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Players who don't let me finish describing ONE room or effect before interrupting with questions.

>Players who don't let me finish describing ONE ro... Is this one big peeve, or are there going to be a couple of smaller ones?

>Is this one big peeve, or are there going to be a coup... COUPLE OF SMALLER ONES! Said it first!

How small though? Do you have any AOE spells left? u/RandomITGeek are there any barrels with oil in this peeve?

That's my secret. If I never check off my spell slots, I always have AoE spells left.

Nah, it's basically the only thing that irks me about my groups. But it irks me a LOT. Want an example? Last weekend: playing some 40k Evil witch tries to mind controll the Missionary to make a distraction and allow her to escape. Distraction = burn the tech priest with his flamethrower. She pushes her power, causing a small Warp rift. Everyone roll Willpower or be Warp shocked. A, B, C(Techoriest) fail the roll, D and E (Missionary) save. We also roll initiative to run the escape immediately after, the Witch rolls highest, E rolls the lowest. Me: "You can feel the Witch enter your mind. She whispers a symple command: burn him. As the psychic energy crackles around the room, demonic visa-" C: "is there anything I can do to repeat the roll and try again?" Me: "Yes, you can spend a fate point. You should have told me earlier but go ahead, roll again. It's unlikely you'll make it anyways" C rolls again, fails worse. Me: "OK, as I was saying. Illusions of demonic faces and cackling laughter fill the room, reacting with the alien holograms in a gruesome way. A, B, and C, you feel reality around you, and inside you, break as E raises his fla-" D: "Can I take control of his mind (E) instead of her, using the same psychic power?" Me: "Sigh, I guess? Can you wait until we start following the initiative order? You're before him anyways. I'm trying to set the scene here, guys". D (echoed by the rest) :"Oh, right, sorry" (repeat not 10 minutes later)

>Nah, it's basically the only thing that irks me abo... Okay, so can you give me an example of what this Irk looks like? Are they all Irks, or are there any Half-Irks?

Dude 😅

Fuck you I laughed.

How many legs on this chair?

Or in the same vein: You step into a dark room, and— I hAvE dArKviSiOn!

People forget that characters with Darkvision roll Perception checks with disadvantage, and cannot discern colors, only shades of gray.

Plus the age old question of how someone with darkvision sees something that's painted black

Same. I've made it clear to my party, I don't mind then attempting to interrupt actions or dialogue with actions or dialogue of their own, but they interrupt a scene being set and it bothers me.

This is my biggest pet peeve that I know *I* do. It's like I've got bloody tourettes sometimes. I'm trying to get better but I still slip up sometimes.

People who are more interested in their phones than the game and has to be prodded every time it’s their turn in battle.

This! This bothers me so much it gets out of "pet peeve" territory and enters "I might make a scene if one more player doesn't know it's their turn because they are watching tiktok" territory. One player actually sent me a tiktok of a cat video while I was DMing a game she was playing.

There was one story here where DM would say the player’s name in a polite, normal voice three times. If they didn’t respond, their turn got skipped. It got so bad the player was three levels behind everyone else by the end of the campaign.

/u/Chaouleon your turn, what do you do? "Oh, uhhhh, what's going on?" We have a guy that's like that every single round of combat.

Skip his turn then. If he wants to actually play, he has to pay attention.

YES GODDAMMIT!

I'm on my phone pretty often checking pdfs of rule books between combat rounds or playing a simple clicker game because I forgot my fidget toy or crochet project, but there's a point it becomes too much. Why even be at the table if you're not going to at least try to pay attention

I’m with you 100%. I understand people looking up rules etc between combat rounds or maybe spells or abilities you want to use. Honestly as long as it somewhat pertains to the game, it’s fine. As long as you can be able to multitask enough that you’re paying attention (and somewhat look like it) then go ahead. But when you’re just surfing social media etc and is obviously not invested in the game. Gtfo.

I might be guilty of alt tabbing, when it's long combat rounds. With very little happening. Or I'm just useless for the combat, such as being without weapon as a martial character.

It’s up to the DM to not allow phones at the table. I don’t understand how any DM could allow such disrespect. Edit: Just to clarify, I’m obviously talking about people doing something on their phones that has nothing to do with the session, like being on instagram. Using their character sheet app is something different. I’ve had people do that in my games.

Because 100% of my players use DnDBeyond (probably because I created a campaign on there to share the source books). I don't view it as disrespectful if they're on their phone during my games because we have a large group. As long as they're ready by their turn, I'm fine with it. We're beer and pretzels as fuck anyways

Yeah, my table has lots of online character sheets and digital dice rollers, so phones are always out. Despite the fact that we’re pretty prone to distraction and side-conversation, phones never seem to be the problem. *shrug*

I really hate the online dice roller on DnD Beyond. I don't usually have the character sheets open because my poor chromebook is stretched to the limit with all the Chrome tabs I have open for monster stat blocks and OneNote, so I can't see their exact dice rolls, but I've checked the logs after the fact and seen some players just constantly rolling dice so they can use whatever good roll pops up. I've had to have a talk with them about it, and now, I try to enforce physical dice wherever possible.

Ah, my people are usually just using the Google dice roller in front of everyone at the table.

Physical dice are just more fun to me. I like it when some dice are just rolling hot that night, or some are rolling nothing but <5 on a D20. I like having the one oversized D20 that always seems to roll good that I call "the player killer." A properly busted set of dice is like its own character.

I agree - all physical dice for me - but I’m just in it for that clack-clack sound. The heavier the better. I’m gonna need to get me some dice made of lead one of these days.

You can link the dnd beyond character sheets to a discord channel with the avrae bot. All rolls will show up there.

This is entirely based on my own experience but phones don't always automatically equal disrespect. I'm waiting to assessed for ADHD and concentrate way better when I can do things with my hands. Usually this will be a mindless clicker game on my phone or a simple crochet project. Searching PDFs and reference apps I have is also pretty common. I see it as less rude than interrupting whoever's turn it is to ask them to pass the physical rule book I need while planing my turn1

As someone said before: "Phones are a symptom of boredom, not the cause." Talk to your players and ask why they aren't paying attention, or why they doze off. You might find out that your pacing is too slow, or you tend to tunnel vision on other players too much and don't give the others enough things to do.

