I've seen several threads recently about problem players. Of course none of us here have EVER been disruptive.::rolleyes::  So how about chiming in with a story about something you said or did that in retrospect you probably shouldn't have. I'll start it off.

I was a dick when:

Me and a friend turned another friend's character into a running joke. It was a modern monster hunter game and something about his character concept Mr. Meagi from the Karate Kid and the way he tried to mimic his accent and quiet demeanor struck us as hilarious. Yeah, he was actually roleplaying. What an absurd concept. But we couldn't keep a straight face, and somehow we started calling him Fortune Cookie (which he refused to answer to) and my friend started leaving his laundry bag outside his door for him to wash (they got thrown in the trash, of course), and when he finally blew up we both tried to hold in the laughter as we apologized, which consisted of "We're sorry, man, we were just kidding, we didn't mean anything by it," and he accepted and we could have moved on, but then there was a pause and then in my best Billy Batts impression I said, "Now go get your effing shoe shine box," and even the GM busted out laughing. And so ended the shortest campaign I've ever been part of (although we're still all friends and game together when we can).

So, anyone else got a story or am I the only dick?

Pete

Well, you know that GM game books warn about and tell you to not become? The one that favors one player at the expense of the others? Well, I've done that. And not as a one shot, but over a certain period of time (few weeks). It was years and years ago when we were teens, and I completely was unconscious of that fact, but I kept having cool stuff happen to one particular player all the time - he would get the cool shit, meet the most impressive NPCs etc relegating the other players a spectators to his own adventures.

I was a dick. And I didn't know I was.

Until the day we had a beer degustation together in a building one of my friend was rebuilding with his dad from the ground up. Everybody drinks, everybody gets drunk and tongues loosen up, and people start talking... and boom. It exploded in my face. Not in anger and all, but rather as a fait accompli, of which I was completely unaware, and which I tried to deny during the first good half hour of conversation. But honestly, there was so much evidence of this fact that I opened my eyes.

I had been a dick, and that wasn't going to happen anymore.

So I reassessed what I was doing and listened to what the players where actually saying. This changed my GMing for the best, as I'm very aware of concepts like spotlight, setting up situations based on characters capabilities and player personalities for them to shine through, and so on, so forth.

It was a huge learning experience to me.

One-shot game, World of Darkness, pre-Revised. Medieval vampire hunters, using Vampire: the Dark Ages and the Inquisition (Year of the Hunter) book.

One of the players is fiddling with his character sheet even as the game's running.

My tense, atmospheric descriptions are frequently interrupted as he goes "can I lose a point in X to gain a point in Y?", or "can I trade Z for W?".

By the third time, I can only say, "[player's name], if you change your character sheet again, you're the next to die".

Unerringly, the players persists on his mistake, interrupting the description of a grisly murder scene with some inane question on Backgrounds.

In a couple of scenes, our party of dauntless hunters is confronting the Big Bad du jour, a Lasombra neonate. I decide he's using Obtenebration 1 to darken the room, and then Obtenebration 2 to asphyxiate someone to near death. Or maybe he'll kill of a hireling, or...

Wait. They have no hirelings. And it's a one-shot game, right? And I did warn that player over there. So, fuck "near death".

"[player's name], you're suddenly running out of air, as if drowning on something you can't see or feel. You're being attacked by foul vampire sorcery!"

"Huh?"

"Roll."

[I don't remember the exact mechanics, but he was trounced]

"[player's name], [character's name] is dead."

Much laughing. The player was a sport. It was, after all, a one-shot game (which around here means, among other things, "high PC mortality rate"; that particular session had only one survivor. And it was 4 or 5 hunters against a single neonate vampire, played straight. ). But I did feel kind of dickish afterwards.

I don't know how dickish this was but I once ran the Mechwarrior RPG module "Null Set" (long story short, the module briefly introduces cyberpunk-like mech control interfaces, VR cockpits, etc. and a mystery behind the creator).  Had four fantastic sessions.  I invited a couple of friends from a different group in for what was to be the finale.  Sadly, all one of them apprehended about Battletech was it was Macross in a different universe and approached it accordingly.  Right down to her Minmay like character who piloted a Phoenix Hawk ("VF-1S").

There was...friction.

The most disappointing low of the game was when at the conclusion of the more prickly players from group "A" told me he thought the campaign was one of the best I'd ever done until he brought in those other two players.

My friends and I were playing the AD&D module Day of Al'Akbar.  I was playing my Myrikhan character (NG Paladin variant from the A Plethora of Paladins article by Christopher Wood from Dragon #106).  Another friend, Brock, was playing a core Paladin.  Lastly, another friend, Dwayne, showed up with a unknown character.  He said that he played this character with other people, but since he only played with us it was immediately suspect.  He was known to have dubious scruples.  

So, Dwayne's character was thin and frail looking and carried a sword with demonic runes upon it.  Clearly to all of us, his character was an Elric clone.  While camping for the night, our characters started talking with Dwayne's character and asked him about his sword.  He told us IC that their was a demon in the sword that gave him strength and vitality.  When we questioned him further about this demon in the sword, he said that it was benign and helpful rather than evil.

