For instance we had someone who chose not to read the rules of shadowrun, constantly talk about how now a days we have communications that you just can't crack (when in shadowrun it is fairly simple,) and literally made a pink mohawk mage in a black trenchcoat game. After we spent a long time to help create his character in his first session he leaves after the very next session.
Any funny or annoying stories of players leaving your table?
Full Version: Stories of players leaving your table
This is a story of an *almost* leaving the table, but still funny.
So, for whatever reason, a couple of my players (who work together and are best friends in RL) decide to pick on each other in-game. It started out simple. The adept, knowing the ex-military guy is always low and funds, having purchased a pay-as-you go commlink plan, sends him redundant messages all the time, which cost him a nuyen per batch of texts. Instead of blocking his texts or talking to him about it, he just stays silent and occaisionally complains about it.
Well, one night, the group (all living in different places) meet out front a cyberdoc for some work. The adept is standing across the street. The ex-military guy, in a rented van that he is living out of, parks a block away and walks toward the adept. No one things anything about it, and then the ex-military guy punches the adept in the face and then says, stop burning my minutes with duplicate texts.
He thinks everything is over at that, but the adept doesn't take too kindly to almost being killed by a very viscious, surprise attack. He pulls out his gun and walks down the block, stands in front of the rented van and fires enough shots into the engine block to make the van no more than a giant paper weight. The ex-military guy is now super-pissed, pulls his gun and a short combat occurs between the two. There are a lot of dodges, cover and so on...
Now the funny thing is, that both players at the table, while all of this is going on, are packing their stuff and getting ready to leave. I'm just watching them do this as it all plays out. The gunfight ends, basically a stalemate, and the two friends, with all their bags packed, standing and ready to leave look at me. I simply say, okay, now let's get back to this mission.
The looks on their faces was priceless...they figured the game was over, if not for the campaign, for the night...but the rest of us still wanted to play. The two unpacked everything and we played on...
Now, the next session, the ex-military guy got shot in the head by a different player for a different reason. But he rolled up a new character and be played for another 6 months or so...
I don't know, it was the first time I actually had players getting ready to leave my table...funny stuff.
So, for whatever reason, a couple of my players (who work together and are best friends in RL) decide to pick on each other in-game. It started out simple. The adept, knowing the ex-military guy is always low and funds, having purchased a pay-as-you go commlink plan, sends him redundant messages all the time, which cost him a nuyen per batch of texts. Instead of blocking his texts or talking to him about it, he just stays silent and occaisionally complains about it.
Well, one night, the group (all living in different places) meet out front a cyberdoc for some work. The adept is standing across the street. The ex-military guy, in a rented van that he is living out of, parks a block away and walks toward the adept. No one things anything about it, and then the ex-military guy punches the adept in the face and then says, stop burning my minutes with duplicate texts.
He thinks everything is over at that, but the adept doesn't take too kindly to almost being killed by a very viscious, surprise attack. He pulls out his gun and walks down the block, stands in front of the rented van and fires enough shots into the engine block to make the van no more than a giant paper weight. The ex-military guy is now super-pissed, pulls his gun and a short combat occurs between the two. There are a lot of dodges, cover and so on...
Now the funny thing is, that both players at the table, while all of this is going on, are packing their stuff and getting ready to leave. I'm just watching them do this as it all plays out. The gunfight ends, basically a stalemate, and the two friends, with all their bags packed, standing and ready to leave look at me. I simply say, okay, now let's get back to this mission.
The looks on their faces was priceless...they figured the game was over, if not for the campaign, for the night...but the rest of us still wanted to play. The two unpacked everything and we played on...
Now, the next session, the ex-military guy got shot in the head by a different player for a different reason. But he rolled up a new character and be played for another 6 months or so...
I don't know, it was the first time I actually had players getting ready to leave my table...funny stuff.
Well over the years I've seen it happen about a half dozen times. Most commonly, and understandably, is when the group is constantly off topic and interrupts everything the GM is trying to do. I've seen GM's leave 2-3 times. I agree with the GM. If you want to talk about a new video game then do it on your own time and don't inconvenience everyone else.
One of my favorite table walks was from a player that always made characters that clashed with existing characters. He always had to have the anti-paladin to your paladin. We tolerated it for a while until he wormed his way into a game that had been going for a while. He knew all the plot and backstory where one of the characters had been made a vampire by a bad guy as a joke to torture the guy, and it worked.
We had to travel all over creation to find someone to cure the vampirism. While the group is traveling to the person to cure the vampirism the new anti-player comes in and his character is a Holier than thou undead hating fool, and I mean fool in the bad way. He helps the party defeat some trolls then asks why the party was protecting an enclosed carriage. It was daytime so the vampire party member was in there trying not to be killed by the sun. Our group is protective of our long time vampiric party member so we tell him not to go anywhere near the carriage and stay on his horse. Well this only sparks his curiosity and he demands to know what is in the carriage.
Out of game we all know that opening the door will likely kill the cursed player. But the anti-player presses on, and forward despite us leveling arrows and preparing spells to stop him. We warn him again that we will stop him. He goes to open the door to see whats in there and we light his ass up like christmas. Needless to say, dead PC. Now we are all pissed off because he wasted 45 minutes of our time for that stupid stunt and he's pissed because we killed his new character, which he thinks was unjustified. Apparently he doesn't realise that he is an Anti-player and pulls out a new character that he had prepared. You see this guy loses a character about every 3-5 gaming sessions because he makes stupid decisions, like wading out into a field of orks and expecting everyone to follow him out of the well defended tower!
Did I mention this guy was 20 or so? Anyways his next player joins the party and when we get to the monastary of an evil god his character starts freaking out. Our party is neutral so his is of course holier than thou. We get into the church and his character tries to kill the cleric while he's performing the remove curse! Again we make him a pincushion and everyone is pissed off enough that we end the night early. We didn't let him come back but he got into another game a few months later with some of the players. Lets just say nothing had changed.
Recently there was a guy that seemed to come to the game just to make fun of people and hack and slash. When there was nothing for him to kill then he would constantly interrupt and make fun of the GM and other players. He drove off the GM who had also had competing family stuff but left because the games had not been worth attending. So thats a GM driven off and he hasn't come back in 6 months. Then we decided to play a new system so when the ass wanted to GM a game we all agreed maybe he'd settle down and stop interrupting. Well he stopped interrupting needlessly but still made fun of players enough to drive another one away, this one we didn't like either so we let that slide. But then a few games later we were in a conversation about rules and how many people try to apply real world logic when it doesn't belong, then only to bitch about it the rest of the game. Most of us has done this but the ass GM was the culprit this time. So one player made an offhand comment about how he hated those immature players and labeled them "dickwads" or something.
So the asshole GM takes this incredibly personally and says he's through being made fun of, despite it being the first time in weeks we've made fun of him. He says F you guys and leaves. We try to tell him "Dude you viciously make fun of us constantly but when we make an offhand comment not directly at him he freaks out! Incidentally I found out later that this 45 year old man let a 13 year old get to him when the child decided to have a come-back to games of being made fun of by the ass. We all said good riddance and now we are playing shadowrun with a good core group. We are trying to get back the original guy we lost but I'm finding SR to be very great.
One of my favorite table walks was from a player that always made characters that clashed with existing characters. He always had to have the anti-paladin to your paladin. We tolerated it for a while until he wormed his way into a game that had been going for a while. He knew all the plot and backstory where one of the characters had been made a vampire by a bad guy as a joke to torture the guy, and it worked.
We had to travel all over creation to find someone to cure the vampirism. While the group is traveling to the person to cure the vampirism the new anti-player comes in and his character is a Holier than thou undead hating fool, and I mean fool in the bad way. He helps the party defeat some trolls then asks why the party was protecting an enclosed carriage. It was daytime so the vampire party member was in there trying not to be killed by the sun. Our group is protective of our long time vampiric party member so we tell him not to go anywhere near the carriage and stay on his horse. Well this only sparks his curiosity and he demands to know what is in the carriage.
Out of game we all know that opening the door will likely kill the cursed player. But the anti-player presses on, and forward despite us leveling arrows and preparing spells to stop him. We warn him again that we will stop him. He goes to open the door to see whats in there and we light his ass up like christmas. Needless to say, dead PC. Now we are all pissed off because he wasted 45 minutes of our time for that stupid stunt and he's pissed because we killed his new character, which he thinks was unjustified. Apparently he doesn't realise that he is an Anti-player and pulls out a new character that he had prepared. You see this guy loses a character about every 3-5 gaming sessions because he makes stupid decisions, like wading out into a field of orks and expecting everyone to follow him out of the well defended tower!