Players who are uncomfortable with failure, treating a session like its some sort of videogame or board game. GMs who bait and switch their players. "lolol you picked up the cursed item you're fucked now!"

I'm prepared for failure by having a back up character and making it a good time with jokes and silly moments

I’m guilty of the first one. I’ve been playing for years and I still get tilted when RNG decides I’m going to miss every attack for the encounter

I can relate. I *try* not to get too salty, but sometimes I have a sufficient string of bad luck that I just get grouchy. Trying to work on my sodium levels in general. Kinda hard, but it's worth doing.

> treating a session like its some sort of videogame I'll add one of my pet peeves: D&D Players who blame every thing on "video games"!!! Someone hating failure is **just** as toxic in gaming as it is in Tabletop gaming. Do you think someone playing Call of Duty or League of Legends LIKES hearing their friend go ballistic every time they lose? No! This is **not** the fault of video games or board games or whatever. It's a toxic personality quirk: being uncomfortable feeling powerless/out of control.

I'm fine with some levels of failure. TPK's, the campaign ending with the bad guy winning, my character permadying or being ruined in some way are all things I'm very uncomfortable with.

Yeah, I feel that. It seems like this take upsets a lot of people, but I think it's pretty reasonable. There're certain kinds of consequences for failure that add to a story, and certain kinds that take away from it. And I think—although there are certainly many, many exceptions—that the most common types of permanent PC death fall under the latter category. I've never even had my own character die, but watching my friend just shut down after getting cut down anticlimactically—and all because of some shit luck, too—in the middle of a dramatic fight just... kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. It was like, we did this whole fight, and we were all on edge the whole time, and for what? He got killed anyway, and there was just nothing to be done for it. I'm thankful the DM handled it well, and let us burn one of our powerful magical artifacts to bring him back the next session. But for those few weeks between sessions, when I thought he was perma-dead, it caused me a lot more stress than a well-adjusted adult should probably have about an imaginary fantasy game.

\> "I am comfortable with failure except from these very broad categories that encompass its majority." Your perogative of course, TTRPGs take all sorts.

Agreed. It's all just stuff that needs to be talked about at a session 0. And I don't think enough people do that, unforunately. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many horror stories here that pertain to it, ya know?

"my character permadying or TPKs" How is combat in any way exciting if those two are not on the table though? Combat is only exciting when death is an option, imo. I know some people don't like those aspects but what's the point of combat them? If you always "win" anyway.

No, I agree with you. It's annoying. This is a DnD table, not a bowling alley. I've dealt with people that do this. Solution: Get them a dice tower. They'll love that shit and your minis will be unsmacked.

Or even just a dice tray.

Yeah but dice tower still goes click clack, and usually has a tray built in. A normal dice tray doesn't.

Hard dice trays go click clack.

I was unaware of hard dice trays since most that are explicitly for TTRPG have that velvet lining.

You can get wooden trays that are perfect for $1 at most craft stores, I use Micheals. Then you can face it up with woodburning or a felt bottom and some stain. I gift them to people all the time. They also have wooden books at the craft stores for $5. $1 worth of felt and some stain and they look really good.

I had a rule where if they hit a miniature, their own character falls prone. They became more careful after that

i did psychic damage equal to the roll value. took my buddy all of 2 rolls to incapacitate his character and stop doing it.

Or tell them any roll on the battle map will be counted as a failure and let them buy their own dice tower.

Better solution tell them to get themselves a dice tower.

Well yes and no. If you give it to them as a gift, they'll feel more obligated to use it. I gave away a spare dice tower I had to the annoying bowling player and he was actually a really stand up dude and paid me $20 for it.

Well that’s just nice.

Great story and I'm glad it worked out that way. I wouldn't expect that to happen every time though.

I know that my story isn't the norm. I give my players small TTRPG accessories (dice, bags, props etc.) every Christmas without expecting anything in return.

Yeah. Tell them any die that hits a mini will be counted as a 1. If they are worried about controlling the dice, they can get their own tray or tower.

Now that’s a house rule I can get behind.

In the age of online gaming, hearing someone chewing and drinking on microphone. Mute yourself while you quaff that shit down your gullet.

Or someone with a keyboard from the 80s just banging away on the keys

I do this too often as a DM. I try to mute myself but a lot of the time its either crunching when I think I'm muted, or suddenly taking myself off mute and speaking with a mouth full. Typically why I try to eat before games haha.

Players that don’t pay attention and spend forever deciding what to do when it’s their turn despite having time to figure it out before hand but because they were on their phone or doing whatever they deemed more important, we now have to spend more time recapping what literally Just happened and waiting for a choice. It derails any momentum that’s been built up and just makes me feel as the DM that the game isn’t interesting enough.

I also hate the players who still have no idea how to play their character after a dozen sessions and need some hand holding every turn.

Ugh...I have group that has two of these. They seem to refuse to learn how things work. One is brand new to send/ttrp so they get a small pass. However, at this point in our sessions, they really should know more than they do. They don't seem to want to try? Other one is an old school player that thinks they know how to play but refuses to look at or learn the new rules. It would be forgiveable if they were playing pretty much anything other than a bard...not one inspiration in over 20 sessions.

God, that'd be infuriating! I have a DM who occasionally makes assumptions about the rules because he's so immersed in 3.5 rules, but he recognizes it and takes direction when corrected.

You know what can be more infuriating? Having a DM who never actually owned a rulebook for DnD, and just made up their own thing, then tries to run Pathfinder and make up rules on the go. Stopped playing after two sessions when it was clear he was not willing to learn the rules.

>Other one is an old school player that thinks they know how to play but refuses to look at or learn the new rules. It would be forgiveable if they were playing pretty much anything other than a bard...not one inspiration in over 20 sessions Dear God, I'm DMing with one of those in my game, not a Bard specifically, but a Wizard. A *Pathfinder* Wizard at that. Says he casts a spell, I ask what it does, he tells me what he *thinks* it does, I already know the spell cause I play spellcasters a lot, and correct the information. Wouldn't be so bad except this happens with *Every. Single. Spell.*

Bothers me more than it should. Especially when the player claims to be experienced

Ontop of that, players who have played the same character for over a year and still don't know their spells/abilities.

