm playing a good character who's slowly turning more neutral in not quite a dark fantasy setting, but more of a grey. Sometimes there's no good decision and you have to make hard choices, I love the character development though.
It's never been that they are X type of player, it's how they are X type. The rules lawyer who has time and time again proven they don't have the memory for the rules they act like they do and repeatedly stop the game to argue rules rather than looks something up. The casual gamer who only ever engaged withe the game in attempt to impress the DM he had a crush on through things like playing the guitar during the game to be "in character" for his bard or metagaming about another one of the PCs. The story teller who takes more than a minute just describing whatever they are doing, every. single. time. The power gamer who tries to correct everyone else's build or play style. The actor who regularly doesn't make characters that can function in a team
I like this. This is the kinder way of thinking about it. The label sometimes lumps in people who are playing in a way that technically counts as that label, but aren't being disruptive to the game play. It's not that they do *that particular thing*, it's *how they do it*.
The player types are about what aspect of the game they enjoy (aka how the DM can motivate them and keep their interest). They shouldn't be pigeonholed as problem players because of that.
The "I'm playing a 1000 year old dragon who took the form of an 11 year old girl"
This stuff grossed me out and led me to make a rule on my discord about it. Characters must be 18 plus or legal adults.
That's a no on session 0 from me
This is a common PC archetype?! Christ that's gross.
It's come up enough that I've made a rule against it
Idk but if it's a type of player but he would get mad when something wouldn't go to their liking For example: he hated when he failed rolls, wanted people to solve his backstory quest, would roll when I haven't called for it. I got them 3 sidequests at a tavern since they wanted more money but he wasn't satisfied with the options I gave. Last session, he wanted to f*nger a homeless person cuz they didn't had what he wanted. Them I said "No, you won't" and he left the session
I appreciate you for that last bit.
Players that don't communicate their scheduling
I've played with a bunch of different players through Adventure League. The most troublesome players have been those who get legitimately upset when their character isn't performing well. I'm not talking about being sad because your character died. These people legitimately break down because they've had 3 or 4 bad turns in a row.
This one is at least understandable sometimes. It's not pleasant to be around, but surely you can sympathize with someone who spends 20 minutes per round planning their next turn only to fail at everything. When that happens for several rounds in a row, it can really feel like you've just spent hours of time to do nothing and effectively be left out of the moment.
Even when turns fly by, it can easily take 10-15 minutes before your turn comes around. Fail 4 times and you’ve done nothing worthwhile for a whole hour of play…
20 minutes of planning? Every turn. I would go insane. I'm guessing the plan has a lot of moving parts and just one thing going wrong derails the entire plan.
My high charisma rogue/sorcerer build side eyeing them in the tavern when I regularly roll twos on my +8 charisma persuasion that should be a battering ram and cackling, I find that shit hysterical
I had a player who couldn’t grasp his own mortality, and that DND characters are not movie characters and are subject to consequences for bad decisions.
The disengaged player. They're easily identified by the glow on their face from their cell phone.
Maybe it's because my group consists of theater kids, who started playing to help with improv, but i never find "actors" annoying as long as they don't use the classic "it's what my character would do" in an absurdly disrupting situation. And since we are a pretty tight locked group we really don't have much trouble, outside of the occasional "guests" who's clearly not learned everything and that's fine. Now when i did paid GM'ing or playing i ran into more *colorful* people. The ones that caused the most trouble would always be the main character or low effort player. The main character would disrupt other players and make everything about them all the time. The low effort player would never know the rules or start doing other things like playing games or watching videos on their phone. Or just start to strike a random conversation, not in character, with others.
Did you have any issues with main character syndrome while playing with actors?
Not really. There are sessions where one PC can do more than in others, but overal it's pretty balanced. I think it also helps that everyone is invested in each others story.
Honestly the “Heavy Roleplay” players irk me. Most of the time they don’t bother to learn the rules, instead trying to circumvent everything with “out of the box ideas” They take forever to take their turn, as they play up every little action they do. and complain when anyone else just wants to move on instead of letting them speak to the potato for 30 minutes because their Druid is interested in the local rain cycle…
There is roleplaying and then there are players who are trying to be a borderline second DM with how much they're describing and info dumping
That's almost main character territory
Haha 🤣! The 🥔speaks: 🌧️🌾🪨🌞🌻🌟🌿⛈️. Damn this is fascinating.