Did I mention this guy was 20 or so? Anyways his next player joins the party and when we get to the monastary of an evil god his character starts freaking out. Our party is neutral so his is of course holier than thou. We get into the church and his character tries to kill the cleric while he's performing the remove curse! Again we make him a pincushion and everyone is pissed off enough that we end the night early. We didn't let him come back but he got into another game a few months later with some of the players. Lets just say nothing had changed.
Recently there was a guy that seemed to come to the game just to make fun of people and hack and slash. When there was nothing for him to kill then he would constantly interrupt and make fun of the GM and other players. He drove off the GM who had also had competing family stuff but left because the games had not been worth attending. So thats a GM driven off and he hasn't come back in 6 months. Then we decided to play a new system so when the ass wanted to GM a game we all agreed maybe he'd settle down and stop interrupting. Well he stopped interrupting needlessly but still made fun of players enough to drive another one away, this one we didn't like either so we let that slide. But then a few games later we were in a conversation about rules and how many people try to apply real world logic when it doesn't belong, then only to bitch about it the rest of the game. Most of us has done this but the ass GM was the culprit this time. So one player made an offhand comment about how he hated those immature players and labeled them "dickwads" or something.
So the asshole GM takes this incredibly personally and says he's through being made fun of, despite it being the first time in weeks we've made fun of him. He says F you guys and leaves. We try to tell him "Dude you viciously make fun of us constantly but when we make an offhand comment not directly at him he freaks out! Incidentally I found out later that this 45 year old man let a 13 year old get to him when the child decided to have a come-back to games of being made fun of by the ass. We all said good riddance and now we are playing shadowrun with a good core group. We are trying to get back the original guy we lost but I'm finding SR to be very great.
At one point my friend was having an RPG/sleepover when I was younger. There was this one friend that he had who was a little.... off. Anyways he made the RP pretty lame and most people just kind of gave up and started playing video games. Later when we all went to sleep at one point I woke up and he was hovering inches from my face looking at me. I asked him what he was doing and he said "Oh nothing. I just really love watching you sleep." After not getting any more sleep for the rest of the night I dropped out of that group until he eventually stopped showing up to game.
The way he answered was stalker creepy... like the time my cousin had a girl who broke into his house just to watch him sleep. He also found my phone number and called me almost every day for three weeks to see if we wanted to hang out.
The way he answered was stalker creepy... like the time my cousin had a girl who broke into his house just to watch him sleep. He also found my phone number and called me almost every day for three weeks to see if we wanted to hang out.
Back when playing SR3 I was GMing a campaign that had been going on for about a year and a half when a new player wanted to join. We had characters come in and out of this game, so anyone stepping in started with 0 earned Karma. Two of my players were playing their original characters still, and had a LOT of karma by this point. New guy brings in an Adept and runs with the group a while, doing pretty good. He starts to resent the higher karma characters however, the street sammie in particular. As the campaign progresses one of the high karma characters dies in Bug City during the quarantine. The rest of the group spends some time in Detroit before heading back to Seattle, where the street sammie has enemies in the Yak. Three assassination attempts later, and the Street Sammie is carted off by Docwagon. Behind the scenes the player tells me that he wants to burn some Karma (eq. to Edge now), pay out a bunch of saved Nuyen and 'remake' his character. Puts word out that he died on the operating table, loses the majority of his contacts, and comes into the game as a 'new' character, renamed Flatline. The Adept is ecstatic as he is now the second highest Karma character, or so he thinks, and he has really been chaffing under the fact that the others so 'out ranked' him. BTW, this campaign was very storyline and role play driven, so the difference in Karma never really made a huge difference, except to the Adept's player.
Anyhow, the group, with their 'new' Sammie get hired to pull a simple data steal. The group completes the job easily and heads out in their escape vehicle. The data is a hardcopy in a manilla envelope, and the group was told the standard caveat, don't copy or check it out beyound making sure that it doesn't contain a tracking device. The Adept wants to double check it and asks to look at it while the group is driving to the meet with Johnson. The Sammie says no, we checked it, it's clean, let's just finish the job. An argument escalated to the Adept, who is in the backseat, shooting the Sammie, who is driving the car... The other two players freak out, since they are also in the car in which the driver was just shot by another passenger. The Sammie takes a Serious wound, and spends a point of Karma to reroll, reducing it to Moderate. After a pause he announces that he will spend two more points to reroll again, and brings it to Light. The Adept player freaks out because new characters only start with one point of karma, and accuses me of cheating and allowing him to start with a higher karma character when he had to start from scratch. He calms down enough where we can finish the scene. The mage in the backseat hits the Adept with a stunbolt and knocks him out. The Sammie pulls over, drags him out of the car, pulls out his SMG and says, "I make his head into a canoe." The Adept asks if he can use the Hand of God rule to save his character. My reply is "No, that can only be used in a situation where your character is going to die because of bad die rolls, it's not a safety switch against bad decisions." We then explain that Flatline is actually the old Street Sammie character with a new name and face, and outraged, the Adept player gathers his things and leaves. And never comes back. The game went on for several more months afterwards, and I consider the BEST Shadowrun campaign I've ever run. The players still talk about it, 7 years later, with nostalgia.
Anyhow, the group, with their 'new' Sammie get hired to pull a simple data steal. The group completes the job easily and heads out in their escape vehicle. The data is a hardcopy in a manilla envelope, and the group was told the standard caveat, don't copy or check it out beyound making sure that it doesn't contain a tracking device. The Adept wants to double check it and asks to look at it while the group is driving to the meet with Johnson. The Sammie says no, we checked it, it's clean, let's just finish the job. An argument escalated to the Adept, who is in the backseat, shooting the Sammie, who is driving the car... The other two players freak out, since they are also in the car in which the driver was just shot by another passenger. The Sammie takes a Serious wound, and spends a point of Karma to reroll, reducing it to Moderate. After a pause he announces that he will spend two more points to reroll again, and brings it to Light. The Adept player freaks out because new characters only start with one point of karma, and accuses me of cheating and allowing him to start with a higher karma character when he had to start from scratch. He calms down enough where we can finish the scene. The mage in the backseat hits the Adept with a stunbolt and knocks him out. The Sammie pulls over, drags him out of the car, pulls out his SMG and says, "I make his head into a canoe." The Adept asks if he can use the Hand of God rule to save his character. My reply is "No, that can only be used in a situation where your character is going to die because of bad die rolls, it's not a safety switch against bad decisions." We then explain that Flatline is actually the old Street Sammie character with a new name and face, and outraged, the Adept player gathers his things and leaves. And never comes back. The game went on for several more months afterwards, and I consider the BEST Shadowrun campaign I've ever run. The players still talk about it, 7 years later, with nostalgia.
im about to drop my current sr3 game because out of the 4 players i have only 1 of them knows the rules. one of the others knows the basics from playing for 3 years without reading and the other two outright refuse to read any of the material and stated they did not like the background. they say they want to play but they dont show any real interest.
the two that wont read are also the kind of people that upset very easy saying they cant participate more in the rp because they dont want to be criticized. ive told them if they read the core book or at least one of the novels they would understand how the world works. they still refuse and after i finish the game we started friday im telling them to either learn the material or we will play steampunk since its dumbed down to the point only the gm would have to know the rules or background to work.
the two that wont read are also the kind of people that upset very easy saying they cant participate more in the rp because they dont want to be criticized. ive told them if they read the core book or at least one of the novels they would understand how the world works. they still refuse and after i finish the game we started friday im telling them to either learn the material or we will play steampunk since its dumbed down to the point only the gm would have to know the rules or background to work.
The one time a player left my table was in a Vampire session. Actually I think it was I (as the GM) that left...
This sounds like cows from space are what the doctor ordered...
Props to Blackjack for this, retired runner may he rest in peace.
- J.
This sounds like cows from space are what the doctor ordered...
Props to Blackjack for this, retired runner may he rest in peace.
QUOTE
Cows From Space
I have no idea who originated this idea but it seems to be a universal concept present in the unspoken architecture of any role playing game. It is a metaphor for ultimate GM control. It essentially involves the dropping of a cow, or other large object, onto the PC when he or she becomes too "disobedient". Now before all you player characters out there spit on the monitor let me carefully give you my definition of "disobedient".
