But it can always lead to some great leverage to use over said drinker that might be worth it.

For example, one time at my house there were about 10 people over, some playing Magic and stuff like that, watching hockey playoffs, while people took turns playing Warhammer 40k. It was pretty quiet during a lull, and then throughout the house you can hear someone scream "PENETRATING MY ASS!". We all come running and someone who had had a little too much to drink was complaining that someone accidently miscalculated a hit on his Eldar vehicle. In 40k a hit to a vehicle can be glancing or penetrating.

To this day we still ask the guy what he was sticking up his butt.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Yeah, most of my players drink while we play.

The most unbelievable part of that story is that people were watching hockey in Midland.

Drunk Players, a GM's Bane.
Never have i seen a GM so horrified and nevr have i seen a carefully planned masterpiece of a xanathos gambit mindgame get resolved so quick . .
Basically, we were playing, most of us were pretty drunk allready (GM least drunk of them all, me still completely sober) . . We were guessing and trying and did not get any further . .
Suddenly, one of the others, our most impatient one, one of the a bit more inebriviated players, goes:"fuck it, let us pump the guy they want full of combat drugs and set him lose on them, they want him alive so i figure they are not going to hurt him too much, and we can use him as a distraction and take pot shots at them from cover"
I set on to say something along the lines of:"dude, that's the dumbest idea ever . . " looked over to the GM, saw the horrified face, changed it in mid sentence to:"you know what? it's just about crazy enough to work, let's do it, if everything goes south we'll go out with blazing guns anyway" . . 15 minutes later, the guy we were supposed to guard was down with deadly stun but otherwise completely fine, the opposition was in their last throes and the worst damage any of us had taken was a medium wound . .
quote the GM:"you guys suck!"

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) That's amazing

*nods* he still sometimes complains about that when he is slightly drunk or the others start getting there when he wants to pull his tricks on us again ^^

We were military folks man, from all over the country. Though I have lived only in Arkansas and Texas and have always watched hockey.

Not exactly gaming related (although most of my regular group were present), but nevertheless...

We are standing in front of a club, everybody has finally shown up so the only thing keeping us back is that I haven't yet finished my last prelashing beer. The conversation has been about relationships mostly, and one of the guys announces "It's about time I get laid again" - at which point I have finished my beer and loudly announce "OK, I'm good to go". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Waits, players need to be drunk for that?

Players will always respond with an inappropriate amount of violence. Sometimes too little, usually too much, but never the amount they should.

OMG. Just had the next session last night. I had to arrive a bit late due to family reasons.

The Face, GA, and Mage are there. They finish up their game of "Tragic: The Blathering" and we get ready to start. I've spent around 10-12 hours in the last month preparing and, while I'm always a bit nervous when I GM, I'm looking forward to it.

The Street Sam and the Hacker show up this time and we have a full group. We start playing about 4:30pm.

IRL, the players of the Mage, GA, and SS all work at the same factory and have been working 70-80 hour weeks for the last month. They're a bit on edge. Also, the Mage is the SS and GA's boss (this becomes relevent later).

We're running "Ghost Cartels" and the SS is tailing Alex Littletree and watching him do his thing at the Safehouse in The Verge.

Then the GA starts pulling his "Don't disrespect me or I'll fucking end you" roleplaying style. The Mage is on the commlink with the SS and the GA tries to talk to the MAge. The Mage says to hold on a second til I get off the 'link.

GA goes totaly apeshit! "Don't you fucking dare tell me what to do. If you treat me like a bitch again, I'll fucking kill you."

Now the GA is trying to get all the other players to gang up against to kill the Mage. He insists on being called "sir" and all decisions of the group must be made by him, or at least be approved by him. (of course, by this time the GA's player is very drunk and so is the Mage's player).

The rest of the characters realize that the GA is totally unstable and likely to hunt them down and kill them. They agree to meet him in a park and off him (except the Hacker, he's got the "Pacifist" quality and bails).

Just as it's going down (at 7:30 real time), we decide to break for dinner. It is also when we stop playing, as the mage is so drunk, he's wandering around his yard (we meet at his place) puking in, roughly, 5 minute intervals. The Face and I spend most of the rest of the evening following him, making sure he's ok. By 9:30 the mage decides that he has to head upstairs and head to bed. I've been shit-faced, falling down, puking all over myself drunk before (not in the last 20 years or so), so I understand. Everyone else decides to call it a night, except for the GA's player who wants to stay in the basement where we play, get drunker than he already is, then sleep/pass out on the couch.

I believe I am going to suggest that we go to non-RPG things until the work schedule for the Mage, SS, and GA, slows down a bit. If that doesn't work, I will excuse myself from the group as I don't want to make things weird for the 3 who work together.

I tend not to take things personally, but it makes me sad that we finally get to Shadowrun, and the group may disband.

Any and all comments welcome. I need to laugh at this.

(edited for grammatical correctness)

Well, I've never had drunken ridiculousness at the table, but I did have some guys playing high. They actually didn't do too bad, though they were bitching about food. Stereotypes can be true. Speaking as a college student, most of us have run out of beer by Saturday Morning, or are not in a state to look at alcohol til much later in the day. Mostly I just have to herd hangovers for a while til everyone gets water in them.

Yup, sounds like alcohol.

It's been said now multiple times, but:

No more alcohol at your games.

It's just not working out.

Hell, given some of the described players involved, the GROUP may not be working out.




-k

I vote this one.