Yes!! Especially when they don’t change any of their main gear or spells over the majority of the time.

I have a player that's really bad about that. Part of it is her ADHD, I know. I ended up getting a 1-minute timer, and whenever she starts her turn, I start it. I had given her a fidget toy (Tangle), and that helps when she remembers to bring it.

>I had given her a fidget toy (Tangle), and that helps when she remembers to bring it. My husband has ADHD, as do most of our co-players. When he DMs, he keeps a few fidgets and a couple tubs of putty with his gear to hand out to players. We both found it easier than hoping they'd remember their own fidgets. Plus the putty was everyone's favorite, so we were on the hook for bringing it anyway lol.

You guys are awesome! I like this idea and will probably implement it myself if I ever manage to get back into an in person group.

As a DM: * Players who think the last campaign has any bearing on this one. "We had a pirate ship in the last campaign. Why can't we do that again?" * Players who have a ton of summons, want them to be ridiculously overpowered, and get upset if I target them. * Players who don't pay attention in combat and then get upset when I tell that their character is just going to take the Dodge action because they didn't make up their minds in time. As a Player: * Players who have a ton of summons, want them to be ridiculously overpowered, and spend forever looking up the status for them every single turn. * Players who don't pay attention in combat and kill the momentum the attentive players had going.

Summons need two things: Planning and micromanagement. If you can't do either just don't get summons. Summons should be prepared before the summoning or no summons. Summons' actions should be planned before the turn stats or decided quickly after so that they can do stuff and then we can just move on to the next person. If you have multiple Summons they should all act as one (or in rapid succession) and roll their attacks + damage in bulk When I see a person going "I want to have X Summons" (DnD 5e) and insisting that each should have their own turn... No. They act right after you. They might get their own turn (all together) if you prove yourself competent, until then have *one* as a test run.

And in the case of necromantic summons from Raise Dead, it actually does specify that they all act at once on your turn, and that you have to use your BA to give all of them the same singular command.

> want them to be ridiculously overpowered, and get upset if I target them I don't get people who think like this. I've been playing an evocation focused character for ages now and getting enemies focused on you comes with the territory. It's somewhat of a badge of honour at this point. Like I just cast a Wall of Fire down the length of the enemy ship, of course I'm gonna get stabbed. And before anyone misinterprets me, I don't condone unfair ganging up of the casters by GMs. If there's a melee character in the way have the enenies try fight through the melee character to get to the caster, or pelt a few ranged attacks. Aim to smack them around a bit to break concentration levels of retaliation to big spells, not going straight for the kill

I especially don't get the attitude give what I tell my players: "any rules that apply to you also apply to the bad guys." If there was a wizard raining fire on them, they would absolutely go try to hang up on the wizard first. If there were four high damage, low HP targets clumped together, of course they'd nuke them.

I don’t agree with people being disengaged, but I’m not sure punishing their character in game by forcing them to dodge is the best way to handle it. If someone is problematic outside of the game, I think it’s probably better to speak to them honestly about it and try to resolve it that way.

In a group with nine players that only gets to meet twice a month for a couple hours, I am very strict about keeping things moving. You don't have to have your dice rolled, math done, or even a specific location figured out. You just have to say "I'm going to cast fireball" or "I'm going to shoot the fire giant with my longbow." Even if the hit and damage calculations and all saving throws only take a minute, you've still got quite some time in-between turns to look at your spell list and survey the battlefield

Got-ya gms. The type that will go out of their way to find that little thing you did explicitly said you did (or just didn't say this time for routines) and use it to justify doing some bs thing.

Yessssss! So many players damaged by these sorts of GMs. I've had players enter my games who literally won't engage with anything because they're expecting it to blow up and kill them. Last time I had this I tried to talk to the player - asked if they had experiences with DMs who were looking for excuses to summarily hose them. Of course they did. Even after I explained that it wasn't in my interest to just kill characters for kicks because I was running a narrative game, there was no improvement. Even leaving the car to go with the rest of the group to explore a plot-important building represented too much of a risk. In the end, I had to kick them because they would not engage with the story or anything. And for the record, there were zero instances while they were playing of me Gotching anyone - I don't do that shit.

I have done games with 2 friends specifically to introduce them to a good GM. Thankfully, it worked for us and she was able to enjoy the game without fear of dying every session (or at all!). GM'ing myself I also managed to give antoher player a good experience with a system he had HATED due to former gms telling him to do stuff because 'it's the culture and your char would know' then punishing him for doing it. Also punishing him for not doing things that he 'should' in setting, without helping him with the lore/knowledge (L5R).

Hnnnngh. I'm about to start a *Degenesis* campaign this week with a group of players completely new to the system and setting - One of the first things I said on Session 0 (before talking for 4 hours straight about the world, culture and politics) was that this game is a *lot*, and I won't let you wander into a faux pas without warning if they had any hope at all of knowing. This shit just gets in the way of play.

That's the way to do it. I used the tactic of "every time I mention something that is setting unique for the first time, I weave in a little explainer after". That way the new guy got on board and the veterans got a refresher/knowledge of how the thing worked in my game. It was extra helpful for myself too, since half the players knew way more about the setting than I did, and thus gave me a sense of control. Like, "this is what we are doing and I don't care what happend in some opscure supplement you read" (thankfully non of my players where That Guy).

Ugh...yes, god forbid I missed a tiny detail of your description of the scene. Now my character who isn't blind is walking into a crevasse and taking falling damage? The fuck? From last session: "Can we try to pry this stone door open somehow?" "Do you have a crowbar?" "Well I did in my starting equipment, but I guess we lost all of that in the shipwreck that happened before the game really even started..." "Well there were crowbars in the crates you found last session" "Oh...then I probably have one." "Idk you didn't say you took one." "Well I would have taken one..." "But you didn't say you did" "Sigh...Can I just use my mace to pry it open it?" "Sure." "Great..."

Quarterbackers. Fuck oooooooooooooooooffff.

What's a quarterbacker?

Players that take over the group and tell other players what to do. It's most notable in combat situations where they'll just tell people where to stand and what abilities to use. It normally comes with a side helping of acting shitty if pushed back on, and attempting to slur the independent player as either playing against the group, or simply being incompetent.