The two paladins exchange glances and then subdue the Elric clone.  All the while we are telling him that it is for his own good, and his very soul, that we are doing this.  We tell him that we are concerned for his mortal soul and that he needs to be separated from the sword.  He protests, but without the sword his character is weak and cannot fend off both paladins.  

Between the two paladins, we had a Bag of Holding and Portal Hole.  We put the demon sword in the Portal Hole and then toss in the Bag of Holding.  

BOOM!

We destroyed his demon buddy sword.  Dwayne was livid!  He pouted the rest of the night since one of us was his ride.  He didn't play with us again for several weeks while he stewed in his anger over the atrocity committed against his kewl character.

In retrospect, it was a dickish move thinly veiled with in-game justifications.  However, it was so damn fun doing it to his character since he wouldn't come out and just say that his character was an Elric clone- and that audacity irked us.

I have been a dick during RPG sessions more times than I can count, but I can't come up with anything hilarious or even particularly memorable - just cases of me being irritable or petty. I just wanted to note that I don't consider myself blameless of dickery

My last campaign was WFRP 2e, and I had a huge group of players.  One of them has sort of a 'rivalry' with one of the others because, natch - one is an elf and one is a dwarf.  

So they are descending down the dark spelunking tube when they begin to fall to their deaths.  One of the other players is also a dwarf, but falls to his 'near' death (involving expenditure Fate) two levels down, while the elf dies one level down from the main party due to not having any more Fate points.

Ok, so the dwarf that hates the elf (not the one in the bottom of the pit) climbs down one level and throws the elf's body deeper into the pit - where the other player's dwarf body is.  This is extremely dickish move on the players, and it kinda irked me that they'd be so hateful to one another (they are good friends in real life)...so someone had to pay.  I threw a random die, and rolled the maximum on it...so I decided the body that was thrown had hit the one that had fallen to the bottom of the pit...and that it did damage...and it killed the dwarf player (the innocent one) AGAIN, requiring ANOTHER FATE POINT.

Of course this kind of harshness isn't uncommon in my campaign, but from that particular point on, the dwarf who hated elves played much better with the elf's cousin (who the elf player then began to play using the same miniature).

D&D game with my high school buddies.  One of my players created a generic thief named Raven.  For some reason this infuriated everyone else at the table.  I still don't know why.

Another one of my players created a Fighter who, through an overly long and badly written backstory, was the heir to numerous awesome artifacts and the fulfillment of an ancient prophesy and thus could not be killed.

These two players were in constant conflict with one another.  The Thief was there to hang out with friends and throw some dice around.  The Fighter was there to tell his story and the rest of the group could suck it.

At some point they run across a Deck of Many Things (always fun), and Thief draws three very beneficial cards.  This pisses off Fighter and when he drew a Wish card he used it bring down Thief.  He crafted a one page sentence littered with comas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, parenthesis, etc that outlined specifically how he wanted to humble Thief.  

I had had enough and decided it was time for my own Dickery to shine.  I ruled that since the entire party had benefited from Thief's fortunes everyone's items and wealth disappeared.  The group, outraged, destroyed the Deck.  In my second Act of Dickery I quickly invented a patron deity for the Deck and had it appear to punish the PCs.

A one round TPK followed.  My parting shot.  

"I guess someone else will fulfill that prophecy."

We still game together, and laugh about the event, but we don't bring Decks into our games anymore and I limit backstories to half-page bullet points, but that's mostly because I hate ready bad prose.


Edit: Oh and If I'm feeling surly I'd add hit points to momsters, ignore a PCs actions for one round, or keep a monster alive so that a player who won't gloat about its death gets the killing blow.  That happens less and less as we roll in the open now and I take the game less seriously.

Before I started Gming, I was a  "But that's what my guy would do!" kind of player. I didn't do it maliciously, I was just clueless. I had no idea how much work (some) GM's put into prepping an adventure, never stopped to consider that if a fellow spend all his gold on a +2 sword he might be itching to actually use it.  For me it was all about doing what felt right and natural for my character, often with little regard for anyone else at the table.
   
Gming was an eye opener. And as a result I turned into a much more considerate and constructive player.

Unfortunately this also turned into a boring player and in the process lost some of the energy and enthusiasm I used to bring to the gaming table. And truth be told the player characters my friends still remember fondly are all the older ones.

You just can't win.

Quote from: Cole;410764I have been a dick during RPG sessions more times than I can count, but I can't come up with anything hilarious or even particularly memorable - just cases of me being irritable or petty. I just wanted to note that I don't consider myself blameless of dickery

Same here.

I once threw another Player's kender PC down a dry well. It was considered justifiable.

Then there was the dungeon in which, right before the entrance to an undead filled crypt, there is a magic font that bubbles up holy water (supposedly trapping the undead in the crypt). Naturally we all fill our empty potion bottles and wineskins with the holy water, except for the guy who decides to bath his Character in the font and thus soak himself in the holy water. In the heat of combat, I pointed out to the Player that he could consider himself a magic weapon since he is covered in holy water, and thus he should go hug the undead, causing it damage. Two level drains later, the Player is cussing me out from across the table because I suggested such a dumb thing for him to do.

