These aren't exactly "nightmare" players/GM but just problematic ones:

Players:
* The inept: his character is a charming face, but the player always find the worst thing to say in every situation. His character is proud and spirited, but the player is insecure. His character is a tough ork ganger, but the player doesn't like to be rough to NPC and talks like a gentleman. Always difficult to GM, since you don't want to restrict his characters options, but letting him play such characters means leaving RP behind.
* The quiet: he sits there at the table and won't say anything until you clearly ask him something. When you do, he'll spend a long time considering it, letting all other players give him ideas and will sometimes let another player decide for him. Very disturbing since you keep wondering whether they enjoy playing, but the last time I had such player she told me she was enjoying the game a lot, so I guess that's just the way some people like to play.
* The disabled vet: Before and after the games he keeps talking about his previous characters, how good they were, what they did and so on. The problem is that he also does it during the game... but doesn't do anything else (except following the group).

GM:
* The prejudiced: He knows who your character is better than you, and your character is probably very archetypal. You can try to explain that your troll is more of a face, but he knows that he's just a brute. No matter what, your hacker will be a nerd. Often this GM will be a control freak and railroading master.

As a GM, I am somehow both the Tinkerbell and the Chaotic Evil, if that makes sense, sometimes.

I have a habit of really being all for making sure my players are happy with their characters. We(many of us use the same houserules at our group when we come up to bat, so to speak), tend to believe in making something that you are going to be very happy with. We don't mind the more semipro game when everyone walks out of the gate with a bit higher skills/attributes than a typical starting 400 BP character(though they don't go overboard. It's still quite challenging). We have no Availability limits and I'm even working in a way to get rid of the hard caps when I GM. Sounds nice!

...but then when I get behind the seat, I can turn rather hardcore. I'm not unfair; I believe in being fair. Edge refreshes as usual, and you can burn it. But if there is one thing that can make me take the black hat out from under the table, it's taking advantage of my kindness. I have this strange thing(and it's probably not good, but it's there), that if I feel like someone is trying to take advantage even after I am extremely kind at the table, I get rather irritated at that. If you make stupid decisions, yes, bad things will happen, and they are, indeed, BAD. Im sometimes almost too brutal to players if they start acting stupid. But if they aren't, then good things usually tend to happen. This is why I say I am somehow both the Tinkerbell and the Chaotic Evil.

As for PLAYER...hmm..I dunno what you call me. I don't think I've ever played a(serious) character in SR4 with a DP higher than 19 after a bunch of modifiers....that's high, but it's not any Pornomancers.(I have done a few test-characters that were quite out there though, for fun or a one-shot.) I tend to like hybrids, and I tend more toward melee than firearms(most of the time. I DO have a couple of characters who love their guns). I DO tend toward people who can have a strong combat showing(again, either specialists or hybrids), but that do have a number of other skills(and again, I have a couple of non-combat folks that I enjoy.)

Equal between cyber and magic(sometimes cyber-magic). I am, however, a female who mostly plays males, about 90-95% of the time(is there a name for almost permanent gender-flippers?), and while I play any race, they tend to be rather to very good looking members of said race(hell, even the orks and trolls tend to be nice-looking examples from their races). I'm more likely to dump Logic than Charisma(I don't like dumping Charisma unless it is for character purposes.) I tend to more street-than book-smart characters(though I have played up Logic before. With my concepts it's usually the first thing to go..but even then it's only dropped below 2 once). I play everything from street-to-corporate level. Any character that is combat oriented utilizes the martial arts skill(even if they are the odd firearm person, then it's firefight. If they are more blades, then I take blade MAs.) I don't have a preference between leader or follower of a group, though. If I end up the leader, however, it's usually because folks shove me in that position. Oh yeah, and with attributes; even though Strength is usually seen as a ''bad stat'', I tend to pay just as much, if not more, attention to it than Agility with my melee characters.

I really don't know what kind of player I am.

We aren't disagreeing with you jago668, just expressing our need to be pedantic and inane.

And a munchkin is any player that demands the best of everything without being willing to accept any negatives. They do not role play, and don't grasp the concept. These are the people that beat a video game in god mode and then brag about how good they are at it. We all exhibit this to some degree, but for the munchkin it is an always-on type of thing.

Yes, they are called female gamers. I am somewhat serious, most women I know that play games tend to game as male characters, especially online. Mostly to reduce the amount of time spent avoiding boys looking for cyber, natch.

People who get bored and then decide that it gives them the right to fuck shit up. A player gets bored and then decides to punch a random in the face. Or piss on a cop car. Or start saying nigger to everyone within the game.

