Trap Dancin’
If you’ve gamed for a while, you have met that rogue. You know… that rogue.
I have a real sore spot when it comes to players belittling others at the table or backseat role-playing.
If you ask me to define my idea of backseat gaming, I have a tough time, as there is a fine line between steady, friendly advice and being an asshole. It’s easy enough to ask for advice or make a group decision but there are some folks who just cannot accept it when their opinion is not considered the end all be all. I think we all know someone like that and they tend to be everywhere, in every past time, not just gaming. I knew a guy who was that guy in his softball league and ultimately was asked to leave when he pissed off too many of his teammates. He doesn’t play softball anymore and I feel bad for him. He loved the game but his passion and need to do things his way overstepped common decency. He yelled at people and his constant criticism eventually sucked all of the fun out of the experience for everyone.
I do not tolerate such behavior in large doses, regardless of my role in the situation, be it player or GM. It’s not a zero-to-sixty thing and I do not flip tables but I have lowered the boom (verbally) on some folks in the past and/or shown them the door. I think a lot of it stems from my belief that this is supposed to be a fun, stress-relieving past time. I know that is a common sense statement but I take it to heart.
Life is just too damn short to sit at a table and play games with people you do not want to game with.
are ham hooks arms or legs I ask because it arms thats going to be a hell of a trick since his arms are tied down
They’re either, actually!
Oh hey, you just nailed the reason we don’t play boardgames with my dad anymore.
Or games in general. He was teaching us to play a card game not too long ago (Scat, I think?), and shouting at us because we weren’t sure what to do. Leave out the fact that he hadn’t actually -told us what to do-. And we don’t even joke about playing Monopoly. Never. Again.
Monopoly is up there with Risk for games to destroy friendships and families.
Diplomacy is worse.
We just started a hiatus in my group. When we start again in a month, we’ll have one player less because this individual constantly worked to break every game we played and even cheated on dice rolls.
Playing Munchkin with him I swear almost ended in a fist fight.
I wonder how many games of Munchkin have actually ended in a fist fight?
Some combinations of Munchkin “DLC” are broken in their own right. Never had one end in a fist fight; the guys who won, won, and winning made them accepting of my constant invective-hurling.
On the flip side, I’m fairly certain that I swear more during a single game of Munchkin than I do in half a year. Possibly an entire year, excluding subsequent games.
The closest we’ve had to an actual fight in Munchkin was one of the guys actually flipping the table and leaving when we forced him to discard a card. Literal table flip, I never realised that someone would actually do that before. Always thought it was just a joke…
Now the reason I actually consider that close to a fist fight is that it was my bloody table that he flipped over, my cards which were damaged in the process, and several of my glasses and bowls that got smashed when they hit the floor. I was halfway across the room to start laying into him when I got grabbed by two of the bigger guys (I’m about 5’5″, these guys are both over 6′) to stop me from doing anything stupid.
Needless to say, that guy never gamed with us again.
I know ‘that’ wizard and ‘that’ barbarian who think they can magic and blast through everything when a rogues delicate touch is need. And you all know that if the rogue told them how to do their thing the wizard would just go on about all his superior training at a prestigious mage academy that a lowly cut purse would never understand while the barbarian would likely just hit him in the face.
HAHA! So true. To be completely honest, I have met that version of nearly every class. That fighter who kicks the door down just as you finish working out the game plan. That paladin who role-plays lawful stupid just to annoy the group and GM, etc. etc. Every class has the potential to have that kind of moment.
Honestly, one of my characters is THAT fighter, but with the approval of the GM and the rest of the party. This group is a is a heavily modified 2nd Ed game, and my character was a unfortunately fairly crap in the stat department fighter. So the GM inserted a magic axe carried by a group of pissed off Scottish dwarves. The second my character picked it up, his intelligence and wisdom scores both dropped to around 5 each, and his strength went right through the roof… unfortunately the axe is possessed by a bloodthirsty demon.
Cue months of my character struggling to resist the demon’s demands, and generally failing due to low wisdom… right up until we found a Deck of Many Things, and I drew three cards. Can’t remember what the actual cards were off the top of my head, but the effects were an increase in Str, the answer to my next problem for free, the Void (my soul got ripped out of my body). So now the character is literally an empty shell controlled directly by the axe.
Of course I wouldn’t even try to run that in any other kind of game, but this one is deliberately designed as a ridiculous campaign where all kinds of BS happen.
I’ve gamed with two guys, both of whom were game wreckers in their own special, God-I-hate-you way.
