D&D: THAT person in the group

[cjspyres]

I had a guy in a Star Wars game I was running who tried to convince me to let him dual-wield double sided lightsabers... *sigh*

Don't see why that wouldn´t be possible. The -8 to hit and the fact that he could still only attack with one end of each saber at a time would make it look badass but be functionally useless.

He wanted to be able to attack with both sides of each saber in the same round. I told him he'd end up chopping himself in half

Theoretically it would be possible. Vertical slash with one end followed up by an "uppercut-slash" with the back end. It would look retarded and not very elegant as far as swordplay goes but it wouldn't cut him in half.

How is he supposed to block, parry and feint? Melee in most d20 systems is vaguely described and its assumed these kinds of things are happening. He'd be cut to ribbons trying to parry incoming blows without killing himself. Plus it would be murder on his wrists

Really, the only positive to carrying two saberstaffs is that, if you're dual-wielding and someone damages one side of your lightsaber, you can switch to the other. And that's only because you're not required to have both sides on.

 

[Fappy]

I had a guy in a Star Wars game I was running who tried to convince me to let him dual-wield double sided lightsabers... *sigh*

Don't see why that wouldn´t be possible. The -8 to hit and the fact that he could still only attack with one end of each saber at a time would make it look badass but be functionally useless.

He wanted to be able to attack with both sides of each saber in the same round. I told him he'd end up chopping himself in half

Theoretically it would be possible. Vertical slash with one end followed up by an "uppercut-slash" with the back end. It would look retarded and not very elegant as far as swordplay goes but it wouldn't cut him in half.

How is he supposed to block, parry and feint? Melee in most d20 systems is vaguely described and its assumed these kinds of things are happening. He'd be cut to ribbons trying to parry incoming blows without killing himself. Plus it would be murder on his wrists

Really, the only positive to carrying two saberstaffs is that, if you're dual-wielding and someone damages one side of your lightsaber, you can switch to the other. And that's only because you're not required to have both sides on.

Yeah the rules are iffy on if you can do that considering it doesn't really take into account you can "turn off" one side, but if he wanted to do it that way I wouldn't have had a problem. I could be a total dick and have an enemy activate the other side on him at inopportune moments though

The force is a *****.

 

[Micalas]

How is he supposed to block, parry and feint? Melee in most d20 systems is vaguely described and its assumed these kinds of things are happening. He'd be cut to ribbons trying to parry incoming blows without killing himself. Plus it would be murder on his wrists

He's not. I know full well that he would be defensless. That doesn't mean his attack is impossible though. As for his wrists, he could put in his character's backstory that he was a chronic masturbator.

 

[ubersyanyde]

Me.

Nah, I only really play for laughs with a couple of friends so I have a really silly character for Shadowrun, Paranoia and D&D (The Heavy, a really stupid version of The Heavy and a dwarven Dr. Eggman respectively).

I'm always finding myself doing things on par with Mr Welch's antics. For example in Shadowrun we managed to complete a black ops mission by driving the villains limo through the front of the chemical lab we were meant to be sneaking in to, have my friend transform into a bear and stomping the villain to death. I think in the same campaign I deflected a sniper bullet with a rocket explosion. We also did a Retsupurae themed campaign but retelling it all would take too long.

So basically our whole party is THAT guy.

 

[MC K-Mac]

I had a guy in a Star Wars game I was running who tried to convince me to let him dual-wield double sided lightsabers... *sigh*

Don't see why that wouldn´t be possible. The -8 to hit and the fact that he could still only attack with one end of each saber at a time would make it look badass but be functionally useless.

He wanted to be able to attack with both sides of each saber in the same round. I told him he'd end up chopping himself in half

Theoretically it would be possible. Vertical slash with one end followed up by an "uppercut-slash" with the back end. It would look retarded and not very elegant as far as swordplay goes but it wouldn't cut him in half.

How is he supposed to block, parry and feint? Melee in most d20 systems is vaguely described and its assumed these kinds of things are happening. He'd be cut to ribbons trying to parry incoming blows without killing himself. Plus it would be murder on his wrists

Really, the only positive to carrying two saberstaffs is that, if you're dual-wielding and someone damages one side of your lightsaber, you can switch to the other. And that's only because you're not required to have both sides on.

