Share your PF or gaming related GMG's:
You know what really grinds my gears?
Being told by a GM that I couldn't join the game with my half-elf Bramble Brewer/Chirurgeon (herbalist healer) concept due to "party diversity"...
...and the party has 2 Kitsune characters, a Tiefling Magus, and a Tengu.
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Low point-buy. Looks like I have to eliminate 1/2 the classes in the game because they require more than one ability score.
Low magic. Looks like we need to burn feats on item creation feats. Yippie...
"Gritty" Yes, because I love tracking trail ration use, water in my waterskin, and to-the-ounce carrying capacity.
Heavily homebrewed rules sets. Probably more than all three of the above combined.
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Honestly, and I can feel the hate being slowly turned my direction..But anytime you ask for build advice on something simple and someone responds with "Well why don't you try a Vivisectionist/Archaeologist/Wizard/Thug/1st World Summoner Tiefling with the Blighted Racial trait, swapped for this this this and these background traits and about a hundred other subtle changes...
And I'm like "I'm just trying to build a character for RoTRL..."
Honestly, and I can feel the hate being slowly turned my direction..But anytime you ask for build advice on something simple and someone responds with "Well why don't you try a Vivisectionist/Archaeologist/Wizard/Thug/1st World Summoner Tiefling with the Blighted Racial trait, swapped for this this this and these background traits and about a hundred other subtle changes...
And I'm like "I'm just trying to build a character for RoTRL..."
First off, kudos on naming yourself after a rarely-encountered badguy in a cult RPG from the early 90's with no sequels worth mentioning (Mother 3 sucked so hard as to be a viable candidate for a porn award).
Second off, yes, that is really annoying.
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ASking for advice on playing a rogue...
And being told not to play a rogue.
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Oh, I thought of a few more:
Arbitrary class banning for "flavor" reasons. To a degree, I get this. No guns? No gunslingers. Except the bolt ace exists, so, yeah. No eastern? Let them play the damn ninja and call it a rogue, the rogue sucks enough as it is. There's nothing mechanical that sets apart the samurai as "eastern", so just treat it like the cavalier archetype it is, already. A lot of classes have sweet mechanics, so if you don't like the flavor, just reflavor the background and let them move on playing what they like. If you don't like the mechanics...
Arbitrary class banning for "balance". Shut up. If they break your game with one class, they'll find a way to break your game with another. Rules mastery rarely extends to one class. Also, if you can't handle challenging players, maybe you shouldn't be a GM.
(Pretty much the only class I ask players not to choose is Master Summoners; not for balance, just because they take up so much frickin' table time that the other players start to pull out cell phones, etc.)
Rolling for stats and to a lesser extent, HP. Good and bad luck do happen, and it's just not fair for two players to have vastly different potential for the entirety of the game based on one fluke roll.
First off, kudos on naming yourself after a rarely-encountered badguy in a cult RPG from the early 90's with no sequels worth mentioning (Mother 3 sucked so hard as to be a viable candidate for a porn award).
Thanks, I tried Bob the Skull first but it was taken. I'm just a wealth of obscure pop culture references.
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Mother 3 was awesome.
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When a player agrees to a role play heavy campaign then refuses to role play
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Oh, you probably meant pathfinder stuff. ;)
Banning classes really gets me disinterested, even if I've never played the class or plan too, and giving no reason for banning it.
Or having a recruitment title something along the lines of "anything goes" and then saying no 3rd party.
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Oh, I thought of a few more:
Arbitrary class banning for "flavor" reasons. To a degree, I get this. No guns? No gunslingers. Except the bolt ace exists, so, yeah. No eastern? Let them play the damn ninja and call it a rogue, the rogue sucks enough as it is. There's nothing mechanical that sets apart the samurai as "eastern", so just treat it like the cavalier archetype it is, already. A lot of classes have sweet mechanics, so if you don't like the flavor, just reflavor the background and let them move on playing what they like. If you don't like the mechanics...
Arbitrary class banning for "balance". Shut up. If they break your game with one class, they'll find a way to break your game with another. Rules mastery rarely extends to one class. Also, if you can't handle challenging players, maybe you shouldn't be a GM.
(Pretty much the only class I ask players not to choose is Master Summoners; not for balance, just because they take up so much frickin' table time that the other players start to pull out cell phones, etc.)
Rolling for stats and to a lesser extent, HP. Good and bad luck do happen, and it's just not fair for two players to have vastly different potential for the entirety of the game based on one fluke roll.
