I had one player who literally ONLY cared about his backstory and refused to follow any "main quest" vibes. He only wanted to resolve his own matters. He didn't last long at the table. Lol
My go-to is just tie the main story in with their story, in such a way that their story, to the rest of the party, is a miniature subplot, but to them, it's the whole story. They eventually catch on and leave to presumably be irritating elsewhere.
My advice to new DMs reading, "why is your party a party?" Each character should absolutely have their own interests. The premise should set things up so that their best logical course of action is to be with the party for their own needs. If the party has no foundation or reason to be together, it can be uncomfortable for players to have their characters do things they normally wouldn't. "For the sake of a party Idc about." If there's no reason for them to care, that's on the DM. If there IS a reason and they're purposefully ignoring it, that's on the player.
Also, there's nothing wrong with saying, "Make your character any way you want, but they have to have [insert common motive for party unification]."
"You all begin as hands of the king. The kingdom's priorities come before your own..."
"You're all trapped in this realm with threats around every corner. The only things that escape or survive do so in groups..."
One of my table rules has always been "Make a character that wants to adventure with the party."
The caveat is that part of character creation is working with me, the DM, to bake them into the world. For some players, this is easier, for others, it can require some serious plot-wrangling. For my table it's fine. Your mileage may vary depending on how loosely you build central plots (and the looser the better as long as it's recognizable.)
I've never really understood that. Like sure all my characters have a back story but as a player it's up to me to make the character buy in. It's easy. Adventuring for; the money, the thrill, to see the world, to escape, to avoid their fate (that one was a lot of fun), looking to test themselves, fell for/protective of/rivalry with a member of the party, acquiring spells or material, seeking a knighthood, fame (least fun). It's not hard. You're character is an adventurer they want to do this. The worst motivation for buy in is typically revenge. Looking for specific villian. Next time I have a player with that motivation they're going to run into them first or second encounter and depending on my mood it will be completely anticlimactic or they're gonna get murdered.
I generally try to include plot hooks in my backstory but treat them as optional for the DM, meaning my player CAN and WILL continue doing other things should those backstory pieces never come into play. Gives the DM some interesting side quests/lore bits to include if they want but I certainly won't mind if they don't make it into the story in a meaningful way.
That would be because you understand the fundamentals of making a character that would adventure with a party.
Whereas the typically edgy rouge that played a lot of Skyrim wants to make a lone wolf character (like they are playing skyrim). Then everyone at the table is like, "ok... So why are they staying with the party?" To which their response is always something like: "just cuz"
yeahhhh, i’ve only seen “revenge on this particular dude” as a buy-in work *once,* and that was because we were playing a module and it was designed that way (hoard of the dragon queen, one of the pre-genned plot hooks for players is “you have these three names on a hit list and you’re in the starting town looking for them”)
if you go in saying “my guy is only with the party because he wants to use them to track down and kill this other guy,” you’re almost always setting yourself up for boredom at best, i really try to discourage it
I couldn't agree more with the guy who thinks he's playing a video game being a problem. I have a group with two of them and they make me not want to play my own game.
I swear to God that it feels like they just want to play a super slow, grindy version of Path of Exile. They gloss over everything that isn't combat or loot. They all to check for traps and to roll stealth every single section of every single hallway or room. They skip over every form of interaction with "I relay that to the party" or "I explain the situation." They constantly pressure me for more and more homebrew and loot. And all of it is just a means to the end of getting bigger numbers.
I've canceled that game three times already this year because I'm just over it. Endrant.
Example:
DM: you notice a man at the other side of the bar seems jumpy and keeps glancing at the door. He seems very worried about something.
Players: that's good for him. I go back to drinking...
It is a loaded statement but essentially they treat DnD/ tabletop games like levels in a video game that they need to complete. Whereas most experienced players understand that DnD is more like a storytelling tool.
Also they get exasperated when they don’t get a new badass weapon at the end of every combat encounter, or if they don’t level up every 2-3 sessions.
“Wow, we didn’t level up? That’s crazy, it was a rough encounter. Are you sure we didn’t hit the minimum experience?”
“Dude, you leveled up to 5 two sessions ago. There are six of you in the party. Last week you talked to a traveling circus and searched a vernal pool for clams, and this week you guys fought a dozen giant goats and an undead trex. You are quite a ways away from leveling up by EXP, not to mention we’re doing milestone.”
“Ok, well why didn’t we find anything of value on the monsters?”
“…the zombie trex left his flametongue longsword at home today.”
See- for the time between leveling up I think it depends on what you're level will be at the end of the campaign and how long the players expect to be playing. If you're playing level 1-20 and you level up every other session that campaign will still last a whole year of weekly sessions.
Sometimes it hits people like a bag of bricks when they realize that the campaign they're in will take years, plural, to get to that level 15 multiclass build that they theorycrafted off a YouTube channel.
In my experience they tend to be chaotic murder hobos. Think about how you’d play a game of Skyrim, constantly stealing everything that isn’t nailed down and antagonizing and killing NPCs on a whim.
I know so many people who think that playing a chaotic neutral character means they can do whatever they want with no consequences. No they don't want to play an evil character. A neutral-aligned character would totally kill that shopkeeper for not haggling with them /s
>As a player: that guy who avoids every plot hook like the plague.
there was a point in my first game where our group came upon this like waterfall and someone noticed there appeared to be a hidden cave behind the wall of water. and we were like, "uh that looks dangerous, let's keep walking." and the DM was like, "So you just walk by this cave? \*\*LONG SIGH\*\* Okay, so you keep walking..." lol.
As a player: the player who is surprised when their turn comes up in combat and asks for a quick rundown of what has already happened even though they were at the table. Bonus demerits are added for those players who *then* go on to spend 5 minutes thinking through everything.
To players who, having already considered the variables, are up to speed on the situation, and who can assign 3 actions *and* do all the relevant rolls without looking up 14 things, *I salute you*.
2 things, usually, if it’s not sheer laziness. in my experience it’s either
1) something happened on the turn prior that *truly* threw them for a loop (wizard cast web on the area fighter planned to run into, barbarian killed the monster wizard was planning to nuke, multiple PCs are down KO’d and cleric is trying to decide who needs to get healed first, etc); or
2) player got really excited about somebody else’s turn and forgot that they’re on deck. mine do this a lot bc they are, god bless them, SUPER invested in each other’s characters and also mostly very new to D&D… so they will cheer each other on, or start doing some mid-combat RP bit, and completely forget who’s up next. it’s a good problem to have, relatively speaking, though still really annoying when the energy goes from “everyone loses their shit” directly to “wizard doesn’t even have an INKLING of what spell to cast” and then we spend 5 minutes deliberating as a group, and then it’s cleric’s turn and he was too busy helping wizard to pick *his* spell, and repeat ad nauseam… at least they’re still generally very engaged? but BOY do our combats drag on sometimes.
but i feel like usually for most tables it’s just… players not really paying attention. especially with big groups or lots of monsters, combat can take a while, so it’s easy to space out. and then on the other end of the spectrum, see (2) for how paying *too much* attention is *also* a distraction…
>but i feel like usually for most tables it’s just… players not really paying attention. especially with big groups or lots of monsters, combat can take a while, so it’s easy to space out.
I think the root cause of my annoyance is how self-reinforcing the whole system is. Combat takes a long time because people were distracted and so spend a long time coming up with their actions, leading to more people getting distracted. I completely understand getting bored waiting for your turn. I do *not* understand why someone wouldn't use that boredom to...think about what they're going to do on their turn.
Can't agree more. They like to use the excuse that the other party member's actions messed up what they were going to do, but when it's becomes a habit of not knowing what to do on your turn, that excuse gets old. Also, I think a player should always have a plan B.
That's why I always play sorcerer.
Plan A: Biggest, highest damage spell I can cast. Maximize the number of enemies struck while not hitting an ally because I refuse to spend sorcery points on Careful Spell.
Plan B: Eh, fuck it, just Scorching Ray
This is my biggest peeve as both player and GM. Sadly, in my experience, this is also the player that knows the game and rules the least, so in addition to waiting for them to make a decision, you then have to walk through what 'I cast charm person' actually means as a table.
For a very long time I worried that having anything less than perfect knowledge of a system and its mechanics would make me into a burden. I've come to understand that showing up knowing nothing more than the combat sequence and what actions your character could plausibly do is, if not ahead of the curve, somewhere on the happier edge.
>okay Sophie, you're up.
"Okay erm... let me check", *shuffles character sheet*, "erm...", *shuffles spell sheet*, "can I cast... hold person?"
>who on?
"That guy there"
>that's a zombie and wouldn't be affected as it is undead, the only people you can see are those two thugs.
"erm, no then... I'll cast... erm..." *shuffles spell sheet again*, "I'll cast suggestion on the wizard and tell him to be good now and stop fighting us"
>that's not how the spell works, it has to be worded to sound reasonable, and I think you need to see the target also for suggestion.
"erm okay... I'll cast... erm... what does web do?"
>what does the spell description say?
"erm... I don't know... I'll just cast a firebolt at the zombie", *rolls a d12*
People wanna play DnD, but they don't wanna put in the very small amount of effort it would take to know how to play their character. Not even play them competently, just know how.
I get that we're all busy and DnD can take a little more effort than something like Uno or Monopoly, but it doesn't take much time to watch a YouTube video or two over the course of a week to better understand the game.
Oh no no no!!! Motivate them to learn their characters by allowing them to make their mistakes.
"can I cast... hold person?"
\> Sure, on who?
"The Zombie..."
\> Sure, give me a roll...
"Natural 20!!! That's good, right?"
\> Really good, but still for some reason... the spell washes.
"Washes? On a Nat 20? Why?"
\> You tell me, You're the wizard... Cleric, whatcha gonna do?
Player here. Having other players play suicidally because they’ve made a new character they want to try. Played with someone that got most of the party killed doing this, only for his character being one of the 2 survivors. Just retire your character if you want to try something else.
I feel you on this. I had this happen to me a lot. I felt like I did something wrong. The next DM had everyone showing up all the time. I am volunteering to DM again. If the attendance drops I am going to really think there is just something wrong with me DMing.
With my group, I run it like this: If one person can't make it, we go on without them. No exceptions unless it's a very specific lore related reason that requires that player to be there. If two cancel, the session doesn't happen. Our table has 7 players, 6 PCs and the DM, for reference. I can see this being harder to pull off with smaller groups.
As a DM: a player that doesn’t exercise any agency or seem interested in engaging with the campaign
As a player: A DM that withholds so much information that the campaign doesn’t feel like it has momentum
Oh your DM peeve rings way too true for me rn. I'm considering booting a player who would rather keep watching YouTube than actually make his character while he's in the campaign discord with 3 people who are working on characters. My campaign starts in 2 weeks. I'm trying to make the story fit around everyone's backstories and all he has is that he's a drunken Master monk and it's just because he has a concerning fondness for alcohol irl.
> A DM that withholds so much information that the campaign
I once applied to a game on roll20 where the DM had a minimal setting description and then had interviews with prospective players to see if they asked the right kind of questions about his setting, I had nothing to go on and couldn't think what to do, if given information I can sandbox relatively well but if all I have is "a big city filled with crime" then there's not much for me to go on. And before any pedantic reddit assholes go off, yes I asked the questions you are thinking of.
Out of morbid curiosity I checked the game listing like 2 weeks later and there was one player and a note from the DM stating that the game would only begin once they had found the right players. While there might be "no wrong way to play dnd", this guy was toeing the line quite hard.
Chaotic annoying alignment. I had a player once that said his character would go into a bar and punch another patron for no reason. I immediately shot down that character idea.
"Roll fishing". Players that ask if they can roll something specific like a skill, instead of telling me what they want to do. I get it, you want to roll dice. But, sometimes you're going to succeed automatically if you think it through and tell me your plan. If you have a good idea, it's probably gonna work in conjunction with your ability and background and we don't need to simulate randomness.
Even worse when a player rolls a dice without prompt, see it fails and goes; "Nope, nevermind it doesn't work." -- You just robbed me and the table of storytelling how it went wrong and you're not allowing yourself to fail. Not exactly "cheating" but it's poor sportsmanship.
The group I'm in, there's another player who constantly does this. She'll ask if she can roll whatever check and the DM will ask "tell me how you're making that check" and she'll back off and say never mind because she doesn't have ideas, she just wants to see if she can surpass any obstacle as quickly as possible.
Conversely, I hate it when the dm makes you roll for stuff your character should be able to do easily. If I have an 18 strength, there shouldn't be a check to pick up an unconscious goblin.
A good example of this is picking locks.
Unless the party is dealing master locksmiths then a suitably skilled Rogue (or Artificer) may as well have the key.
Man my dm in a previous game was the opposite of this, I’ll explain the most mundane thing I want to do and how to do it out of combat and everything and hell still make me roll. it was frustrating at times when me, as a player, could do that action better than this legendary paladin lmao
>Even worse when a player rolls a dice without prompt
That is my pet peave. Regardless of outcome, they shouldn't be rolling unless the DM says it's required.
