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nmako wrote:The second stereotype I dislike is the I-HAVE-NOTHING-TO-CONTRIBUTE-SO-I'M-GONNA-GO-DO-SOMETHING-ELSE type. More than showing up late, that seems like the ultimate insult to the GM and gaming group in general. To simply get up from the table to check-up on your MMORPG or lay on the floor to stretch and/or wrestle with the dog while everyone else is still gaming seems so very rude. My GM will sometimes try to call a break when the offender does this, but the offender nonchalantly signals for us to continue playing. I can understand that everyone needs to take a breather for a bit, but to do it all the time in a highly visible manner is the same as saying, "This just isn't interesting enough to warrant my presence. I'm going to fast forward to a better part." Or, more to the point, "You guys are boring me."

Gypsy-Dancer wrote:I picked the Perv, personally.
We had this one guy for two sessions who was both a Perv and an Unclean One, but it was the Perv thing that got him booted. He made us girls uncomfortable.

CS Special Forces wrote:I picked the power gamer.funny how their characters are always powerful,yet their lives are falling apart around them.

BillionSix wrote:A lot of people seem to be defending the types. Understandable. Any of them are tolerable in small doses. I think the point of the thread is that they are taken too far.

For instance:

The Great Unclean One: Also known as the Cat P*ss Man. Not bad in small doses. A nice guy with an occasional funk is tolerable. But that guy who never changes his clothes, and has filth and stink as a part of his self-image, and makes up stories about soap allergies to maintain his stank. That guy is a problem. I think it's a self-esteem problem. He does this to keep people at arm's length. If they can't get close in the first place, they can't reject him.

The X-File: If it is only occasional, just make sure the plots don't center on him. But the guy who always flakes out? Why is he in the group?

The Two-Fisted Coward: Sad. Can't even pretend to be brave. With these guys, I imagine a sort of trauma gained from an early gaming group. Their first campaign, played with a terrible GM when they were 13, was basically, "Try to survive. But you won't." Their GM told them that "winning" is surviving to the end of the game, then started wiping out the whole party. So this imprinted the player with a "turtle" attitude. Pile on all the defenses you can, and avoid trouble.

The Star: Nothing wrong with a dynamic character who likes center stage. In moderation. I think the problem is with the real attention whores. The ones that go into passive-aggressive hissy fits when they are out of the limelight for even a second. If something cool happens to another player, then it's "Whatever. I'll be on the couch. Call me when something good happens." That's if you are lucky. Some aren't so passive, and will just jump in and steal the attention back.

The Perv: A character who likes the sexy sexins, and isn't shy about it, is okay, given an open-minded group. The Perv is a different animal. "The mayor greets you." "I cast a spell to turn him into a hot chick! Can I have sex with him now?" or "I just created a new D-Bee race. Guess how many sexual organs it has!" There are stories of worse stuff, including people who literally are messing with themselves under the table while the game is on. If the perversion is non-stop, and ruins the game, then it's a bad thing.

The Gender Bender: I have done this. I will be honest, it is a lot easier to do this in a chat game, where I am less self-conscious about making the female character actually act feminine. I try to make them realistic, unless it's a more humorous game, when I will go more over the top. This is not what we are talking about. We mean the Lesbian Stripper Ninja. The women played by male players who have heard of women, seen them on the internet, and someday hope to meet one.

The Freak: A variation on the Star. At least the Star cares about the story. The Freak is just bored, and doesn't care about anyone's fun. In moderation, with a decent player, this can add spice to the game. But dude who sets fire to the tavern just because his character hasn't done anything in 30 seconds is not a good player.

The Loner: "I'm a loner. I walk my lonely path. Alone. Alone, I face my enemy, then go on my lonely way. Alone." These dudes read every comic Wolverine was ever in. The good ones realize that Wolverine wasn't really a loner. He joined the X-men. He had friendships and relationships, and went on missions with them, and let Colossus throw him at people. Sure, he grunted and made lots of loner noises, but he was a team player, really. Or at least he tried to be most of the time. The bad ones just refuse to talk to anyone. They don't realize that if they don't join the group, nothing happens to them. They sit at different tables from the group, don't agree to go on the same mission as the group, and ultimately complain when the adventure passes them by.

The Leader: If one player is good at taking charge, making plans, and organizing things, then great. A group can only benefit from someone who is a good leader. This guy, however, is not. He desperately wants to be. He is a guy who feels powerless in his real life, and wants to be respected and obeyed in the fictional game world. The problem is, he sucks at it. The players are doing their own thing, or maybe following the guy who is actually good at leading. So he sits there and says, "I should be the leader! Do what I tell you!" I think the funniest thing you could do to this guy is actually make him the leader. Then watch him fail. Because leading is not about having the Leader title. It's about actually getting people to follow you. And shouting random orders, and throwing a hissy fit when they aren't obeyed is not the mark of a good leader.