This is off-topic, but those dual-bladed lightsabers have always bugged the shit out of me. They are such impractical weapons. During the normal usage of a sword, you are constantly twisting and turning it in such a manner that you would carve yourself into little pieces if there was a blade coming out of the back side of the hilt. And to use it as a staff, you would have to grasp it where the blades are in order to get any sort of leverage. Hands instantly vapourized. And even if you modified the weapon so that the handle was longer and the blades shorter, you would still have the same problem as with a sword, i.e. you would be bringing the blade across your arms and torso and legs in such a way that you would be a pile of giblets long before you became any threat to your opponent. Other than making your opponent laugh so hard at you that he is unable to attack, I fail to see how such a ridiculous weapon would be of any use.

Yeah I know it's fantasy and I shouldn't get hung up on such things yadda yadda yadda but seeing them just completely wrecks my suspension of disbelief. Make of it what you will.

 

[RaikuFA]

I once played DnD. That guy was the DM. Hed kill me just because I was a "******" to him. Never played DnD again and I don't regret it.

 

[The Funslinger]

It was in Call of Cthulhu Masks of Nyarlathotep. We enter a room and there's this big, creepy throne in the middle of the room. So our "special player" says "I go over and sit on the throne." My first thought was, "He didn't just say he was going to sit on the throne, did he?" My second thought was, "Maybe if we pretend nothing happened the DM won't have heard what he said." I saw the other other players kind of tunelessly whistling and looking down at the floor. But the DM had heard. "So, you sit on the throne!" As Narly took over the player character's gibbering body, I actually made the first san roll. Even successfully making the roll, I still lost 25 san. Nobody else was left standing to make the second roll.

If I'm understanding this right, he basically took ultimate power, flipped out and owned all of you?

 

[Flailing Escapist]

I haven't played D&D for a while. Recently, a friend picked up a Dragon Age D&D-type game and we've spent the last few months messing around with it. I'm not saying it's broken but I have a poison making/knife throwing/noose throwing/magneto-esqe levitating/sword levitating (and throwing)/mind wiping/mage-that's-disguised-as-a-doctor that's only a level 2 and everything we've ran into so far has been fucked.... I think I might be THAT guy.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

One of my friends went through a D&D campaign playing a Dire Badger named Yukon Cornelius. He poured most of his starting points into intelligence so he could speak and reason like a standard character. He enjoyed boozing and had a tendency to start massive bar-brawls. That was a fun game.

As far as game disrupting 'that guys' we had one in the World of Darkness group I'm currently with. It was a Vampire: The Requiem game about 5 months ago. He was pretty much trying to be Neo from The Matrix and 10 minutes into his first game opened fire on a crowded city center with 2 SMGs. For those who don't play, V:tR has strict rules about not drawing attention to yourself in the company of normal humans. The GM killed him off in the ensuing fracas.

 

[Fappy]

One of my friends went through a D&D campaign playing a Dire Badger named Yukon Cornelius. He poured most of his starting points into intelligence so he could speak and reason like a standard character. He enjoyed boozing and had a tendency to start massive bar-brawls. That was a fun game.

As far as game disrupting 'that guys' we had one in the World of Darkness group I'm currently with. It was a Vampire: The Requiem game about 5 months ago. He was pretty much trying to be Neo from The Matrix and 10 minutes into his first game opened fire on a crowded city center with 2 SMGs. For those who don't play, V:tR has strict rules about not drawing attention to yourself in the company of normal humans. The GM killed him off in the ensuing fracas.

I have never thought to base a character off of Yukon Cornelius. That's fucking genius.

Yukon was a fucking nut-job.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

One of the reasons I could never really get into D&D was because of the fairly strict race/class restrictions that the game imposed.
Want to play a ranger, Elves or Half Elves report to the lobby, Want to play a theif? Halflings queue up to the left. Barbarian more your cup of tea? Well the Half Orcs can be found just down the hallway.

It's boring.

I had more fun playing that game was my half Elf Barbarian or my Halfling Fighter than I ever did playing "which LotR character with a different name do you want to play this time?"

 

[castlewise]

We don't really have anyone like that in my group. Whenever I'm not DMing I try to make things interesting by doing stuff I know the DM isn't prepared for, but its all well within the rules and the scope of the game.

(For example, we were in a city looking for information on someone and I convinced everyone we should become waiters at a local bar and listen to conversations. Not particularly interesting, and within the rules, but it was fun to watch the DM sweat as he tried to build the appropriate encounters from scratch in his head.)