Probably the worst is having an ex-mafia elf and a norwegian ork sam obsessed with japanese shit. For some reason, this results in player characters rolling initiative against eachother. Just my experience.

An anthropologist I know has been running PnP games (of various systems) with a group for so long that many of them have had kids, who are now 7+ and want to play too. One kid has an adversarial relationship with his dad, and tries to kill his characters all the time. He also took the "hallucinatory" quality, and fully embraces all the wierd shit, which is especially funny because they often put him on watch .

My worst and also best group (same day they accomplished both) was during an inaugral Paranoia game. The team of red shirts (the players) could not decipher any of the clues.

GM "Would you like directions to the Warehouse",

Players "Lets go to the food court and ask around and see if anyone knows anything:



GM "The robot blocking the correidor is heavily armer and there is no doubt will easily kill you if you try and attack it"

Players "We can all jump it at once and distract it

GM "Thats a real bad Idea, The robot swings its two laser rifles in your direction and you see that they are charging to full power. You can here the energy crackling"

Players "Its charging up, we better attack now"

GM "The Robot aims a weapon at each of you and in a commanding voice asks you to leave the restricted area. It also informs the characters that they are currently in violation of the security regulations and are being recorded. Gm hints again. You definitely have a feeling that this is over your head and you should get out of the area. Remember you red pistols can not penetrate higher level armor.

Players "We pull our pistols and shoot at the robot" Now the game quickly grounds to a halt as new clones are brought up and they attempt the same thing again.

That was the downside. Afterwards I pointed out all the obcious clues they missed and we all laughed till our sides hurt. It was the most inept crew I've ever seen and once we concluded the session they realized how badly they performed. We still laugh about it today. All I have to do to give them obcious clues is hinty at a certain Paranoia mission and most of them wisen up....and laugh at there thick headedness.

Skipper

I love Paranioa games! We never actually got much done, it's too much fun capping your teammates and laying the blame on them. For instance, anyone suggesting a left turn must be a commie and can be shot in the back. Yes, I was a big fan of the "If you are the only one left alive there is no one to dispute your version of the story" school of playing Paranoia. And claiming one of the dead was obviously using mutant powers to affect the machines helps explain any incriminating video.

[/quote]An anthropologist I know has been running PnP games (of various systems) with a group for so long that many of them have had kids, who are now 7+ and want to play too. One kid has an adversarial relationship with his dad, and tries to kill his characters all the time. He also took the "hallucinatory" quality, and fully embraces all the wierd shit, which is especially funny because they often put him on watch .
[/quote]


Man, this is just awsome. This is just the type of player you need to spice up that dragging campaign. Imagine the fun you can have with a hallucinating . It would have my crew in stitches.

Reminds me of one of my players who is often obtuse and overly obscur at times. While search around the remains of an ambush for tracks, this ranger says he is going to follow the other rnager in the party but about 15 yards back. The first Ranger fails to find any tracks, the second one is having incredible luck and discovers a set of very fresh booted tracks moving in a slow pace. He continues to follow the tracks completely around the ambush site asking few questions. By this time everyone is laughing and the lead ranger stops, looks back and watches the second ranger follow the tracks right up to him. When they disapear at the feet of the first ranger he then asks if the first ranger can help him find the lost trail. We eventually had to let him in on the joke.


Another hysterical loss of concentration occured when entering a guarded gate were they have to turn in all weapons to enter. The players get in this grand discussion over some triviel, non-important detail. I loudly break into a monolog describing three assassins easing up be hind the character drawing obviously poisend daggers. I go into great detail knowing full well no one is listening. Well one was and he quickly announces that he moves quickly down the street (a moment later he catches my wink and realizes its all just to see how elaborate fake ambush gets before the rest catch on. The guards also draw weapons and begin advancing on the part menacingly. The rest are still debating the color of the sky or other such drivel. Finally, ready to move on I announce, roll for initiative. Everyone looks up stunned. realizing they are unarmed and in trouble ask "whats happening, what are we facing?" I thumbnail it quickly and as what their save vs poison and death are? When their faces get ashen I then let them in on the joke. This went on for about aten minute session. The two of us in the know really had a laugh at their expence.

I must say I really enjoy this group. They are hard to keep on track and are even more dense at times, but man are they a lot of fun to run. And most are out of college and working regular jobs.