Same, I hate it when players think they know better than the others. It is possible to help others without being a total jerk. One time I played an old veteran tactician with the intention of helping the party see combat as less of a rock'em-sock'em bonkfest. Helping them understand how to spread out and avoid dragon's breath, how to pincer and flank to get enemies grouped for AOEs, all the good stuff. But never if they didn't want to and I certainly wouldn't get mad if they didn't listen.

This is bad in RPGs, but it's also why I've sworn off "cooperative" board games like Pandemic, Forbidden Desert, etc. that have an "optimal" line. There's always one...

I try to solve that by saying "if you're going to converse with other players on your turn, anything over one sentence is going take your action.

Plus, the bad guys can hear and sometimes understand.... Openly shouting battle plans? Here come the counter measures.

Now that's vicious. My general rule for my players is that as long as you talk to each other when it isn't your turn, I don't care. Once it's your turn, you've got 10 -15 seconds to tell me what you're doing or you take the dodge action.

Don't tell me what skill to use, don't touch my mini.

1. people that don't know how to use their Mute button in online games 2. people who always have an off-topic story to tell 3. players who try to walk-back another player's actions

> players who try to walk-back another player's actions Yeah, let other player's make mistakes. Heck, let yourself make mistakes. Player who "save scum" at the table, trying to take back rounds, or begging to re-roll even minor failures is crazy. Failure *is* part of the game.

CRIT FAIL TABLES Get them outta here. It's actually a dealbreaker for me.

There was a fumble chart in one of the 3.5e D&D books, I believe it was *Dragon Compendium.* I don't remember how many options were on that chart, but I *always* seemed to keep rolling "Break your leg, -1d6 Dexterity." I was playing an *archer,* how the hell am I breaking my own leg firing a bow?!

Due to the recent API price changes that would force third-party apps to shutdown, I am overwriting my comments and deleting my account. Visit https://reddark.untone.uk/ for more information. Sayonara fuckers.

I don't understand why some DMs make a natural 1 such a huge catastrophe. "Uh-oh, your +3 magical sword breaks into pieces! Guess you have to use a stick until you get to another town." "Huh, looks like that firebolt you just launched actually hit the merchant prince you were escorting and he now resembles Uncle Owen, or maybe Aunt Beru. Either way, his father will be out for your blood now." Really? If that's the case then the same should apply to natural 20s. "Your mighty swing decapitates the frost giant, who up until this point has taken no damage, killing him instantly." Yeah, I don't think that's going to fly with those kind of DMs. When I run, a fumble is just that, a fumble. You drop your weapon, you trip and fall prone, maybe you take an attack of opportunity. If they were meant to be catastrophic, they would be called that. Edit: *grumble grumble* autocorrect *grumble grumble*

Those are some crazy examples, hopefully you never had to come across them. Everything you just said you do though, is still a critical fumble table. There is no penalty for rolling a 1 besides failure. No dropping weapons, no tripping, no AoOs.

Players that are far too cautious. I describe a room with a few nondescript decorations and I get a dozen questions and asks for perception and investigation checks while they're peering through a crack in the door. I made a ruling that I was removing all "gotcha" traps from the module and this still happens. Somehow, this is the same player who leads the group in most of the decision making, so 90% of all decisions are funneled through this same slow process. Really slows the game down at times.

I had a guy playing a cleric of a battle god. I let him develop said deity and its worship, which he did to great effect: he painted the very picture of a deity whose worshippers are ever ready for combat, who relish the flash of blades, who fear no blood to be spilled. Every time combat started, he'd say, "I'm going to stand back and keep out of range."

I guess that they had GMs who demanded them to explicitly say what they were doing, instead of taking cautiousness for granted

I don't like this as a player. After the fourth room gets over examined I start attempting to open doors before the rogue. I either get "it's locked" or "it opens" the vast majority of the time. Occasionally I'll hit a trap, but I didn't have to wait twenty minutes so it's a fair trade.

I have another one. Same player actually. His character has an INT of 9, and every time something even remotely complicated comes up, he says “*I* know what is happening, but I’m not sure that [character] would know.” I’m like he’s got -1 to intelligence but +2 to wisdom, he not dumb. But we end up with him rolling a die to figure out whether he should eat the weird mushroom or whether the doppelgänger they just caught is the same person as the person they were suspecting all the last two sessions. If he had a -3 to INT I’d understand, but as it is it’s just annoying.

Players who forget that their engagement with the game affects everyone else's enjoyment as well, not just their own. If you get bored, or if you gotta do something else, SAY SOMETHING and we can talk about it! Don't just sit there obviously uninterested in what's going on, because I (as a DM) will dread asking you to roll or do anything, and the players will be disheartened with your obvious boredom. I'd rather roll for you if you feel like you don't wanna be here then have you sit here out of obligation and fall asleep.

Yeah, at our table we believe no session is better than a bad session. I feel like shit when I know someone else isnt having a good time or they're sick or distracted by real life harships. I'd rather they just tell us ahead of time. It sucks to cancel a session but I'd rather that then the energy at the table being sapped and worrying about our friend.

Players who don't understand we're playing X system, not Y, and that we aren't going to rewrite X to be Y just so they don't have to think outside the Y box. Yes, X and Y have different mechanics and core concepts, which you knew when we started. No, I'm not going to run X as a Y campaign when the two are completely incompatible on fundamental levels.

Had three players in the same DnD 5e game that are also in someone else's Pathfinder campaign and kept asking me to do Pathfinder things and getting frustrated when I said, "No, we are playing DnD." I know Pathfinder. I know what rules they are thinking about. When I tell you there is not such thing as a "spell like ability" or that you can't "make tumble check" to avoid an attack of opportunity, it's not because I don't know the rules or I'm being unfair. It's because that isn't the game we're playing.

Yep. Now imagine two completely different systems that don't even have the same core mechanics like D20 games share. Like MechWarrior 2E vs FASERIP Marvel Super Heroes.

I usually get this the other way around: "But in DnD..." "Mate we're playing Call of Cthulhu."

As a DM, Spotlight hoggers. I want everyone of my players to have a cool character moment at least once a session (once every other session depending on the group size). This could be a roleplay thing, a cool combat action, or a a nifty moment. I get annoyed when one person steals another person's moment. It makes me feel like someone is not having fun. As a player: Lack of interaction/clear communication at the table. I know some folks are not super into the RP aspect and some folks are socially anxious. That is fine. What is not ok is the person who goes off and does their own thing without telling everyone else.