I consider a runner to be disobedient when he or she no longer follows the game premise. Basically, the person is simply not playing the game. Not playing the game is usually achieved through really terrible role playing. I'm not referring to bad role playing as in forgetting to use your southern accent, I'm talking about a decker who never wants to go on any runs and wishes to spend the entire playing session blowing away nuns with an assault cannon. That kind of bad role playing. I'm sure we've all met players like this and if you're a GM trying to run a serious campaign or a player attempting to be true to your archetype it gets to the point that it is impossible to enjoy the game. And as far as I'm concerned if the player doesn't think he has to play the game right, neither do I. Fuck him. This is where the cows come in. It is the GMs method of blatantly telling the player that he is not wanted here. Methods such as gang ambushes or explosions don't work with these people because it may be unclear exactly what the GMs intentions are and muddies the other players perceptions of the GMs methods. There is no arguing with a cow from space.
I've only had to use three cows because the players quickly got the hint and either left or readjusted their attitudes. Cows work, but use them sparingly.
I have no idea who originated this idea but it seems to be a universal concept present in the unspoken architecture of any role playing game. It is a metaphor for ultimate GM control. It essentially involves the dropping of a cow, or other large object, onto the PC when he or she becomes too "disobedient". Now before all you player characters out there spit on the monitor let me carefully give you my definition of "disobedient".
I consider a runner to be disobedient when he or she no longer follows the game premise. Basically, the person is simply not playing the game. Not playing the game is usually achieved through really terrible role playing. I'm not referring to bad role playing as in forgetting to use your southern accent, I'm talking about a decker who never wants to go on any runs and wishes to spend the entire playing session blowing away nuns with an assault cannon. That kind of bad role playing. I'm sure we've all met players like this and if you're a GM trying to run a serious campaign or a player attempting to be true to your archetype it gets to the point that it is impossible to enjoy the game. And as far as I'm concerned if the player doesn't think he has to play the game right, neither do I. Fuck him. This is where the cows come in. It is the GMs method of blatantly telling the player that he is not wanted here. Methods such as gang ambushes or explosions don't work with these people because it may be unclear exactly what the GMs intentions are and muddies the other players perceptions of the GMs methods. There is no arguing with a cow from space.
I've only had to use three cows because the players quickly got the hint and either left or readjusted their attitudes. Cows work, but use them sparingly.
- J.
instead of the orbital bovine strike i used flying rocket powered chainsaws. ive only done it twice but with a damage of 400L it gets the point across if i manage to roll 6 successes on 20 dice.
I had an SR2 (or was it early SR3?) game that I retired from because I got too frustrated with the GM's house rules. We'd been playing SR since 1e and had basically burned out on it. Well, a year or so after the old group fell apart, one of the old crew got the SR itch and decided to run some canned adventures. He ended up with about 8 players (he liked big games). He had a bunch of house rules that addressed several of the perceived problems with the old game. Among them:
* No reflex boosts unless you were playing a Street Samurai or Physical Adept. Even then, we had to virtually beg to get a level 1 boost.
* No armor heavier than an armored jacket.
* No weapons bigger than a SMG, and then only if it was critical to the character (Street Samurai, etc.)
So, I was figuring we'd be playing a low-key game with opponents that were similarly nerfed. Turns out that my assumption was wrong. First session, we get in a fight right after we leave the meet with the Mr. Johnson. Its about 12 gangers to our 8 runners. Shouldn't have been a big deal, right? Well, according to the adventure, the gangers had automatic weapons and a couple had reflex boosts. GM neglected to tone that down. Except for 1 or 2 characters, we died. End of adventure. GM apologized, sort of. He invited us back next week, promising he'd tweak things a bit.
Second session we show up. I made an Elf Adept, mostly because I wanted to get the reflex boost. I even spoke Sperethial. That was a good thing since we discovered we were headed for Tir Na Nog (which only one player knew anything about). This seemed like a really bad idea, but we were assured that it would be okay. It wasn't. We flew commercial, so we had nothing in terms of gear. The contact we were supposed to meet in the Tir to get our temporary equipment never showed. We managed to get accosted by the authorities, who turned out to be Nazi-like in their hatred of non-Elves. Predictably, we got in a fight (my Etiquette rolls failed, completely). Ended up on the run. No money, no gear, and no contacts. We hide out as long as possible (which wasn't long), but ended up getting arrested. Being an Elf, I got a life sentence. The rest got put to death. We never even got to the actual adventure.
And... I never went back. I'm told he finally got it right - more or less - on the third or fourth try. Oh well.
-paws
* No reflex boosts unless you were playing a Street Samurai or Physical Adept. Even then, we had to virtually beg to get a level 1 boost.
* No armor heavier than an armored jacket.
* No weapons bigger than a SMG, and then only if it was critical to the character (Street Samurai, etc.)
So, I was figuring we'd be playing a low-key game with opponents that were similarly nerfed. Turns out that my assumption was wrong. First session, we get in a fight right after we leave the meet with the Mr. Johnson. Its about 12 gangers to our 8 runners. Shouldn't have been a big deal, right? Well, according to the adventure, the gangers had automatic weapons and a couple had reflex boosts. GM neglected to tone that down. Except for 1 or 2 characters, we died. End of adventure. GM apologized, sort of. He invited us back next week, promising he'd tweak things a bit.
Second session we show up. I made an Elf Adept, mostly because I wanted to get the reflex boost. I even spoke Sperethial. That was a good thing since we discovered we were headed for Tir Na Nog (which only one player knew anything about). This seemed like a really bad idea, but we were assured that it would be okay. It wasn't. We flew commercial, so we had nothing in terms of gear. The contact we were supposed to meet in the Tir to get our temporary equipment never showed. We managed to get accosted by the authorities, who turned out to be Nazi-like in their hatred of non-Elves. Predictably, we got in a fight (my Etiquette rolls failed, completely). Ended up on the run. No money, no gear, and no contacts. We hide out as long as possible (which wasn't long), but ended up getting arrested. Being an Elf, I got a life sentence. The rest got put to death. We never even got to the actual adventure.
And... I never went back. I'm told he finally got it right - more or less - on the third or fourth try. Oh well.
-paws
i did not try to walk from one game, i only tried to get my character killed . . turns out, that's pretty hard to accomplish with my trolls, no matter if it's an NPC from the GM or myself trying to kill him . . i finally had my character at about 1 box before deadly physical damage, while standing proud with a sword in and a foot on the body of a fallen NPC waiting for his buddies to come and kill him in revenge . . well, they show up and barely!!!! manage to put him one box into overflow . . GM sighs, takes my sheet and skims it over, mourning the loss of the character and all the fancy toys i had in there . . then he suddenly gets very quiet and does some rolls with dice . . eyebrows rising untill they are about to meet and greet his hairline . .
gm clears throat:"ok, everybody aside from our big pile of meat (my character) roll for perception, then for [insert assorted knowledge skills] then for reaction", in one case he used the common sense and after that asked for 2 body rolls from other characters . .
he looks at the results, relieved sigh coming from his lips, he looks much too happy right now . . i am kinda getting nervous . .
then he goes on in greatest detail to describe what happens . . a goddamn loud screaming noise, an explosion, the frigging wall caves in, a PLANK gets shoved through the whole(3rd floor by the way) and an infernal assault on all senses . . an in comes a whole armored and armed squad of Doc Wagon Goons . . he hands me back the sheet, i am totally confused, he points to the VERY LAST LINE on the sheet . . where i read:
Doc
Wagon
Super
Platinum
Contract
TROLLMOD
i had completely forgotten about that . . i only bought that because i had so much money left after i was finished building the character . .
and i held the sheet in a manner so i would most of the time not get to see the lower part of the pages . .
yep, the character actually is still alive somehwere in germany, being taken care of by relatives in the troll kingdom of schwarzwald(blackwood) having lost one or two of his implants and will probably not ever make it back into play . . but he's still alive . . despite my best shots at getting him killed off . .
i am still the laughing stock of most everybody i know for that . . even people i never played shadowrun with . . i get introduced as "Neke" face confused . . then the eyes get big and round and there comes the inevitable:"you mean, that guy with the Troll Sized Doc Wagon Super Platinum??" cue laughter alla round and groans from me . . bah <.< . .