The Sycophant: I'll be honest, I haven't seen this one before. I have seen the opposite, where a GM blatantly favors a specific player. Often the player is a long time buddy, or the GMs sex provider. But this is a topic for the Annoying GM thread.

The Power Gamer/Munchkin: Wanting to play a powerful character is not true Munchkinism. Some people just like that level of power in a game. There is nothing wrong with wanting enough power to meet all challenges. A true Munchkin, however, doesn't want there to be any challenges. It's a more aggressive version of the two-fisted coward. He wants to be more powerful than anything he meets, including the other PCs. This is the guy who probably plays first-person shooter games in God Mode. The munchkin in his purest form can be spotted by his whiny bratty sense of entitlement. Side note: I worked in a supermarket for years, and there are shopping munchkins. They will see an item that has blatantly been moved or shifted to the wrong spot where it kind of looks like it's much cheaper, but only if you are really stupid. Most people will point it out, let you fix it, and move on. But the munchkin will demand it at the blatantly wrong cheaper price. Their entire psyche is given over to "I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT!" They noticed it, they want it, they deserve it, and they don't care how stupid and petty this makes them look. Compare this to a munchkin arguing that his character should have some über gun from some obscure book that only comes from a distant place in the Three Galaxies, but he should still have it in the Palladium Fantasy world and it should still do MDC damage he noticed it, he wants it, he deserves it, and "I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT!"

The Hack-and-Slasher: Nothing wrong with enjoying a good fight. This is the guy who kills every friendly NPC, kills the other PCs girlfriend, kills the random passersby on the street, then gets confused when the cops show up, gets indignant when the GM shifts him to an evil alignment, and when the other players yell at him for ruining the game, has this stupid look of wounded innocence, like he doesn't think he did anything wrong.

There are a few others.

The Pro From Dover: This is the dude who chooses something, and has to be the best at it. In the world. His skill universally recognized. This is not necessarily combat. I have seen guys who play a doctor, but have to be the greatest surgeon on earth. Or the most famous musician. In the palladium rules, this isn't much of a problem, since characters are fairly standardized at what they can do. But point buy systems? They will choose one thing, or a group of related things, and raise them to godlike proportions. If it is one of those games that names their skill ranks, like 1- Poor, 2 - Average, 3 - Good, 4 - Great, 5 - Excellent, 6 - Extraordinary, 7 - So Amazingly Perfect That Should Any Man Gaze Upon You Whilst You Perform This Skill His Eyes Will Melt From Their Sockets, His Mind And Soul Will Be Burned Away, And He Will Spend The Rest Of His Days Speaking Of Nothing But The Glory Of Your Flawless Skill; then the Pro will read it as 1 - Worthless, 2 - Worthless, 3 - Worthless, 4 - Worthless, 5 - Worthless, 6 - Worthless, 7 - Acceptable.

The Story Munchkin: This is a character who creates a character who dominates the game. However, not in the combat arena. He creates a backstory that necessitates everything being about him. He is obsessively hunting the man who killed his brother. He does nothing else. The other PCs can follow, and if they are good, they can help. Though he would prefer you just stay out of his way. But he will do nothing except hunt the man who killed his brother. "Okay, you need to find the Lost Orb of Phanasticoria." "Sorry, I can't. I have to find the man who killed my brother." Kind of a mix of Loner and Star.

The Anti-Munchkin: I've seen this. The character who is paranoid about being seen as a munchkin, or thinking of himself as a munchkin, so he won't make a character who is, y'know, good at anything. Mediocre stats, pointless skills (for roleplaying, you know.) and the most basic of weapons. And no cool powers. Probably plays the Vagabond in Rifts. Now there is nothing wrong with playing an underdog with a good personality and backstory, especially in a low-powered campaign. But if your fear of munchkinism drives you to make a useless character every time, you have a problem.

Brian

Alrik Vas wrote:Those are all annoying, but i enjoy them all (except for the slob and the X-file) for the strengths they have a result of (or perhaps in duality with) their faults.

Vrykolas2k wrote:

Alrik Vas wrote:Those are all annoying, but i enjoy them all (except for the slob and the X-file) for the strengths they have a result of (or perhaps in duality with) their faults.

Aside from driving away female players, what strengths would the perv have?

Vrykolas2k wrote:

Alrik Vas wrote:Those are all annoying, but i enjoy them all (except for the slob and the X-file) for the strengths they have a result of (or perhaps in duality with) their faults.

Aside from driving away female players, what strengths would the perv have?