Skipper

Skip, we use Paranoia as a interlude or intermission when we are ready for a breather. We have the same experience as you. We've never completed a mission, never solves any problems, but always have on hell of a time and laugh way too much.

we had a player determined to kill everyone as soon as possible. He already mangaed two kills and a failed atempt at a secopnd try on one player. The next scene required the party to split into two man teams for micromissions. The killer and his most common target got paired together. They approached a huge pit in this massive warehouse. The target, walks to the edge and looks down to see what in there. Another team trips the power at this time. There should be no need to tell you what happened in the following darkness. A long piercing scream fding into the distance echoes through the room. By the time the lights come back on, the targets third clone walks into the room for round three. By this time they are all back together again and have a blast door propped open with a helmet under it preventing it from closing. The killer states hell hold it up while the target squeezes into the room. Well, the helmet gets dislodged and the killer "looses" his handhold, the only thing keeping the target getting crushed is a second (bigger red) also underneath taking the door across his legs. Ah yes, the fun that can be had when the computer isn't watching.

Welcome to the forums by the by Skipper.

I liked Paranoia to break up the pace a bit. I also liked giving the runners totally fish-out-of-water jobs. You know, the bodygaurd work to pay the bills that ends up at the country club. The best was the modeling job I gave one group. The designer was looking for a "street" look and needed people on short notice. Unique uses of the intimidate skill were made on the catwalk. And I still chuckle about the no social skill Sammy's conversation with an older high Charisma fashion writer.

"So what do you do when you are not doing that sexy stomp down the catwalk?"
"I kill things."
"I bet you do." *sly grin*

Skip, I think you'd fit in just fine with our group, wheres home? We in Alabama.

Sorry, NYC. I'd love to get back in a game. Three kids and a demanding job make Skip a dull boy.

I know the guy who got the "Starship Enterprise" approved on his AD&D character.

And the GM who pointed out that he didn't have a communicator....

now that's gold ^^

the truly bad/nightmare group is a group of individuals that do not work with you (as the GM) nor the other players. Once that are disruptive and counter productive. By sure luck in the last 25(plus) years of gaming I have run into only a few people that would fall into that category. We would part ways on as best terms as possible. Then the rest would move on.

on the other hand, the best group would be # players/characters that liked to work together as a team, didnt fight with the GM (ok NPC bad guys vs their PCs is ok..), and everyone gets to have fun.

just my 2 cents worth
dog

The Evil Mastermind: Comes up with brilliant, horrible plans that reek of awesome, tear apart challenges, and leave the GM weeping into his hands.

How about the group that work together (and whose main mission in life is) to make your life a living nightmare?

Man, I've been lucky in my SR gaming. Back in the day, the only real useless guy was the Rocker dude. Since then, when I did play, I guess we were pretty vanilla. The player group I was in (myself included) weren't very into making super-optimized builds that really took advantage of the system. We had a rigger, that was well, a rigger. Though the introduction of drones was a nice thing, the rigger was still primarily the wheel-man, who sent drones at you while parked in the getaway vehicle/helicopter. Our magical types were the more tame 'phys ad, magical bruce lee', or the almost archetypal street shaman/mage. We had our sammies, and our weapon specialists. We had the troll with the autocannon, it was fun.

Nowadays, I wonder if I'd fit into a brand new SR4 gaming group. My tastes still run traditional, a strong generalist build, slightly more oriented to combat, but also able to pitch in for certain noncombat things. Not trashing on any of the builds I read here on the forums, its just I guess its an age/set in my ways kinda thing where I just cant look at the rules and see the same things people come up with.

Rules like this suck if they're blindly applied. Sure, if they're *dithering* move 'em on (the classic game "Toon" required an instant response or you were "boggled"). But if they're asking reasonable questions about the environment, or the game mechanics that their character would just *know*, it's not wrong to allow some time.

Did that once on an all night gaming session. We took turns staying awake to keep the Ref moving the story on. To be fair, I was awake the whole time too, so there were always at least 2 out of 5 players and the ref... and we hadn't *planned* it that way.

That's not a problem player. That's just cool to watch. Sure, your carefully-crafted plans were just laid to waste; but you should never become too attached to a scenario, anyway. If all the players are having fun following the Mastermind's plan, then join in and laugh.

So far our newest GM has as yet to plan a session that I haven't managed to shatter his plans into itty-bitty pieces in. I have a tendency to out think him.

Chris

So long as everyone is having fun-- including him-- that shouldn't be a problem.

I think you would be fine. My guess is that the overwhelming majority of characters that are actually played are pretty similar to yours. The Demographics of characters posted on DS are really skew towards optimization because that makes a better post. DP are nice and objective enough to be meaningful at all tables, with enough subjective wiggle room to have a discussions. On the other hand imagine posting something like "Hey check out this character with solid abilities in and out of combat and no gapping flaws. Do you think I will have fun playing it?". Not much to say

Agree. Also, a player shouldn't be expected to be as quick thinking and knowledgeable as his character is. Have him roll a knowledge skill, or maybe even reaction and suggest some possible courses of action.