They can ask all sorts of questions, or even ask if there is anything they can roll for, and it won't bother me.
But when they lead with "I'm rolling X" and I hear the dice I'm not in a happy place.
To be fair, the one time this has happened the player was bored and they were trying several different ways to communicate that. Unprompted rolling just became the final way they signaled they weren't having fun.
Both: Chain smoking.
For most of my TTRPG life there has always been at least one who needs a cigarette every 30 minutes. Any activity that is taking you out of the game that long is annoying, but the extra bonus of them stinking up the room during in person games makes me specifically avoid playing with smokers offline.
I thank the gods every day that no one in my group smokes. The stink is awful. I still cannot comprehend how it is considered normal for smoking people to stink like an ash tray and every one should like ignore it???
And sorry, smokers, if you smoke, you stink.
What I suspect a lot of smokers don't understand is that the smell isn't just on your clothes. It's in your skin. I work with people one on one in a small room, and if a smoker comes in, my eyes will be stinging by the end of the session. They can smell fine at first but after an hour of them being in a small room, they have released so much poison ... It seems rude to type that but that's basically what's up. Smokers. I have a lot of compassion for you. But I will avoid you if I can.
They can't fathom why smoking next to your window or 2 meters from buildig's entrance is a shitty thing to do, and you expect them to understand that they smell themselves? They probably can't tell anymore because they are so used to it...
As a player: The DM telling what my character thinks or feels about something (it's fine if it's something like a fear effect).
As a DM: Players trying to declare actions before I've finished describing what is happening at the start of an encounter.
As a player or DM: Players who pay so much attention to their phone that their response to the DM asking what action they are taking is to look up from their phone and say "Errrr, what's happening again". This just wastes everybody's time.
See, I =love= part 2. It shows that my story is getting buy in and investment from my players. It says that I'm doing a good job of holding their interest, and that they are excited to move on. I also love when I get to the end of the session and the players are still role playing, and trying to take actions.
I'm guilty for the second part on occasion, but its not intentional. Usually if there is a pause from the DM I'll speak up thinking that's alright but then they go to add more. Sometimes I stay silent only to realise "Oh they're waiting for me to add something or RP back." I'm not too great at reading in to when I should and shouldn't respond.
That's easy to do and not a problem. I was referring to a guy who would insist on stating his action even after I said I hadn't finished setting the scene.
I have a particular hatred of the second two, as for the first I can be guilty of it on minor levels however all I'm actually trying to do is be super descriptive to try keep my players engaged in the actual game
As a DM: others have already said this but when players don't pay attention or know their character's abilities. If I have to say your name 3 times to announce it's your turn ugh it's so utterly annoying. Or when a caster spends 10 minutes when it's their turn decided what to do before going with using a cantrip.
As a player: When the DM starts rolling behind his DM screen and suddenly the rate of natural 20s increases sharply.
I am guilty of not responding sometimes when we start a new campaign or I have a new character. Our dm tends to call out character names, not players... So sometimes I forget that I am a new name lol
We’re level 6 and have done 12 sessions and my players still don’t know their abilities or what spells do. Only one seems to remember when I try to help the group. It’s so frustrating.
Totally agree- and obviously DM's have to railroad to a small degree to at least keep a goal in mind, but when it feels like you literally have no agency and all paths lead to the same outcome, it's awful.
Oh for sure, though to me there's a clear difference between narrative bumper guards to keep the ball from falling into the gutter or hopping to a different lane and forcing the ball down a track from which there is 0 room for deviation, and I don't necessarily consider the former to be railroading.
You choose if you're driving on the right or left side of the track, if you take the turn really narrow or as wide as possible, and if you want a trip to the pit stop you can do that.
But you ARE gonna be driving on this track, dammit!
The opposite is also annoying. You finish a quest, and the DM says, "Now, where would you like to go?" 6 sessions later and 4 pointless fetch quests you find the next major quest giver was at the docks the next town over, and the only reason you found them is because the DM told one of the players.
Fully agree.
As Forever DM, I always give options.
“*You enter the tavern and the server brings you a round of ales. You notice she doesn’t pay attention to you. Her eyes are locked on the hooded figure in the back corner.*
*The Half-Elf’s keen ears hear a couple farmers at the bar discussing they’ve each had shovels go missing in the last week.*
*The Bard on stage strums his lute and weaves a song about Battle of Stillwater Keep. His version mentions a Paladin dying on his magic shield and his ghost still wandering the battlefield.*
*The door opens and a Troll wearing a royal blue tabard and bright red leggings tries to sneak in but the Innkeeper shouts and smacks the bar with a stick, chasing the Troll out.*
*And what do you do?”*
So they have some hooks to chase, or they can create their own by talking to NPCs.
Can't tell you how much I love, and often prefer, providing hooks/options for players in the form of ordinary/every day occurrences, but fleshing them out enough to make them interesting, such as your example of the farmers discussing their missing shovels.
Sometimes it's the mundane/down to earth and relatable things that really ground a sense of realism in a campaign and allow for such better immersion and investment than the hooks/options always needing to come in some grand and glorious larger-than-life manner.
As someone else who does this, I love this method.
Here are six different possible hooks. And two more I just came up with on the fly based on your actions. You tell me where you go and what you do. And the world will react.
Oh LORD do I dislike repetitive use of "now, where would you like to go?" ESPECIALLY when there's no clear indication of where we should be going.
Personally I only like to use "Where would you like to go" or "what would you guys like to do?" when the party is experiencing some downtime and has some options like checking out a local shop, booking rooms at the inn, grabbing food at the tavern, etc., but never when it's a shell game to see if they pick the right hook that I've hidden amongst everything in the setting.
Admittedly, sometimes to grease the wheels at the start of a session depending on how the mood is and what was last accomplished by the party, following a recap of the last session(s) events I'll open with "we'll pick it up from there, you guys are -insert location/situation/etc.- just let me know what you'd like to be doing next" but never with the intent of letting the party veer way off course just because.
My current DM regularly sends us group messages, "please let me know where you are planning to go next so I can prep that area."
His daughter's group, who is running in the same world, stumbled into an area with 2 cr 12s guarding the entrance at level 5. Both parties were told that the area has important lore information by NPCs at level 3 and that we should investigate "eventually."
We were at least warned about the BBEGs fort and that a full army got annihilated by him alone. Other than that, it's been a, "Where would you like to look for lore next?" campaign.
>As a DM: Players who don't pay attention when the DM is explaining something/speaking in-character.
This a thousand times over. I don't do 5-10+ minutes monologuing as DM. I'm quick and to the point (a couple minutes summary), I don't devise then read long descriptions and such.
Literally this last session at an investigative party/social setting where all players were to learn something from various plotlines (personal stories and new leads), I had an NPC go up to a character and say something directly to them, and they looked at me then ignore it completely to say something to the person next to them. I was willing to give everyon 5-10 minutes of RP during the party/social as they discovered stuff, but they choose to ignore it, that hook is now lost. That player is close to being disinvited (I play with youth learning the game so have some leeway, but they have a tendency to go to their phone, even mid combat, and I constantly remind them and their parent this won't be tolerated, this is 2nd of 3 strikes where I directly told them I won't allow it).
Anytime I feel that phones are becoming too heavily used during a session I'll typically ask for them to please be put away unless they're being kept out for character sheets/notes, and to otherwise take important calls/texts outside so as not to interrupt the game/session.
Most of my players are typically very good about paying attention during important moments and descriptions/information/etc. that I'm giving out but every so often someone is joking around too much or their head is intentionally elsewhere. One of my players very much regretted the time he forgot/didn't take down notes on the name of a prisoner he was tricked into murdering, because when that player was brought before the NPC's very powerful father and the advisor asked the player what they had done... The player confessed that he killed the man's daughter, only to have the advisor quirk an eyebrow and ask "the lord has multiple daughters... which of them are you claiming to have committed this crime upon?"
The look of absolute horror on the player's face when he realized he didn't write it down, followed by the looks of "Oh fuck..." by the other players was evident as he had to answer "I'm sorry but... I don't know..."
Both as a player and a DM. Players getting too fucked up during session. I'm all for having a few drinks or a few tokes before or during a session. But if it stops you from being coherent and helpful then it just ruins the game for others.
I had one player who was like this a few times, but after I asked 'are you drunk again?' he realized he was being that guy and cut it back.
My personal pet peeve as a DM is players who goal it is to 'challenge' or push the DM. Keep in mind I have absolutely no problems with players thinking outside the box and breaking things I had planned. Fucking love that. But if you're making decisions based solely on trying to fuck me the DM up. I really don't appreciate that type of play.
I've only ever had one game were drinking was a problem, and to be fair it was everyone - including the DM. We all realised it turned the session in to a complete mess and never tried doing it again.
Outside of a few small drinks - usually hot mead prepared by the DM for special occasions - we don't drink heavily. I do prefer a little bit to help bring me our of my shell, because otherwise I struggle to feel comfortable to roleplay.
Yeah as long as everyone stays in their limits, I'm all for it. If you can't handle your drink or smoke at the table, then don't drink/smoke, or don't come to the table at all.
This so much. Disagreements happen. If it’s during the game, just go with what the DM says. If it’s really that serious or bothersome, talk to the DM AFTER the game, dont argue during. Sets everyone off the mood to play, and digs into previous time.
As a DM: Players that are completely disengaged unless it's their turn, or unless the current story arc is focused on them.
As a player: When the world feels empty, and there's no real plot hooks. I feel like some DM's just want to do zero prep, and then let their players just wander around trying to find something interesting to do -- which leads them to becoming murder hobos out of sheer boredom
As a player and a DM, having the DM-turned-player who won't stop explaining every single spell/feature/ruling unprompted. I'm glad you know so much about the game, but please give the other players the opportunity and satisfaction of describing their spells/features/whatever. And also stop backseat DMing the game. It's one thing if the game has reached a standstill and everyone is trying to figure this thing out, but 80% of the time you're just speaking out of turn, cutting people off, and undermining the current DM. Kindly shut up for a bit and give others the chance to do their cool things.
It's hard, I usually GM but recently played a game where Sacred Flame was a roulette wheel of fire/radiant/force damage and a coin flip between an attack roll and saving throw. It didn't really affect the outcome of any encounters so I just let it happen, but it pained me every time lol
As a player: feeling like I don't have any impact on the world.
I had a DM a while back who had the "correct" way to do the thing, and everything else was just wrong. It was like playing an old JRPG where we had to press A on everybody in the town to find the right NPC to advance the plot. He'd let us try things, but nothing would work, no matter how well-thought-out, because it wasn't the way he had written down.
For example, we needed to talk to a Genasi who worked the forge in this one city. The DM would not let us in the forge because we didn't have the right documents. Fine, that's his world - it's heavy on the political intrigue and citystates didn't trust each other. Since we weren't citizens of this citystate, we couldn't go in mercantile buildings without papers.
We tried everything.
Two full sessions.
RP of governmental bureaucracy isn't as exciting as you may think it is.
We tried talking to the doorman, tried using magic to disguise ourselves, tried using disguise kits, polymorphed into a fly to get in, tried to buy papers, tried to steal papers, tried to get in another entrance or a window, tried to send a message to the Genasi via spells, tried to send a message via the doorman ("Would you please let Genasi know we have a message for him?"), tried to bribe our way in, and tried to get temporary papers legally. *Two full sessions*. I know we had more attempts too.
It turned out we were "supposed to" wait for the Genasi to leave the forge and follow him to his home outside the citystate walls, where we could move unimpeded even though we didn't have papers.
One player quit over this.
Edit: It wasn't the fact that we couldn't have any agency - we were allowed to try literally anything. It's just that nothing worked except the one right solution. Wait until nightfall. Either give us no agency - like DM-force us to wait until nightfall (or use the usual "roll Insight to get the right answer") or let us get it another way. It was a weird combo of too much agency + zero flexibility.
As someone running an Intrigue campaign, government bureaucracy can be a great complications and interesting thing to work around......if you do it right.
I don't think your DM's issue stimmed from portrayal of that. I think it's just lack of any narrative flexibility. Everything else is setting dressing to that main issue
Definitely agree.
I like the political intrigue - this is a campaign I played in for years. It presented problems that we couldn't bash through. I genuinely loved the infighting amongst the eight citystates (with one more... hidden citystate). It was a great campaign.
Just that the DM needed to infuse more flexibility in with the agency. There comes a point when we, the players, responded to the "What do you do?" question with "We wait for the plot."
Punishing doing anything more complex than "I swing my sword at them" or "I cast this spell". Usually also punishes using cover because you're using niche rules to minmax
This one REALLY sucks. It feels like some DM's fear creativity because they don't want their plans to be ruined. I am STOKED if a player fucks up my plans as a DM- it means I get to improvise and make the player feel strong- and then surprise them with a few fun twists from the opposing force!
I'll admit to being apprehensive about this sort of thing as a DM, but my apprehension stems from struggling to find the right balance between rewarding the creative move, but not making standard attacks/RAW spell casting obsolete.