DRock wrote:My third most hated is the Rules Lawyer. Arguing rules, I find, is boring and it takes valuable time away from doing the fun parts of the game, like RP'ing and combat.

arouetta wrote:

DRock wrote:My third most hated is the Rules Lawyer. Arguing rules, I find, is boring and it takes valuable time away from doing the fun parts of the game, like RP'ing and combat.

Rules Lawyer to a point is fine. As a player, I find it very annoying when the rules have the consistency of quicksand, or when I built my character based on something printed only to be told after the fact that things are different, or seeing another PC being apparently favored as they don't have to follow the rules. As a GM, I do not have a photographic memory of the books and knowledge of everything in the world and a nudge during game is better than having to come back afterwards to reverse a ruling. It's when it's extreme that it's bad.

Captain Shiva wrote:

arouetta wrote:

DRock wrote:My third most hated is the Rules Lawyer. Arguing rules, I find, is boring and it takes valuable time away from doing the fun parts of the game, like RP'ing and combat.

Rules Lawyer to a point is fine. As a player, I find it very annoying when the rules have the consistency of quicksand, or when I built my character based on something printed only to be told after the fact that things are different, or seeing another PC being apparently favored as they don't have to follow the rules. As a GM, I do not have a photographic memory of the books and knowledge of everything in the world and a nudge during game is better than having to come back afterwards to reverse a ruling. It's when it's extreme that it's bad.

Well said. I especially liked your comment about rules having "the consistency of quicksand." If the rules are not clearly spelled out in black and white, then it falls to the GM to interpret them. I feel house rules should be put in writing, and a copy given to each player. Say what you want about d20, but their rules are generally internally consistent. I have been mostly playing D&D 3.5 the last few years; I really wish I could find a Rifts game in my area where the GM is not a moron or an A-hole, but I am not optimistic.

Vrykolas2k wrote:

Captain Shiva wrote:

arouetta wrote:

DRock wrote:My third most hated is the Rules Lawyer. Arguing rules, I find, is boring and it takes valuable time away from doing the fun parts of the game, like RP'ing and combat.

Rules Lawyer to a point is fine. As a player, I find it very annoying when the rules have the consistency of quicksand, or when I built my character based on something printed only to be told after the fact that things are different, or seeing another PC being apparently favored as they don't have to follow the rules. As a GM, I do not have a photographic memory of the books and knowledge of everything in the world and a nudge during game is better than having to come back afterwards to reverse a ruling. It's when it's extreme that it's bad.

Well said. I especially liked your comment about rules having "the consistency of quicksand." If the rules are not clearly spelled out in black and white, then it falls to the GM to interpret them. I feel house rules should be put in writing, and a copy given to each player. Say what you want about d20, but their rules are generally internally consistent. I have been mostly playing D&D 3.5 the last few years; I really wish I could find a Rifts game in my area where the GM is not a moron or an A-hole, but I am not optimistic.

If only you lived in Colorado Springs, you could play in our group.

silvermoon383 wrote:Ok, one last quick note (sorry this has been a longer post than I intended), this isn't a type that's on the list, but it's one that is a huge problem on the metagame stage: lets call them Champions. I had to deal with a store full of them when I was in college. As I said early on in the post, I started playing D&D when 4th edition came out. I had one small experience with 3.5 before then, and character creation had left me so confused that I couldn't bring myself to picking it up.

silvermoon383 wrote:Well, here I am, a new college student with the desire to have a night for gaming, and whenever I would ask around for any 4E groups I'd get lecture after lecture after lecture about how 4E sucks that I need to play 3.5 or Pathfinder. It got so bad that the store owner could barely sell anything BUT Pathfinder books. To this day, I have only played 1 game of Pathfinder, and I can't bring myself to jump in with a group here in my new town, because while they're a lot nicer about it (they're all older gamers who don't mind 4E, they're just used to the older systems more), whenever they invite me I remember the asshats in college.

silvermoon383 wrote:I don't blame the game, I blame the players that championed it to the exclusion of everything else. I would open my mouth about looking for a 4E group and get nothing but diatribes about how "4th Edition sucks, you can't do anything with it, you need to play Pathfinder". Pathfinder players were literally working to prevent any other fantasy game to be played at that store.

As for getting confused with making 3.5 characters, it was my first time making any RPG character, and I had no guidance. I had to sit there and read the book, but with so many things going on at once with it (so many references, things to look up, etc), I got lost in a hurry. When I picked up Palladium (via Robotech) I had earned a degree that requires that I be able to delve into thick notation such as is found in game books so I was much better at it this time around.

Captain Shiva wrote:

silvermoon383 wrote:I don't blame the game, I blame the players that championed it to the exclusion of everything else. I would open my mouth about looking for a 4E group and get nothing but diatribes about how "4th Edition sucks, you can't do anything with it, you need to play Pathfinder". Pathfinder players were literally working to prevent any other fantasy game to be played at that store.