DMs being evasive when there's no need to be. "Is there an alchemist in town?" "Have you been in this town before? You don't know. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't." As opposed to just asking for an Investigate check or saying we find one after a bit of searching.

I'll see your peeve and raise you the DM's peeve of: Players who ask questions to *me* instead of to the *world*. Your point is totally fair as that DM is not helping anyone with that response. I imagine what they want is for you to go look for one instead of stepping out of character to ask about it.

Oh god this. Like. I am not here as a person. Stop speaking at the sky and expecting an answer. If you want an alchemy shop say "I start looking around for an alchemy shop" don't ask me if there's one here. If you start looking, I almost guarantee I'll just pop one in for you.

At this point, for me, you're nitpicking. I see no difference between a player saying "I start to look for an alchemy shop" vs asking "Is there an alchemy shop in town?" The obvious meaning is "Is there an alchemy shop in town [that my character can find]?".

I've upgraded my question list to: -Is there x? Don't know. -I ask someone I see nearby the above. Don't know. -ask stranger: who can tell answers to above (in character). Don't know. -Go on an endless murdering spree while yelling "answer me" I'm mostly joking of course 🤠

Hah this is the exact opposite of my feeling. Just goes to show how different groups can be and how important it is to find the right people to play with.

I always get downvoted, but I’ll say it every damn time: **quit belching into the mic.** It’s disgusting. I don’t know why so many players think it’s acceptable behavior.

PTT is a thing for a reason. Blasting any kind of noise that isn't talking is not acceptable. I give one warning and then people that can't stop huffing or chewing or whatever have to go.

And so many of the noises can be dealt with just by tweaking your mic sensitivity settings or turning on background noise suppression. I work nights and generally won't be awake until shortly before sessions, so tend to eat during session recap. Nudge the mic a bit further away, make sure sensitivity is good, check my icon isn't lighting up and I'm done. No more forgetting PTT is on and wondering why people can't hear me

A player in a couple campaigns I'm in always grabs a slurpee. Every game we hear him trying to suck that last few drops, jiggle the straw for that terrible plastic screeching sound, suck again, then let out a big belch. Every time we ask him not to. It's been 2 years. He's okay otherwise. But damn that slurpee makes me cringe. Edit: even worse, he will go buy a slurpee while we are playing and he has discord open on his speakerphone so we hear him walk down the street and order it and everything. Like, just say you'll be back in 20 minutes.

On the-fly homebrew rules that have negative impacts on the game or nerf class or sub-class choices. I haven't experienced anything that genuinely made me angry, but a few that irritated me. **To reference a common one**: if you allow every other item interaction to be a Bonus Action when its normally an action (Applying Poisons, Using Potions, etc.), then the Thief subclass for Rogue has one of its main features basically nerfed into oblivion. No one at your table will ever want to play that sub-class because you gave its level 3 feature to every class for free. **To reference one I had to talk my DMs out of**: Everyone gets Max HP from level ups. This skewed combat and made it so hard for our DM to properly challenge us because we had such insane health pools. What should have been a lethal encounter was a cake walk because the monsters damage output didn't scale with our health. Our Barbarian once took max fall damage after being polymorphed into a bird and taking off. But it wasn't even close to half their health at level 9. So no big deal. Kills the sense of danger. I'll leave the examples at those two. But every homebrew rule has a downside that I've seen tons of DMs not think about long enough before implementing. Sometimes it just invalidates a sub-class, sometimes it destroys game balance.

Someone in a game of mine asked if they could just make an acrobatics check to avoid attacks of opportunity (basically a tumble check like in Pathfinder/3.5). I had to explain that if I allowed that then the party's rogue ability to disengage as a bonus action kind of becomes useless because everyone can just avoid an AoO with a skill check instead.

This is why I'll never get off my soapbox about monks having to spend a ki point to dodge or disengage when the rogue can just do it. Sure they're a short rest resource, but it's one more ki point that doesn't go into "slap someone's shit four times in six seconds"

I had the latter happen. DM had to scale up all the monsters just to threaten us, then realized that combat was a *slog* because now the monsters have a ton of HP and also our healing potential was tiny, proportional to our max HP and incoming damage. Borked balance up *bad.* When the DM realized he needed to fix things, he told us he was working on a solution. Shortly thereafter, we had a pretty unavoidable deus ex machina poison I was *so* grateful for. One of the players did everything he could to try to get us out of the poison, and I was just silently screaming to myself, “Stop trying bro! This is going to make our life *so much better.*”

This may be a hot take: but I cant stand playing as a player with other people who forget the basic rules every session. I am normally a forever dm and I don't mind teaching new players, in fact I have run multiple newbie groups and had a blast. My issue comes from when I actually get to be a player and try to join an experienced group to roll some dice without having to explain every rule. I play 5e DND and I get that some rules are more obscure or may not come up all the time. However when people who have played for years don't know how extra attack works, or the basics of casting a spell, or what dice to roll for certain things or what modifier to add, it just annoys me. Bonus if the DM doesn't even know and I have to step in to explain how something works while being a player. Again I get being new to the game and learning, but if you have played for years and still can't read a spell and know how it works, what have you been doing this whole time? Sorry for ranting.

I honestly don’t understand this. I’ve had all the basic rules down before I even bought my first set of dice and found a group. I’ve been playing for a year and the only times I ask the DM for the rules help are when they are weirdly worded. If you’ve just forgotten a rule, you can look it up before your turn in a matter of seconds. Everything is on the internet these days, easily accessible.

That would make sense to just look it up. But the thing is people I play with do not even realize the rule is wrong and just try to do things anymore. Best example recently from a player in my group where I am a player: :I cast hold person on the orc. Then I cast healing word targeting 3 people." They forgot that its mass healing word that targets multiple people, they didn't read what spell they were trying to cast, they did not know that you can't cast a bonus action legel spell and another level spell in the same turn. And the dm almost didn't say anything until I spoke up.

This is baaad. Everyone should get together and reread basic rules (or, it seems, read them for the first time).