One of the reasons I could never really get into D&D was because of the fairly strict race/class restrictions that the game imposed.
Want to play a ranger, Elves or Half Elves report to the lobby, Want to play a theif? Halflings queue up to the left. Barbarian more your cup of tea? Well the Half Orcs can be found just down the hallway.

It's boring.

I had more fun playing that game was my half Elf Barbarian or my Halfling Fighter than I ever did playing "which LotR character with a different name do you want to play this time?"

It depends on who your playing with. Technically any race can be any class, but some are much better at certain classes than others. If you play with people who are into min/maxing then you have to make the optimal choices or you get left behind. On the other hand if your group makes the (implicit or explicit) decision *not* to min/max then you can play whatever crazy builds you want and still be effective.

(The secret of course is that if everyone is playing suboptimal classes then the DM has to lower the encounter difficulties to compensate.)

 

[Zen Toombs]

I was the kind of person who tried to come up with odd solutions to RP problems.

Spoiler

Example: We were fighting a young ice dragon in a cave made of ice. I asked if there were icicles on the ceiling? When DM said yes, I used Ice Plane to levitate myself and our warrior up to the largest one. He cut off the icicle, I used Mana Ray to turn it into a death laser. Two action points, and a combined roll of 68 on 4 D20s resulted in a REALLY fucked up dragon. We burned its wing off, and left it with less than 6 HP.

Example two: We were fighting kobolds, and I asked their weight. When DM asked me why, I said it was important. He said 3 lbs. I used Grab Object, lifted a kobold that was a foot away into the air, stuck my sword out, and repeatedly moved him back and forth on the sword, since I was allowed to move him 10 feet. BEST D&D MOMENT EVER.

Very interesting stories, but I am confused by your definition of Roleplaying problems.

Because everything I did isn't explicitly written in the rules anywhere, and gave my DM headaches.

I can see where the headaches come from (this one has had extensive playtime both in front of and behind the screen.[footnote]wait, I've never played with a GM screen. Am I supposed to or something?[/footnote] My point was a mild joke that those are rules problems, not problems with playing roles. In my opinion, using such interactions to beat a non-combat situation could be an example of roleplaying, and if using such interactions to beat a combat is a perfect example of how your character approaches combat, then it would be an example of roleplaying.

Spoiler: For example

A story I read on the Internet: Someone (let's call him Michael) played a Samurai (let's call him Bob) who was supposed to defend a particular girl. Blah blah blah, girl gets kidnapped into some tunnels. Now, a normal party would take the time to search for traps and disable them, and that's what Michael normally would do as well. But Bob would place his life below his duty, and would willingly sacrifice his life to ensure the safety of his charge. Instead of having the party rogue disable the traps, Bob just charged straight through them, saving his party valuable time, saving the girl, etc etc. Along the same vein, Bob would be willing to sacrifice his life to save the rest of the party, and at one point I believe he did.

Note that this works because Michael wasn't upset about Bob dying, and because Michael didn't just have Bob constantly Charge&Targ-ing and messing with the fun of others.

A generalized example: What point does your character deem too risky? If a wizard, is he/she stingy with spells or does he/she blast through them with great At what point (be it HP left, or status effects or number of spells left) does your character say "Oh god, I'm bookin it!"? What will your character go beyond that point for? So on and so forth. Combat has plenty of Roleplaying possibilities, not just Rollplaying possibilities.

A personal story: Two years ago I made a Warforged Paladin for a 4th Edition game.[footnote]Fourth edition sucks, but it's the party that matters. I've had more fun with that group than I've had with any other game because the people involved were very fun to be around. Well, except the DM but he didn't ruin TOO much of the fun.[/footnote] I determened at character creation that he (Thraisus, by the by) was literally created yesterday. When our party met with the steriotypical nubile female elf questgiver in danger, Thraisus responded with "May we provide you with assistance, Sir?".[footnote]Note that it took about 5 out of game weeks for another character to explain the birds and the bees to Thrasius. The next week he pleasantly asked a fat man when she was due.

Thrasius was sad and confused when the man started yelling at him. [/footnote] And when we got to the steriotypical dungeon, the rest of our party spent about ten real life minutes trying to figure out what to do. It seemed obvious to me that there would be some sort of trap along the way, but the kids weren't even addressing that. Besides, Thrasius wouldn't know that (still 1 day old at this point, remember?), so at that point, I looked at the DM and said "so Thraisius would be walking forward." as an aside to the group "Hey, is anyone gonna stop me?" I move him five feet forward. "Hey, is anyone gonna stop me?" I move another five feet. "Guys? Hello?" I move another five feet.