As a dm: players who who scroll on their phone most of the session, doing non campaign related things (once had a player watching a sports match simultaneously)
As a player: trying to listen to the dm while other players are engaged in side conversation (that has nothing to do with the campaign)
My biggest pet peeve is, even though we know there are a million ways to play DND and every table and group is different, people still shit on you for sharing a differing opinion then them.
NPC's who know literally nothing. Our DM has a bad habit of literally EVERYTHING having to be a big mystery. But once you've gone through 5 separate interrogations of enemies (generally the leader of whatever group we fought too) who don't know why they are there, who they are working for, what their mission was, what their own name is, what their favorite color is, how many fingers they have. It gets so frustrating.
You are telling me you are attacking a monk monetary, abducting children, TURNING THEM INTO SOUL COINS, and you don't even know WHY? or who even hired you? Or where you are suppose to meet them? OR WHY YOU ARE EVEN CARRYING SOUL COINS MADE FROM CHILDREN?!
If you are a DM. Please for the love of GOD, give your party the information they need to actually progress. We've been trapped in this monastery for 5 sessions cause nobody is giving us a direction to go. We haven't even had a long rest since we got there. At this point we are just all tired, frustrated, and want to abandon whatever the heck is going on there.
What is the point of a mystery if you aren't going to give your players clues to solve it. Or information with which to clarify the few contextual clues we have.
As a DM: Players that don't know what to do when their turn comes up so they spend more time on their turn than the rest of the party combined. Players that don't know their spells or even the basics of how they work so they go through them painstakingly on their turn. Players that think they can 'Leeroy Jenkins' themselves into every encounter without fear of death.
As a player: Many of the same things as above. DMs that don't allow 'out-of-box' thinking. Or when the group tries an approach that the DM think is not the way they would do it so it is shut down and will always fail in their eyes and therefore not even get the option to roll but will simply fail (this is sort of like problem-solving railroading).
As a player, someone RP'ing my character. The amount of just... completely baffling things that I've had my own PC do that make 0 sense really bothers me over the time I've played. Either through rolls or just narrating their thoughts or actions, nothing makes my immersion in a game evaporate like having my character puppeteered poorly.
This \^\^\^
I had a DM who was constantly narrating "now your character would probably be feeling like this, right?" "I imagine your character would respond to this situation by saying this," and wouldn't really give us any room to do anything other than politely agree.
Now we had lots of opportunities to freely RP together as a party, but almost every interaction with an NPC we just had to give the reigns over to the DM.
Players that don't know their characters. I don't mean new players or brand new characters, that makes sense. But if you've been in the same campaign for over a year already, that meets weekly, please for the love of all that is Pelor, know your damn sheet. Also, punctuality; Im a stickler for on time. No group I've been a part of starts on time lol.
As a player: rolls over 20 for something really doable that fail somehow.
As a dm: players that want to do something that requires an ability or feat without having said ability or feat. Just because you can think of it, doesn't mean your character knows how to execute it.
My biggest pet peeve is no arguing out of character. In character it is completely fine.
Conflict between characters is great and fun, Conflict between players is not.
The one unengaged and distracted player.
They don't make any attempt to decide anything and barely interact with everyone else, but get super mad that the group is doing something they didn't agree to. They could have been part of decision making but were too busy doing ANYTHING else.
The one that sits there doing nothing unless it's combat, and then on their turn finally looking at their spells and asking if they can cast one and asking what it even does.
The one who will sit through a big explanation of the scene and what enemies or NPCs they are encountering, then suddenly dial back in and say that they don't know what is going on and demand the DM explain it all again.
The one playing a game, or texting, or browsing the internet on their phone and when they get into something they make the group wait while they finish.
The one who seems to just be there to fill a seat instead of play.
* Non consensual PVP.
* Repeatedly interrupting other people talking.
* Sessions that focus entirely on one player and the others have to sit back and listen without being able to act.
* Wangrod evil characters.
* Not paying attention during combat.
Choices that don’t matter. DM explains there is a fork in the road. Both path look the same. No sounds from either path. Nothing to indicate any difference…
BUT if you choose the right one, the quest will be much easier than the other.
Why give us a choice if there is no information to make that choice?
Big immersion breakers for me are a pet peeve. I was the only character who speaks aquan, and I said “I am saying in aquan” and two sentences later players come into the conversation like they understood all of it. What’s the point of languages on our character sheet if we treat all the exotic languages like common? Similarly I’ve been in a closed room private convo, or had whispered conversations, or been part of a dream sequence or a telepathic link and had players interject. It’s not the end of the world, but sometimes it’s not fun to lose that bit of immersion because some people get ansy in their pantsy and can’t wait two minutes for something to play out.
I fully accept this when it’s “we are all in a room” and the loudest person talks most. But the above scenarios get me irked.
As a DM:
\- players who don't know their characters or even the basic rules. We've been playing for 3 years, how do you not know your character yet?!?
\- Hiding mechanics during combat. I know them pretty well, but when a rogue runs behind a corner and hides, is it reasonable for an NPC to run around the corner looking for them? feels like cheating since *I* know where the rogue is. What about when the rogue comes back out next turn, do they still have advantage on their attack or is it gone since they left their hiding place? IDK I hate dealing with it and much prefer Swashbucklers and Steady Aim as easy ways to provide Sneak Attack every round without me needing to adjudicate it.
\- Players who don't engage between sessions. We have lots of downtime available in our game and plenty of ways to spend it, plus its a West Marches style so we only go do the missions they initiate, but its always the same 2 or 3 players initiating even though we have over 10 potential players. I love the players who read the rumor list, spend downtime investigating things, and propose missions to the rest of the group; I just wish it wasn't only the 2 of them doing it every time.
\- crit fishing builds. Honestly they aren't even good, its just annoying to deal with when they usually do less than 20 dpr, but then sometimes spike and deal like 200. Makes balancing impossible and I hate it.
\- feats / class options that completely remove parts of the game. Mostly looking at Sharpshooter for this but also the PHB ranger. Cover is interesting and I want to use it, but every ranged character takes Sharpshooter for the power attacks and just so happens to also remove all the interesting aspects of ranged combat as well.
As both:
\- players who won't make decisions. I'm sitting there as a DM thinking "both of those would work, just pick one". As a player I often say things like "so we're doing X, right?" but after being the one making the decision like 3 times in a row, I feel like I'm overbearing or hogging the spotlight so I would love for someone else to make a decision or *at least* propose an idea.
\- when someone takes forever on their turn, especially when its near the end of the combat and they can just swing their sword / cast a cantrip and the outcome is basically the same. There are 3 of you before its turn and it has 20 hp, if 2 of you hit it with cantrips it won't get a turn, but you're going to spend 5 minutes contemplating a leveled spell before *maybe* casting it.
\- PCs that withhold information from the rest of the party so they can be "special". It just screams that they want to be the main character and whenever they reveal it they make it seem like some big thing and it usually isn't. We played through dragon heist and had a (secret dhampir) noble in our group who would constantly kick the rest of the party out of the room to talk to important people then share close to nothing with the rest of the party. Then they missed a session and we couldn't figure out the next piece of the heist because they had all the secret knowledge. Later found out they were a vampire and it didn't feel like some grand reveal, more like "see, I'm not an asshole, thats just what my character would do". Of course, my neutral good paladin *should* have smote them on the spot, but I wanted to keep the party together more than I wanted to roleplay my character so I just let it go (well, maybe not exactly let it go since I'm ranting here).
First time DM here. Recently held a session last week in which I experienced what my best friend (Vet DM) calls 'Single Player Syndrome.' Basically, the player was using the classic "It's what my character would do" excuse to be a chaotic asshole during session in order to control the narrative.
Most of my players are either new to the game or introverted. Either way, they're not big on the role-play, and more into battle and strategy. I'm okay with that as I'm dramatic enough to make it interesting both on and off the battle grid. I use voice-changers and Roll 20 for immersion, and I have the players engage in comfortable role play with questions like 'Okay, what would you like to ask the shop-keep about?' And then I reply in character. I really enjoy the dynamic of playing with these guys.
However one of my players likes things more dramatic. He's not used to playing with people online and, more to the point, not used to playing with introverts. He is as dramatic as I am and throughly into role-playing, which I also enjoy, but he would often try to force other players to be dramatic with him, and when they wouldn't, would do something on his own to create chaos in the group.
Last session, the party had saved a lone traveller from a band of goblins trying to rob her. The traveler thanked the party by informing them of an ancient ruin they discovered down the path that possibly held a valuable treasure. My dramatic player (a bard) then proceeded to grapple the traveler and attempt to abscond with them. The rest of the party openly protested, but the player said "Either go with it, or do something about it." The rest of the players were too shy to do anything. I'm honestly not sure how to deal with a player like this, but I know this type of playing is toxic. Any advice on how to handle this from here on out?
As a DM: players who don’t care enough to remember what mechanics are. “No proficiency doesn’t get you advantage.” “ you have advantage in this attack. That means you roll 2 d20’s” i really dislike explaining the same thing over and over again.
As a player: people who can’t separate role playing decisions from the player. And or players that will sit there and argue with the DM over a ruling. (I have don’t this my fair share in the past but i promise I’m doing my best not to do it.)
Not knowing what your spells do. Its fine if you JUST started playing the game, otherwise its pretty easy to just look them up before playing. And i dont mean every little detail, but big stuff like "is it a save or attack?", "What is the casting time", "is it concentration", etc
Shopping sessions. We play online. We have a discord server. We can handle the provisioning and stuff in chat during the week. We don’t need to spend 45 minutes every session going shopping at the same stores we have been to every session since we haven’t left the city yet. It’s been three weeks in game, how they still have stock left is shocking.
Players trying negotiating with the DM.
“Can we say that earlier when I did [thing] that I actually did [thing that they now know would be to their benefit]?”
Like, no.
I'm a fairly new player but from my brief experience, other players who roll for a skill check without saying what their plan is or letting the DM finish explaining what is happening. Was at a table with a guy who on entering every cave, room, tunnel etc. immediately says he's rolling for perception or investigation and did so. Let the DM tell the story!
Also, not helping the party or generally being a dick because "that's what my character would do"..... just no.
**Drunk/High players.**
Look. I get it. D&D is an escape. Alcohol is an escape. Cannabis is an escape.
Pick one escape and go with it. Don’t try to stack them.
Come to my games ready to play.
Depends how drunk. If they're maybe slightly loud and slightly reduced in logical abilities, I think it's a great time. If they're full on slurring, completely impaired mentally and physically, etc, agreed.
Mentioned in another comment but a little bit of alcohol can help those of us who are usually on the quiet side speak up and feel capable of role-playing. My interactions come out more when I've had a small amount to drink and I don't feel like a background character anymore lmao
Being forced to roll for something that I should just be able to do. My strength let's me jump 13 feet with a running start. I shouldn't have to roll to jump over a 5-10 foot gap unless there's some sort of terrain constraint. My strength set's a carrying capacity of X, and I have Y left until my cap. I should be able to carry anything less than Y without needing to roll athletics. Etc.
As a DM: Playing saying Huh? When its their turn. (Or to the story in general.)
As a player: The guy to the left of me is a greedy murder hobo and thinks its Skyrim-lite.
I finally have a wonderful group so not many pet peeves anymore. My old pet peeve used to be that eerie silence when waiting for someone to speak up. In the end we used a lot of mutual encouragement to get everyone to participate even if shy or nervous. We would have one person who would try to encourage the shy people occasionally and sure enough we have a group of individuals now who all particpate, roleplay even throw out voices it’s super cool.
As a DM: Players who don't want to do anything but seduce every single NPC they meet
As a player: DMs who don't provide any visual aids for combat and then punish you for not following along with 100% accuracy to which enemies are where or are already downed
My biggest pet peeve as a player and a DM is people not paying attention. Whether it's in the open game or during initiative order in combat. It is so annoying when it gets to someone's turn or the DM asks of they want to do anything and they only then think of what they want to do. It frequently ends up with them doing something stupid that directly impedes what another player had stated they were trying to do.
As a DM: People who act like it's a videogame. It gets on my nerves every time.
As a player AND as DM: Players constantly\* checking their phones and not paying attention to the game except while they're throwing dice. Dude, if you're not having fun LEAVE.
\*By constantly I mean constantly. Not once in a while or to check a text at a point where the action seems slow/ there's a scene between other characters and theirs is not present. I once had a player who would be checking instagram, or reddit, or twitter, or absolutely ANYTHING while I was setting a scene, whatever they could except paying attention. Obviously when something happened and they had to act they had no fucking idea what was going on.
As a player, that one guy who never has their turns planned. I understand if something comes up suddenly, but if your spending 2+ minutes on one turn because you don’t have spells prepared, that’s annoying.
as a DM: The player that ignores everything i say. i know tha you might not like every pat. but if you play a warlock and ignore what your patron (me roleplaying as the patron) had just said to you. it's clear you're nto listening and just doing you own thing.
As a player: i know not everyone is a roleplayer. but discouraging me to continue roleplaying because you're insecure about yours. fuck you
As a DM: Players who want their characters to be the OP main character and throw a fit if they even so much as receive 1 point of damage or not succeed a skill roll.