other time, other GM, i actiually DID walk . . because he kept house-ruling and changing the rules on us and me in special, because he did not really want to deal with the combat mechanics my character used . . and bitched at me/us when we actually intended to take advantage of one of his very own house rules . . restricting gear for us, and when we get to fight people using the nice heavy ruger thunderbolt pistols and we manage to DROP them each with at least m or S wound on us, then he completely ignores our calls of I PICK UP ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT BLEW HOLES IN ME! . . and later on when we tried to actually get him to stop so we could do some maintenance on us or loot or look around . . every NPC explodes. and if we don't stop and the NPC's are in the way and we try to walk over them . . every NPC explodes again . . then we get hired to bodyguard an accountant under cover . . turns out that beancounter was a high level initiate spellslinging physical adept . . and he sics 6 full mages on us to stunball us so we drop . . i let such behavour slide for about 3 sessions and then complained to and about him . . 3 sessions later, no improvement on his part . . i basically told the rest of the group to keep far away from my character and loaded him up with as much explosives as a troll can carry and wired that up to a biomonitor and write this down in a couvert and sealed it . . then i walked straight in enemy line of sight into an base we were meant to sabotage and started shooting at averybody i could see . . of course, he goes on to kill my character, i open the letter and show him what i did and what the results will be . . one pissed off GM and one player less for his group . . and no, when he's not GMing but playing a character in my two other groups, he's basically exactly the same . .
gm clears throat:"ok, everybody aside from our big pile of meat (my character) roll for perception, then for [insert assorted knowledge skills] then for reaction", in one case he used the common sense and after that asked for 2 body rolls from other characters . .
he looks at the results, relieved sigh coming from his lips, he looks much too happy right now . . i am kinda getting nervous . .
then he goes on in greatest detail to describe what happens . . a goddamn loud screaming noise, an explosion, the frigging wall caves in, a PLANK gets shoved through the whole(3rd floor by the way) and an infernal assault on all senses . . an in comes a whole armored and armed squad of Doc Wagon Goons . . he hands me back the sheet, i am totally confused, he points to the VERY LAST LINE on the sheet . . where i read:
Doc
Wagon
Super
Platinum
Contract
TROLLMOD
i had completely forgotten about that . . i only bought that because i had so much money left after i was finished building the character . .
and i held the sheet in a manner so i would most of the time not get to see the lower part of the pages . .
yep, the character actually is still alive somehwere in germany, being taken care of by relatives in the troll kingdom of schwarzwald(blackwood) having lost one or two of his implants and will probably not ever make it back into play . . but he's still alive . . despite my best shots at getting him killed off . .
i am still the laughing stock of most everybody i know for that . . even people i never played shadowrun with . . i get introduced as "Neke" face confused . . then the eyes get big and round and there comes the inevitable:"you mean, that guy with the Troll Sized Doc Wagon Super Platinum??" cue laughter alla round and groans from me . . bah <.< . .
other time, other GM, i actiually DID walk . . because he kept house-ruling and changing the rules on us and me in special, because he did not really want to deal with the combat mechanics my character used . . and bitched at me/us when we actually intended to take advantage of one of his very own house rules . . restricting gear for us, and when we get to fight people using the nice heavy ruger thunderbolt pistols and we manage to DROP them each with at least m or S wound on us, then he completely ignores our calls of I PICK UP ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT BLEW HOLES IN ME! . . and later on when we tried to actually get him to stop so we could do some maintenance on us or loot or look around . . every NPC explodes. and if we don't stop and the NPC's are in the way and we try to walk over them . . every NPC explodes again . . then we get hired to bodyguard an accountant under cover . . turns out that beancounter was a high level initiate spellslinging physical adept . . and he sics 6 full mages on us to stunball us so we drop . . i let such behavour slide for about 3 sessions and then complained to and about him . . 3 sessions later, no improvement on his part . . i basically told the rest of the group to keep far away from my character and loaded him up with as much explosives as a troll can carry and wired that up to a biomonitor and write this down in a couvert and sealed it . . then i walked straight in enemy line of sight into an base we were meant to sabotage and started shooting at averybody i could see . . of course, he goes on to kill my character, i open the letter and show him what i did and what the results will be . . one pissed off GM and one player less for his group . . and no, when he's not GMing but playing a character in my two other groups, he's basically exactly the same . .
QUOTE (Maelstrome @ Jan 12 2009, 10:23 PM) 
instead of the orbital bovine strike i used flying rocket powered chainsaws. ive only done it twice but with a damage of 400L it gets the point across if i manage to roll 6 successes on 20 dice.
Personally, I prefer cows.
- J.
I hate it when GM's get on powertrips. Some want to change the rules so they are more realistic. Some want to limit items only so they can hoard the cool stuff. Various stuff like that pisses me off. I have heard of one guy in town here that actually GM's the game to beat the players. He uses out of game knowledge to screw the players at every turn and there is no reasoning for it.
If your a GM you should game in a way that makes your players happy so that you in turn are happy. If your not capable of getting pleasure from helping people. DON"T GM!
If your a GM you should game in a way that makes your players happy so that you in turn are happy. If your not capable of getting pleasure from helping people. DON"T GM!
ok G-to-the-W are you directing that at anyone or are you just talking?
Players walking? Only back in my days of GMing at secondary school (ages 11-16). And to be honest in most cases it was due to RL disputes that just got exacerbated by disagreements over the game. I know I had my fair share of blow-ups at GMs or players, which weren't much deserved (but hey, everyone's a little shit sometimes when they're 14).
I do remember that one time a couple of players finally convinced me to run a Dragonball Z game through incessant nagging. The game (inevitably) died after the players refused to believe that the villain I created (because seriously, you actually expect me to try to write a plot around a DBZ villain? Even at 14 I had more sense than that) could have killed one of the existing DBZ villains. Freezer (Friza?) I think. The phrase "But his power level is over 1 million" actually got used.
Ironically, about 3 months later said same players were ranting about the "awesome" recent events in DBZ wherein a new character introduced to the series had demolished Friza in about 3 seconds flat... or less time than it took my villain to do so. Ah joy.
I do remember that one time a couple of players finally convinced me to run a Dragonball Z game through incessant nagging. The game (inevitably) died after the players refused to believe that the villain I created (because seriously, you actually expect me to try to write a plot around a DBZ villain? Even at 14 I had more sense than that) could have killed one of the existing DBZ villains. Freezer (Friza?) I think. The phrase "But his power level is over 1 million" actually got used.
Ironically, about 3 months later said same players were ranting about the "awesome" recent events in DBZ wherein a new character introduced to the series had demolished Friza in about 3 seconds flat... or less time than it took my villain to do so. Ah joy.
Is not a leaving the table story, but fits in with the cows from space bit. Or the stuff from space anyway.
Playing a game of V:tM, we stumbled upon some weird happenings, leading to some weird findings, and lots of crazy stuff. Now, for a bunch of blood sucking fiends of the night to all be scratching their heads going what the heck is this, you know it is some crazy stuff going on. After three or four sessions of investigating, getting launched in an elevator through the roof of a building, and having all kinds of other total weirdness happen, we finally find a couple of the guys we were looking for...
On the 7th floor of the Hilton towers with the elevator doors closing. PCs and NPCs get shocked looks on their faces, then the doors close and the elevator starts down. We tried to open the doors, but even our umber strong Nos couldn't. So I sayz, /F/ it! I kicked in a room door, ran through the room, threw open the balcony door, and jumped off the edge. Falling down the roughly 65~70' to the ground below. Damage out the /A/, but I pump the max healing out for 2 rounds and jump up.
Run out onto the road just as their car comes out of the parking garage and proceed to give chase on foot. Now there were three things my character did really well. Be very charming (talking Pornomacer level here...), spot details, and move *VERY* fast for short periods of time. When we did the math to found out just how fast, realizing that humans hit their top speed instantly, he shot out at a little over 160mph and did 0.25 miles in a combat round (how long the power lasted). Needless to say, I caught the back of the car and smashed the window in. The passenger freaked out and shot me, blowing me off the back of the car.
So as I stumble to my feet and begin to do the super speed sprint trick again, the really weird thing happened. Something fell from the sky and bonked my character in the head. Did so much damage that it layed my character out. After healing a bit I managed to crawl over to see what the hell it was while pulling out the cell to call the rest of the guys to come pick my busted up /A/ up. Find the thing, some weird chunk of plastic, metal, and ceramic. So I start looking over it as I waited. Then I found a bit of text on it that let me know what it was.
