Often times I've seen role playing game groups that have 1 or 2 military-obsessed players. A couple of times I've had the misfortune to have one of these guys in a session or two that I ran.

These are the gamers or players that seem to be over-in-love with military equipment, gear and jargon. The characters they make always reflect that bent. They also tend to have a problem switching fro m 'war gaming' mode to RPG mode when in a roleplaying game situation.

Oh, and I'm NOT referring to players who have actually been in the military. Two of my better/best players from the past six years have been in the military - and this kind of concern or problem never happened with them when they game.

The obnoxious sorts I referred to in the first paragraph sometimes also have a gearhead bent to their play style.

What kind of experiences have you guys had with those kinds of military-obsessed players?


- Ed C.

Like most problem players I refuse to be bothered by their idiosyncrasies and handle it by immersing them in to the campaign and forcing them to speak in first person as their character. Eventually this gets them to think as their character rather than their character as piece being moved on a board. I.e. they start roleplaying. Mostly a version of themselves but it still roleplaying.

Without going into a long detailed explanation what happen is a) they accept that they are part of the Majestic Wilderlands during the session and start acting naturally (whatever that happens to be). or b)  they remain in gamists mode which invariable results in their character being killed due to the inhabitants of the Majestic Wilderlands (or Third Imperium) taking care of the problem they are causing.

Being a long time wargamer myself it pretty hard to "out geek" me on the technical side of things.

One of the guys in my group is obsessed with guns. He's the guy who always points out the inaccuracies in movies or shows with guns in them. Now he really knows his stuff - he's an amateur gunsmith - but it is SUCH a beating in games when he goes into excessive detail about what type of firearms his character will be carrying. Not that he over-arms, but you can't just have a 9mm pistol with this guy.

There are times when I play in a sci-fi campaign I have to suppress my impulse to correct the referee on orbital mechanics. You see I created a switch accurate version of the Mercury and Gemini Capsule for a space simulator.

http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit

Sorry, but I actually think that games like BattleTech and Traveller were actually designed to cater to engineering geeks in the military. You know, guys obsessed with vehicles and weapons from a numbers point of view (among others).

I've got no problem with these guys. Well, actually I do - when I'd GM for such guys, they'd laugh at my amateur attempts to describe such stuff with any pretense of scientific and military knowledge. (Yeah, because even describing the technical behaviour of pseudo-scientific stuff requires a good amount of extrapolating stuff from technical stuff you do know in the real world.)

I'm serious. I think such guys enrich games with their knowledge. As long as it's not about showing off who knows more about military and stuff.

There is a difference between the kind of player you describe than what Koltar is describing. Basically they don't have any real knowledge of the subject other than what the game stats tell them and they are very very good at knowing the rules, stats, and how to exploit them. So while Traveller style construction rules appeal to both, one is fun to have in the game, the other is a pain.

Ah, memories...

As a Marine Brat, I remember the first Robotech game I played that was filled with non-military personnel: the slap-happy salutes, talking back to a superior officer during the briefing, conduct unbecoming, etc...

I nearly lost it a dozen times, before realizing I just needed to relax and enjoy the game.

And I've never been a gun freak; combat is abstract inherently in most games, so the fact weapons are an abstract has never bothered me (though there is a realistic difference between a service 9mm pistol, and a .44 Magnum).

Quote from: estar;397580There is a difference between the kind of player you describe than what Koltar is describing. Basically they don't have any real knowledge of the subject other than what the game stats tell them and they are very very good at knowing the rules, stats, and how to exploit them. So while Traveller style construction rules appeal to both, one is fun to have in the game, the other is a pain.

...and once again, Estar gets exactly mostly what I meant in my post.

This also goes to the idea that I've noticed a difference in play style between players that have been in a real military and players that are 'military wannabees' for the most part.

- Ed C.

The only military-obsessed guy I ever played with was years ago -- a guy who claimed to have been in the Marines but looked like Buddy Holly, and seemed so unstable I really have my doubts.

He kept trying to use other player characters as meat shields because they were "useless," and his go-to action to try to get information from people in the game was to "start skinning them alive." And he was obsessed with military tactics and all his specialized gear, which was completely twinkish and over-the-top.

The game didn't last long, thankfully.

Be clear with the players about the level of technical or historical or cultural "reality" in the game.  

When I run L5R, I'm happy to say "You see Last Samurai? Yeah, L5R makes even less sense."  

Its no wonder fantasy is the most popular RPG genre.  "It's Magic!" is so much easier than dealing with wankers.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;397615The only military-obsessed guy I ever played with was years ago -- a guy who claimed to have been in the Marines but looked like Buddy Holly, and seemed so unstable I really have my doubts.