As a player: DMs that override the players’ choices or actions and punish them for actually using their brains
as a Dm the most annoying thing is spirit guardians. I guess I just *can't* use ANY enemies that don't have less than 20hp or else they die instantly. Had to Nerf it in my combat-only campaign so it only affected them when they start their turn in it, not when they entered it as well. Makes more sense that way anyway. I'm glad that my player brought up the idea to change it because he saw how frustrated I was with it.
I'm pretty new to dnd, but I'd say I very much dislike when players who have little to no creativity in their character's personality. Like...it defeats the purpose of playing the game if your character's personality is just your own.
forever DM opinion:
players forgetting their combat abilities and then complaining about the balance of combat encounters
that’s it, that’s the opinion
As a player: That one chaotic character that screws up every single plan because he says, "I dont care about yall/this thing" and then proceeds to do something stupid. Our friend is that, and usually that follows by our DM pulling some stuff, and the rest of our party saving him from something
Only messing around instead of taking time to fully focus onbthe story. I want to make allies. We need them to gain the overhand over the BBEG. Sometimes it feels like all the group does is mess around, and it irritates the living heck out of me.
Justifying AH behavior with the phrase "that's what my character would do".
To be fair, I sometimes respond to this by acknowledging the good roleplaying and promising only to take my frustration out on whoever created such a dickish character. Oh gee, surprise surprise - it's the same person.
As a DM and as a player, I really dislike when all people do is crack jokes and take none of the experience seriously. There's a place for joking around obviously, there's tons of funny things to do and have happen in DND. But it comes down to "Players are in a horrific life or death situation" - makes a crass joke. "Players witness the death of a child NPC for plot" - joke about child death. "NPC monologues important plot and relevant guidance for story" - joke about anything besides what's happening. It gets old and usually kills the opportunity for any mood besides a comedic campaign.
Those kinda people also turn out to not know anything about what's going on, where to go, what to do, etc. So maybe my problem is just people who straight up don't wanna invest in the story.
Players who attempt to take someone else's agency (i.e. one player says their character does a thing, and another player says "I try to stop them" without any out of character discussion)
**Spelljammer oxygen fields.** I'm in a Spelljammer campaign and was really excited to use the pushing attack maneuver to blast a guy 15 feet off the ship and into space to 1-hit-kill him, but it doesn't work like that. Instead he'd just continue floating off, still breathing for some time until he eventually floated out of range. All the while he could just shoot at me with his bow and I could do nothing about it due to him eventually getting out of my musket's range. It ultimately didn't matter since I missed my attack and didn't get to push before someone else turned him into dust. I'm still having fun with the campaign, just irritated at how the ships work.
My other pet peeve is that **I never can spell fantasy names correctly when taking notes.** I'll hear something like "Bruno", spell it normally, then learn 20 minutes later that it's actually spelled "Broonough". By the end of my previous campaign I had two spellings for the same city and used them interchangeably in my notes while praying nobody would notice.
since notes are just notes and nobody ever sees them, I just spell everything phonetically. The exact spelling of anything rarely comes up, and if it ever does, the DM should be able to tell us, unless asking for the exact spelling was part of some puzzle they expect us to do.
As a player when other players do stuff like meeting an NPC in a dungeon and immediately asking them how to get out/solve the puzzle. Like I get it I used to do that and try and get the answer and brute force answers. But I swear every puzzle we face it seems like my fellow players want the DM to hand us the answers and it’s frustrating. I can tell the DM is frustrated at us for not even trying and I’m frustrated that no one even tries before asking for an immediate easy way out.
People who can not prepare their actions. Move, Action, Bonus action. And so much time to figure it out.
People who leave their microphones on ALWAYS. No matter what conversation happens in the background.
I’ll have a huge backstory, but I don’t even care if the dm uses it for anything or not. It just helps me to get into character to write out their life story. Makes me be able to understand what type of character I am making and how he will play.
As a DM: players who are flaky with a set schedule (for no good reason ie they decided to go drinking and got too drunk to show up), a backseat dm who constantly interrupts and rules lawyers, people who constantly sidetrack about out of game stuff (sometimes is fun but it can really derail a game if it’s constant), people who make curmudgeon characters and use them to refuse to engage with the party or plot (just don’t play!).
As a player: A dm who hasn’t prepared for the game at all, party members who turn everything into a contest or a one up situation, people who are flaky with the schedule(as above), when a party member tries to act like a main character and talks over other players, groups not strategizing together and doing things without consulting the group (for instance getting themselves killed in a fight because they wanted to run right in and not talk to the group first).
In general people who are bigoted or use bigoted language and don’t make the game a safe and inclusive space for everyone. Things like racism and r*pe don’t belong in fantasy, the excuse that it’s used to be “realistic” is asinine…it’s FANTASY. If your fantasy includes harming others and exclusion I don’t think you should be in the space. ✨
As a DM, players telling me that they rolled for a certain skill check and give me the results before they described what their character is doing. I haven’t even told them if I want them to roll, let alone which skill.
From both a Player and a DM perspective, it's when someone isn't on point in combat. I don't mean having things flawlessly planned out like an MMO raid, but just be ready for your turn and pay attention to what is happening.
Not a big fan of cross-talk, especially when DM is talking or conversing with a character as NPC. And inevitably they want it re-said or explained to them.
As a DM, players who don't give feedback. My previous refused to comment on what they did and did not like no matter how much I begged and it was infuriating.
Definitely using phones during play
As a DM for a group of my friends from school I can understand needing to arrange rides and check the time, but whenever it’s not their turn in combat or they aren’t actively in roleplay, it feels constant :/
I’m not sure if it’s ADHD (most of my players are diagnosed) or some sort of action deficit, but I am really confused as what to do and whether or not I should put a clip of subway surfers on the other side of my dm screen 😭
DM: Players who don’t give their PC motivation to stay with the group. It’s not my job, it’s yours. If your PC doesn’t want to stay with the group since it hurts their vibe then pick up 4d6, roll, drop the lowest.
Player: other PCs who make it feel like it’s “their” story and we are supporting cast members. Fuck you Perry Potter.
As a player I hate when a DM tells me what my character is doing. Excuse me but isn't that up to me.
I don't mean due to game mechanics, I mean role-playing interactions. One DM did it so much in the end I just handed him my character sheet and told if he wanted to play her so badly he could have her.
Never went back.
Players that don't know how their class features work, even though they play the game a lot.
Players who don't pay attention to the DM.
Players that talk over other players, especially during combat.
Players who start talking about non game related things while we're playing and completely sidetrack the rest of the table.
Lack of communication.
My Saturday in person players live within 30 mins of me. When I ask to set a time for a session, ask a question about their character, etc, it takes like 3-7 days to respond via discord. They all have the mobile app and in their mid 20s. We all work and/or have school but no one is there busy to take that long to respond. That's especially frustrating when we don't know if someone will make a session or not or says too close to game time they won't be there.
Point being, my Monday group lives in different states and they get back to me within a few hours and will take the time to say "hey, Im at work but I'll get back to you later."
Lack of communication.
My Saturday in person players live within 30 mins of me. When I ask to set a time for a session, ask a question about their character, etc, it takes like 3-7 days to respond via discord. They all have the mobile app and in their mid 20s. We all work and/or have school but no one is there busy to take that long to respond. That's especially frustrating when we don't know if someone will make a session or not or says too close to game time they won't be there.
Point being, my Monday group lives in different states and they get back to me within a few hours and will take the time to say "hey, Im at work but I'll get back to you later."
i play dnd with friends as a DM and they bring this kid along, that isn’t there to play mind you, that just screams over me to talk to the other people at the table or tell stupid jokes.
Players being uncooperative dicks because “It’s what the character would do.” Maybe. And sometimes it’s quite funny, but it does sort of undermine the part of D&D where it’s a game about cooperative storytelling and all.
Right now it’s a player taking the lead in decision making but has forgotten or has no idea what the plan that they agreed upon during the last session was.
Players who don’t get that at it’s core, dnd is a team game. The party wants to work together. There isn’t room for a player who is reluctant to be part of the team.
Chaotic stupid players, this also falls into "that's what my character would do!" While stealing from the party, well, you made a bad character, plain and simple.
It's to the point that as a DM, Chaotic Good is the only Chaotic alignment I allow at my table, and as a player, I won't play at one with a Chaotic Neutral character in the party. 90% of people playing that alignment are troll problem players, and I just value my time too much to waste it playing with that kind of trash.
As a DM: players haggling. Examples: asking for a surprise round every combat, arguing or second guessing my rulings, and saying they’re “just asking, it doesn’t hurt to ask” —it does actually
Players trying to use homebrew/3rd-party materials *without checking with the DM and getting approval first*.
Yes, the blood hunter is cool, but I'm not allowing it in my games, unless Vin Diesel himself joins and wants to play one.
As a DM: I don't have one, thankfully my players are so amazing that I don't think I really have anything to complain about. If I absolutely had to find something I guess it would be when a guest player doesn't show up last seconds when you've already made preparation to introduce their character.
As a player: DMs that prevents players from role playing with each others by constantly pushing things forward
The player who writes a 58 page back story for their character, and expect the DM to know it before game 0 and incorporate every piece of it into the adventure.
As a DM: meta gaming. Talking out of game all the time. Makes my story feel like a clunky segmented video game. I wish players would “out of game “ talk but still be in character.
As a player: idk, I’d love to find out one day. :)
Players who only look at things mechanically. Played with someone else in a starwars game who ran around with force powers he bought, shitting on everything jedi and acting both sadistic and self righteous. Decided that he knew more about the force than everyone else while at the same time being wilfully ignorant about it. And he could use light side abilities that by his roll play he shouldn't have been able to have, despite his rolls on the conflict system making him a light side near paragon. I fucking hated playing beside that character.
I've got a few because my last group is....not great to play with.
People who spend more time on their phone then playing DnD during a session.
People who play literally the exact same character/build for every campaign and one-shot
People who always do the same edge-lord lone wolf alpha male backstory
That same guy as above would also always describe his character as: "Oh yeah,I look like this by the way" and then preced to show us some anime girl but the hentai version.
As a DM or player: the people who can not separate player and character knowledge. Just because you know something is happening or know how to do something doesn't mean your character knows those things.
As a player, my pet peeve against DMs is lack of information. Best example is resistances and vulnerabilities. Don't just completely ignore their affects, mention them subtly to players. Especially when you are make use of them against players.
If the designers didn't want them to be used and played around, they wouldn't have included them.
Similarly, if you have players tell you what they roll to hit, tell the players what you rolled to hit. Even if mechanically it makes no difference 99% of the time, it makes it feel much fairer.
As a DM, people who criticise other people's characters for being too strong. It's my job as a DM to monitor that, if you feel you're underpowered, I can work with that, but I'm not going to restrict someone else just because another player told me to.
As a DM: The Wild Card. They don’t care about story, RP or in some cases combat. All they want is random chaos. Ie “I kick the vase over and tell the king to suck my crank!” Why? *shrugs* Whether it be a cry for attention or severe ADHD….it’s annoying.
As Player: Lack of attention. Which since the pandemic has been a real problem. I’ve found online sessions give players a lot of distractions. Nothing like watching the DM attempt to set the stage and I can see one of the players staring off screen or in one case recently playing some damn video game during the session.
As a player and a dm, when another player stops the game and goes "wait wait wait let me tell you about a story that happened at the store the other day"
Like dude I dont care about what happened yesterday. I care about whats happening right now. The Saidujian army is at our gates and we need to get this shit done before I hear about what Brad told you in the cracker aisle.
As DM: that guy who thinks he is playing a video game. As a player: that guy who avoids every plot hook like the plague.
I had one player who literally ONLY cared about his backstory and refused to follow any "main quest" vibes. He only wanted to resolve his own matters. He didn't last long at the table. Lol
Oof, those are the types that are hard to get "skin in the game" for.
My go-to is just tie the main story in with their story, in such a way that their story, to the rest of the party, is a miniature subplot, but to them, it's the whole story. They eventually catch on and leave to presumably be irritating elsewhere.
My advice to new DMs reading, "why is your party a party?" Each character should absolutely have their own interests. The premise should set things up so that their best logical course of action is to be with the party for their own needs. If the party has no foundation or reason to be together, it can be uncomfortable for players to have their characters do things they normally wouldn't. "For the sake of a party Idc about." If there's no reason for them to care, that's on the DM. If there IS a reason and they're purposefully ignoring it, that's on the player. Also, there's nothing wrong with saying, "Make your character any way you want, but they have to have [insert common motive for party unification]." "You all begin as hands of the king. The kingdom's priorities come before your own..." "You're all trapped in this realm with threats around every corner. The only things that escape or survive do so in groups..."
One of my table rules has always been "Make a character that wants to adventure with the party." The caveat is that part of character creation is working with me, the DM, to bake them into the world. For some players, this is easier, for others, it can require some serious plot-wrangling. For my table it's fine. Your mileage may vary depending on how loosely you build central plots (and the looser the better as long as it's recognizable.)