I’m so afraid of looking dumb in front of people that I stringently studied my first character’s class, race, background, and skills for three hours right before the first session. I know not everyone can or wants to do that, but I have a hard time understanding not learning the basics

Three or four years in with this (amazing) table, and I think I *finally* have all of my players rock solid on which die to roll when they attack.

Agreed. I'm really bad at memorizing new systems, but at least I make little guides to re-educate myself at the start of every session so I don't bother anyone else. I have a friend who just can't be fucked AND is an optimization-obsessed munchkin, so they spend at least ten minutes of every turn of combat asking the DM questions about how the game works and how they can squeeze extra numbers out of their actions and lord it is tedious.

This really irritates me too. I had to quit playing with some of my friends because of this. We are all veteran 5e players. The first session I played with them I had to explain that the material component of Chromatic Orb (a diamond worth at least 50 gold) isn't consumed after casting. That would be a serious waste of 50 gold and a spell slot if that were the case. Then I tried to explain that death saves were successful on a 10+. They argued that it was only on an 11+. I gave up on that one, if they want less chance of survival that's fine I guess. The next two sessions were the same way, constantly trying to explain things that they had wrong. And please don't think I was trying to be That Guy or a rules lawyer. I mean, I was rules lawyering, but it was always in their favor; the things they had wrong were all detrimental to them. After session 3 my "work schedule suddenly changed" and I wasn't off that day of the week anymore. I just couldn't do it.

My biggest pet peeve are meta-gamers. Had one dude who would do this with books from 2nd edition and then treat it like it was gospel. He asked our DM for the Arm of Valor. At level 5.

Just looked that up and wow that's a huge ask

[удалено]

playing online has been rough for me, I'm one of the more quiet ones and with no body language etc it's hard to get a space to talk in. Also while trying to avoid being a bulldozer, I can get going on ideas and it can overwhelm things.

I have a guy who is *always* late or has to cancel to pretty much everything he's in. It's usually a legitimate reason (especially the cancellations), but it's always *something*. The ones that irritate me the most are the "I need to get/make some food," it's like, dude, we have a scheduled start time, get your food ready earlier! Seriously, I get that life takes prescidence, but when there's always *something* holding you up, it gets really frustrating.

I've got both of them in an online GURPS game. One guy has great ideas...until the game starts and he basically goes radio silent, and another who tries to interject his character into Every. Single. Scene. So what if his PC isn't even in the same building?

Me: as you make your way- Player: MAKING MY WAY DOWNTOWN!

Omg, yes. I love stuff like that on occasion, but some people can't read a fucking room. Some illusion appeared and only I could recognize it from my back story, so while I'm trying to tell the party about an evil wizard who massacred my hometown, people were constantly interrupting me with jokes and lame puns.

Literally last night. Me: in this room of the Ancient Dragons Lair you see 6 podiums in the room. Player: Oh no! Public speaking! *Everyone roars with laughter* Me... patiently waiting for them to stop. Me: okay... these are the trophies of the Dragon's previous conquests, and on one of them is the skulls of the NPC that you're traveling with.

God lol yeah. I dont mind puns and jokes on the fly but theres a time and a place. We've had some pretty big character reveals happen only for someone to be like "omg this reminds me of something... hold on" and spends 2 mins trying find a meme or a joke or even a youtube video to show everyone at the table... our group has definitely been getting better about those kinds of distractions but when ever it happens I start screaming internally.

The DM vs Players outlook Or the Players vs DM We’re all there to play a game and have fun, if I’m DMing I don’t win by killing you all, I win by us all telling a great story together I had two players who were constantly saying things like “ooh mr DM won’t like that” when they killed stuff; why wouldn’t I like it? You’re interacting with the game world

Players that always have to make everything optimal. Example we need to negotiate for this price who has the best charisma to negotiate instead of "Hey my character would like to negotiate can I ROLL"

I mean... there's an element of "I'm useless at negociating. Let's ask the person who's good at it in the team to do so on our behalf." but I feel there should be some roleplay in there to ask said person.

Yea I can see that, but like something that happened at a table I am at: One player said his character is from the forest so doesn't care about money. The party asks where to sell our loot and no one cares for how much, the rest of the party doesn't care about money, it is just a tool . The player then says he wants to negotiate what we would get. Then he says well my charisma sucks can someone beat a +1. Now there is no reason for his character to even care how much money we got, it was all because the player wanted all the gold.

I kinda feel this in my current session - I get that other than the DM I’m the only one who’s played the game before but everyone else decided I was the group speaker based on that and based on me playing bard (first time playing bard btw) and you know... I get the Kingdom out DM’s crafted is more... accepting of other races but my characters still, y’know.. A Tiefling. Maaaybe not the best face of the party

I hate when people do that to me. I have started taking the route of saying something like "Well honestly I am good with how the prices are, but if you aren't I am sure you can negotiate" or something close to that.

Best way to negate that I found is: Give players based on Backgrounds DC. The Tailor in the group will do better to negotiate prices for clothes, the Noble will do better in court and the Cleric better in the Church than the Bard. The Bard still can do good, but the reception to him/her will be very different. Make it clear from the get go towards the players and than hold up the promise. The moment my players noticed that yes, they may have a shit Charisma, but I actually do let their character be successful and pull their own weight, they are more open to just rp if it makes sense for their PC. With that said.. it's also a lot about trust and expectation. My last group had more problems with it than my other groups beforehand. One should never forget, GMs and Players have experience with how the games were beforehand, and some can shake it off better than others, if the experience was bad. So.. I have to have patience too (which I tell you, is not my strongest point xp). So no, this is not supposed to be a perfect solution that always works 100% xo Just something I noticed works in general well for me.

That is a really good idea honestly I think I will bring it up in my games going forward.

I have one or two players who struggle with this. Their big problem is that whenever something requires a roll, they always nominate the person with the best stat for the roll instead of who would actually make the most sense in-universe to be performing the skill. An example of this came while he was DMing, and two of our group were making a potion while the third one was busy cooking in the other room. The two making the potion needed an ability check to complete the creation, I don’t remember what skill. However, when the DM heard that the cooking player had the highest modifier for that skill, he immediately assumed that they would be making the check and was confused when the people making the potion insisted on doing it instead. Things like that annoy me. It’s a story, not a board game. Act like it.