The first was the ultimate power gamer. He had a knack for finding exploits like no one I’ve ever seen, and min-maxed like a boss. On top of that, the game always, always, always had to be about him. At the end of the last campaign I played with him, the GM gave us access to a device that we could use to change the world. The plan of the majority: reduce wars, famine, create conditions that would make all of us wonderfully wealthy, that sort of thing. This guy absolutely refused to let us do any of that (the device required consensus among us in order to work), but expected us to go along with the sole thing he wanted to change. It wasn’t me, but one of the guys at the table who looked at him and said, “{f@#$} you. {f@#$} you, you selfish {f@#$}ing prick. You think you can deny us everything at a word, and then expect us to let you do whatever you want? Get {f@#$}ed.”
Never gamed with him after that. My group still gets riled up about that event.
The other guy was… special. I seriously don’t know how to describe it any better then that. Guy essentially rolled up the same character for every game, that being a serial killer. Usually a stabby rogue, once as a warrior. Always the same personality, and always with a cockney accent. This guy was almost unnaturally creepy; would kidnap someone (preferably a woman, bonus if she was a prostitute), kill her with a knife if he was pressed for time, and torture her over DAYS in-game if he did. There are other things he did in character, but from the description, you all can probably take a guess what they are.
On top of this horrific in-game personality, the guy’s two favourite things to do were Kill Players, and Derail the Campaign. Screwing around with the GM, ruining every plot hook, killing quest givers before they could tell us what to do, he did everything to more or less break the GM. He once told me that his high point in gaming was killing every member of the party in the same session with no one figuring out (in-game, of course) it was him. One of my high points shall forever remain when he attempted to kill my character in our Shadowrun campaign with a ship laser, and I gunned him down with my vehicle’s mounted turret. Given this guy’s kill count, I was mighty satisfied with that.
Granted, both these guys are bad players in a way very different from the content of this comic, but does anyone want to see any of these three around the gaming table?
I have BEEN that rogue. man, I miss my halfling rogues. tho Neverwinters let me be one again.
Ah, yes.. I have gamed with those people before. And others. Dave alone could fill a newsstand with all of his issues. I digress.
We had one player who was a walking rulebook and armchair tactician. He would CONSTANTLY tell the other players what they should and should not be doing. To the point of picking up their minis and moving them, etc. Despite being told to knock it off many times, of course.
Finally, he met his match. Enter the Tomb of Silence. A long, convoluted dungeon, filled with all manner of nastiness… and all under a permanent Silence spell. The trick was, I enforced this table-side, as well. They could talk as much as they wanted out of combat (using gestures, writing, and interpretive dance), but in-combat? Nope. ANY communication to another character or player came at a penalty of Actions.
“You get ONE word for free. Three for a minor, six for a minor and a move, and nine for a full-turn action.”
“But… but… talking is a FREE action!”
“Your character isn’t talking. He’s waving his hands around, hoping the others can understand what he’s trying to do.”
It was beautiful to watch. For one thing, combat was faster, more fun, and most tellingly – more effective.
But he couldn’t do it. He just. could. not. I seriously thought he was going to break into hives, or spontaneously combust. The first three combats consisted of him flailing about trying to convey detailed battle plans… to the tune of three rounds worth of inactivity while everyone else fought. He even tried sneaking notes.
He left in the middle of the session (about a quarter through the dungeon) and never came back.
I’m totally stealing this concept. Thanks! 🙂
Feel free. It’s wonderful to watch veteran players suddenly having to analyze things WITHOUT the usual amount of table talk and endless strategizing.
You can include other forms of sensory deprivation as well. Darkness spell? Everyone turn around away from the table. If your character makes a Listen/Perception/whatever check, then you get to peek at the board for three seconds before you say what you’re doing.
You can even do taste: Imagine a barony, under a curse. The ONLY plants that will grow are onions. Period.
Personally, I don’t deal with idiots any better than assholes, and in the comic, pointing out that the wizard and barbarian are wrong doesn’t make the rogue an asshole. It does, however, take a couple of assholes to restrain the guy and use him as trap bait for being right, even if he’s a little shitty about it.
I think you can’t effectively illustrate that a player is being an asshole in one panel. I definitely agree that asshole players need to GTFO. Everytime I read a bunch of people who say: ‘We have a trouble player, what do we do?’ I know it will inevitably lead to some advice, followed by: ‘We’ve tried everything, he just keeps *insert shitty behavior*…’ And I just want to slap them in the face and tell them to ditch the asshole. I don’t care if he’s ‘your friend’, why be friends with a guy who doesn’t care if his friends have fun when they hang out together.”