Seems I was hit in the head... wait for it... with a piece of the International Space Station.
Found out later that there was a Mage crossover going on. So... how powerful does a Mage have to be that an attack spell he throws can use a gawd damn /F/ing piece of the International Space Station hitting you as a coincidental effect?
Playing a game of V:tM, we stumbled upon some weird happenings, leading to some weird findings, and lots of crazy stuff. Now, for a bunch of blood sucking fiends of the night to all be scratching their heads going what the heck is this, you know it is some crazy stuff going on. After three or four sessions of investigating, getting launched in an elevator through the roof of a building, and having all kinds of other total weirdness happen, we finally find a couple of the guys we were looking for...
On the 7th floor of the Hilton towers with the elevator doors closing. PCs and NPCs get shocked looks on their faces, then the doors close and the elevator starts down. We tried to open the doors, but even our umber strong Nos couldn't. So I sayz, /F/ it! I kicked in a room door, ran through the room, threw open the balcony door, and jumped off the edge. Falling down the roughly 65~70' to the ground below. Damage out the /A/, but I pump the max healing out for 2 rounds and jump up.
Run out onto the road just as their car comes out of the parking garage and proceed to give chase on foot. Now there were three things my character did really well. Be very charming (talking Pornomacer level here...), spot details, and move *VERY* fast for short periods of time. When we did the math to found out just how fast, realizing that humans hit their top speed instantly, he shot out at a little over 160mph and did 0.25 miles in a combat round (how long the power lasted). Needless to say, I caught the back of the car and smashed the window in. The passenger freaked out and shot me, blowing me off the back of the car.
So as I stumble to my feet and begin to do the super speed sprint trick again, the really weird thing happened. Something fell from the sky and bonked my character in the head. Did so much damage that it layed my character out. After healing a bit I managed to crawl over to see what the hell it was while pulling out the cell to call the rest of the guys to come pick my busted up /A/ up. Find the thing, some weird chunk of plastic, metal, and ceramic. So I start looking over it as I waited. Then I found a bit of text on it that let me know what it was.
Seems I was hit in the head... wait for it... with a piece of the International Space Station.
Found out later that there was a Mage crossover going on. So... how powerful does a Mage have to be that an attack spell he throws can use a gawd damn /F/ing piece of the International Space Station hitting you as a coincidental effect?
QUOTE (Graushwein @ Jan 12 2009, 07:26 PM)
I hate it when GM's get on powertrips. Some want to change the rules so they are more realistic. Some want to limit items only so they can hoard the cool stuff. Various stuff like that pisses me off. I have heard of one guy in town here that actually GM's the game to beat the players. He uses out of game knowledge to screw the players at every turn and there is no reasoning for it.
If your a GM you should game in a way that makes your players happy so that you in turn are happy. If your not capable of getting pleasure from helping people. DON"T GM!
If your a GM you should game in a way that makes your players happy so that you in turn are happy. If your not capable of getting pleasure from helping people. DON"T GM!
I'm just talking. My current GM was great in the one game I've played under him. I don't think I know anyone on these boards. I'm in Louisville KY. USA
I always use a Sacred Fucking Cow for my random character annihilation. I never go into detail beyond the fact that it's Sacred, it's a Cow, and I like to add the word "Fucking" in the middle to really drive my point home. I have only had to use it once and the word got around my whole small town's gaming community that I'm a "Killer GM" because I squished some complete asshat's character with a Sacred Fucking Cow.
QUOTE (Graushwein @ Jan 13 2009, 01:33 AM)
I'm just talking. My current GM was great in the one game I've played under him. I don't think I know anyone on these boards. I'm in Louisville KY. USA
i just noticed you are new, welcome to dumpshock. im one of the third edition people. the majority here i assume is now forth.
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Jan 13 2009, 01:13 AM)
/snip
So... how powerful does a Mage have to be that an attack spell he throws can use a gawd damn /F/ing piece of the International Space Station hitting you as a coincidental effect?
So... how powerful does a Mage have to be that an attack spell he throws can use a gawd damn /F/ing piece of the International Space Station hitting you as a coincidental effect?
Meh. I'd rule that vulgar as hell. Still, maybe the mage could suck up that much paradox. more likely the GM didn't want you to catch the mages since they would probably all have died, and how displeased would you be if you came to a session and the GM said, "I'm afraid I killed all your PCs while you weren't here"?
I don't know about all of em. I was pretty /F/ed up and low on go juice before he hit me with a piece of the ISS. Anyway, that game was like 11 years ago and the guys back home still joke about it.
Only time it ever happened for me it was effectively a deliberate action that was pushed by me as GM with the backing of the rest of the team. A guy we'd played with on and off since the AD&D days wanted to join in on SR2nd which was great. At this time the rest of the team had been running for a while and had developed their characters quite well, but they'd paid for those karma points with bucketloads of bullets, blood, and sweat. I reckon at this stage each character had probably accumulated in the reigon of 50-60 karma points that they had spent on improving themselves as well as a decent stack of money invested in new gear and ware.
So along comes said new guy, and after a little discussion it was agreed that he should not have to start off with a base build but could use an additional 20 karma to boost the character to be clsoer to par with the rest of the team.
After the first afternoon part with his new character - I was absolutely mesmerised at how he had achieved to create the character within bounds. Granted i should probably have checked and approved it before letting him at the table, but these we all had played together in various systems before and generally people followed the rules and lines and made good characters, so it was pretty much a delegated responsibility. Now you could argue since he was new, but had spent 2 weeks reading all the rule books we had, that he might had made some minor errors, but at the dinner break where he went on the pizza-run, we could not back-calculate the character in any way to having spent less than 128 karma points extra!!!
On return when a couple from the team confronted him, he plainly refused and argued that he was simply better at combining the rules and find the right solutions for his character. This only achieved to annoy pretty much all the people at the table, but rather than simply ousting him for cheating, he got set up on every single occasion from then on in. Whenever someone on the team would spot an enemy, they'd send him in first, some even "accidentally" lobbed a couple of grenades in his direction, and someone "accidentally" pushed him into the path of a highpowered sniper rifle. Needles to say, within a short amount of time, he was feeling the heat and was shot to pieces. When he got angry and accused everyone at the team to be bad players, they took it one step further and planted the last bullet in his head to ensure he staid down without chance of coming back. That did it and he stomped off while the rest of the team returned to the run at hand.
But I think he learned from it - he returned two weeks later with a significantly better character, who ended up being a core part of the team, and he played with the guys for about a year after that.
So along comes said new guy, and after a little discussion it was agreed that he should not have to start off with a base build but could use an additional 20 karma to boost the character to be clsoer to par with the rest of the team.
After the first afternoon part with his new character - I was absolutely mesmerised at how he had achieved to create the character within bounds. Granted i should probably have checked and approved it before letting him at the table, but these we all had played together in various systems before and generally people followed the rules and lines and made good characters, so it was pretty much a delegated responsibility. Now you could argue since he was new, but had spent 2 weeks reading all the rule books we had, that he might had made some minor errors, but at the dinner break where he went on the pizza-run, we could not back-calculate the character in any way to having spent less than 128 karma points extra!!!
On return when a couple from the team confronted him, he plainly refused and argued that he was simply better at combining the rules and find the right solutions for his character. This only achieved to annoy pretty much all the people at the table, but rather than simply ousting him for cheating, he got set up on every single occasion from then on in. Whenever someone on the team would spot an enemy, they'd send him in first, some even "accidentally" lobbed a couple of grenades in his direction, and someone "accidentally" pushed him into the path of a highpowered sniper rifle. Needles to say, within a short amount of time, he was feeling the heat and was shot to pieces. When he got angry and accused everyone at the team to be bad players, they took it one step further and planted the last bullet in his head to ensure he staid down without chance of coming back. That did it and he stomped off while the rest of the team returned to the run at hand.
But I think he learned from it - he returned two weeks later with a significantly better character, who ended up being a core part of the team, and he played with the guys for about a year after that.
I was running WOD once, and a player seemed to be rolling fistfuls of dice for everything. I checked out his sheet and asked him how he had afforded everything. He told me he had taken 36 points of flaws (this in a system which limits you to 7), but hadn't written them down. I asked him to let me have them and he said sure, but he never did. After I picked the flaws and gave him the list he stopped coming to the game.