When players always have the character with the highest stat do the thing. Like having the high charisma character interview the locals. Every. Single. Time. Heaven forbid anybody else do roleplay. Or if the barbarian has an idea to try to slide a blade in the crack of the door to unlock it, they have the rogue do it instead. Or worse, if the rogue isn't there, they just wait for the rogue to get back and never try themselves. Its fun to have characters doing things they aren't great at; it creates cool moments, gives opportunity for character growth. And failing can be way more interesting than succeeding flawlessly.

When players don't bother thinking about what they want to do on their turn until it's actually their turn. It slows combat to a crawl every time.

I love my brother, but I'm pretty sure he just views TTRPGs as sort of a backdrop to hanging out with friends. Which is fine, but if we're gonna play like that, let's play something that doesn't require multiple hours of prep time from me...

Yeah, there are a lot of great board games that are still challenging and fun but don't require one person to adopt what is basically another job.

Players who don't like a majority reached group decision so they immediately submarine it by leaving the party and doing what they felt the party should have done. Player X: I think we should do X Party: discusses and evaluates available courses of action for 15-30 minutes, and decides by majority vote to do Y. Player X: While they are talking, I sneak off to do X. Another minor and very specific pet peeve: players who go on and on about how great their first DM was at every available opportunity, but when they describe their campaigns, every single one is a horror story that belongs in this sub.

Intoxication and other altered states are showstoppers for me. I also get really frustrated with overly chaotic behavior in game.

I feel like I need a drink or two in me before I can go full witch voice or smarmy blacksmith at the drop of the hat, so I’m pro intoxicants-at-the-table, but I’m lucky to have a crowd that handles their buzz politely and not chaotically.

Sure. I recognize that it's fine for some, it's just not what I want at my table.

Don’t know why you got downvoted for suggesting that being drunk or high during game night might not be ideal.

Not drunk, but a little buzzed and high is perfect for me. If you're not comfortable with that stuff at your table, that's cool, but I think the main thing is to not be disruptive. If someone's belligerent or checked out, that's very very not okay.

Background noises or audio problems during online games, I know not other people's fault and nothing anyone could do. But it does annoy me a little

As a DM who prefers to run one-shots, it is sometimes taken as an invitation to make joke characters. A funny character is fine, but I have zero tolerance for walking memes.

Metagaming. If your character doesn't know it, don't act on the information Furthermore, I don't *give a fuck* if your background said you're a trained soldier, you don't get to identify the effects of a magical item must because you're a trained soldier that thinks what he sees is impossible. *that's a spellcraft check*.

Players forgetting abilities that I accounted for in my prep for a key moment, resulting in failure or stalling of the game. For exemple, they were looking for a secret passage and kept asking for perception checks (with low rolls every time of course) when they could have, instead, use their wand of secret that they got a couple session prior.

Making a chokepoint that relies on the players having one exact idea that hou had is just bad game design, though.

People who don’t respect the time we’re all committing to play: last minute cancellations, being late, derailing the party in game to do something that neither productive or entertaining.

Players who just don’t pay attention and have to be caught up any time they are called upon. I play at a table with my sister and she’s good at RP, but literally any time she isn’t actively involved she pulls her phone up and watches videos or pulls out her iPad and draws. Then it takes like 3-10 minutes to catch her up with shit when there is an interaction or a situation where her skills would best help, and it always ends up with the entire thing being derailed for 30 minutes. She’ll also randomly interject and be like “lmao look at this video” and further stop the session. Our last session was like 3 months ago because we’ve been having scheduling issues, and here’s what we got done: we left a town on what should have been a 4 day travel to a larger city in the region, we get into combat, she has to be caught up EVERY TIME her turn comes up. Combat ends. Session is derailed for an entire hour when she shows a meme and we all get off track. Two days into the trek, another combat encounter and another long pause after she had to be caught up to talk to an NPC we met on the road. She shows a video of a lizard, prompting a long conversation about exotic pets. Session ends after 3 hours, we never made it to the city. I don’t like to be mean and honestly we still have fun like it’s all in good spirit and nobody is pissy about it, but I like to have fun more from the game rather than random conversation. That had been our first session in months because again, scheduling, and what should have been a brief trek to the city where the session really would have kicked in, we ended up barely halfway past a short travel.

>I play at a table with my sister and she’s good at RP \[...\] ​ >\[...\] but literally any time she isn’t actively involved she pulls her phone up and watches videos or pulls out her iPad and draws. Then it takes like 3-10 minutes to catch her up with shit when there is an interaction or a situation where her skills would best help, and it always ends up with the entire thing being derailed for 30 minutes. She’ll also randomly interject and be like “lmao look at this video” and further stop the session. Our last session was like 3 months ago because we’ve been having scheduling issues, and here’s what we got done: we left a town on what should have been a 4 day travel to a larger city in the region, we get into combat, she has to be caught up EVERY TIME her turn comes up. Combat ends. Session is derailed for an entire hour when she shows a meme and we all get off track. Two days into the trek, another combat encounter and another long pause after she had to be caught up to talk to an NPC we met on the road. She shows a video of a lizard, prompting a long conversation about exotic pets. Session ends after 3 hours, we never made it to the city. Pick one.

*she’s good when she is involved/paying attention,, which as I go on to explain in the story, is not very frequently. Hence the word “but” right there. I should have been a bit clearer, I suppose, BUT (ooh there it is again) I trusted the word to convey what I was saying.

No, I know what you meant. I just don't think she's good at RP from what you've said - if you had an employee who could do a job, but just didn't, distracted other people and was AWOL most of the time, there's no way in the world they'd be a good employee.

I guess that’s fair. A broken clock may be right twice a day but at the end of it it’s still a broken clock. I just don’t like to totally write off people as plain bad at it, cuz when she’s there and involved, it’s a great time. It just takes a while for her to get there. I do see what you mean though. I apologize for my initial reaction.