*Boom* Pittrap. *Boom* Spiders everywhere*

And much terror was had by all.

 

[DeadYorick]

I still get under the impression most people's "that guy" encounters are just players scapegoating one player for all the follys of the game.

Either that or it's because I've been that guy a few times. Mostly to try and bring some fun to the game when it gets really tedious.

[footnote]wait, I've never played with a GM screen. Am I supposed to or something?[/footnote]

DM screens are a personal recommendation if you plan a lot for your games. Most DM screens include things like quick note references (tables and stuff for exp, quick monsters you can throw at the party, small stuff like that) but more importantly it keeps players from looking at your notes

Which you really can't fault them on, but even in games where I don't bring my screen, I at least prop some binders up and put my notes in pockets.

There are scenarios where I have had to fudge things like enemy stats or my own rolls, if for instance the party is about to just get TKOED I might go a little easier on them. Etc. The DM screen is perfect to prevent arguments and metagaming.

 

[cjspyres]

I've gotta say, for some reason, the thread just exploded. Kinda funny considering that it was about an hour or two before it even got a post.

 

[Lantsvants]

I've always been That Guy, but I do it with the kind of panache that leaves everyone else stupefied and mystified.

In my very first D&D game we decided that everyone wanted to play DPS classes. We had two sorcerers, a Rogue and two Rangers. I decided to play a Cleric/Paladin. Because I knew everyone was Chaotic Neutral (I knew every body in my group for a few years before we started playing) I also decided to be Chaotic Neutral and followed the creed of... I don't remember which god... it was a long-ass time ago. Anyway, the first session starts, the party is introduced, we start adventuring, everything's gravy. When we got to where we were headed the party was wiped in the first round, EXCEPT for me, because I used my one cure light wounds on myself and my Lay on Hands. I then managed to single-handedly beat down four Orcs and twelve Goblin with my axe, before tending to the wounds of the others. Later in the campaign I managed to do that again, but against a group of Gnolls with a mountain Orge pet... That's basically all I remember of that campaign...

Second campaign of D&D rolls around, this one was different because out of my previous group only two members stuck around and we had a new DM. Three new guys joined up, and they already took my position of Cleric/Tank, and because we were playing 4th ed. I didn't really want to be a crotchety old-man in a chain-mail robe anyway. I ended up talking with my DM about the game we were playing ahead of time, what kind of characters he expected, what he did as a DM. I could do this because the new DM was actually my father and he's got thirty years of not only DM'ing experience, but also home-brewing experience.
I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to play a weird character to play test one of his newer creations. I ended up playing a female, 16 year-old half-nymph former Kara-Tur slave turned rogue. I intended to play the character as such too, eager to help but apprehensive of doing so due to years of abuse. Anyway, the first fight rolls around and I decide to step forward and try sorting everything out diplomatically first, as it was a bar-fight and I didn't feel that the party needed a bounty from the first session. While I was talking to the brigands our over-eager tank decided to come up behind me and move me out of the way so he could charge.
He ended up rolling a new character because I got lucky and hit him with a natural 20. Because we use critical hit tables I rolled for the effect, turns out I gut him... As an experienced but newer player to the group he was infuriated, he almost tried to throw a punch at me until I explained that I did do my percentile roll for PTSD, I rolled a save and failed, and I only used my dagger. I just got lucky. He then proceeded to ask me why I had to play such a "Liability of a character" and I said because it was fun. I was playing a game, not working in a mine. I certainly had fun and three others certainly enjoyed it.
The other three players weren't so used to the role-playing of the game I guess...

After that I decided to make a convention play character, a Warforged Avenger of the Raven Queen. He ended up murdering two people who could have provided information and services because "The strange voice in my head told me too..." I then went on to spend an hour justifying that for religious purposes I was allowed to wander random cities, hacking down anybody I basically pleased. Why? Because it was their time to die. In another module the party had to interrogate a prisoner. Nobody could pass their intimidate rolls so I pulled out my sword and basically told the prisoner that if he didn't spill the info we wanted I'd gut him like a fish. He spat in my eyes so I killed him. Like I said I would.
Needless to say, Otsdarva is not widely liked at conventions for his rather unconventional and ruthless approach to questioning and interrogating.