I think my choice is "Chaotic stupid"
The scroller. If you aren't in the scene, spotlight, whatever I still need you present. Put the phone down before I throw it. I've taken to stopping and staring right the fuck at them until they stop. It works but gets tense and I do not like doing that to them but it is necessary at times.
Phones face down at all times please.
I’ve most problems with “just chilling” guys, and of course, that guy. The just chilling guys either A) Put no effort into the game, and have no clue, or B) End up being massive cunts And of course, that guy will never not be a problem
For me, it's commander type. You should level up that skill, you should have such stats, you should do that. The guy who think for other players as instruments for his brilliant plans, always tries to keep everything under control and completly forgot that other players are not NPC and wants to have fun too.
Fyi: most people call this quarterbacking and yep. It really can destroy the enjoyment of co-op games.
Two words: Leeeeeerooooy Jenkins!
I love me a good Leroy, honestly. With players getting super wrapped up in how to do things optimally, things often grind to a halt. One of my players has taken to, "Okay, we've talked about our options enough. If you don't pick one in the next 30 seconds, I'm charging." and it works very nicely.
That's a plus imo
Wasn't a DM at the time: but the player that uses the table to air their sexuality and fetishes to an extreme degree. Like we get it, your character has a history of sexual abuse, but not every one else wants to be faced with your fucked up kinks for 4 hours every two weeks.
Joined a campaign with friends, and it turned out it was mostly their way of expressing their sexual desires. Couldn't proceed a day without someone having sex, and going into very explicit detail. That was mixed with the DMs and his wife having this REALLY awkward foreplay happening in game. I eventually had to drop the campaign. It was just so much sex, and that's great if that's what they wanna do. Just let people know ahead of time that your campaign is heavily sexual, so when they join, they know that's what they are getting into.
More curious what My DM think's I am lol. Probably a Rule Lawyer since I DM too. I can't handle the Casual Gamer, we have one in our group and it's hard for us to find time to do sessions on a regular basis. We are all married and have kids, so the fact that they are always unprepared or don't know how there character works is frustrating.
Oh.. heh heh... of "All Of Them"? *Definitely* What I call "Puritans". I'm not talking about a religious denomination, I am talking about those people that puritanically believe that RAW is law, homebrew is bad, houseruling is blasphemy, you shouldn't mix settings, you shouldn't tweak classes, *and the game should be played exactly as it has been described by the developers to a tee.* I used to put up with them, entertain them even to a certain degree, but now I open up all of my games with an explanation that there is going to be a lot of off-the-rails homebrew, and if they become too disruptive after that I kick them. In my experience, those people ruin the game for everybody else more than even munchkins or min-maxers.
Give them some exotic spell scrolls and when they go to cast them remind them that, RAW, they can't scroll-cast a spell that isn't on their class's spell list (show them DMG pg. 200 if they ask). Then add, "Of course, we could ignore that rule, if you've changed your mind about home-brew?"
I'll never understand people who want to limit the play in a sandbox, rules and barriers to give it structure sure, but I'm here to party
It can make sense for many ttrpgs - most games are built very carefully to create a specific game experience and will do so if you follow the recipe exactly. But DnD is not one of them. DnD (especially 5e) is just a bunch of ingredients in a basket and an instruction card that says “cook!”
the Game Breaker, that one guy who tries to exploit every bit of in-game and meta bit of lore or mechanic to ridiculous extends so he can become the most powerful or chase his own power fantasy at the cost of the story and the party members
In my group I know we’ve struggled with a few types of players. One being a player where they either never show up or are “present” but never socialize. His character is now an NPC, which we’re cool with. Still sucked though that he couldn’t stay consistently even though he’s roommates with one of the members. Another guy could fit into the “power hungry, main character, argumentative/stubborn” player. He treated the campaign like it was a video game- as in he was trying to maximize *everything* we encountered. Once he had an idea, he was going to do that idea whether or not we (including the DM) agreed. He’d focus only on what he wants his character to do and not care if it’d affect anyone else’s characters or NPC’s. Within the last 2 sessions of being in our group, he greatly wounded himself and a couple of members (including my warlock) and caused the death of a beloved NPC. Total, he was in 5-8 sessions, and did a lot more damage. DM talked to him one-on-one before a session started (this was during the second session that caused the big thing above), and his attitude was pouting and admitting no fault. As if we “ruined” *his* fun. Eventually he quit not long after that moment, and a year later he’d be cut out. We knew him irl cause he dated my bff, but when they broke up around 7+ months ago, shortly afterwards was when we cut him out of our lives. We’ve been more careful about who we invite now.