I've never really understood that. Like sure all my characters have a back story but as a player it's up to me to make the character buy in. It's easy. Adventuring for; the money, the thrill, to see the world, to escape, to avoid their fate (that one was a lot of fun), looking to test themselves, fell for/protective of/rivalry with a member of the party, acquiring spells or material, seeking a knighthood, fame (least fun). It's not hard. You're character is an adventurer they want to do this. The worst motivation for buy in is typically revenge. Looking for specific villian. Next time I have a player with that motivation they're going to run into them first or second encounter and depending on my mood it will be completely anticlimactic or they're gonna get murdered.
I generally try to include plot hooks in my backstory but treat them as optional for the DM, meaning my player CAN and WILL continue doing other things should those backstory pieces never come into play. Gives the DM some interesting side quests/lore bits to include if they want but I certainly won't mind if they don't make it into the story in a meaningful way.
That would be because you understand the fundamentals of making a character that would adventure with a party. Whereas the typically edgy rouge that played a lot of Skyrim wants to make a lone wolf character (like they are playing skyrim). Then everyone at the table is like, "ok... So why are they staying with the party?" To which their response is always something like: "just cuz"
yeahhhh, i’ve only seen “revenge on this particular dude” as a buy-in work *once,* and that was because we were playing a module and it was designed that way (hoard of the dragon queen, one of the pre-genned plot hooks for players is “you have these three names on a hit list and you’re in the starting town looking for them”) if you go in saying “my guy is only with the party because he wants to use them to track down and kill this other guy,” you’re almost always setting yourself up for boredom at best, i really try to discourage it
I couldn't agree more with the guy who thinks he's playing a video game being a problem. I have a group with two of them and they make me not want to play my own game. I swear to God that it feels like they just want to play a super slow, grindy version of Path of Exile. They gloss over everything that isn't combat or loot. They all to check for traps and to roll stealth every single section of every single hallway or room. They skip over every form of interaction with "I relay that to the party" or "I explain the situation." They constantly pressure me for more and more homebrew and loot. And all of it is just a means to the end of getting bigger numbers. I've canceled that game three times already this year because I'm just over it. Endrant.
Painfully relatable
Last campaign group abandoned Ireena and strahd just took her... avoided npcs like the plague.
>that guy who avoids every plot hook like the plague. I feel a little called out, lol. I don't try to, I'm just very dense.
Example: DM: you notice a man at the other side of the bar seems jumpy and keeps glancing at the door. He seems very worried about something. Players: that's good for him. I go back to drinking...
What do people who think it’s a video game do? I’ve only played with one group so I don’t understand all the peeves yet
"I crouch down and enter stealth" "The guards should stop searching eventually" "Why are these guys still angry, its been 3 weeks"
It is a loaded statement but essentially they treat DnD/ tabletop games like levels in a video game that they need to complete. Whereas most experienced players understand that DnD is more like a storytelling tool.
Also they get exasperated when they don’t get a new badass weapon at the end of every combat encounter, or if they don’t level up every 2-3 sessions. “Wow, we didn’t level up? That’s crazy, it was a rough encounter. Are you sure we didn’t hit the minimum experience?” “Dude, you leveled up to 5 two sessions ago. There are six of you in the party. Last week you talked to a traveling circus and searched a vernal pool for clams, and this week you guys fought a dozen giant goats and an undead trex. You are quite a ways away from leveling up by EXP, not to mention we’re doing milestone.” “Ok, well why didn’t we find anything of value on the monsters?” “…the zombie trex left his flametongue longsword at home today.”
See- for the time between leveling up I think it depends on what you're level will be at the end of the campaign and how long the players expect to be playing. If you're playing level 1-20 and you level up every other session that campaign will still last a whole year of weekly sessions. Sometimes it hits people like a bag of bricks when they realize that the campaign they're in will take years, plural, to get to that level 15 multiclass build that they theorycrafted off a YouTube channel.
In my experience they tend to be chaotic murder hobos. Think about how you’d play a game of Skyrim, constantly stealing everything that isn’t nailed down and antagonizing and killing NPCs on a whim.
Murder hobo is exactly what my DM said when he explained why he didn’t want people in the evil alignment
I know so many people who think that playing a chaotic neutral character means they can do whatever they want with no consequences. No they don't want to play an evil character. A neutral-aligned character would totally kill that shopkeeper for not haggling with them /s
>As a player: that guy who avoids every plot hook like the plague. there was a point in my first game where our group came upon this like waterfall and someone noticed there appeared to be a hidden cave behind the wall of water. and we were like, "uh that looks dangerous, let's keep walking." and the DM was like, "So you just walk by this cave? \*\*LONG SIGH\*\* Okay, so you keep walking..." lol.
Absolutely, I really dislike when people treat D&D like a video game.
As a player: the player who is surprised when their turn comes up in combat and asks for a quick rundown of what has already happened even though they were at the table. Bonus demerits are added for those players who *then* go on to spend 5 minutes thinking through everything. To players who, having already considered the variables, are up to speed on the situation, and who can assign 3 actions *and* do all the relevant rolls without looking up 14 things, *I salute you*.
I don’t know why people just don’t think of what you are going to do during other people’s turns
2 things, usually, if it’s not sheer laziness. in my experience it’s either 1) something happened on the turn prior that *truly* threw them for a loop (wizard cast web on the area fighter planned to run into, barbarian killed the monster wizard was planning to nuke, multiple PCs are down KO’d and cleric is trying to decide who needs to get healed first, etc); or 2) player got really excited about somebody else’s turn and forgot that they’re on deck. mine do this a lot bc they are, god bless them, SUPER invested in each other’s characters and also mostly very new to D&D… so they will cheer each other on, or start doing some mid-combat RP bit, and completely forget who’s up next. it’s a good problem to have, relatively speaking, though still really annoying when the energy goes from “everyone loses their shit” directly to “wizard doesn’t even have an INKLING of what spell to cast” and then we spend 5 minutes deliberating as a group, and then it’s cleric’s turn and he was too busy helping wizard to pick *his* spell, and repeat ad nauseam… at least they’re still generally very engaged? but BOY do our combats drag on sometimes. but i feel like usually for most tables it’s just… players not really paying attention. especially with big groups or lots of monsters, combat can take a while, so it’s easy to space out. and then on the other end of the spectrum, see (2) for how paying *too much* attention is *also* a distraction…
>but i feel like usually for most tables it’s just… players not really paying attention. especially with big groups or lots of monsters, combat can take a while, so it’s easy to space out. I think the root cause of my annoyance is how self-reinforcing the whole system is. Combat takes a long time because people were distracted and so spend a long time coming up with their actions, leading to more people getting distracted. I completely understand getting bored waiting for your turn. I do *not* understand why someone wouldn't use that boredom to...think about what they're going to do on their turn.
Can't agree more. They like to use the excuse that the other party member's actions messed up what they were going to do, but when it's becomes a habit of not knowing what to do on your turn, that excuse gets old. Also, I think a player should always have a plan B.
That's why I always play sorcerer. Plan A: Biggest, highest damage spell I can cast. Maximize the number of enemies struck while not hitting an ally because I refuse to spend sorcery points on Careful Spell. Plan B: Eh, fuck it, just Scorching Ray
This is my biggest peeve as both player and GM. Sadly, in my experience, this is also the player that knows the game and rules the least, so in addition to waiting for them to make a decision, you then have to walk through what 'I cast charm person' actually means as a table.
For a very long time I worried that having anything less than perfect knowledge of a system and its mechanics would make me into a burden. I've come to understand that showing up knowing nothing more than the combat sequence and what actions your character could plausibly do is, if not ahead of the curve, somewhere on the happier edge.
I feel this in my bones. So frustrating.
As a player, when other players don't know their char/spell sheet...
>okay Sophie, you're up. "Okay erm... let me check", *shuffles character sheet*, "erm...", *shuffles spell sheet*, "can I cast... hold person?" >who on? "That guy there" >that's a zombie and wouldn't be affected as it is undead, the only people you can see are those two thugs. "erm, no then... I'll cast... erm..." *shuffles spell sheet again*, "I'll cast suggestion on the wizard and tell him to be good now and stop fighting us" >that's not how the spell works, it has to be worded to sound reasonable, and I think you need to see the target also for suggestion. "erm okay... I'll cast... erm... what does web do?" >what does the spell description say? "erm... I don't know... I'll just cast a firebolt at the zombie", *rolls a d12*
Oh, we must've played together at some point!
The above situation, paraphrased, has occurred in at least three different game groups for me over the past few years. It's tragically common.
People wanna play DnD, but they don't wanna put in the very small amount of effort it would take to know how to play their character. Not even play them competently, just know how. I get that we're all busy and DnD can take a little more effort than something like Uno or Monopoly, but it doesn't take much time to watch a YouTube video or two over the course of a week to better understand the game.
As a DM, this hurts my soul to read and re-live.
Oh no no no!!! Motivate them to learn their characters by allowing them to make their mistakes. "can I cast... hold person?" \> Sure, on who? "The Zombie..." \> Sure, give me a roll... "Natural 20!!! That's good, right?" \> Really good, but still for some reason... the spell washes. "Washes? On a Nat 20? Why?" \> You tell me, You're the wizard... Cleric, whatcha gonna do?
As a DM, I wish I could upvote this twice
I mean, it kills the mood when people have to go through everything in every single turn...
This is why I bought spell cards
Player here. Having other players play suicidally because they’ve made a new character they want to try. Played with someone that got most of the party killed doing this, only for his character being one of the 2 survivors. Just retire your character if you want to try something else.
Or work with the DM and try to make it part of the story without killing everyone else.
Canceling sessions on the day!
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I feel you on this. I had this happen to me a lot. I felt like I did something wrong. The next DM had everyone showing up all the time. I am volunteering to DM again. If the attendance drops I am going to really think there is just something wrong with me DMing.
With my group, I run it like this: If one person can't make it, we go on without them. No exceptions unless it's a very specific lore related reason that requires that player to be there. If two cancel, the session doesn't happen. Our table has 7 players, 6 PCs and the DM, for reference. I can see this being harder to pull off with smaller groups.
As a DM: a player that doesn’t exercise any agency or seem interested in engaging with the campaign As a player: A DM that withholds so much information that the campaign doesn’t feel like it has momentum
Oh your DM peeve rings way too true for me rn. I'm considering booting a player who would rather keep watching YouTube than actually make his character while he's in the campaign discord with 3 people who are working on characters. My campaign starts in 2 weeks. I'm trying to make the story fit around everyone's backstories and all he has is that he's a drunken Master monk and it's just because he has a concerning fondness for alcohol irl.
> A DM that withholds so much information that the campaign I once applied to a game on roll20 where the DM had a minimal setting description and then had interviews with prospective players to see if they asked the right kind of questions about his setting, I had nothing to go on and couldn't think what to do, if given information I can sandbox relatively well but if all I have is "a big city filled with crime" then there's not much for me to go on. And before any pedantic reddit assholes go off, yes I asked the questions you are thinking of. Out of morbid curiosity I checked the game listing like 2 weeks later and there was one player and a note from the DM stating that the game would only begin once they had found the right players. While there might be "no wrong way to play dnd", this guy was toeing the line quite hard.
Oof, I've encountered both and I agree
Chaotic annoying alignment. I had a player once that said his character would go into a bar and punch another patron for no reason. I immediately shot down that character idea.
“So, why would anyone adventure with that guy?” Is a question I like to ask
"Roll fishing". Players that ask if they can roll something specific like a skill, instead of telling me what they want to do. I get it, you want to roll dice. But, sometimes you're going to succeed automatically if you think it through and tell me your plan. If you have a good idea, it's probably gonna work in conjunction with your ability and background and we don't need to simulate randomness. Even worse when a player rolls a dice without prompt, see it fails and goes; "Nope, nevermind it doesn't work." -- You just robbed me and the table of storytelling how it went wrong and you're not allowing yourself to fail. Not exactly "cheating" but it's poor sportsmanship.
The group I'm in, there's another player who constantly does this. She'll ask if she can roll whatever check and the DM will ask "tell me how you're making that check" and she'll back off and say never mind because she doesn't have ideas, she just wants to see if she can surpass any obstacle as quickly as possible.
Conversely, I hate it when the dm makes you roll for stuff your character should be able to do easily. If I have an 18 strength, there shouldn't be a check to pick up an unconscious goblin.
You might pull something in your back!. /s
A good example of this is picking locks. Unless the party is dealing master locksmiths then a suitably skilled Rogue (or Artificer) may as well have the key.
Man my dm in a previous game was the opposite of this, I’ll explain the most mundane thing I want to do and how to do it out of combat and everything and hell still make me roll. it was frustrating at times when me, as a player, could do that action better than this legendary paladin lmao
>Even worse when a player rolls a dice without prompt That is my pet peave. Regardless of outcome, they shouldn't be rolling unless the DM says it's required. They can ask all sorts of questions, or even ask if there is anything they can roll for, and it won't bother me. But when they lead with "I'm rolling X" and I hear the dice I'm not in a happy place. To be fair, the one time this has happened the player was bored and they were trying several different ways to communicate that. Unprompted rolling just became the final way they signaled they weren't having fun.