I’m starting to get a distinct “Bards good, Rogues bad” vibe from you… while my opinion is that Rogues Rule and Bards Drool, I really love these comics – where the characters break the fourth wall and banter about their classes or attributes. Keep it up! I want more!
PS – Rogues do it from behind.
HAHAHA! I hear that a lot. I promise, I do like rogues (I have even played a few).
I used to be that rogue, until I discovered that it was much more enjoyable — and less frustrating for me — to stand back and allow the Chaotic Everywhere aligned group members to charge down the hall, thru the door, into the , and set it off. While the healer was patching them back together, I got to smile sweetly and thank them for taking care of that trap check for me. Some have learned, some haven’t, but I have much less stress over it either way.
Hah, brilliant!I may thieve this!
Silly thing is, I was in that situation as the rogue, but in the literal sense. I had someone hold me over a pit to a door that needed pickin’. This was my idea by the way.
Then I made a long range door opening device out of frogs and a 9ft pole.
Forgot where I was going with this, but I’ve noticed halflings are kinda the first stop when it comes to rogues
I think halflings in general are pretty awesome. One of my longest running characters is a halfling: Waldo Willowtree fighter 3/wizard 14/archmage 1, specializing in hunting undead.
This has been Tell Me About your Character with Brian Patterson
And then you slowly and steadily turn your Halfling over the spit, basting liberally and making sure he’s even on all sides, and in about an hour you can serve!
I remember my Rogue fondly. I’d like to think I’m nice, friendly and easygoing during game sessions. In character, however, my rogue was considered somewhat annoying by the rest of the party; The name alone (Krass “The Finger”) was worthy of rolled eyes and groans. The Amazon in our party particularly wanted to tear me in half. There was no denying his usefulness though, and out of character he was a lot of laughs and the GM loved him. Incidentally, he had started off as Human, then got transformed permanently to a Halfling!
Yeah, that behavior really has to do with the person, not with the hobby. It stems from how they perceive the world around them. There’s a great book called Mindset by Carol Dweck, a cognitive science researcher at UNC Chapel Hill.
Basically, it boils down to the nature vs. nurture debate. If a person has a “fixed” orientation and believes that everything is nature and they can’t improve their natural abilities (i.e. strength, intelligence, whatever), then the next logical course of action is very different than if they’re “growth oriented” and believe that their abilities are skills that can be nurtured.
A person with a fixed orientation spends their time trying to convince everyone else that they’re “the best” by avoiding activities where they might be seen to fail, lying about their accomplishments, holding grudges and surrounding themselves with yes-men they perceive to be less-capable than themselves. Remember, they don’t believe they can “level up” as it were, IRL.
A growth oriented person by contrast seeks out new experiences that will challenge them, experiences that might go badly, but that will teach them things and allow them to learn and improve. They’re also quick to forgive. These are people who believe that life is like a game in which you can “level up” through your experiences, good or bad.
It’s not a binary thing, like you mentioned in your comments, it’s not zero-to-sixty. It’s a spectrum of belief from one end to the other and a lot of variation in the middle, and it can vary not only by person but by topic. Your belief about your height for example is probably fixed, i.e. you can’t learn to be taller, but your belief about art for example is probably growth-oriented – you continue to learn new art skills.
There is some evidence that we can bring fixed thinkers around, but by and large, I think the best thing is to try and hang out with people who are mostly growth-oriented. Generally speaking they won’t give you this kind of egotistical attitude. That doesn’t mean you’ll never get into arguments, but they’ll be able to challenge you and accept being challenged in a friendly and productive way most of the time. 🙂
We used to have one rogue in our game.. my word what a guy. He was a skill monkey through and through, so during fights he would sneak passed everything and steal the treasure, or just always ended up finding the loot. He would then bluff his way out of it, by saying the room was empty ect ect. One day our Dm god crafty, decided he could loot the chest first, reached his hand in and all you hear is a cry of “SCORPIONS!!” Best time ever.
Well, now I have to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPxI-r0W6O0
There’s sometimes game banter (like between my Ventrue and a friends Brujah) it’s wasn’t just a cliche thing, we just -really- didn’t trust each others’ secret plot.
But if it’s too much it’s a game killer.
Also there’s a line between “just having fun” and actually having discussions…like this one. And then there’s online forums some of which serve communities in a technical or detailed roled, and it’s a pet hate of mine when the “just-wanna-have-funs” start their whine-engines in such places.
Friggin awesome!