When I was about fifteen, a friend's little brother wanted to play in our Star Frontiers game. He was maybe nine or ten. He persisted until we finally let him play, and then basically raked him over the coals. We gave him impossible goals, set him up to fail, fudged the die rolls, and brutally punished his character no matter what he did. He never asked to play with us again, and I could hardly blame him. We were complete assholes. Given the chance to go back, I'd do that differently.

Back in the 90s, there was this long-running Vampire LARP that many of us had a love/hate relationship with. It was fun for awhile, but as time went on it got more and more twinkish and ridiculous, so rather than just leave gracefully, a group of friends and myself organized a massive trolling of the game. We showed up with satirical characters, fucked up everyone's subplots, made elaborate fun of the campaign and Vampire in general, and basically acted like we were better than the game and everyone in it.

Of course, we thought we were hilarious, but years later someone who played in that game told me that they were just trying to enjoy themselves, and us coming in and shitting on our fun wasn't as charming as we thought it was. I often have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, we were dicks. On the other, that game was already a joke, and I still think some of our gags were hysterical.

Finally, there was the time when a fellow player in a fantasy game kept aggravating the GM, basically taunting an omnipotent, evil NPC whom the GM had made very clear was not to be fucked with. This NPC was the quest-giver and, while not part of the main plot at all, was an unstoppable bad-ass. But the player decided it would be awesome to get in his face for no particular reason. It went something like this:

QuoteNPC: You must go to the Froofraw Mountains to go get the magical fershlugginer.

PC: Fuck that, you're not the boss of me.

NPC: I pretty much am.

PC: You're not so tough, I could take you.

NPC: Mouth off one more time and I'll disintegrate you.

PC: Nanny nanny boo boo.

NPC: *disintegrates PC*

Player: WTF WHY?!

While I was a spectator in all this, I admit to dickishness because I thought this was hilarious and laughed in the guy's face, even though he was mad enough to nearly come to blows.

Also, during a tournament we left some character to be eaten by a carrion crawler because we didn't like the player.

Granted most of this was 10+ years ago, but wow, I was a lot more of a dick than I like to think about. :/

Quote from: jeff37923;410791I once threw another Player's kender PC down a dry well. It was considered justifiable.

Then there was the dungeon in which, right before the entrance to an undead filled crypt, there is a magic font that bubbles up holy water (supposedly trapping the undead in the crypt). Naturally we all fill our empty potion bottles and wineskins with the holy water, except for the guy who decides to bath his Character in the font and thus soak himself in the holy water. In the heat of combat, I pointed out to the Player that he could consider himself a magic weapon since he is covered in holy water, and thus he should go hug the undead, causing it damage. Two level drains later, the Player is cussing me out from across the table because I suggested such a dumb thing for him to do.

Oh God, that reminds me of one that unfortunately wasn't mine but some gaming buddies of mine love to tell this one.  In college they gamed with a guy who was there at the table but wasn't "there", if you get my meaning.  Anyway he had his soul stolen by a demon, which they slew, and one of the players smashed the demon's amulet (which had its essence inside it) and another player said "Hey, Ponder, that smoke escaping the amulet is your soul - go breathe it in, quick!"  "Uh...okay..."  whoops

The demon got a new material form and had about two seconds to enjoy it before the party pounced.

Quote from: jeff37923;410791I once threw another Player's kender PC down a dry well. It was considered justifiable.

Then there was the dungeon in which, right before the entrance to an undead filled crypt, there is a magic font that bubbles up holy water (supposedly trapping the undead in the crypt). Naturally we all fill our empty potion bottles and wineskins with the holy water, except for the guy who decides to bath his Character in the font and thus soak himself in the holy water. In the heat of combat, I pointed out to the Player that he could consider himself a magic weapon since he is covered in holy water, and thus he should go hug the undead, causing it damage. Two level drains later, the Player is cussing me out from across the table because I suggested such a dumb thing for him to do.

This reminds me of a running semi-joke among our 3e group regarding trying to test someone for being a vampire with what became known as "The Holy Handshake." We never had the guts to try it though; one of us asked the DM "so, does an undead have to attack you to level drain you or can he just drain you if you grab hold of him?"

The DM, displaying his DMing skills artfully, replied "you don't know."

I think I managed to make just about all the standard GM mistakes over the years...
One that I specifically remember... One player was the 'I kick down the door and rush in screaming!' type... and I had this room, with no door, that had a large glistening gem sitting right in the center of the floor. It was a trap... he rushed in... the ceiling came smashing down... he died.
Then the argument started... it wasn't fair... he should have had a chance to dodge the ceiling... whatever, I was stubborn about it and kept him dead... but decided I'd give him a chance spirit-jump into some nearby critter and rolled on a quick random chart I made... and put him into a dog.
So he was a dog until they could get him somewhere and have his spirit put back into his body. (the dog turned out to be quite useful and the player made the most of it... but he was still kind of cranky).
It's embarrassing to even tell that story... and know I've got a shedload of them waiting in the wings.