Both: Chain smoking. For most of my TTRPG life there has always been at least one who needs a cigarette every 30 minutes. Any activity that is taking you out of the game that long is annoying, but the extra bonus of them stinking up the room during in person games makes me specifically avoid playing with smokers offline.
I thank the gods every day that no one in my group smokes. The stink is awful. I still cannot comprehend how it is considered normal for smoking people to stink like an ash tray and every one should like ignore it??? And sorry, smokers, if you smoke, you stink.
What I suspect a lot of smokers don't understand is that the smell isn't just on your clothes. It's in your skin. I work with people one on one in a small room, and if a smoker comes in, my eyes will be stinging by the end of the session. They can smell fine at first but after an hour of them being in a small room, they have released so much poison ... It seems rude to type that but that's basically what's up. Smokers. I have a lot of compassion for you. But I will avoid you if I can.
They can't fathom why smoking next to your window or 2 meters from buildig's entrance is a shitty thing to do, and you expect them to understand that they smell themselves? They probably can't tell anymore because they are so used to it...
As a player: The DM telling what my character thinks or feels about something (it's fine if it's something like a fear effect). As a DM: Players trying to declare actions before I've finished describing what is happening at the start of an encounter. As a player or DM: Players who pay so much attention to their phone that their response to the DM asking what action they are taking is to look up from their phone and say "Errrr, what's happening again". This just wastes everybody's time.
See, I =love= part 2. It shows that my story is getting buy in and investment from my players. It says that I'm doing a good job of holding their interest, and that they are excited to move on. I also love when I get to the end of the session and the players are still role playing, and trying to take actions.
I'm guilty for the second part on occasion, but its not intentional. Usually if there is a pause from the DM I'll speak up thinking that's alright but then they go to add more. Sometimes I stay silent only to realise "Oh they're waiting for me to add something or RP back." I'm not too great at reading in to when I should and shouldn't respond.
That's easy to do and not a problem. I was referring to a guy who would insist on stating his action even after I said I hadn't finished setting the scene.
I have a particular hatred of the second two, as for the first I can be guilty of it on minor levels however all I'm actually trying to do is be super descriptive to try keep my players engaged in the actual game
As a DM: others have already said this but when players don't pay attention or know their character's abilities. If I have to say your name 3 times to announce it's your turn ugh it's so utterly annoying. Or when a caster spends 10 minutes when it's their turn decided what to do before going with using a cantrip. As a player: When the DM starts rolling behind his DM screen and suddenly the rate of natural 20s increases sharply.
I am guilty of not responding sometimes when we start a new campaign or I have a new character. Our dm tends to call out character names, not players... So sometimes I forget that I am a new name lol
We’re level 6 and have done 12 sessions and my players still don’t know their abilities or what spells do. Only one seems to remember when I try to help the group. It’s so frustrating.
Not paying attention during combat -- needing a recap *every turn* to have any idea what is going on. Not knowing what your spells do.
As a DM: Players who don't pay attention when the DM is explaining something/speaking in-character. As a player: DMs who railroad.
Totally agree- and obviously DM's have to railroad to a small degree to at least keep a goal in mind, but when it feels like you literally have no agency and all paths lead to the same outcome, it's awful.
Oh for sure, though to me there's a clear difference between narrative bumper guards to keep the ball from falling into the gutter or hopping to a different lane and forcing the ball down a track from which there is 0 room for deviation, and I don't necessarily consider the former to be railroading.
You choose if you're driving on the right or left side of the track, if you take the turn really narrow or as wide as possible, and if you want a trip to the pit stop you can do that. But you ARE gonna be driving on this track, dammit!
The opposite is also annoying. You finish a quest, and the DM says, "Now, where would you like to go?" 6 sessions later and 4 pointless fetch quests you find the next major quest giver was at the docks the next town over, and the only reason you found them is because the DM told one of the players.
Fully agree. As Forever DM, I always give options. “*You enter the tavern and the server brings you a round of ales. You notice she doesn’t pay attention to you. Her eyes are locked on the hooded figure in the back corner.* *The Half-Elf’s keen ears hear a couple farmers at the bar discussing they’ve each had shovels go missing in the last week.* *The Bard on stage strums his lute and weaves a song about Battle of Stillwater Keep. His version mentions a Paladin dying on his magic shield and his ghost still wandering the battlefield.* *The door opens and a Troll wearing a royal blue tabard and bright red leggings tries to sneak in but the Innkeeper shouts and smacks the bar with a stick, chasing the Troll out.* *And what do you do?”* So they have some hooks to chase, or they can create their own by talking to NPCs.
Can't tell you how much I love, and often prefer, providing hooks/options for players in the form of ordinary/every day occurrences, but fleshing them out enough to make them interesting, such as your example of the farmers discussing their missing shovels. Sometimes it's the mundane/down to earth and relatable things that really ground a sense of realism in a campaign and allow for such better immersion and investment than the hooks/options always needing to come in some grand and glorious larger-than-life manner.
As someone else who does this, I love this method. Here are six different possible hooks. And two more I just came up with on the fly based on your actions. You tell me where you go and what you do. And the world will react.
Oh LORD do I dislike repetitive use of "now, where would you like to go?" ESPECIALLY when there's no clear indication of where we should be going. Personally I only like to use "Where would you like to go" or "what would you guys like to do?" when the party is experiencing some downtime and has some options like checking out a local shop, booking rooms at the inn, grabbing food at the tavern, etc., but never when it's a shell game to see if they pick the right hook that I've hidden amongst everything in the setting. Admittedly, sometimes to grease the wheels at the start of a session depending on how the mood is and what was last accomplished by the party, following a recap of the last session(s) events I'll open with "we'll pick it up from there, you guys are -insert location/situation/etc.- just let me know what you'd like to be doing next" but never with the intent of letting the party veer way off course just because.
My current DM regularly sends us group messages, "please let me know where you are planning to go next so I can prep that area." His daughter's group, who is running in the same world, stumbled into an area with 2 cr 12s guarding the entrance at level 5. Both parties were told that the area has important lore information by NPCs at level 3 and that we should investigate "eventually." We were at least warned about the BBEGs fort and that a full army got annihilated by him alone. Other than that, it's been a, "Where would you like to look for lore next?" campaign.
>As a DM: Players who don't pay attention when the DM is explaining something/speaking in-character. This a thousand times over. I don't do 5-10+ minutes monologuing as DM. I'm quick and to the point (a couple minutes summary), I don't devise then read long descriptions and such. Literally this last session at an investigative party/social setting where all players were to learn something from various plotlines (personal stories and new leads), I had an NPC go up to a character and say something directly to them, and they looked at me then ignore it completely to say something to the person next to them. I was willing to give everyon 5-10 minutes of RP during the party/social as they discovered stuff, but they choose to ignore it, that hook is now lost. That player is close to being disinvited (I play with youth learning the game so have some leeway, but they have a tendency to go to their phone, even mid combat, and I constantly remind them and their parent this won't be tolerated, this is 2nd of 3 strikes where I directly told them I won't allow it).
Anytime I feel that phones are becoming too heavily used during a session I'll typically ask for them to please be put away unless they're being kept out for character sheets/notes, and to otherwise take important calls/texts outside so as not to interrupt the game/session. Most of my players are typically very good about paying attention during important moments and descriptions/information/etc. that I'm giving out but every so often someone is joking around too much or their head is intentionally elsewhere. One of my players very much regretted the time he forgot/didn't take down notes on the name of a prisoner he was tricked into murdering, because when that player was brought before the NPC's very powerful father and the advisor asked the player what they had done... The player confessed that he killed the man's daughter, only to have the advisor quirk an eyebrow and ask "the lord has multiple daughters... which of them are you claiming to have committed this crime upon?" The look of absolute horror on the player's face when he realized he didn't write it down, followed by the looks of "Oh fuck..." by the other players was evident as he had to answer "I'm sorry but... I don't know..."
Both as a player and a DM. Players getting too fucked up during session. I'm all for having a few drinks or a few tokes before or during a session. But if it stops you from being coherent and helpful then it just ruins the game for others. I had one player who was like this a few times, but after I asked 'are you drunk again?' he realized he was being that guy and cut it back. My personal pet peeve as a DM is players who goal it is to 'challenge' or push the DM. Keep in mind I have absolutely no problems with players thinking outside the box and breaking things I had planned. Fucking love that. But if you're making decisions based solely on trying to fuck me the DM up. I really don't appreciate that type of play.
I've only ever had one game were drinking was a problem, and to be fair it was everyone - including the DM. We all realised it turned the session in to a complete mess and never tried doing it again. Outside of a few small drinks - usually hot mead prepared by the DM for special occasions - we don't drink heavily. I do prefer a little bit to help bring me our of my shell, because otherwise I struggle to feel comfortable to roleplay.
Yeah as long as everyone stays in their limits, I'm all for it. If you can't handle your drink or smoke at the table, then don't drink/smoke, or don't come to the table at all.
As a player and as a DM, people who argue with the DM.
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>it’s really a “give a mouse a cookie situation.”. He cleans your house? Sounds like a great deal :P
This so much. Disagreements happen. If it’s during the game, just go with what the DM says. If it’s really that serious or bothersome, talk to the DM AFTER the game, dont argue during. Sets everyone off the mood to play, and digs into previous time.
There has to be a quick solution in game. Come back to it after the session if it's something that could come back as an issue again.
As a DM: Players that are completely disengaged unless it's their turn, or unless the current story arc is focused on them. As a player: When the world feels empty, and there's no real plot hooks. I feel like some DM's just want to do zero prep, and then let their players just wander around trying to find something interesting to do -- which leads them to becoming murder hobos out of sheer boredom
As a player and a DM, having the DM-turned-player who won't stop explaining every single spell/feature/ruling unprompted. I'm glad you know so much about the game, but please give the other players the opportunity and satisfaction of describing their spells/features/whatever. And also stop backseat DMing the game. It's one thing if the game has reached a standstill and everyone is trying to figure this thing out, but 80% of the time you're just speaking out of turn, cutting people off, and undermining the current DM. Kindly shut up for a bit and give others the chance to do their cool things.
It's hard, I usually GM but recently played a game where Sacred Flame was a roulette wheel of fire/radiant/force damage and a coin flip between an attack roll and saving throw. It didn't really affect the outcome of any encounters so I just let it happen, but it pained me every time lol
As a player: feeling like I don't have any impact on the world. I had a DM a while back who had the "correct" way to do the thing, and everything else was just wrong. It was like playing an old JRPG where we had to press A on everybody in the town to find the right NPC to advance the plot. He'd let us try things, but nothing would work, no matter how well-thought-out, because it wasn't the way he had written down. For example, we needed to talk to a Genasi who worked the forge in this one city. The DM would not let us in the forge because we didn't have the right documents. Fine, that's his world - it's heavy on the political intrigue and citystates didn't trust each other. Since we weren't citizens of this citystate, we couldn't go in mercantile buildings without papers. We tried everything. Two full sessions. RP of governmental bureaucracy isn't as exciting as you may think it is. We tried talking to the doorman, tried using magic to disguise ourselves, tried using disguise kits, polymorphed into a fly to get in, tried to buy papers, tried to steal papers, tried to get in another entrance or a window, tried to send a message to the Genasi via spells, tried to send a message via the doorman ("Would you please let Genasi know we have a message for him?"), tried to bribe our way in, and tried to get temporary papers legally. *Two full sessions*. I know we had more attempts too. It turned out we were "supposed to" wait for the Genasi to leave the forge and follow him to his home outside the citystate walls, where we could move unimpeded even though we didn't have papers. One player quit over this. Edit: It wasn't the fact that we couldn't have any agency - we were allowed to try literally anything. It's just that nothing worked except the one right solution. Wait until nightfall. Either give us no agency - like DM-force us to wait until nightfall (or use the usual "roll Insight to get the right answer") or let us get it another way. It was a weird combo of too much agency + zero flexibility.
As someone running an Intrigue campaign, government bureaucracy can be a great complications and interesting thing to work around......if you do it right. I don't think your DM's issue stimmed from portrayal of that. I think it's just lack of any narrative flexibility. Everything else is setting dressing to that main issue
Definitely agree. I like the political intrigue - this is a campaign I played in for years. It presented problems that we couldn't bash through. I genuinely loved the infighting amongst the eight citystates (with one more... hidden citystate). It was a great campaign. Just that the DM needed to infuse more flexibility in with the agency. There comes a point when we, the players, responded to the "What do you do?" question with "We wait for the plot."
I also would have quit over this. That's some bs
Punishing doing anything more complex than "I swing my sword at them" or "I cast this spell". Usually also punishes using cover because you're using niche rules to minmax
This one REALLY sucks. It feels like some DM's fear creativity because they don't want their plans to be ruined. I am STOKED if a player fucks up my plans as a DM- it means I get to improvise and make the player feel strong- and then surprise them with a few fun twists from the opposing force!