I went out on a limb and asked my wife to stop playing at my table. She's a Vet student and was so tired on the weekends that she'd consistently fall asleep. We had an Intervention and she stopped playing. Note really a great story, but there may not be many who would boot their wives from their gaming table and live to tell about it 
In one SR4 Game, the team decided to relocate to a new city. Being new to the city, we needed to get some new contact. A group of 3 of us, plus an astral mage went find anyone who could help. The players approached a group of 4 gang-members. Our one member who was playing two rolls (a Street-Sam and the Astral Mage). The Street-Sam walk up said “hi� and receive the finger form the gang-members. He then pulled out his gun and pointed it at them and started to threaten the gang-members. The gang members pulled back their coats to show they had guns as well.
The Street-Sam then shoots the gang-member for showing his gun. The 3 other gang-members start to pull their weapons and I cast Mob-Mind, so the situation would not get out of hand. I control all four gang-members plus the Street-Sam. I order everyone to holster their weapons and order the 3 standing gang-member to walk a way.
Since the same player was playing the Street-Sam and the Astral Mage, he considered the Mob-Mind spell to be a player on player attack on him. He, as the Astral Mage, orders his 2 elementals to attack me. The third player wants nothing to with our fight and just leaves. So I’m facing an astral mage, 2 elemental and Street-Sam that I’m controlling at the moment. As I was using Mana-Bolt to deal with the elementals. The Astral Mage was trying to dispel my Mob-Mind spell. Well my Magic Attribute was a 7. His was a 4. So when he had to take the drain form the dispelling attempt it was physical and Mob-Mind is a (F/2)+4 spell, ie 7.
After 2 Combat Turn. I had destroyed the Elemental and the Astral Mage failed twice on dispelling the Mob-Mind spell and killed himself in the process. I drop my spell releasing the Street-Sam. I played it a little dumb, like “where in the hell did those elementals come form�. Well the Street-Sam shot me. The Street-Sam had 3 IP and I only had 1 IP. Some how, I survived 3 single gunshot form a heavy pistol, when it became my turn to act, I refused to attack a party member. I was shot a 4th time, that shot drop me to the ground. I turned to the player and said that I was not quite dead, and could be brought back. He shot my charter again, and I was dead and gone.
At this time he (astral mage & street-sam) stated that he wasn’t going to play in a game where it was player vs. player. The GM was on my side stating that he started the player v.s. player fight and that I never attach either of his charters, and then convinced him to hang around for one more game. He left after the next game since none of the other charter wanted his charter around, and he refused to create a new one.
The Street-Sam then shoots the gang-member for showing his gun. The 3 other gang-members start to pull their weapons and I cast Mob-Mind, so the situation would not get out of hand. I control all four gang-members plus the Street-Sam. I order everyone to holster their weapons and order the 3 standing gang-member to walk a way.
Since the same player was playing the Street-Sam and the Astral Mage, he considered the Mob-Mind spell to be a player on player attack on him. He, as the Astral Mage, orders his 2 elementals to attack me. The third player wants nothing to with our fight and just leaves. So I’m facing an astral mage, 2 elemental and Street-Sam that I’m controlling at the moment. As I was using Mana-Bolt to deal with the elementals. The Astral Mage was trying to dispel my Mob-Mind spell. Well my Magic Attribute was a 7. His was a 4. So when he had to take the drain form the dispelling attempt it was physical and Mob-Mind is a (F/2)+4 spell, ie 7.
After 2 Combat Turn. I had destroyed the Elemental and the Astral Mage failed twice on dispelling the Mob-Mind spell and killed himself in the process. I drop my spell releasing the Street-Sam. I played it a little dumb, like “where in the hell did those elementals come form�. Well the Street-Sam shot me. The Street-Sam had 3 IP and I only had 1 IP. Some how, I survived 3 single gunshot form a heavy pistol, when it became my turn to act, I refused to attack a party member. I was shot a 4th time, that shot drop me to the ground. I turned to the player and said that I was not quite dead, and could be brought back. He shot my charter again, and I was dead and gone.
At this time he (astral mage & street-sam) stated that he wasn’t going to play in a game where it was player vs. player. The GM was on my side stating that he started the player v.s. player fight and that I never attach either of his charters, and then convinced him to hang around for one more game. He left after the next game since none of the other charter wanted his charter around, and he refused to create a new one.
Dashifen I am outraged that you would do something like that. To make amends you should give me your awesome GM SR4 spreadsheets. = D
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Jan 12 2009, 06:13 PM)
Found out later that there was a Mage crossover going on. So... how powerful does a Mage have to be that an attack spell he throws can use a gawd damn /F/ing piece of the International Space Station hitting you as a coincidental effect?
Not very, though you'd need a lot of successes. A mage with either Correspondence 2, Entropy 2, or Correspondence 2, Forces 2, or Correspondence 2, Matter 2 could do it. Just enough luck and you get killed by a toilet seat from Mir, or just enough forces to change a piece of debris' trajectory to get it to hit you or just teleport a small piece of junk high enough that when it drops on you, you die. Either way though, you're looking at 10-20 successes on extended rolls to pull it off for the first 2 ways of doing it, maybe 3-5 on the latter, depending on where you're pulling the junk from.
Using higher levels of the spheres would make it easier to do, but potentially more vulgar as you have to more violently change reality.
It *could* be coincidental, but even if you made it vulgar without witnesses, he'd have taken all of 3 points of paradox, which is nothing, really.
(Yes, I play Mage a lot, why do you ask?)
I left a table last year.
When I first got there, I'd played 1st and 2nd but no 3rd. As this was a 3rd game, I used character the GM had sitting around. Over the course of the next few months, I broke out the various rule books to understand my character (Street Sam). As I tried to calculate the various values (like essence) and modifiers for gear, I found out the GM was using 2nd Ed rules in 3rd. Not a problem other than trying to reverse engineer the character
Anyway, when I first got to the game, the GM smoked those clove cigarettes out on his porch. It wasn't all that bad and the game was going well enough. I found out a month later that his wife was pregnant which was why he was smoking cloves on the back porch. When she had the baby, we all changed venues for a month. When we returned, they had both returned to smoking cigarettes. Even though he was nice and went onto the back porch to smoke, the house reeked of smoke. So bad that the first game back, I was a little dizzy by the end of the session. The next week I was feeling a bit sick, was dizzy, and couldn't concentrate on the game. I decided to bail at that point and sent him a quick note apologizing for bailing (his response was "f*ck him").
A few months later, he'd pissed of enough folk that they had contacted me to run a Shadowrun game for them instead of going to his place. While we were discussing it a few days later on Saturday, we got a call that he'd been found in contempt of court (child support payment issues) and had been sent to jail for 6 months.
Carl
When I first got there, I'd played 1st and 2nd but no 3rd. As this was a 3rd game, I used character the GM had sitting around. Over the course of the next few months, I broke out the various rule books to understand my character (Street Sam). As I tried to calculate the various values (like essence) and modifiers for gear, I found out the GM was using 2nd Ed rules in 3rd. Not a problem other than trying to reverse engineer the character
Anyway, when I first got to the game, the GM smoked those clove cigarettes out on his porch. It wasn't all that bad and the game was going well enough. I found out a month later that his wife was pregnant which was why he was smoking cloves on the back porch. When she had the baby, we all changed venues for a month. When we returned, they had both returned to smoking cigarettes. Even though he was nice and went onto the back porch to smoke, the house reeked of smoke. So bad that the first game back, I was a little dizzy by the end of the session. The next week I was feeling a bit sick, was dizzy, and couldn't concentrate on the game. I decided to bail at that point and sent him a quick note apologizing for bailing (his response was "f*ck him").
A few months later, he'd pissed of enough folk that they had contacted me to run a Shadowrun game for them instead of going to his place. While we were discussing it a few days later on Saturday, we got a call that he'd been found in contempt of court (child support payment issues) and had been sent to jail for 6 months.
Carl
QUOTE (Jhaiisiin @ Jan 13 2009, 01:22 PM)
*SNIP*
It *could* be coincidental, but even if you made it vulgar without witnesses, he'd have taken all of 3 points of paradox, which is nothing, really.
(Yes, I play Mage a lot, why do you ask?)
It *could* be coincidental, but even if you made it vulgar without witnesses, he'd have taken all of 3 points of paradox, which is nothing, really.
(Yes, I play Mage a lot, why do you ask?)