People who ignore fluff and insist on playing classes that have nothing to do with the campaign. Even worse, no one wants them to do it at the table, but they insist everyone else is playing bad/wrong and throw a tantrum unless they get to play some weird offshoot third party class that no one else has the book too, and a race that if they were RPGing in the campaign's world, would be slain the first time they entered a town....but they insist that everyone has to accept the race as normal instead of a monster and throws another tantrum if it isn't.
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When people ask build advice (implying they want to optimize) and then get huffy when you actually tell them how to optimize.
People who want help with Rogues are a good example. If you want to optimize the concept, you don't play a rogue. It's that simple. Not only can every concept a rogue covers be done by another class, every mechanic a rogue gets can be acquired by another class. Literally the only reasons to actually play a rogue are challenge mode or the stubborn need to write the word "rogue " on your character sheet (unless you're playing core only or some similarly weird variant).
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'Secret Houserules' is a big one with me, since everyone has their own balancing point. I accept some people want to have house rules, I have them myself, but don't spring them on me.
'Mundane hate' is another. When people say "Oh, a mundane can't do that" despite the fact that it's RAW and most times RAI as well. We're heroes, let us be heroes without some finger wiggling.
'GMPCs' are almost universally the worst thing ever, and they're even worse when they're better than the party at all possible turns.
'Museum Piece' characters are another one. This is a term I coined from NPCs and monsters that aren't allowed to be attacked/troubled/etc. It means that they're simply around to be looked at and admired, an object of worship and admiration.
'Chaotic Neutral/stupid' has ruined more games of mine than I can count. I have a rule that the party can't attack each other due to this, mostly because if I didn't, we wouldn't get into the dungeon most of the times.
I have more, but that's all I can think of now.
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This is getting ugly quicker than I expected. I'm just gonna kick back prop my feet up here until I'm needed.
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Ooo, people that are arbitrarily try to be difficult or derail the game. Like the one bad guy in a good/neutral party.
I'm here to hit stuff and dungeon raid...Let's stick to the simple and do that while our wives let us out of the house of the night.
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Along the lines of what ULG just said, players who just pay no attention to party makeup whatsoever when making their character.
This can be the one bad guy in the good/neutral party, or the guy who, upon seeing there's a gravewalker witch, a necromancer wizard, and an undead lord cleric says "You know what this party needs? Paladin!"
It can also be that dick who saw me playing a full orc barbarian that one time, and when his character died, made a full orc barbarian. Out of like 30 classes and 50 races or so, he made the exact same thing as me? Seriously, I don't have the ability to type enough profanities to convey how much that pissed me off! Honestly, I wanted to spit on him for that.
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Players the argue and fight about some other player's character.
Example: I was GM and we had a paladin in the party. The paladin had to make a hard decision about who to support and protect.* The player and I had worked out a pretty detailed interpretation of the code for that PC. The decision he made was well within that. It wasn't what I would have done. But hey, not my PC. there was no perfect decision.
* No I was not being a jerk and intentionally putting the paladin in a bad spot. He managed to shoehorn himself into that bad spot with a little help from the rest of the party.
The other 4 players then got into an ongoing heated argument about how a paladin must/can't/should/never/etc... I repeatedly said that I was ok with the decision let's move on. They completely ignored us. After a while, the player of the paladin and I went into the other room and watched most of an episode of Big Bang Theory before they even realized we had left. Then they got mad at us for leaving and disrupting the game.
Days like that are why I am ever so close to banning paladins from my games.
But there have been other less extreme examples of players telling other players how to play. "You're a necromancer, you have to be creepy and sickening to others."
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This is getting ugly quicker than I expected. I'm just gonna kick back prop my feet up here until I'm needed.
I'll say. People really hate people.
What really grinds my gears.
I never know whether the Paladin is falling....off a cliff or not.
Or whether evil acid spells are turning my character into a black jelly or not.
Hell if its going to get ugly, why not give it a push.
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When being right is Way more important than having fun.
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...people that say they can drive stick who really can't. That always grinds my gears...
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That campaign where everyone simultaneously decides to play a pet class or summoner or enchanter or otherwise breaker-of-the-action-economy.
Hello 40-minute combat rounds.
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You know what really grinds MY gears?
Well...
...when I lose a key table or bit of info in the stacks of files I have.
...when I can't remember the name of my own NPC.
...when I have a brain fart and my train of thought gets derailed.
...generally being an absent-minded DM.
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You know what grinds my gears? That there isnt a spell called "Grinding gears".
Oh, and "I feed on your hate, etc., etc. "...
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Kitchen sink "anything goes" high-powered campaigns.