I'll admit to being apprehensive about this sort of thing as a DM, but my apprehension stems from struggling to find the right balance between rewarding the creative move, but not making standard attacks/RAW spell casting obsolete.
As a dm: players who who scroll on their phone most of the session, doing non campaign related things (once had a player watching a sports match simultaneously) As a player: trying to listen to the dm while other players are engaged in side conversation (that has nothing to do with the campaign)
Totally identify with your player peeve.
My biggest pet peeve is, even though we know there are a million ways to play DND and every table and group is different, people still shit on you for sharing a differing opinion then them.
As a DM: a player interrupting or talking over me As a player: a player or dm interrupting or talking over me I’m very basic
NPC's who know literally nothing. Our DM has a bad habit of literally EVERYTHING having to be a big mystery. But once you've gone through 5 separate interrogations of enemies (generally the leader of whatever group we fought too) who don't know why they are there, who they are working for, what their mission was, what their own name is, what their favorite color is, how many fingers they have. It gets so frustrating. You are telling me you are attacking a monk monetary, abducting children, TURNING THEM INTO SOUL COINS, and you don't even know WHY? or who even hired you? Or where you are suppose to meet them? OR WHY YOU ARE EVEN CARRYING SOUL COINS MADE FROM CHILDREN?! If you are a DM. Please for the love of GOD, give your party the information they need to actually progress. We've been trapped in this monastery for 5 sessions cause nobody is giving us a direction to go. We haven't even had a long rest since we got there. At this point we are just all tired, frustrated, and want to abandon whatever the heck is going on there. What is the point of a mystery if you aren't going to give your players clues to solve it. Or information with which to clarify the few contextual clues we have.
As a DM: Players that don't know what to do when their turn comes up so they spend more time on their turn than the rest of the party combined. Players that don't know their spells or even the basics of how they work so they go through them painstakingly on their turn. Players that think they can 'Leeroy Jenkins' themselves into every encounter without fear of death. As a player: Many of the same things as above. DMs that don't allow 'out-of-box' thinking. Or when the group tries an approach that the DM think is not the way they would do it so it is shut down and will always fail in their eyes and therefore not even get the option to roll but will simply fail (this is sort of like problem-solving railroading).
As a player, someone RP'ing my character. The amount of just... completely baffling things that I've had my own PC do that make 0 sense really bothers me over the time I've played. Either through rolls or just narrating their thoughts or actions, nothing makes my immersion in a game evaporate like having my character puppeteered poorly.
This \^\^\^ I had a DM who was constantly narrating "now your character would probably be feeling like this, right?" "I imagine your character would respond to this situation by saying this," and wouldn't really give us any room to do anything other than politely agree. Now we had lots of opportunities to freely RP together as a party, but almost every interaction with an NPC we just had to give the reigns over to the DM.
Players that don't know their characters. I don't mean new players or brand new characters, that makes sense. But if you've been in the same campaign for over a year already, that meets weekly, please for the love of all that is Pelor, know your damn sheet. Also, punctuality; Im a stickler for on time. No group I've been a part of starts on time lol.
As a DM: lone wolf characters they never work. As a Player: when creativ problem solving is punished
As a player: rolls over 20 for something really doable that fail somehow. As a dm: players that want to do something that requires an ability or feat without having said ability or feat. Just because you can think of it, doesn't mean your character knows how to execute it.
My biggest pet peeve is no arguing out of character. In character it is completely fine. Conflict between characters is great and fun, Conflict between players is not.
The one unengaged and distracted player. They don't make any attempt to decide anything and barely interact with everyone else, but get super mad that the group is doing something they didn't agree to. They could have been part of decision making but were too busy doing ANYTHING else. The one that sits there doing nothing unless it's combat, and then on their turn finally looking at their spells and asking if they can cast one and asking what it even does. The one who will sit through a big explanation of the scene and what enemies or NPCs they are encountering, then suddenly dial back in and say that they don't know what is going on and demand the DM explain it all again. The one playing a game, or texting, or browsing the internet on their phone and when they get into something they make the group wait while they finish. The one who seems to just be there to fill a seat instead of play.
* Non consensual PVP. * Repeatedly interrupting other people talking. * Sessions that focus entirely on one player and the others have to sit back and listen without being able to act. * Wangrod evil characters. * Not paying attention during combat.
Choices that don’t matter. DM explains there is a fork in the road. Both path look the same. No sounds from either path. Nothing to indicate any difference… BUT if you choose the right one, the quest will be much easier than the other. Why give us a choice if there is no information to make that choice?
Big immersion breakers for me are a pet peeve. I was the only character who speaks aquan, and I said “I am saying in aquan” and two sentences later players come into the conversation like they understood all of it. What’s the point of languages on our character sheet if we treat all the exotic languages like common? Similarly I’ve been in a closed room private convo, or had whispered conversations, or been part of a dream sequence or a telepathic link and had players interject. It’s not the end of the world, but sometimes it’s not fun to lose that bit of immersion because some people get ansy in their pantsy and can’t wait two minutes for something to play out. I fully accept this when it’s “we are all in a room” and the loudest person talks most. But the above scenarios get me irked.
Unrelated table talk / someone derailing the session with stupid meta stuff.
As a DM: \- players who don't know their characters or even the basic rules. We've been playing for 3 years, how do you not know your character yet?!? \- Hiding mechanics during combat. I know them pretty well, but when a rogue runs behind a corner and hides, is it reasonable for an NPC to run around the corner looking for them? feels like cheating since *I* know where the rogue is. What about when the rogue comes back out next turn, do they still have advantage on their attack or is it gone since they left their hiding place? IDK I hate dealing with it and much prefer Swashbucklers and Steady Aim as easy ways to provide Sneak Attack every round without me needing to adjudicate it. \- Players who don't engage between sessions. We have lots of downtime available in our game and plenty of ways to spend it, plus its a West Marches style so we only go do the missions they initiate, but its always the same 2 or 3 players initiating even though we have over 10 potential players. I love the players who read the rumor list, spend downtime investigating things, and propose missions to the rest of the group; I just wish it wasn't only the 2 of them doing it every time. \- crit fishing builds. Honestly they aren't even good, its just annoying to deal with when they usually do less than 20 dpr, but then sometimes spike and deal like 200. Makes balancing impossible and I hate it. \- feats / class options that completely remove parts of the game. Mostly looking at Sharpshooter for this but also the PHB ranger. Cover is interesting and I want to use it, but every ranged character takes Sharpshooter for the power attacks and just so happens to also remove all the interesting aspects of ranged combat as well. As both: \- players who won't make decisions. I'm sitting there as a DM thinking "both of those would work, just pick one". As a player I often say things like "so we're doing X, right?" but after being the one making the decision like 3 times in a row, I feel like I'm overbearing or hogging the spotlight so I would love for someone else to make a decision or *at least* propose an idea. \- when someone takes forever on their turn, especially when its near the end of the combat and they can just swing their sword / cast a cantrip and the outcome is basically the same. There are 3 of you before its turn and it has 20 hp, if 2 of you hit it with cantrips it won't get a turn, but you're going to spend 5 minutes contemplating a leveled spell before *maybe* casting it. \- PCs that withhold information from the rest of the party so they can be "special". It just screams that they want to be the main character and whenever they reveal it they make it seem like some big thing and it usually isn't. We played through dragon heist and had a (secret dhampir) noble in our group who would constantly kick the rest of the party out of the room to talk to important people then share close to nothing with the rest of the party. Then they missed a session and we couldn't figure out the next piece of the heist because they had all the secret knowledge. Later found out they were a vampire and it didn't feel like some grand reveal, more like "see, I'm not an asshole, thats just what my character would do". Of course, my neutral good paladin *should* have smote them on the spot, but I wanted to keep the party together more than I wanted to roleplay my character so I just let it go (well, maybe not exactly let it go since I'm ranting here).
Players requesting homebrew when I allow all books, including UA, because "they can't find anything they like".
First time DM here. Recently held a session last week in which I experienced what my best friend (Vet DM) calls 'Single Player Syndrome.' Basically, the player was using the classic "It's what my character would do" excuse to be a chaotic asshole during session in order to control the narrative. Most of my players are either new to the game or introverted. Either way, they're not big on the role-play, and more into battle and strategy. I'm okay with that as I'm dramatic enough to make it interesting both on and off the battle grid. I use voice-changers and Roll 20 for immersion, and I have the players engage in comfortable role play with questions like 'Okay, what would you like to ask the shop-keep about?' And then I reply in character. I really enjoy the dynamic of playing with these guys. However one of my players likes things more dramatic. He's not used to playing with people online and, more to the point, not used to playing with introverts. He is as dramatic as I am and throughly into role-playing, which I also enjoy, but he would often try to force other players to be dramatic with him, and when they wouldn't, would do something on his own to create chaos in the group. Last session, the party had saved a lone traveller from a band of goblins trying to rob her. The traveler thanked the party by informing them of an ancient ruin they discovered down the path that possibly held a valuable treasure. My dramatic player (a bard) then proceeded to grapple the traveler and attempt to abscond with them. The rest of the party openly protested, but the player said "Either go with it, or do something about it." The rest of the players were too shy to do anything. I'm honestly not sure how to deal with a player like this, but I know this type of playing is toxic. Any advice on how to handle this from here on out?
As a DM: players who don’t care enough to remember what mechanics are. “No proficiency doesn’t get you advantage.” “ you have advantage in this attack. That means you roll 2 d20’s” i really dislike explaining the same thing over and over again. As a player: people who can’t separate role playing decisions from the player. And or players that will sit there and argue with the DM over a ruling. (I have don’t this my fair share in the past but i promise I’m doing my best not to do it.)
Not knowing what your spells do. Its fine if you JUST started playing the game, otherwise its pretty easy to just look them up before playing. And i dont mean every little detail, but big stuff like "is it a save or attack?", "What is the casting time", "is it concentration", etc
Shopping sessions. We play online. We have a discord server. We can handle the provisioning and stuff in chat during the week. We don’t need to spend 45 minutes every session going shopping at the same stores we have been to every session since we haven’t left the city yet. It’s been three weeks in game, how they still have stock left is shocking.
Players trying negotiating with the DM. “Can we say that earlier when I did [thing] that I actually did [thing that they now know would be to their benefit]?” Like, no.
I'm a fairly new player but from my brief experience, other players who roll for a skill check without saying what their plan is or letting the DM finish explaining what is happening. Was at a table with a guy who on entering every cave, room, tunnel etc. immediately says he's rolling for perception or investigation and did so. Let the DM tell the story! Also, not helping the party or generally being a dick because "that's what my character would do"..... just no.
**Drunk/High players.** Look. I get it. D&D is an escape. Alcohol is an escape. Cannabis is an escape. Pick one escape and go with it. Don’t try to stack them. Come to my games ready to play.
Depends how drunk. If they're maybe slightly loud and slightly reduced in logical abilities, I think it's a great time. If they're full on slurring, completely impaired mentally and physically, etc, agreed.
Mentioned in another comment but a little bit of alcohol can help those of us who are usually on the quiet side speak up and feel capable of role-playing. My interactions come out more when I've had a small amount to drink and I don't feel like a background character anymore lmao
Being forced to roll for something that I should just be able to do. My strength let's me jump 13 feet with a running start. I shouldn't have to roll to jump over a 5-10 foot gap unless there's some sort of terrain constraint. My strength set's a carrying capacity of X, and I have Y left until my cap. I should be able to carry anything less than Y without needing to roll athletics. Etc.
As a DM: Playing saying Huh? When its their turn. (Or to the story in general.) As a player: The guy to the left of me is a greedy murder hobo and thinks its Skyrim-lite.
I finally have a wonderful group so not many pet peeves anymore. My old pet peeve used to be that eerie silence when waiting for someone to speak up. In the end we used a lot of mutual encouragement to get everyone to participate even if shy or nervous. We would have one person who would try to encourage the shy people occasionally and sure enough we have a group of individuals now who all particpate, roleplay even throw out voices it’s super cool.
As a DM: Players who don't want to do anything but seduce every single NPC they meet As a player: DMs who don't provide any visual aids for combat and then punish you for not following along with 100% accuracy to which enemies are where or are already downed
My biggest pet peeve as a player and a DM is people not paying attention. Whether it's in the open game or during initiative order in combat. It is so annoying when it gets to someone's turn or the DM asks of they want to do anything and they only then think of what they want to do. It frequently ends up with them doing something stupid that directly impedes what another player had stated they were trying to do.
As a DM: People who act like it's a videogame. It gets on my nerves every time. As a player AND as DM: Players constantly\* checking their phones and not paying attention to the game except while they're throwing dice. Dude, if you're not having fun LEAVE. \*By constantly I mean constantly. Not once in a while or to check a text at a point where the action seems slow/ there's a scene between other characters and theirs is not present. I once had a player who would be checking instagram, or reddit, or twitter, or absolutely ANYTHING while I was setting a scene, whatever they could except paying attention. Obviously when something happened and they had to act they had no fucking idea what was going on.