Not to mention that, outside of purely intellectual "how many dice could you get for this" exercises, most builds posted here will get more advice about how to fill in their weak areas, or round out their skills better, than they will get for squeezing out one more die for their pistols skill.

One thing, though. A high dice pool in one area is actually pretty cheap, so a sammie with 17+ dice for shooting a firearm will also usually be well-rounded in other areas. There are some builds, such as mage, technomancer, or adept close combat specialist, that are more expensive, and require you to be more of a specialist to be any good at that role. But there are lots of other roles that require far less of a BP investment, letting you combine a number of them (the stereotypical detective who has good perception, stealth, face, and data search skills, but can still handle a gun or use his fists if he has to).

Well, the Mastermind in our group seems to be me.

The other players don't seem to mind, but I worry about the GM occasionally. He seemed to be holding his head in his hands alot last session. On the other hand, he did laugh pretty hard and awarded me bonus karma when I came up with my plan to wreck the manufaturing facility.

I handed you rope, expecting that you would hang yourselfs. You instead fashioned the rope into a death ray.

Couldn't you hand him some bamboo and a crystal and make a death ray Star Trek style. I mean I know that bamboo and crystals will work, but I'm not so sure about rope.

Oddly enough our group almost did the same thing, but instead of blowing up the facility we extracted people by stuffing them into the automated cleaning drones.

Yeah, the GM for our group seems to alternate between having a ton of fun and wanting to cry. Everyone else has fun.... I don't think even he knows what he thinks about it all. Though he did kill the mage that I was playing when I did most of it from like 100 meters off with a sniper rifle while I exited a very high class function with other mages and thus didn't have my armor or any of my normal spells running. So... I think he had fun, but also resented me. Maybe he thought it was the character? I have since shown him this was not the case. There is one GM I play under that I do tone it down because it was truly pissing him off. I made a game out of guessing what he was planning for us, and preparing for it before hand. Every time we fought something with a weakness, I was ready to exploit it. Made the other players happy and made them laugh, but it made he draw me aside and be like "Seriously?! Are you reading my game notes or something?(I wasn't) Please, tone this whole thing down you are driving me nuts!" and I did. I had less fun though.

Chris

What, thought we would go with the Iron Bomb plan?

To be fair, I thought we were in drek when our face made the "Oh no problem, high security areas are our specialty" comment. Yay for good con rolls.

On a side note, I've been in games (DnD) mostly, where we've had the variant of the Mastermind happen, and its gone poorly. In this case, the Mastermind THINKs he's got the plan and is hell bent on making the rest of the players follow it, whereupon the plan fails in such a handily matter, cause in reality it was kinda a bad plan, built too much on OOC knowledge and 'No way the GM would do that" kinda thinking. But then the player MM gets all pouty and likes to blame everyone else for the plan falling apart.

I hate that type, they tend to get kicked out

It depends on what OOC knowledge is being used. A plan based on "GM would do that" has that as the assumption, whether it is valid or not is open to debate. If that assumption is based on the GM won't do a "Rocks fall everyone dies" then it is more or less valid assumption given that it can happen when the characters are anywhere anyway. Or if the assumption is that the GM will continue to apply the rules consistently, then I do not see why the assumption should not stand. Many times I find that the Mastermind fails because the GM cannot accept that he is not the one doing the railroading and his pet masterplan has fallen apart due to the Mastermind's machinations.

Guess I'm lucky to have a good GM then. Actually, it's funny, this is really the first time I've been part of a regular PNP gaming group. I was kinda' dreading it considering all the stories you hear, and certainly our group can get a bit distracted/off-topic/psychotic from time to time, but the GM does an amazingly good job of reining the chaos in without tramping on anybody's fun.

And no, I'm not just buttering Matsci up so he'll continue putting up with my evil genius.

Yeah, I've seen that happen a lot. As a GM, you have to learn to not get too attached to a particular story. You have to be willing and able to handle the loops they players *will* throw at you. Who knows, the new direction the players are headed in might be more fun in the long run.

Plans? What plans? The smart GM's learned long ago: No plan survives contact with the players. I know my GM has admitted that she mostly wings it, and only has a rough outline set for where she wants to go. Because, somehow, the players always derail any ornately done and meticulously planned plots....

If I am actually going to plan a plan it is going to be varied and I will try to take into account what the runners may or may not do. It helps to have several backup options during a run if you decide to plan it. Maybe plan A, B, and C might get torn to shreds but D, E, and F might be overlooked, or still give the runners trouble. Generally a tiered defense plan always trips up most runners. They might have remembered to look out for drones, guards, traps, security doors, the spirits on astral over watch but then accidentally passed through one of those alarm wards on the astral.