Yea, well... all I know for sure is that it hurt a lot. I'm pretty sure the two Mages in the car were 3s and 4s in their spheres. At a later point in a fight with the one who was driving (not the one who cracked me upside the head), my pistol just happen to run out of ammo because it seems "I had forgotten to completely fill the clip".
The game metaplot (we learned later) boiled down to a few Tradition Mages trying to learn more about the blood suckers and figure out if there was some way they could set us against the Technocracy. They did pull that off nicely too, with us ending up staging a raid against a Techno building and causing all kinds of trouble.
I don't have any good stories of players leaving the tables (which is probobly why I have 8 players.) However, I recently traed a player with a the D&D game down the hall, due to schedule shuffle.
QUOTE (InfinityzeN @ Jan 13 2009, 12:11 PM)
Yea, well... all I know for sure is that it hurt a lot. I'm pretty sure the two Mages in the car were 3s and 4s in their spheres. At a later point in a fight with the one who was driving (not the one who cracked me upside the head), my pistol just happen to run out of ammo because it seems "I had forgotten to completely fill the clip".
The game metaplot (we learned later) boiled down to a few Tradition Mages trying to learn more about the blood suckers and figure out if there was some way they could set us against the Technocracy. They did pull that off nicely too, with us ending up staging a raid against a Techno building and causing all kinds of trouble.
The game metaplot (we learned later) boiled down to a few Tradition Mages trying to learn more about the blood suckers and figure out if there was some way they could set us against the Technocracy. They did pull that off nicely too, with us ending up staging a raid against a Techno building and causing all kinds of trouble.
Yeah, mages suck like that. Fastest way to upset your GM is to blood bond another mage, and use them for countermagick and warding. Neutralizes enemy mages rather quickly that way. Removing a blood bond is *possible* for a mage, but we're talking high levels of multiple spheres to do it, and once they're bound, you can just tell them they don't want to be unbound, and that keeps them from even finding a cure. Fun times.
QUOTE (masterofm @ Jan 13 2009, 12:50 PM)
Dashifen I am outraged that you would do something like that. To make amends you should give me your awesome GM SR4 spreadsheets. = D
You are asking for the wrong thing. You should ask for the treasure beyond compare.
Hi,
Well thinking back on worse experiences ever... There was this one guy we used to game with, it was a lot of fun since we gamed with Mixu. We played the game for two years and had our characters retire (we all played space feminists). Anyways the GM started up a new game of GURPS at the university and of course I get an invite. I was eighteen at the time. My mom and I were going through teen issues. As in I was out all night and she stayed up wondering if I was alive or not. So any excuse to get out of the house was accompanied by me being out of the house.
Anyways at the university we went down to the guild room which he was using. I was expecting the usual crowd to show up, but it was him and a bunch of other people I had not seen before. Not like I haven't played before I decide to give it a shot and we start to play (You create your characters way before the game in GURPS if you want to retain any sanity). The whole time I just felt really uncomfortable as I kept on being stared at, and there was this strange divergences into comments about women and then dropped. After being thoroughly creeped out I made a lame excuse of double booking and left quite quickly.
Well thinking back on worse experiences ever... There was this one guy we used to game with, it was a lot of fun since we gamed with Mixu. We played the game for two years and had our characters retire (we all played space feminists). Anyways the GM started up a new game of GURPS at the university and of course I get an invite. I was eighteen at the time. My mom and I were going through teen issues. As in I was out all night and she stayed up wondering if I was alive or not. So any excuse to get out of the house was accompanied by me being out of the house.
Anyways at the university we went down to the guild room which he was using. I was expecting the usual crowd to show up, but it was him and a bunch of other people I had not seen before. Not like I haven't played before I decide to give it a shot and we start to play (You create your characters way before the game in GURPS if you want to retain any sanity). The whole time I just felt really uncomfortable as I kept on being stared at, and there was this strange divergences into comments about women and then dropped. After being thoroughly creeped out I made a lame excuse of double booking and left quite quickly.
This prompted me to resurrect my SR resume thread.
My only table-leaving experience involves me leaving. (CAUTION: Long)
Back in high school, I had GMed a few sessions of Shadowrun 2nd ed. with my regular group. It was really basic, just using the core book and the Seattle supplement. We had fallen in love with the setting, but at the time, my players hated the rules, so we ended up playing something else.
At some point, I met a guy (I'll call him Munchkin, you'll see why) who was running a Shadowrun game. I thought it would be nice to go back to the Sixth World and agreed. Munchkin had even told me he would lend me any book I needed to create my character, since he had ALL of them. So I get to his house one night after school, and tell him I'd like to play an elf hermetist if it's okay with him. Munchkin was thrilled, because there was no mage in the group. So he lends me A WHOLE LOT of sourcebooks: name a topic, he had a book about it. He was using that optional character creation system where you use points instead of priorities and says: "The book recommends 100 points, but you'll need 210 in our campaign." (I don't remember exactly how it was but it was really over the top, like a 4th edition character with 800 BPs...) So I go home with way too many SR supplements, and start making my character. Needless to say, I ended up not knowing what to do with my points. There was too many books for me (I was just used to the basic rules) and I ended up buying silly skills like "Sitcom Trivia" and "Nightclub knowledge" just beacause I couldn't find a use for all those points. Anyways, long story short, it was too much (books-wise and points-wise) for a newbie like me.
And then the game night came. I showed up with my club-hopping, Trideo-obsessed elf mage. Munchkin looked at my character, and his jaw dropped. He asked me why my stats were not all maxed out, as if it was really bad. I told him that, for instance, my mage had no reason to have Strength and Body at 6 because he was physically average, and that his mental attributes were higher because he's educated, etc., but that I didn't picture my character as being perfect at everything. Same thing for skills: the guy was bad at some stuff, good at other stuff, and so on. At that point, everybody was giving me this weird wide-eyed look, as if a thought had occured to them for the first time: the thought of building a character based on his/her personality and background. Now, you may think it's obvious, but these guys had never thought of statting out a character based on who he is... (The other players ended up showing me their sheets, and they all had every attribute and skill maxed out, for no other reason than that they had the points to do it.) I was finally told why Munchkin had given so many build points. It was specifically calibrated so that anyone could have 6s everywhere, and that was the only intended purpose, because it was supposed to be a really epic campaign. So I thought it made sense, but decided to keep my mage as is, because I liked him.
Then the game began... at least that's what I thought. Munchkin had a co-GM to run the campaign because it was "too complex to handle alone" or so I was told. However, I never really knew how epic and complex it was beacause the two GMs could never agree on anything, and when they did, the in-house Rules Lawyer would add fuel to the debate. I tried playing three times with them, but there was always this recurring pattern: play for 10 minutes, Munchkin and his sidekick arguing about the plot for 1 hour, Rules Lawyer arguing about the rules for 1 hour, play for 15 minutes, Munchkin and Rules Lawyer arguing for 1 hour, sidekick-GM adding his two cents and therefore extending the argument for 1 hour, end of session. That's right: every 4-hour play session contained no more than 30 minutes of actual play, and not even consecutive... I never made it to session 4...
Back in high school, I had GMed a few sessions of Shadowrun 2nd ed. with my regular group. It was really basic, just using the core book and the Seattle supplement. We had fallen in love with the setting, but at the time, my players hated the rules, so we ended up playing something else.
At some point, I met a guy (I'll call him Munchkin, you'll see why) who was running a Shadowrun game. I thought it would be nice to go back to the Sixth World and agreed. Munchkin had even told me he would lend me any book I needed to create my character, since he had ALL of them. So I get to his house one night after school, and tell him I'd like to play an elf hermetist if it's okay with him. Munchkin was thrilled, because there was no mage in the group. So he lends me A WHOLE LOT of sourcebooks: name a topic, he had a book about it. He was using that optional character creation system where you use points instead of priorities and says: "The book recommends 100 points, but you'll need 210 in our campaign." (I don't remember exactly how it was but it was really over the top, like a 4th edition character with 800 BPs...) So I go home with way too many SR supplements, and start making my character. Needless to say, I ended up not knowing what to do with my points. There was too many books for me (I was just used to the basic rules) and I ended up buying silly skills like "Sitcom Trivia" and "Nightclub knowledge" just beacause I couldn't find a use for all those points. Anyways, long story short, it was too much (books-wise and points-wise) for a newbie like me.