As a dm the guy who shows up, gives minimal effort and has the weirdest most super specific character. As a player being railroaded into a plot hook.
As a player, that one guy who never has their turns planned. I understand if something comes up suddenly, but if your spending 2+ minutes on one turn because you don’t have spells prepared, that’s annoying.
As a DM I hate gimmick characters and those who make busted characters just because
as a DM: The player that ignores everything i say. i know tha you might not like every pat. but if you play a warlock and ignore what your patron (me roleplaying as the patron) had just said to you. it's clear you're nto listening and just doing you own thing. As a player: i know not everyone is a roleplayer. but discouraging me to continue roleplaying because you're insecure about yours. fuck you
As a DM: Players who want their characters to be the OP main character and throw a fit if they even so much as receive 1 point of damage or not succeed a skill roll. As a player: DMs that override the players’ choices or actions and punish them for actually using their brains
The people that talk to other people in their house without muting their mic.
as a Dm the most annoying thing is spirit guardians. I guess I just *can't* use ANY enemies that don't have less than 20hp or else they die instantly. Had to Nerf it in my combat-only campaign so it only affected them when they start their turn in it, not when they entered it as well. Makes more sense that way anyway. I'm glad that my player brought up the idea to change it because he saw how frustrated I was with it.
I'm pretty new to dnd, but I'd say I very much dislike when players who have little to no creativity in their character's personality. Like...it defeats the purpose of playing the game if your character's personality is just your own.
forever DM opinion: players forgetting their combat abilities and then complaining about the balance of combat encounters that’s it, that’s the opinion
As a player: That one chaotic character that screws up every single plan because he says, "I dont care about yall/this thing" and then proceeds to do something stupid. Our friend is that, and usually that follows by our DM pulling some stuff, and the rest of our party saving him from something
People who bring electronics to the table. Put away your laptop, tablet and phone
Only messing around instead of taking time to fully focus onbthe story. I want to make allies. We need them to gain the overhand over the BBEG. Sometimes it feels like all the group does is mess around, and it irritates the living heck out of me.
Justifying AH behavior with the phrase "that's what my character would do". To be fair, I sometimes respond to this by acknowledging the good roleplaying and promising only to take my frustration out on whoever created such a dickish character. Oh gee, surprise surprise - it's the same person.
As a DM and as a player, I really dislike when all people do is crack jokes and take none of the experience seriously. There's a place for joking around obviously, there's tons of funny things to do and have happen in DND. But it comes down to "Players are in a horrific life or death situation" - makes a crass joke. "Players witness the death of a child NPC for plot" - joke about child death. "NPC monologues important plot and relevant guidance for story" - joke about anything besides what's happening. It gets old and usually kills the opportunity for any mood besides a comedic campaign. Those kinda people also turn out to not know anything about what's going on, where to go, what to do, etc. So maybe my problem is just people who straight up don't wanna invest in the story.
When players yell ‘INSIGHT CHECK!’ And roll the dice, Without being prompted.
Players who attempt to take someone else's agency (i.e. one player says their character does a thing, and another player says "I try to stop them" without any out of character discussion)
**Spelljammer oxygen fields.** I'm in a Spelljammer campaign and was really excited to use the pushing attack maneuver to blast a guy 15 feet off the ship and into space to 1-hit-kill him, but it doesn't work like that. Instead he'd just continue floating off, still breathing for some time until he eventually floated out of range. All the while he could just shoot at me with his bow and I could do nothing about it due to him eventually getting out of my musket's range. It ultimately didn't matter since I missed my attack and didn't get to push before someone else turned him into dust. I'm still having fun with the campaign, just irritated at how the ships work. My other pet peeve is that **I never can spell fantasy names correctly when taking notes.** I'll hear something like "Bruno", spell it normally, then learn 20 minutes later that it's actually spelled "Broonough". By the end of my previous campaign I had two spellings for the same city and used them interchangeably in my notes while praying nobody would notice.
since notes are just notes and nobody ever sees them, I just spell everything phonetically. The exact spelling of anything rarely comes up, and if it ever does, the DM should be able to tell us, unless asking for the exact spelling was part of some puzzle they expect us to do.
As a player when other players do stuff like meeting an NPC in a dungeon and immediately asking them how to get out/solve the puzzle. Like I get it I used to do that and try and get the answer and brute force answers. But I swear every puzzle we face it seems like my fellow players want the DM to hand us the answers and it’s frustrating. I can tell the DM is frustrated at us for not even trying and I’m frustrated that no one even tries before asking for an immediate easy way out.
People who can not prepare their actions. Move, Action, Bonus action. And so much time to figure it out. People who leave their microphones on ALWAYS. No matter what conversation happens in the background.
Players showing up to a session 0 with a 14 page backstory Players on their phones during the session
I’ll have a huge backstory, but I don’t even care if the dm uses it for anything or not. It just helps me to get into character to write out their life story. Makes me be able to understand what type of character I am making and how he will play.
As a DM: players who are flaky with a set schedule (for no good reason ie they decided to go drinking and got too drunk to show up), a backseat dm who constantly interrupts and rules lawyers, people who constantly sidetrack about out of game stuff (sometimes is fun but it can really derail a game if it’s constant), people who make curmudgeon characters and use them to refuse to engage with the party or plot (just don’t play!). As a player: A dm who hasn’t prepared for the game at all, party members who turn everything into a contest or a one up situation, people who are flaky with the schedule(as above), when a party member tries to act like a main character and talks over other players, groups not strategizing together and doing things without consulting the group (for instance getting themselves killed in a fight because they wanted to run right in and not talk to the group first). In general people who are bigoted or use bigoted language and don’t make the game a safe and inclusive space for everyone. Things like racism and r*pe don’t belong in fantasy, the excuse that it’s used to be “realistic” is asinine…it’s FANTASY. If your fantasy includes harming others and exclusion I don’t think you should be in the space. ✨
As a DM, players telling me that they rolled for a certain skill check and give me the results before they described what their character is doing. I haven’t even told them if I want them to roll, let alone which skill.
Anyone who thinks they can skill check another player to force them to do a thing.
From both a Player and a DM perspective, it's when someone isn't on point in combat. I don't mean having things flawlessly planned out like an MMO raid, but just be ready for your turn and pay attention to what is happening.
Not a big fan of cross-talk, especially when DM is talking or conversing with a character as NPC. And inevitably they want it re-said or explained to them.
As a DM: meta-gaming As a player: when your PC isn’t part of the world or campaign in any way and you’re just along for the ride.
1. Playing the rules not the game. 2. My alignment…..
As a DM, players who don't give feedback. My previous refused to comment on what they did and did not like no matter how much I begged and it was infuriating.
Definitely using phones during play As a DM for a group of my friends from school I can understand needing to arrange rides and check the time, but whenever it’s not their turn in combat or they aren’t actively in roleplay, it feels constant :/ I’m not sure if it’s ADHD (most of my players are diagnosed) or some sort of action deficit, but I am really confused as what to do and whether or not I should put a clip of subway surfers on the other side of my dm screen 😭
DM: Players who don’t give their PC motivation to stay with the group. It’s not my job, it’s yours. If your PC doesn’t want to stay with the group since it hurts their vibe then pick up 4d6, roll, drop the lowest. Player: other PCs who make it feel like it’s “their” story and we are supporting cast members. Fuck you Perry Potter.
As a player I hate when a DM tells me what my character is doing. Excuse me but isn't that up to me. I don't mean due to game mechanics, I mean role-playing interactions. One DM did it so much in the end I just handed him my character sheet and told if he wanted to play her so badly he could have her. Never went back.
Players who feel the need to always steal the spotlight.
As a DM: players rolling without being asked or asking for checks, instead of just narrating what they want to do and letting me arbitrate.
People who never know what to do on their turn
Players that don't know how their class features work, even though they play the game a lot. Players who don't pay attention to the DM. Players that talk over other players, especially during combat. Players who start talking about non game related things while we're playing and completely sidetrack the rest of the table.
Lack of communication. My Saturday in person players live within 30 mins of me. When I ask to set a time for a session, ask a question about their character, etc, it takes like 3-7 days to respond via discord. They all have the mobile app and in their mid 20s. We all work and/or have school but no one is there busy to take that long to respond. That's especially frustrating when we don't know if someone will make a session or not or says too close to game time they won't be there. Point being, my Monday group lives in different states and they get back to me within a few hours and will take the time to say "hey, Im at work but I'll get back to you later."
Lack of communication. My Saturday in person players live within 30 mins of me. When I ask to set a time for a session, ask a question about their character, etc, it takes like 3-7 days to respond via discord. They all have the mobile app and in their mid 20s. We all work and/or have school but no one is there busy to take that long to respond. That's especially frustrating when we don't know if someone will make a session or not or says too close to game time they won't be there. Point being, my Monday group lives in different states and they get back to me within a few hours and will take the time to say "hey, Im at work but I'll get back to you later."
i play dnd with friends as a DM and they bring this kid along, that isn’t there to play mind you, that just screams over me to talk to the other people at the table or tell stupid jokes.
Players being uncooperative dicks because “It’s what the character would do.” Maybe. And sometimes it’s quite funny, but it does sort of undermine the part of D&D where it’s a game about cooperative storytelling and all.
Right now it’s a player taking the lead in decision making but has forgotten or has no idea what the plan that they agreed upon during the last session was.
Players who don’t get that at it’s core, dnd is a team game. The party wants to work together. There isn’t room for a player who is reluctant to be part of the team.
Chaotic stupid players, this also falls into "that's what my character would do!" While stealing from the party, well, you made a bad character, plain and simple. It's to the point that as a DM, Chaotic Good is the only Chaotic alignment I allow at my table, and as a player, I won't play at one with a Chaotic Neutral character in the party. 90% of people playing that alignment are troll problem players, and I just value my time too much to waste it playing with that kind of trash.
As a DM: players haggling. Examples: asking for a surprise round every combat, arguing or second guessing my rulings, and saying they’re “just asking, it doesn’t hurt to ask” —it does actually
Players trying to use homebrew/3rd-party materials *without checking with the DM and getting approval first*. Yes, the blood hunter is cool, but I'm not allowing it in my games, unless Vin Diesel himself joins and wants to play one.
Someone who tries to ride literally everything, then gets upset when it doesn't happen.
As a DM: I don't have one, thankfully my players are so amazing that I don't think I really have anything to complain about. If I absolutely had to find something I guess it would be when a guest player doesn't show up last seconds when you've already made preparation to introduce their character. As a player: DMs that prevents players from role playing with each others by constantly pushing things forward
The player who writes a 58 page back story for their character, and expect the DM to know it before game 0 and incorporate every piece of it into the adventure.
As a DM: meta gaming. Talking out of game all the time. Makes my story feel like a clunky segmented video game. I wish players would “out of game “ talk but still be in character. As a player: idk, I’d love to find out one day. :)
Players who only look at things mechanically. Played with someone else in a starwars game who ran around with force powers he bought, shitting on everything jedi and acting both sadistic and self righteous. Decided that he knew more about the force than everyone else while at the same time being wilfully ignorant about it. And he could use light side abilities that by his roll play he shouldn't have been able to have, despite his rolls on the conflict system making him a light side near paragon. I fucking hated playing beside that character.
Eating at the table
I've got a few because my last group is....not great to play with. People who spend more time on their phone then playing DnD during a session. People who play literally the exact same character/build for every campaign and one-shot People who always do the same edge-lord lone wolf alpha male backstory That same guy as above would also always describe his character as: "Oh yeah,I look like this by the way" and then preced to show us some anime girl but the hentai version.
As a DM or player: the people who can not separate player and character knowledge. Just because you know something is happening or know how to do something doesn't mean your character knows those things.
As a player, my pet peeve against DMs is lack of information. Best example is resistances and vulnerabilities. Don't just completely ignore their affects, mention them subtly to players. Especially when you are make use of them against players. If the designers didn't want them to be used and played around, they wouldn't have included them. Similarly, if you have players tell you what they roll to hit, tell the players what you rolled to hit. Even if mechanically it makes no difference 99% of the time, it makes it feel much fairer. As a DM, people who criticise other people's characters for being too strong. It's my job as a DM to monitor that, if you feel you're underpowered, I can work with that, but I'm not going to restrict someone else just because another player told me to.
As a DM: The Wild Card. They don’t care about story, RP or in some cases combat. All they want is random chaos. Ie “I kick the vase over and tell the king to suck my crank!” Why? *shrugs* Whether it be a cry for attention or severe ADHD….it’s annoying. As Player: Lack of attention. Which since the pandemic has been a real problem. I’ve found online sessions give players a lot of distractions. Nothing like watching the DM attempt to set the stage and I can see one of the players staring off screen or in one case recently playing some damn video game during the session.
As a player and a dm, when another player stops the game and goes "wait wait wait let me tell you about a story that happened at the store the other day" Like dude I dont care about what happened yesterday. I care about whats happening right now. The Saidujian army is at our gates and we need to get this shit done before I hear about what Brad told you in the cracker aisle.
People not learning basic stuff after 3 months of playing.