As for getting confused with making 3.5 characters, it was my first time making any RPG character, and I had no guidance. I had to sit there and read the book, but with so many things going on at once with it (so many references, things to look up, etc), I got lost in a hurry. When I picked up Palladium (via Robotech) I had earned a degree that requires that I be able to delve into thick notation such as is found in game books so I was much better at it this time around.

I personally feel that character creation for new players should be done one on one with the GM's guidance and assistance. That way, the character creation process goes much more smoothly, and this has the added bonus of helping the new player learn the rules.

arouetta wrote:The lemming should be on the list as well. The one that never steps up to the plate, never proposes ideas, never says "hey guys, let's go do this", simply has his character following the other characters.

I've got three of them. It's so bad that I've already had to intervene once when a good player got fed up over a self-appointed "bodyguard" following so close he was practically up his rear all the time, and last game a good player couldn't show and the other good player threatened to not play because he felt like he would be gaming alone. When I talked with two of my lemmings about it pre-game (the third didn't show), one understood and promised to try harder and explained she was used to a group leader, not a leaderless group. The other (the "bodyguard") flat out said he didn't see himself doing anything different. I don't know what to do.

Ashendale wrote:I see this a lot especially with the 'gender benders', which I will admit that myself and my Husband frequently are. He plays female toons and I play males, but we play them well and true to our characters. This game is set over a thousand years in the future and everyone8ne still has outdated thoughts on gender roles and sexuality?

Captain Shiva wrote:There is at least one type of annoying player not mentioned: the Advisor. This is the guy who is always making out-of-character, and unwelcome suggestions to other players about how they should player their characters. This type is often combined with the Rules Lawyer.

Nightmask wrote:

Ashendale wrote:I see this a lot especially with the 'gender benders', which I will admit that myself and my Husband frequently are. He plays female toons and I play males, but we play them well and true to our characters. This game is set over a thousand years in the future and everyone8ne still has outdated thoughts on gender roles and sexuality?

Human beings have had civilization for thousands of years with gender roles tending to fluctuate not that much overall, why think they'd change to some utopian perfection in another thousand years? The sadly common theme for most sci-fi fiction and future speculation anymore is that things either don't change any or get worse in the future rather than everyone getting along in an 'outgrown that silliness' fashion.

Hmmm, this does remind me of a storyarc in the Knights Of the Dinner Table though, where the lone girl in the group joined another group that was all male and seemed everything she'd ever wanted but wasn't getting from the group she was part of (as in lots of actual RP and plot development), only to end up dealing with some horribly misogynistic stuff in a game module the group ran (her female character for example couldn't enter the town during the celebration going on because females were 'unclean' and had to be outside for the duration). She eventually left back to her original group (but not before the guys royally trashed her ego), only to find out when THEY started to run the same module it has ZERO of the anti-female stuff she'd seen previously, it had all been inserted by the DM and players. Needless to say she snapped and went on an in-game rampage leveling the place, acting like the rest of her hack-and-slash group for change. She found out who her true friends were though, as they definitely got payback for her when they found out the truth.

Ashendale wrote:I see this a lot especially with the 'gender benders', which I will admit that myself and my Husband frequently are. He plays female toons and I play males, but we play them well and true to our characters. This game is set over a thousand years in the future and everyone8ne still has outdated thoughts on gender roles and sexuality? I see the perv as alsso being the player who actively seeks out opportunities for sex or to hit on anything they can.

arouetta wrote:Rebooted the gaming group, whole new players. First time I met them was character creation. First session, it becomes apparent that one takes things personally. So maybe a category of players who take things personally could be discussed. She got mad over something that happened in game (a sentient A.I. refused to let her non-security PC have access to security alerts).

I was dumbfounded. Why do things have to be taken so personally?

Alrik Vas wrote:Yeah, the super-sensitive type are very difficult to deal with. It sucks when they're you're real life friend too. /stagger

Captain Shiva wrote:So, the Black Plague happened in the 1800s?

Alrik Vas wrote:Instead of pointing out fault...maybe just give the correction and talk about content?

Besides, the plague was mostly from the 14th-15th centuries, but it resurged serval times into the 1900's.

Alrik Vas wrote:And it's still killing as of 2013 at least. 20 people in a Madagascar village.

Dog_O_War wrote:

Alrik Vas wrote:And it's still killing as of 2013 at least. 20 people in a Madagascar village.

I was reading about how long it has lasted; it's incredible that with modern-day medicine and communication that it could still exist. But then the only answer I can come up with as to why is that in less modern times, such places simply died out and the plague had no where else to spread, whereas today, a combination of naive doctors and backwards peoples are otherwise allowing it to continue. Remove one or the other from that combination and we wouldn't have the plague.