And then the game night came. I showed up with my club-hopping, Trideo-obsessed elf mage. Munchkin looked at my character, and his jaw dropped. He asked me why my stats were not all maxed out, as if it was really bad. I told him that, for instance, my mage had no reason to have Strength and Body at 6 because he was physically average, and that his mental attributes were higher because he's educated, etc., but that I didn't picture my character as being perfect at everything. Same thing for skills: the guy was bad at some stuff, good at other stuff, and so on. At that point, everybody was giving me this weird wide-eyed look, as if a thought had occured to them for the first time: the thought of building a character based on his/her personality and background. Now, you may think it's obvious, but these guys had never thought of statting out a character based on who he is... (The other players ended up showing me their sheets, and they all had every attribute and skill maxed out, for no other reason than that they had the points to do it.) I was finally told why Munchkin had given so many build points. It was specifically calibrated so that anyone could have 6s everywhere, and that was the only intended purpose, because it was supposed to be a really epic campaign. So I thought it made sense, but decided to keep my mage as is, because I liked him.
Then the game began... at least that's what I thought. Munchkin had a co-GM to run the campaign because it was "too complex to handle alone" or so I was told. However, I never really knew how epic and complex it was beacause the two GMs could never agree on anything, and when they did, the in-house Rules Lawyer would add fuel to the debate. I tried playing three times with them, but there was always this recurring pattern: play for 10 minutes, Munchkin and his sidekick arguing about the plot for 1 hour, Rules Lawyer arguing about the rules for 1 hour, play for 15 minutes, Munchkin and Rules Lawyer arguing for 1 hour, sidekick-GM adding his two cents and therefore extending the argument for 1 hour, end of session. That's right: every 4-hour play session contained no more than 30 minutes of actual play, and not even consecutive... I never made it to session 4...
Our table walked away from the group!!!
I've been GMing SR since (almost) the day the first edition came out, and I consider myself to be a fair GM (no point if nobody is having fun). I am perhaps a little easy on players at times, and nobody in my games tends to die unless they do something really, really (really) stupid...So I have this player, we'll call her Mary Sue (as in Mary Sue and Marty Stu). She has decent skills, great charisma (the character, not the player) and easily could have been the star of the game for actual game play reasons. Except it seems the only thing she can see on her character sheet is her addiction. I had repeatedly chastised her, via low karma awards and hints through email, that perhaps paying attention to some of her other character traits would really go a long way towards improving her fun in game and helping the other players to respect her. All to no avail. The reality of it is that she wasn't role playing. "Mary Sue" is defined as a player who instead of making a character, simply takes herself and re-shapes the character to represent the ultimate fantasy they have of what they would want to be in real life if they could.
I've never spent more time working on a character, breaking rules left and right to make things work for her. Apparently she felt I was singling her out for bad treatment, and she has left and taken our play location with her. Saddest part is now, because I spent so much time working on her character and subplot, that I have to replace her as a player but keep the character, because the character has become integral to the story. I am stuck with the ghost of this player even after she is gone, so I hope I can get a replacement player who can handle the character (at least somewhat)...
I am never going to hand-hold a player like that again. A complete waste of time and effort..
I've been GMing SR since (almost) the day the first edition came out, and I consider myself to be a fair GM (no point if nobody is having fun). I am perhaps a little easy on players at times, and nobody in my games tends to die unless they do something really, really (really) stupid...So I have this player, we'll call her Mary Sue (as in Mary Sue and Marty Stu). She has decent skills, great charisma (the character, not the player) and easily could have been the star of the game for actual game play reasons. Except it seems the only thing she can see on her character sheet is her addiction. I had repeatedly chastised her, via low karma awards and hints through email, that perhaps paying attention to some of her other character traits would really go a long way towards improving her fun in game and helping the other players to respect her. All to no avail. The reality of it is that she wasn't role playing. "Mary Sue" is defined as a player who instead of making a character, simply takes herself and re-shapes the character to represent the ultimate fantasy they have of what they would want to be in real life if they could.
I've never spent more time working on a character, breaking rules left and right to make things work for her. Apparently she felt I was singling her out for bad treatment, and she has left and taken our play location with her. Saddest part is now, because I spent so much time working on her character and subplot, that I have to replace her as a player but keep the character, because the character has become integral to the story. I am stuck with the ghost of this player even after she is gone, so I hope I can get a replacement player who can handle the character (at least somewhat)...
I am never going to hand-hold a player like that again. A complete waste of time and effort..
I've got a story of ME leaving a gaming table, as the GM no less!
So I was playing over at a Friend's house, using his table and room, but I was the GM. This friend was a reall Asshole sometimes too and tended to want everything to go his way in the game. I guess he figured that since it was his house, he should be getting special treatment in the game. Well I wasn't giving it to him and eventually, after nearly killing his character in combat he stood up and demanded that I leave if I don't stop "cheating". I wasn't cheating of course, he just couldn't say "Leave unless I get preferential treatment!" in front of the other players. Well so guess what I did... I packed up my stuff and walked out, no fuss, just left. Everyone else got pretty pissed at my friend and we ended up finishing the game later at my house without him. But he eventually apologized (insincerely I might add) for acting like that an I let him back in the game. He still tends to complain whenever I let him play, but I don't get any other trouble out of him, except for the few fudged dice rolls he gives me, but he kind of sucks at hiding it, so I can usually call him on it (or fudge a few of my own for revenge
)
So I was playing over at a Friend's house, using his table and room, but I was the GM. This friend was a reall Asshole sometimes too and tended to want everything to go his way in the game. I guess he figured that since it was his house, he should be getting special treatment in the game. Well I wasn't giving it to him and eventually, after nearly killing his character in combat he stood up and demanded that I leave if I don't stop "cheating". I wasn't cheating of course, he just couldn't say "Leave unless I get preferential treatment!" in front of the other players. Well so guess what I did... I packed up my stuff and walked out, no fuss, just left. Everyone else got pretty pissed at my friend and we ended up finishing the game later at my house without him. But he eventually apologized (insincerely I might add) for acting like that an I let him back in the game. He still tends to complain whenever I let him play, but I don't get any other trouble out of him, except for the few fudged dice rolls he gives me, but he kind of sucks at hiding it, so I can usually call him on it (or fudge a few of my own for revenge
)
Never happened during an RPG, but it was quite common during Vampire CCG. In this game, each player has to kill the player on his left. So each player has 2 ennemies, the ennemies of his ennemies are his objective allies, but they are not necessarily mutually allied, especially if there is an odd number of players. Add in that people can change seat during the game, that when you're done with your prey you attack the next one (yes, your former ally), and you get the most vicious game I know. It's all about reversing alliances and it's the only CCG I know where the one with the best deck does not win.
There were 2 people who could not stand that and left the table bitching every time they got backstabbed. It finally became a meta game: we would take bets before the game on the actual turn when one would give up, and try to make it happen
There were 2 people who could not stand that and left the table bitching every time they got backstabbed. It finally became a meta game: we would take bets before the game on the actual turn when one would give up, and try to make it happen
QUOTE (Traul @ Jul 8 2009, 07:26 PM)
Never happened during an RPG, but it was quite common during Vampire CCG. In this game, each player has to kill the player on his left. So each player has 2 ennemies, the ennemies of his ennemies are his objective allies, but they are not necessarily mutually allied, especially if there is an odd number of players. Add in that people can change seat during the game, that when you're done with your prey you attack the next one (yes, your former ally), and you get the most vicious game I know. It's all about reversing alliances and it's the only CCG I know where the one with the best deck does not win.
There were 2 people who could not stand that and left the table bitching every time they got backstabbed. It finally became a meta game: we would take bets before the game on the actual turn when one would give up, and try to make it happen
There were 2 people who could not stand that and left the table bitching every time they got backstabbed. It finally became a meta game: we would take bets before the game on the actual turn when one would give up, and try to make it happen
I am now genuinely interested in this game. Where can I find it? and is it based off of the WoD Vampire RPG game?
I haven't checked for a long time, but it seems to be still running:
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php
VTES has to be one of the best CCGs I've ever played.
Its only flaws, IMO, are:
* Its not worth playing if you can't start the game with 4 players.
* The games are almost always really long.
* Hard to find a group in most places.
-paws
Its only flaws, IMO, are:
* Its not worth playing if you can't start the game with 4 players.
* The games are almost always really long.
* Hard to find a group in most places.
-paws
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