In our current game, with my old man DM'ing again (This time it's the temple of elemental evil which he has rebalanced to 4.0's combat mechanics) and am now playing another Half-Nymph with terrible PTSD. It's a guy this time though, and he's a very cocky and arrogant duelist/fighter, who was raised by Eladrin lords before he developed a keen taste for the arts of assassination. He then spent 4 years as a pile of goop after challenging an elder black dragon to single combat and getting puked on.
He was then raised and lost all of his prior experience and equipment, and turned to mercenary work to get back his place as one of the world's premiere duelists. Doing a good job so far too, his arrogance and cockiness pay off in the end and luck is certainly on my side, I have yet to roll under a ten on my d20's for this character.
Just hit the third level of the temple, and level 9, I think we're leveling up to quickly, but I'm assured that we're doing fine.

Oh yeah, and now we're in a Dark Heresy Campaign. I started off playing a plucky Void-Born Tech-Priest who survived getting blown up in a tank of Promethium, only to be eaten alive by a Greater Daemon of ol' papa Nurgle on it's last round in real space... Okay, it didn't actually eat me on it's round, but it grabbed me and then disappeared back into the Warp. With me. I can only assume I got eaten... I have now decided that I'm a Feral Worlder Assassin who likes to burn things. (Thank god Eliminator charges are cheap and easy to find...)

 

[pffh]

One of the reasons I could never really get into D&D was because of the fairly strict race/class restrictions that the game imposed.
Want to play a ranger, Elves or Half Elves report to the lobby, Want to play a theif? Halflings queue up to the left. Barbarian more your cup of tea? Well the Half Orcs can be found just down the hallway.

It's boring.

I had more fun playing that game was my half Elf Barbarian or my Halfling Fighter than I ever did playing "which LotR character with a different name do you want to play this time?"

Well while some races are better at some things and some races are just better then all the others (hello humans) or worse then all the others (hello non-elven generalist wizard elves and half elves) there are no restrictions and any races can be any class.

I'm currently playing a whisper gnome druid alongside an aasimar rogue and a human bard/shadowdancer and in an earlier campaign we had an orc rogue, a gnome crusader, a human binder and a halfling warblade. Both of groups these did just fine.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

Threads like these make me really want to try pen and paper RPGs. The sense of freedom sounds incredible.

Captcha - Gone Dolally.
How apt.

Agreed, but i do hate it when that "one Guy" tries to take it seriously, and ends up ruining the fun for the people there for the halfing food gathering expeditions into random places for pears.(that was a fun afternoon.)

 

[DeadYorick]

One of the reasons I could never really get into D&D was because of the fairly strict race/class restrictions that the game imposed.
Want to play a ranger, Elves or Half Elves report to the lobby, Want to play a theif? Halflings queue up to the left. Barbarian more your cup of tea? Well the Half Orcs can be found just down the hallway.

It's boring.

I had more fun playing that game was my half Elf Barbarian or my Halfling Fighter than I ever did playing "which LotR character with a different name do you want to play this time?"

Has no one here deliberately played a broken character before? I love playing characters for their entirely different class.

Plus just looking at it just as "what LOTR character you are" is in a sense doing so without roleplaying properly.

I played a Gnome Illusionist named Tiddlywinks who only talked in 4 syllable words (I had to have a cheat sheet by the game at all times with sample sentances I could use. It was insane how prepared I had to be). Class restrictions dont have to be there, they are just there as a guideline. If you truly wanna be a half orc thief or a gnome Barbarian, especially in the later versions of D&D it's fully possible.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

One of my friends went through a D&D campaign playing a Dire Badger named Yukon Cornelius. He poured most of his starting points into intelligence so he could speak and reason like a standard character. He enjoyed boozing and had a tendency to start massive bar-brawls. That was a fun game.

As far as game disrupting 'that guys' we had one in the World of Darkness group I'm currently with. It was a Vampire: The Requiem game about 5 months ago. He was pretty much trying to be Neo from The Matrix and 10 minutes into his first game opened fire on a crowded city center with 2 SMGs. For those who don't play, V:tR has strict rules about not drawing attention to yourself in the company of normal humans. The GM killed him off in the ensuing fracas.

I have never thought to base a character off of Yukon Cornelius. That's fucking genius.

Yukon was a fucking nut-job.

Yep. You haven't lived until you've seen (experienced? maybe is a better word) a talking Dire Badger maul a bar full of surly drunks.