The ones with orc raised kitsune gunslinger/samurai/alchemists side by side with elf blooded oracle/barbarian tieflings (or whatever absurd but mechanically proper combination of class, traits, races and archetype you can find), that get the right magic item at that precise level, just because the planned character build needs that modifier to work better than just a jumble of numbers scribbled on the sheet.
I can't feel the setting, the adventure, the challenge, or the roleplaying.
Players that suddenly go PvP because they want to steal the spotlight. Destroys any effort built up by the group as whole, usually in many sessions, in a single jerk move.
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Players who cannot even give their class a through reading for the first 2 or 3 levels when they are told we will begin the campaign at said levels. These ate not even completely new players who may have first read 11 class descriptions first, then settled for one and got tired reading.
It is very disrespectful when people leave your campaign and don't even bother to tell you. So you and the rest of the table wait for an extended time to begin, maybe if you are lucky you eventually get through to them in a hour on the phone and learn you wasted an hour. Other times you cannot reach them on the.phone that day and you end up worried for someone who did not even have the common cutesy of telling you they have to withdraw from the group. Even worse when you had to tell another they could not join because your table was full.
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People who ignore fluff and insist on playing classes that have nothing to do with the campaign. Even worse, no one wants them to do it at the table, but they insist everyone else is playing bad/wrong and throw a tantrum unless they get to play some weird offshoot third party class that no one else has the book too, and a race that if they were RPGing in the campaign's world, would be slain the first time they entered a town....but they insist that everyone has to accept the race as normal instead of a monster and throws another tantrum if it isn't.Oh, I thought of a few more:
Arbitrary class banning for "flavor" reasons. To a degree, I get this. No guns? No gunslingers. Except the bolt ace exists, so, yeah. No eastern? Let them play the damn ninja and call it a rogue, the rogue sucks enough as it is. There's nothing mechanical that sets apart the samurai as "eastern", so just treat it like the cavalier archetype it is, already. A lot of classes have sweet mechanics, so if you don't like the flavor, just reflavor the background and let them move on playing what they like. If you don't like the mechanics...
Arbitrary class banning for "balance". Shut up. If they break your game with one class, they'll find a way to break your game with another. Rules mastery rarely extends to one class. Also, if you can't handle challenging players, maybe you shouldn't be a GM.
(Pretty much the only class I ask players not to choose is Master Summoners; not for balance, just because they take up so much frickin' table time that the other players start to pull out cell phones, etc.)
Rolling for stats and to a lesser extent, HP. Good and bad luck do happen, and it's just not fair for two players to have vastly different potential for the entirety of the game based on one fluke roll.
The Drizzt clone is still alive and free even though an elven judge in Magnimar has seen him without the mask. No assassination attempts yet either. What the heck?
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There's more square footage of gaming table than I have square footage of bed to sleep on. Could your dice maybe land on the table? I feel like I should install rails like in bumper bowling.
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There's more square footage of gaming table than I have square footage of bed to sleep on. Could your dice maybe land on the table? I feel like I should install rails like in bumper bowling.
I know a guy that absolutely has to shake his dice for a good 10-15 seconds. Then he always throws them up so at least 1/3 of the time the bounce off the table.
The more important the action the longer he shakes them and the higher he throws them.
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There's more square footage of gaming table than I have square footage of bed to sleep on. Could your dice maybe land on the table? I feel like I should install rails like in bumper bowling.I know a guy that absolutely has to shake his dice for a good 10-15 seconds. Then he always throws them up so at least 1/3 of the time the bounce off the table.
The more important the action the longer he shakes them and the higher he throws them.
I bet he plays a class that needs lots of 6 sided dice.
A possible fix: all dice that land off the table produce a result of zero.
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Low magic. Looks like we need to burn feats on item creation feats. Yippie...
As opposed to never having a reason to select those feats, ever, 'cause Magic Mart? :P
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Crafting magic items....buying magic items....bah! Back in my day we got magic items the old fashioned way. Walking barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways and killing the big badguy that had the item we wanted. Grumble spoiled brats think the world owes them a magic item grumble grumble zzzzzzzz.
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People making monk-barbarian or Barbarian-paladin builds before the game starts assuming they will just switch alignment whenever their build demands, without a proper in-game reason for the change. Mechanics should not trump fluff in my opinion.
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People making monk-barbarian or Barbarian-paladin builds before the game starts assuming they will just switch alignment whenever their build demands, without a proper in-game reason for the change. Mechanics should not trump fluff in my opinion.
*N Martial Artist 2/Barbarian X taps you on the shoulder*
"Excuse me, Son. I know I'm not as awesome as my little brother the Brawler, but I was here first, and, honestly, I just can't get too broken up over your assumptions."