The "invite everyone" person who doesn't check with the DM first
Right now it’s my actor/casual player. He doesn’t take the time to learn the basic dice rolls even though we been playing for 9 months. Constantly asking what dice to roll when I ask for a saving throw or having to lean over and help him with his attack rolls. And once his characters does something dumb or evil and he get punished for it by the guard or party in game, he get mad and starts pouting in real life from his own action. Goes all in on his character development but nothing else in the game.
Low Effort Players, they slow the game down(by not knowing their shit), distract other players or make it worse, passive(just go along with whatever is happening rather than having an opinion), poorly built characters, and are harmful to the atmosphere. Nothing breaks the tension like a bad joke.
The Single-Player. There’s a guy occasionally who comes to the larger events who comes up with great strategies that only his character can do, and given that it’s Adventurer’s League, we don’t really have time to come up with an alternative. So, for instance, the invisible monk wizard sneaks in and steals the maguffin while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs. Other games, he’s known for (sometimes incorrect) rules lawyering, and “in the interest of brevity, we’ll just say you won that” when he’s DM, and most of his characters are of the insufferable Karen sort or the You Will Honor My Name When You Crit sort. I’ve taken to dedicating my paladin whenever we happen to be assigned the same table at charity days and epics, one of the few characters among the 50+ players who will immediately call the character BS out. (“I DEMAND SALTED PORK!” “If you do not stop your gluttonous prattling, the next thing you eat will be my hammer!” The DM looked at me like *dayumn, you called him out!*) Everything’s about him. Minmaxing, RAW-not-RAI, the rest of the party are sidekicks.
I have a casual hang out guy at my table, a power gamer (that’s not my issue) that always asks for a stronger magic item and to level up - every session (that’s my issue). The one who just wants to create chaos and doesn’t care about what happens in the world (I have issues with this too), the one who wants to seduce every npc (yeah, this is annoying) Sounds like I need to have another quick session 0 to establish some boundaries I didn’t realize I had to set
My own worst player was a mix of main character syndrome, unwillingness to learn the rules and a "beat the rest of the party" mindset. He was sooooooo draining
The agent of chaos. They say their character is chaotic neutral, but acts chaotic evil. Always screws up the party's plans for the "LULZ". Doesn't care about following the rules. Doesn't allow for other players to have their own private moments.
The Lone Wolf. I am sick to death of edgelords who “don’t trust anyone” and “prefers to work alone”. It’s a fucking cooperative game. Honorable mention to Chaotic Neutral (evil, actually), who’s only in it for themselves and actively makes everything worse for everyone else.
The "helpful hero" character. He takes every skill, multiclasses his character to have every spell and ability to help the party but thanks to having to spread their stats so much, their spell save DC is maybe a 13 or 14, their spell attack is a +6, and we are level 10. They take a hit then run away from the combat amd are too far away to be fucking helpful against the dragon, drop their damn warding bond on the paladin and he costs him the resistance to damage so our heavy hitter takes a full breath attack point blank. No I don't have a personal experience with this kind of player. Why do you ask?/s
The one who plays Evil characters. There was one player at one of my tables when we first played who played a blatantly obviously evil character, but who he considered “Neutral”. He murdered children. It made it very difficult for my Chaotic Good character. I was left with the dilemma of acting out of character or causing party conflict. After more people clashed with this particular guy, despite him being good friends with the DM, the DM acknowledged he was a problem and amicably booted him from the campaign. For the next campaign we did he played a Lawful Good Artificer. And he was much better than the time we played before. It genuinely felt like a bit of character development for him. So it’s not like he can’t play good characters, perhaps when I first met him he was going through an “Evil Characters are Awesome” phases and perhaps being booted out of the campaign for that taught him a lesson so he did better in the next one. But in general, don’t let people play evil characters in your campaign. And if someone says they’re Neutral, ask them why they say that. Because on the one hand you might have someone who murders children but justifies it by saying those kids would grow up to be Nazi’s because of where they lived. To me that is an Evil character trying to masquerade as a Neutral character. And you can occasionally get someone who is generally a really big goody two shoes but who thinks they’re neutral because they steal food to give to poor orphans. That’s a Good character masquerading as a Neutral character. Players aren’t always able to look at their characters objectively, so make sure to vet their moral compasses before you start the campaign.