Yup. Never put more work into a location than you are willing to have the PCs walk away from. Never put more work into an NPC than you are willing to watch take a head-shot

Well if the NPC took a head-shot before being able to do anything, you can change his name and appearance and you have a whole new NPC!
Same with the location, just keep it written down somewhere and use it later.

I remember a nightmarish party I've been part of: a party made of characters with strong but opposite personalities. The GM could drop us in the middle of a desert, and we'd do the whole scenario for him (probably something about us killing each other).

I think the nighmare party was one I was at years ago. A group of technical students. The GM I have known for ages, he was a crappy GM, but we had amazing players, which all disappeared elsewhere. I had been out all night and drifted home early that morning, so I did not really pay attention to what I was wearing. The game was GURPS and they just kept oggling me for a full hour. I pretended I had another important meeting to go to and disappeared never to return to their game.

With this true story I bring you the neanderthal gamer and the lost girl.

The Neanderthal gamer has yet to escape his cave and considers women to come as playboy centerfolds with the mannerism of a Penthouse letter. Apperently the more brutish the behaviour, the crasser the sexual advances either on the table or off, the more neanderthal man thinks that her attention or avoidance is rampant sexual attraction. Restraining orders and pepper spray only excite him.

The lost girl is not anyone's girlfriend and has somehow found herself in the game. Roleplaying for her is the story telling that she did when she was between 6 and 12 playing tea parties, house with her dolls and teddy bears. Unable or unwilling to learn the rules, the majority of the game time seems to be spent on social pursuits which do not involve combat, but may involve extensive shopping expeditions, romance with another PC and all that what male players call "icky stuff girls do". Often they come and play for a maximum of three times and then mysteriously disappear.

Thank God I have a girlfriend who loves D&D and Shadowrun else I'd be stuck with... The Wife! She gets dragged into the game either because she wants to be doing what her husband does, has nothing else to do, or has been coerced. While she can be good with role-playing aspects she knows nothing of the rules nor does she want to put the time in to learn. Yet when her character dies she throws a fit.

Ladies, is there a male equivalent of The Wife?

The male version is... The Needly Boyfriend (AKA The Jealous Husband)
The Needy Boyfriend likes his significant other, a lot. He doesn't really get all this "RPing" and "gaming," and let's not even star on this whole LARP thing, but he's happy to follow his SO around to games. After all, he wouldn't want anyone hitting on his girl/boyfriend when he wasn't around (he's the jealous type, obviously). Really, he'd rather be watching the game, shooting some pool, or doing something, you know, interesting. You can usually recognize The Boyfriend by his bored, vacant expression or backwards facing baseball cap. About half way through the session, he'll start pestering the SO about leaving early.

-paws

The Boyfriend also enjoys hotwings and 2 Fast 2 Furious.

An excellent observation!

Awww, you noticed! (Thanks sweetie!) I think I'm an anomoly though, most females I know are bored with RPGing of any sort and think it's for young, pubescent, pimple-faced boys who only fantastize about the hot elf chick who is scantily dressed and ready for some hot lovin. I think there are many people who are involved in the "I'm going to pretend I support it so I'm not alone but really find it boring" relationships. I may be newer to Shadowrun but it only takes someone with a wild imagination to really enjoy Shadowrun or any RPG gaming system for that matter. But there again, I loved Star Wars and anything Scifi when I was a kid (much to the shagrin and befuddlement of my family) and had lots of guys (more than s) as friends - I only dreamed someday of being a player in an RPG.

One of the nightmares our GM had to deal with initially was 4 out of 5 characters being Hung Out to Dry. And the only one who wasn't had 2 ties in the Hong Kong Triad and not much else.

Makes it hard for a Johnson to contact you for a job.

My GM loves legwork. More than anything. He would've shot us all dead by random gang violence and handed us blank sheets.

As a GM, I love the legwork bits of adventures. It gives me the opportunity to act out NPC contacts and test out my arsenal of accents.

Player: I do a datasearch.
Me: You don't find anything. I'd suggest giving Willy a call.
Player: *Sigh* I call Willy.
Me: Oi! Genji yeh arsehole! How be yeh!

Okay I suck at acting but it's still fun.

Well, the tragedy of that method is that all of our contacts are suspiciously identical to our GM in personality and temperament.

Send the boy my way. I'll give him a good talking to.

My biggest struggle has been figuring out the speech patterns of a Native American Gangbanger (ex: Blood-of-the-Buffalo from Seattle).