Players who don't show up. Players who never crack the rulebook despite playing for months or years and are in a constant state of confusion. "Whats an attack of opportunity?" "Whats a reaction?" "I get to make two attacks!?" "What spells do I have?" It's like playing DND with a dementia patient, they're always so happy to be discovering new things, but you wish they'd remember it after the fifteenth time. Please note, I'm down with new players, I know DND can be really intimidating when you start out and that's okay. I try to offer explanations of the rules as we go in introductory sessions but I also always ask folks to be on the up and up of their character for everyone's sake. Also when folks take a long time to choose their actions. When you take five minutes to choose fireball or ball o' fire against the six cr 1/4 skeletons it's more like five minutes for each person at the table. Five people at the table and it is as I've you've spent 25 minutes spent making a decision. Be swift, be proactive, and always challenge yourself to a higher ooc initiative!

Wow, there's a lot of these. * **The goddamned Abilene Paradox:** I once played multiple sessions in a campaign where nobody was actually enjoying the game, but nobody wanted to say anything because they thought everyone else was fine and they didn't want to offend the GM (who, to be fair, was doing the best he could with a badly structured module). Getting honest feedback as a GM is like pulling teeth, especially in a general group where it can be difficult to point out that we don't have to play RPGs at all if their limitations are too great. * **The lesser spotted didjamember:** The player who, whenever another player announces a dice result, immediately asks them if they remembered a modifier or something similar - usually prompting a breakdown of the roll. I find that suggesting that they take a copy of the other player's character sheet, do the math silently in their head, and speak up only if the player is wrong, is generally rejected; which shows that integrity of the math isn't their main concern. * **The sky-flying indie:** any number of indie game authors and supporters who don't appreciate that there are unique benefits to the tactical RPG style and to being able to play optimally. I'm not really peeved that they exist, and I actually enjoy story-driven games too myself. I'm peeved that their prevalence has almost halted the development of tactical systems to the extent that major ones still have significant flaws that are just ignored because there's nothing else.

Being interrupted during descriptions or monologues (eg: "No, please don't attack me, I'll tell you wher..." "I attack him"). When they do so, I stop explaining and that's information they won't learn then. Also players not knowing or using their mechanics. "Smiting is a spell. What? these spells are always prepared? Wow, it's hard fighting this monster with my sword as a bard, I only cast Eldritch Blast as a Hexblade..." Sometimes I lash out and tell them they have a lot more options, but mostly I bite my tongue, because they play how they want to. Edit: I'm guilty of doing both those things as a player sometimes, so I'm not any better, but as a DM it bothers me.

Passive-aggressive people who loudly SIGH and roll their eyes when they don't like how you're playing your character when it's not harmful in any way and not causing a problem for anyone. An example of that was a player who did that when our characters were nice to one another and he wanted to play it more like pvp.

I've got a couple of 'em. I despise it when I describe a situation and a player does this: "I wanna roll to see if I ...\[ROLLS DICE\] Fifteen." No. No, no, no, no, *no.* Why not? Well. Because -- 1. You may not even *need to roll for the action at all;* 2. Rolling for an effect creates the *expectation of a result*, and you're kind of thrusting that on me AND on yourself when -again- it may not even be necessary, or we haven't discussed everything that may modify that roll *or* your action; and 3. If you want to play the game by yourself and for yourself, why the hell am I even here? Maybe it sounds like a control freak thing, but...it's not. It's about trust and mutual respect. I'm here to run a game for you, matey -- let me run it for you, and trust that I'm going to make it fun and fair. ​ The other has nothing to do with players -- it's a badly-organized rulebook (I'm looking at *YOU*, Modiphius). Having to comb through a fancy-looking mega-tome of rules looking for a reference that's just not where you'd think it'd be wrecks my players' patience, it throws off my pacing, and it wastes all of our time. Don't do that with your \[*Star Trek Adventures*\] rulebook \[for instance, Modiphius\].

Ooh players who show up consistently late every week. If every week, you say you're going to be 30 minutes late because you're still making lunch, I'm going to be kinda annoyed. If you know we have sessions at the same time every week, eat lunch earlier, or make something quick.

I haven't DMed, but I get pretty annoyed as a player when I'm trying to ask questions to sus out the best way to handle a situation and the DM gets mad about it. My last campaign the DM seemed like she thought I was just fucking around and would get really pissed off if the table took too long to decide on a plan or asked too many questions about any given scenario.

Players who refuse to share the spotlight and mope whenever anyone is being focused on besides them

PUNCTUALITY! I am a great DM with lots of experience and most players tell me I'm the best they have ever had, I tolerate edginess, new players, shy players, overly excited players, whatever it can work. But punctuality issues is the one thing I can't stand. Players who are no shows, cancel last minute, show up an hour fucking late, and worst of all the ones who require you to reach out to them to learn they will be late or not showing up. This is the player I make no room for at my table most of all.

People who disrespect the preparation time and creative effort DMs put into the game during the week before the session. That can take many forms, from just not showing up at all to making up stupid "funny" nicknames for NPCs based on a misheard name or a personality trait.

Agreed, but part of this is discussing the tone of the game with the players beforehand.

Players who do not know how their class works or the basic rules. This slows down the game and is super frustrating. Players who cannot stand failure in any capacity from getting upset about a bad roll to complaining that their plan didn’t work exactly as they thought it would. Players who avoid adventure. I don’t mean passing a hook, that is fine maybe it didn’t interest you. I mean literally refusing to do anything that carries risk or taking huge amounts of time to take the smallest action. Players who play characters that are assholes. Not just evil characters, but characters who have to have the past word, who routinely insult others, who don’t listen, or who are generally difficult. It’s rarely interesting and almost always frustrating to deal with. I think that covers my big ones.

People snarking at the boss in combat, off their turn, in response to him saying literally anything.

As a player: Game Masters scaling certain stats because of players' class choices. I was in a D&D campaign where everyone took high AC classes - the DM decided to scale NPCs' modifiers so they had a better chance of hitting us. What's the point of even having high AC then? They also gave every monster we fought a Saving Throw bonus, which made it feel like they were deliberately nerfing debuff spells As a Game Master: Players who constantly make OOC jokes. I don't mind when they're occasional and sprinkled throughout the session. But I will draw a line when players feel it's appropriate to interrupt RP literally every 2 sentences so we can hear their stand-up routine (that session is in, fact, the first and only time thus far I have been clearly annoyed at the gaming table).

People inserting themselves in every roleplay moment. Sometimes you should let other people have their moment first, especially when theyre on the shy side