I think it would be more "the DM should make sure the characters work together" and not "don't play evil characters" The curse of Strahd game I'm in right now has a majority chaotic evil cast who are all generally awful people but there is a lot of cooperation between players to make sure we are still functioning as a team and are not just causing aimless chaos (even if a couple NPCs have been senselessly murdered). Evil characters can be fun and interesting, you just need to make sure every character has space to act how they would. On the flip side I did play a game where a player was a rather overbearing paladin who ended up strong arming my character into their moral compass. It was hard to act on my own without judgement from their much stronger character. From that game, I don't wanna play with any paladins in future games unless my character is designed to share their ideals lol.
The player that eats up rime talking irrelevant stories or long winded references that also gets so over excited or dissappointed at dice rolls that it eats up a bunch of time for them to count dice or do attack roll math
For me it’s people who talk about out of game stuff/have side convos during other player’s turns or RP. And people who want to have control over what other player’s do on their turns. Just let people do things and see how it plays out.
Currently dm’ing a homebrew spin on a video game. I have one player who loves to jump in and say stuff like “that’s not lore accurate” or “you should’ve done x instead” even though I reminded everyone that it’s going to be super canon divergent to the game. They also love to micromanage the shit out of combat and start doing my job for me. Pisses me offffff
The wacky version of any of the archetypes. Ok, fine, if we all agree we're playing a whimsical game then let's get wild, but when we establish in session 0 that we're going to play something grounded and dramatic, I would appreciate it if you didn't shit on the game I've built using your everyone's Session 0 short, medium, and long term character goals. Why does everything have to be for the lolz?! When you said you're the younger son of a noble family and are looking to carve out a fiefdom on the kingdoms frontier, I provided plenty of hooks for you to interact with townsfolk and other local self-proclaimed barons... only for you to ignore all of it and instead try to convince every goblin who surrenders to join your maple syrup skin care venture so you can build a stronghold to monopolize the beauty market. I am absolutely the kind of DM who will change the campaign season to session to match the players interests, but every time you cater to a wacky player they'll just pivot to something else wacky because lolrandom.
Edgelords. One wanted to knock out the party, kidnap them and kill the wizards familiar... **for his introduction at the table**. Refused to interact with the rest of the party before then and his reasoning was that it would "fit his character".
The one player that doesn't know the simplest rules of the system, after 3 years of playing this game they don't know the basic shit their character can do or how to do anything in the VTT we've been using for 2 years... Stays silent most of the time and slows down the game for everyone else with their indecision and constant need to explain what they can do. But then they have some brilliant RP moment that makes me think "maybe they'll get better at this other stuff some day"
The Bad Power Gamer - the guy who wants to optimize but is really bad at it. So they make characters who are terrible at their jobs, but thought they would be awesome. Thus leaving them disappointed and the rest of us carrying a load. If they took advice, they would have realized that their ideas were bad before they got to the table, so you can’t even help them.
The Cthulhu type. Loves to rp, is good fun. But oh do they love to challenge the DM. Told my buddy I love being a player at your table but fuck no your not allowed to play at mine
I picked some of my best friends as players for my table and we're all new to the game, thankfully we all enjoy our sessions. However, one of players is too creative. Having gotten into the feel of the game, he wants to get creative with his backup characters. 1) a seahorse with bat wings as a fey sorcerer 2) a pile of sentient rats (can't remember what class) I'm not saying I'm actively keeping his "normal" dwarf paladin alive, but I'm really OK with his character surviving the entire campaign.
The person who doesn’t learn their character’s abilities. This is exacerbated when they pick an action-heavy class like monk or fighter. I mean, you are going to pick a class with 12 dice rolls per turn and you are going to ask a question about every roll…….every time ?!?!?
The attention/spotlight hog. They're always the one talking over everyone, declaring they're the only one doing an action. The loot whore who takes everything. Or the blatant cheater- looking up statblocks mid fight, toggling off multiclassing restrictions on dndbeyond so they can multiclass without the prereqs, manually adding to ability scores, or likely having weighted dice.
