Some people give their characters goofy names because they don't want to play nice with others. Some people honestly don't care what their character is named and would just refer to him as "My guy" if they could.
These aren't necessarily bad players. Say you are playing a video game, like Portal. You know nothing about the main character except that she has leg braces and gets a portal gun. You don't care. She's a cipher. She's meant to be. She's the avatar that lets you explore the world and solve its puzzles and defeat its enemies.
Some people don't want to go all Master Thespian and create a character with depth. They like playing themselves with cool powers. Or skills they don't have in real life. So when they are put on the spot and told to name "their guy" they come up with something goofy so they can just start playing.

Algol, this is what I'm taking from your examples, please correct me if I've misinterpreted.

Established groups who ask new players to conform to their naming conventions are "playing it wrong"?

A group that doesn't realize the essential frivolity of playing imaginary elves is "playing it wrong"?

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If this is what you're saying - and as near as I can tell, it's exactly what you're saying, then I think you're really, really wrong. A person who joins an established group and demands that all of them change their playstyle to conform to the new guy's personal vision of D&D, is a selfish jerk.

Anyone who does that is the very definition of a selfish jerk. If you must play a certain way - find a group that plays that way. Why be a douche about it? Just find people who like to play the game YOUR way, instead of trying to force yourself on a group that doesn't play it your way.

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If you don't care about your character name, then John Smith is a perfectly fine name. Not disruptive, and requires no effort. Dorkwad McDouche'Nozzle is intentionally disruptive, and required at least some effort to come up with.

I think we have lost track of the topic. Annoying Player Archetypes, not Squabble Over Opinons of What Constitutes Annoyance.



So on topic:

Connivers. The type who are always trying to pull one over on you or the other players. When done in moderation, it can be awesome; but when every game is "watch out for Steve, he's up t something" it gets old fast.


ass kissers I'm not opposed to the occassional "GM gets a blowjob" volunteers, but the ones that are agreeing with everything I say and jumping all over one another to mix me a drink work my nerves. They're not going to be able to make the drink as close to perfection as I myself am able to do.

On the subject of silly names, I'm going to side with Kaldric.

I'd love to have Darth Conan, the Wolfmaster, Jake the Snake and Aos' Itchy Jack in my gonzo kitchen-sink D&D game.

That would not necessarily be true if I was running, say, a humans-only D&D game set in a reasonably accurate (for our purposes) fantastic facsimile of Medieval Europe, or a modern-day Vampire game, or maybe even a Glorantha Runequest game (the Wolfmaster excepted. That guy belongs in Glorantha 100%).

I'm a huge fan of gonzo gaming (my favorite RPG used to be Rifts, for fuck's sake), but it's not the only way to play or run a RPG. It doesn't have to be all gonzo, all the time.

You know what? You're the GM. You don't have the right to complain if you OK a character and are then annoyed by the name.

Presumably, the player didn't conceal the name to you until game day. In fact, I rather suspect he told you outright he wanted to play Darth Conan.

If you don't want him to play Darth Conan, your job is to say "pick a different name", not say "sure" and be a passive aggressive asshole.

Personally, I have no problem with silly names at all. Or derivative ones. I played a 3 strength wizard who dressed like Black Mage from 8-Bit theatre, that I called "Goblin" after one of the casters in Black Company.

A dwarf in one of my 2nd edition campaigns was called Ulek McGroin.

I have no problem with wacky stuff at all - my favorite of the very few 2nd edition characters I ever played had the Jester kit, and I had a blast.

But that wasn't the point of what I was saying, which is: If you come into a game where the assumption is serious play, and after having this explained to you, you deliberately try to screw that up for your own selfish reasons - you're being selfish. If you try to justify your behavior by saying "well, RPGs are inherently frivolous, and if you try to take them seriously, you're doing it wrong!" you're not just selfish, you're kind of a jerk.

Quote from: Planet Algol;492414How dare someone be frivolous about make-believe elves.

Exactly - you should be frivolous about REAL elves.

Well, "Hero Protagonist" in "Snowcrash" works just fine, and the novel is quite serious in themes (even if often funny in tone).

I don't see that there's much that's more frivolous about TTRPGs than, say, getting borderline hysterical about watching eleven men you've never met keep an inflated pig's bladder away from eleven other men you've never met.  And that's a multi-billion dollar industry.

Quote from: donteatpoop;492434So on topic:

Connivers. The type who are always trying to pull one over on you or the other players. When done in moderation, it can be awesome; but when every game is "watch out for Steve, he's up t something" it gets old fast.

LOL - A friend of mine owned a RPG store and there was this walk-in guy we got stuck with over a year who did exactly that. He was always doing something shitty to other PCs and not even clever or funny stuff. For example, he always played a thief (suprise) and when he was on guard duty, he'd pick-pocket the other sleeping players, take their daggers, and just throw them into the woods. He'd throw his own as well to try to 'cover his tracks'. As a result, we had to keep re-purchasing daggers everywhere we went.

Quote from: Werekoala;492491Exactly - you should be frivolous about REAL elves.

You are hilarious.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492631LOL - A friend of mine owned a RPG store and there was this walk-in guy we got stuck with over a year who did exactly that. He was always doing something shitty to other PCs and not even clever or funny stuff. For example, he always played a thief (suprise) and when he was on guard duty, he'd pick-pocket the other sleeping players, take their daggers, and just throw them into the woods. He'd throw his own as well to try to 'cover his tracks'. As a result, we had to keep re-purchasing daggers everywhere we went.

That is both funny and stupid.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;492666That is both funny and stupid.

Tell me about it. The guy did all kinds of shitty things like that; his character got murdered by the other PCs at least 20 times - no joke.

Here's a couple of other crappy things he did:

1) While the party was in a tavern trying to get information, he ducked outside and loosened the cinch on everyone's saddle (except for his). Later, when the party was being chased, they all fell off their horses because their saddles slid sideways. One PC died because he fell when they were riding on a narrow bridge over a deep canyon.

2) The party had fought a bunch of goons to get a iron key neccessary to free the town's mayor who was being held hostage by slavers in a mountain stronghold. The party scaled a cliff and came in at nightfall, silently took out four guards, and were just about to rescue the mayor. Suddenly, this guy grabs the key and throws it off the side of a cliff.

Adendum: About two rounds later, we threw him off the cliff.