He kept trying to use other player characters as meat shields because they were "useless," and his go-to action to try to get information from people in the game was to "start skinning them alive." And he was obsessed with military tactics and all his specialized gear, which was completely twinkish and over-the-top.

The game didn't last long, thankfully.

You have my sympathies, IM. I gamed with an asshsole once who was obsessed with power and making the whole game his personal power trip. He routinely forced other players to get his personal permission before doing anything, frequently threatened to kill other player characters unless they obeyed his character because he was the (self appointed) commanding officer.

I finally refused to obey him and he used his control to ruin the game for me. My so called friends kissed his ass and went along with him because he'd basically conditioned them, by the time I got into the game, to just obey him.

I ended up quitting the game after the dozenth or so time the GM fucked me over for his pet player's amusement. To this day I hate the other people in that game.

Most of my games these days its not a concern. Years ago I was a player in groups that had one or two of these types of players. Or I'd get one of these types interested in joining my group.

 One accidental side-benefit of working at a game store is I see groups playing RPGs during some of my shifts and I hear local gossip about various people play. As a result I get a nice screening effect going on without having to converse with some of the really obnoxious ones.


- Ed C.

I have no problem with a real gun enthusiast pointing out details the rules left out, like here's an example from "Ice station zebra":

David Jones: Where were you stationed, Captain, before you were picked up in transit?
Capt. Leslie Anders: Asia
David Jones: Ah, then you haven't been on the ice before either.
Capt. Leslie Anders: No, Sir. A bullet goes just as fast up here as it does down there.
David Jones: Not quite. An insignificant difference, perhaps, but I think you'll find the operational characteristics of the M-16 indicate that a bullet will decelerate as much as 40 feet per second per second faster in these climate conditions. It's denser air, you know.

Now I've had situations like this where a hardcore gearhead/bunbunny pointed out things like that and sometimes even altered damage or chance to hit slightly to make it more believable. I respect players who point out stuff like this even when it hurts their characters in some ways and am less tolerant towards players who only bring up mr. minutia when he helps them.

BTW, I know for a fact that this sort of thing is indeed real, as I heard about the world's longest sniper kill and it happened in a mountainous region of Afghanistan and a canadian sniper made the world record sniper kill due to the fact the air density was notably lower at the altitude. It was very tough to replicate the shot at near sea level.

As to players insisting they can order the rest of the group around, NOT ON MY WATCH! I was in a demo game at a convention and was given the commanding officer. We were debating our course of action when the GM told me I could just order the party to do what I decided, I politely said I don't do that. We had a player discussion which was assumed to occur simultaneously in character and then decided collectively what to do.

As a former liberal gun-grabber who grew up to be a lover and owner of fine firearms, I do find myself deeply irritated when it's clear a game hasn't made the slightest effort towards doing their homework when real guns are involved.  These days, the most detailed information you can imagine is a wiki search away, so getting basic things like caliber and capacity and such wrong annoys me.

It also annoys me when a game clearly hasn't considered actual tactics at all, and just made shit up, when it comes to the rules.  Shit like the 5-round burst in D20 Modern, for instance.

I also think most games, in their effort to give gamers something to powergame about, rather overstate the differences in caliber and damage.  This is a subject that will of course generate significant debate among gun people, but I'm not talking .45 vs. 9mm or the 5.56 debates here.  But most of that is so much angels on pins, and it isn't the mistakes games make most of the time anyway.  Instead you get stupid shit like how pistols are always weak sauce compared to a long arm, and the bigger number in caliber is always better regardless of any other considerations, when the reality is, pretty much any bullet in the right place will put a man down, and the real differences between fire arms have more to do with practical and tactical considerations than bullshit myths like "stopping power" and "damage".

Now, if a game is abstracting things enough, I probably won't notice, or care, but when it comes to modern stuff, the standard approach of shoddy research and escalating weapons damage honestly just seems more wrong to me the more I learn about guns.  And it seems like if I can learn this shit, it shouldn't be too much work for someone whose being paid for it to figure out.

I'm not a military obsessed player, though I am fascinated by many things military. I'm a weapons geek. A big weapons geek. I sketch weapons as a hobby. I've done a YouTube video about he spiked chain because I hate it so much. BIG weapons geek. But I always try and keep in mind that I am alone in this interest. And my fellow players are probably not interested in hearing my opinions on the topic. But I do share my sketches freely and volunteer to sketch PC weapons.