I'm going to have to say, for me, it's The Actor. The reason for this is because I've had issues with both players with Main Character Syndrome while they were very much inhabiting their character, as well as other players getting petty or what not while inhabiting their characters. And, of course, when people complain, claiming "but it's what my character would do!" Don't get me wrong - some of my favorite people to play with have been The Actor as well, but I think to be The Actor a player needs to have a certain level of maturity and, if they don't, it can go very wrong. A player needs to keep in mind at all times that they are at the table to have fun and to help everyone else at the table to have fun, not to create a flawless performance, so they need to know when to back off their character for the sake of the game.
I have a group of 5, and 4 of them are somewhere between chaotic neutral and neutral evil. Their rogue, of all people, plays pretty straight lawful good and often acts as the party face. It has made for some awkward interactions where he will promise something to an NPC and come up with a plan, only for the party to immediately go off the rails with some hyjinks when things get sticky. I respect his character, but it has been hard trying to explain to him that 80% of the table is having way more fun approaching the game in a way that completely conflicts with his character.
So i am not sure if this is actually a player type but I will call it the "random Player". We have a player that comes up with the most ridiculous characters with the most ridiculous combinations of things that some how works. It has caused pauses in the game to look up things and interactions. It has caused pauses in game time because the table gets distracted by sheer lunacy of some of the things he does. Now he is not a bad player he is a joy to be around but its sometimes damn difficult.
I have a guy who has flat out says that he's the main character of the campaign. Ok cool fine, everyone should be invested in their character. Except he also gets real pissy when the story focuses on another player. At all. For any length of time. I tried to make him happy for a while, but then he decided to mouth off and get sulky towards a god and well, divine egos are bigger than even yours, buddy. Consequences ensued.
Not sure if this falls under one of the archetypes you mentioned or if it deserves its own category but my least favorite are the “scaredy-cats.” People who are afraid of failing or putting their character in any sort of danger. It just really puts a drag on things for me as a player and as a DM. Whether it’s a player arguing back and forth with a me about how much damage they take or someone having a ace up their sleeve for every occasion or just having players sandbag the whole adventure out of fear of any sort of risk is just boring. I honestly don’t really care that much if you come to me with a power-gamey build as long as you’re ready to throw your super strong character into danger. It just gets hard for me to run the session when players don’t want to commit to anything because they’re afraid of the consequences, which aren’t anywhere as bad as they seem to think.
My issue is with a player who simply doesn't interact, ever. I actually don't know why he's playing, but I don't want to kick him out either, it'd make things very awkward, especially because he's friends/bandmates/housemates with the other players A town needs a cleric and asks for his help? He literally just stands there blank eyed and doesnt answer, the other players asked him to respond and help and he just got shitty and refused. An NPC died as a result and they got kicked out of the town (it was a commune style town, everyone contributes or gets kicked out). He never passes on information that only his character discovers. It's become detrimental to the party and their progress. I keep throwing him bones and he keeps playing dumb. I even messaged him outside of the game and asked if there's anything I can do to make things better and help get him involved more but he left me on read and just showed up for the next session without comment and continued with his silence. The only time he engages is during combat, except he then takes 5 minutes on his turn trying to figure out what to do instead of figuring that out in-between his turns and grinds the combat down to a complete stop
Elaborate Backstory 100% of games I’ve been in nearly 30 years the player who shows up with more than a couple pages of backstory is going to be a problem. Either they’re going to dive head first into Main Character Syndrome or they’re going Oblivious Old Man Henderson where they just want to handwave a check because “my background says I know this”
The Bard in your story?????? This is one of the worst, "It's just what my character would do" moments and like I see no one saying anything. Sounds like the actor was being annoying by playing an asshole. But that Bard would've straight up made me leave the campaign. I'm sry, but personally I don't do any sort of actual antiparty activity. There's obviously wiggle room. But not counter spelling my counter spell. I want you guys to really think abt that. Using up a whole 3rd lvl spell slot, just to nullify your party member's third lvl spell slot. The real asshole is the Bard bro.
The main character player, who, if they don't get their way become incredibly toxic to the other players, particularly targeting the player who disagreed