"But I do expect you to get out of my seat. Like right meow."
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Players with B.O.
Shower daily, you smelly douche! Or at least before game day. Social inadequacy does not excuse poor hygiene. You're making those of us who don't fall into stereotypes look bad by association. It seems especially prevalent at game stores over at home games, but honestly I've experienced both. It's one reason my wife stopped going to PFS.
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Players with B.O.
Shower daily, you smelly douche! Or at least before game day. Social inadequacy does not excuse poor hygiene. You're making those of us who don't fall into stereotypes look bad by association. It seems especially prevalent at game stores over at home games, but honestly I've experienced both. It's one reason my wife stopped going to PFS.
I had one of those once. We played at a FLGS. The dude made our eyes water. I've met some homeless people who smelled less bad. The worst part was that he grew thoroughly offended when we mentioned the odor and started calling us names.
People like him make us look bad and propagate the smelly, fat neckbeard reputation.
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Players with B.O.
...
I've really only encountered this a couple of times in the last decade. Back in the 80's when I started gaming, it seemed like more people had the problem then not. I couldn't even stand to go into the game store in the summer.
Luckily this situation seems to be improving. Maybe in a few more decades the kids will think it is an urban myth.
people who think that because i typed up a slightly weaker than a tiefling conversion of a half nymph i want to play because most of the core races don't appeal to my taste alongside three quarters of the advanced race guide, that i am appearantly trying to wreck their campaign with a minmaxed diplomancer, my houri doesn't even have the dreaded +6 racial bonus to intelligence and charisma you fear, just +2 to both with a -2 strength and really, that extra skill point per level, darkvision, free fey foundling and human favored class bonus options are intended as the primary racial abilities for a race with like no support
people who think that because i am trying to convert a 2E spellcloak off the bard chassis from memory, and balance if for pathfinder, that i am having badwrong fun for building a base class that makes a better arcane trickster than the arcane trickster, when it's mechanical niche is very different, arcane trickster sneakblasts, spellcloak cloaks itself with spells to set up combat advantages with physical weapons
other than them both being spellcasting classes that fight dirty, they are very different in how they fight dirty, both mechanically and conceptually.
People making monk-barbarian or Barbarian-paladin builds before the game starts assuming they will just switch alignment whenever their build demands, without a proper in-game reason for the change. Mechanics should not trump fluff in my opinion.
Monk sounds like it would be easy to justify- after leaving the temple, you lost your focus and discipline, and eventually took to barbarian-esque hobbies- Booze, women, and bar fights.
I mean, I can see from a role playing perspective that the player should just ask the GM to give him an in game event where he goes on a bender and starts leaning more neutrally. Heck, make it a parody of the Hangover where the monk has to go on a short quest to find out what happened last night since he has to find out whose baby this is.
The barbarian paladin thing seems like it would need constant flip flopping though, and that seems to go against the spirit of 'atonement'.
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'Being married to fluff' is something that's coming up here, and it's rather annoying to me as well. People who say "You can't reflavor something, you have to use the prepacked fluff." If I want to play an Alchemist as a Rogue, call it a Rogue, and have it do Rogue like things (especially after using traits to fill in the small holes I have skill wise), I shouldn't have to have the fluff police come and get me because I don't have the word 'Rogue' written across my character sheet.
I've refluffed a Barb's rage as 'Combat Focus' because the Barb is just straight up better than the Fighter, played my Barb as a Fighter, and still been told 'you should have just rolled a Fighter.' Yeah, I'll do that when Fighters can sunder spells and have incredible saves against magic, as well as pounce.
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Players who do not want to play races from the Core Rulebook because they are "boring". "After all", they say, "elves are nothing more than tall people, gnomes, halfings and dwarves are just short people, and half-elves and half-orcs are merely funny-looking people." Kitsune or catfolk are about the least exotic acceptable races.
GMs who make the complaint that I just made.
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I once had a GM who never liked non-standard races and classes. He often banned them. Or modified them until no one wanted to play them.
Then when he was player, he showed up with a half-drow, half-construct, samuri, psion kineticist. {Zero warning or discussion with the new GM.)
Then got mad at all of us when we couldn't stop laughing at him.
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I once had a GM who never liked non-standard races and classes. He often banned them. Or modified them until no one wanted to play them.
Then when he was player, he showed up with a half-drow, half-construct, samuri, psion kineticist. {Zero warning or discussion with the new GM.)
Then got mad at all of us when we couldn't stop laughing at him.
At least I'm consistent. I have no interest in playing exotic races.