Me too.

just say, "your heart stops beating. it will take the docs at Johns Hopkins years to figure out why."
and play without him.

i hate playing with drunks or complete asshats.
(we had a guy that thought that actions took place in realtime, so he kept talking every second about what he was doing. needless to say, someone with a sticky bomb asked him, "corpse says what?")

We always drink something when we play, but nobody would ever start blowing his own lights out during a game. Wouldn´t make much sense if you are not able to follow the run anymore. Strange people are living on this planet...very strange.^^

my buddies usually fall asleep after food from food coma when we are playing . .
leads to funny situations like one of them not doing or reacting to anything, GM rattles of combat, 14D Damage to x's Character.
x suddenly wide awake:"14D DAMAGE?!"

[quote name='Stahlseele' date='May 3
x suddenly wide awake:"14D DAMAGE?!"
[/quote]

Heh! I love it

Here's the next installement in our saga.

First, some RL backstory;

After the mage's falling down drunk last time, I guess he caught some aggro from his wife.

Face and I meet with the Mage and let him know that if the drunk stuff continues to happen, we both will be leaving the group. The Mage tels everyone else that the serious drinking can not continue at his place if we want to keep meeting there.

When we met on 17 June, the SS and Hacker couldn't make it again, so it waa Mage, Face, GA, and me (GM). Also, there was no alcohol in attendance. Wait, the Face has a bit of Saki, Mage and GA did not drink

We agreed to a complete reset of the current campaign arc. Anything that happened after the end of the first time we met for Shadowrun had not happened yet. Now into the game

GA, Face, and Mage were contacted by their fixer. They met with Ms. Johnson at a strip club called “Ticklers”. They were hired to tail Alec Littletree and Xa Firebird (of the First Nations gang) to figure out what they were doing and how they were getting their nuyen.

Davis used a contact to figure out where the warehouse for Alec Littletree was (critical glitch on the contacts part) and decided the easiest way would be to fins a Frist Nations dealer and off they to buy some drugs. At the deal, they were jumped by 10 members of a rival gane. The Mage managed to kill 9 of them with Manaball spell. The group managed to save a few of the First Nations dealers and got taken into a safe house. The Mage Mind Probes one to figure out where Littletree’s hangout is.

They follow Littletree and find that he is dealing tempo to someone of a different gang. They follow Caine to his place, and decide to mug him to use mind probe again. Caine runs them off.

They find Xa Firebird and mind probe him, get nothing out of his mind because of the bonus die die to his magic resistance. They buy 50 tabs of tempo off Firebird.

(this part had me cracking up hard just thinking about it) They hatch a plan to dress up as Cutters drive into First Nations territory, in a sub-compact POS car, mug a first nations gang member (that probably have muscle cars and bullet bikes. Trying to make a getaway in a “Geo Metro” type car being chased by the gang. I laughed so hard at the mental picture). Decide against it, decide to go in with black masks.

They decide to follow 2 First Nations gangers go to the “Stuffer Shack”. The Mage Mind Probes one to get Firebird’s address.

They follow Firebird to a loading dock in Everett, notice a bunch of people in the warehouse and Firebird goes ninja to get over the fence and see what’s going on in the warehouse. The group decides to just observe. A van leaves, they decide to follow and they almost get shot up on I-5.

They go back and talk to Ms. Johnson. She hears what is going on and asks team to frag Firebird.

That is where we broke for the night.

We accomplished more in one night than we did the last two sessions. I was glad!

Congratulations Troyminator. Sounds like your problem might have found a solution to itself. Hope it lasts (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

With people who are not familiar with the setting, mandate their character is someone who has spent several years in coma.. like, say.. 62 or so? Oh, and it's a corp hospital, so they've been playing "What happens if I try this prototype leonisation treatment on them" to explain their relative youth and inexperience with their abilities. They might have had similar abilities during their previous life, their magic may have juyst really kicked them in the face and given them these rough abilities (or they discover them on their own, as an awakening story) or were put there in some bizarre skillwire experiments. The corp might also like it's unusually successful test dummy back.

As a GM or player, my response is basically the same, though adjusted for relative degree of power. As a player, if somebody threatens my character, then I seek an opportunity to be rid of them permanently. As a GM, I make it clear to the players that it's their decision to react however they wish. The moment that belligerent player threatens an NPC, the world responds accordingly. That belligerent player may have just called down Lone Star/Knight Errant/Corpsec (threatening a relatively innocent civilian or officer), local gangs, a bounty on their head, a UCAS counter-terrorist strike force... the possibilities are endless.

Suffice it to say, it'll only be a matter of time before an anti-tank round or overcast spell makes a startling argument about how their behavior has caused too many problems, causing their head to disappear in a red puff of logic.

Realistically, if the party does NOT do something about the issue other than letting it slide, then THEY are equally responsible for any and all impediments that they allow to form against them because of the problem player.

Then again, I'm of the opinion that a GM who's scared to kill off a character is a GM who's too scared to run anything other than a glorified fanfic. Granted, some fanfics are actually well-thought well made, and not every game need include character mortality. OTOH, many fanfics are self-flagellating pieces of crap, and a character that threatens EVERYBODY around him with death is already calling mortality into the game. The same behavior on a playground would get a child punished. In the business world, it generally would get a person fired or arrested. In the shadows of 2070, you can add molested, robbed, 2nd-hand cybered to drop essence (and therefor magic) and capability to nil, and death.

It sounds to me like that behavior went away with the alcohol.