We’ve spoken a little bit about little things that you ought to do if you want to be a good DM… it’s only fair that we spend a little time talking about what it takes to be a Good Player.
I spoke with my DM and most of the rules are of the variant “don’t be a (jerk)”. There’s nuance to it, of course, but, fundamentally, the rule is that the needs of the group outweigh the needs of the individual player. Which brings us to the stuff to avoid doing: huffing and puffing when it’s not your turn, rolling dice loudly and pointedly when you have no real reason to be rolling dice, reading at the table, mocking the decisions of other players, that sort of thing. That stuff always gets old very quick and you want to ask “why did you bother to show up?” That’s mostly common sense stuff though.
Some more variants are the players who decide that they are going to play their own game and their very own characters are the only ones that matter. If there is loot, they get the lion’s share. If there is someone to speak to, they grab the microphone. If there is a monster to fight… hey… where did they go? This falls under “don’t be a (jerk)” too, though.
Some of the interesting stuff has more to do with the inadvertent jerky stuff that happens.
Character incompatibility to other players is one that can happen. Like, let’s say that everybody at the table is playing Champions and they’re going for Four Color Superheroes except for the one person who showed up to play like they’re trying out for a Vertigo supporting cast member (“my character is a zen master who doesn’t attack enemies but tires them out and he can buff his teammates!” “my character is a tank who hits hard and can take hard hits!” “my character is a speedster who loves to play practical jokes!” “my hero is a child abuse survivor who discovered her powers when she killed her foster parents”).
This can also manifest as the character who is incompatible with the game. I’ll use myself as an example for this one… we were playing Vampire: The Masquerade and my character was a Ventrue. His general response to any “we need to get the party together and have everybody go to the sewers to look for the Nosferatu!” kinda quest was “I take it we’ve run out of ghouls?” He was a businessman. He was an accountant. His idea of a good evening was an evening balancing The Books. (He would have made a mediocre Prince but a fabulous Seneschal.)
He would have made one *HELL* of a supporting character in the game. As it stands, he ended up in direct conflict with, ahem, “the useless Toreador” and “the idiot Caitiff”. (The DM, being wise, shackled a fledgling Brujah to me and told me that the Brujah’s upbringing was my responsibility and if the Brujah screwed up, it was my head… and that brought me along on most nights.)
Are there major rules that I’ve forgotten? Are there pitfalls that I’ve overlooked?
You have covered the big ones. Your GM was good in finding a way to bring your character along and that is normally one of the jobs of a GM. It really takes the player being a jerk to really bring a game to a grinding halt. The worst cases I have been part of (mostly as player and not GM):
1- Player met with the Big Evil of the campaign and decided to work for him instead. He constantly betrayed the group to help the Big Evil while the DM made him look to be under the thrall of the Big Evil.
2- Player had the best skills to haggle for finding out what magic items do and selling items. He had copies made of all magical items he and gave those replicas to the other player and kept the real things or sold them for money.
3- Player made a character that wanted to be left alone to follow his own solo quest. He refused to join the rest of the group and wanted his solo adventure done on group time.
One other funny one was a spy type D&D campaign where no one paid attention to the SPY part of the description and built characters that did not do this. One was an anti-paladin in full plate, another a cleric in full plate, third a sorcerer that was a crazy grappler, and a wizard (sadly this was me and I had built him for one big aspect of the campaign, charming the crap out of people, this was the only requirement the DM said we had to have). I was the only one that made a character to fit the campaign.
This goes back to one of my comments which prompted Jaybird message me on a popular social networking website. “Monday’s post I’m going to talk about Simon”
There’s Evil and then there’s evil. “Evil” burns orphanages, eats the orphan’s kittens before their eyes and makes soap out of orphanage ashes and orphan fat which he sells to orphanages.
“evil” will only help little old ladies across the street if they give him a couple of bucks. “evil” posts compromising photos of his girlfriend on the internet after she dumps him. On the other hand when “evil” runs into “Evil”, “evil” declares that’s screwed up, draws his sword and gets ready to fight the good fight but he’ll take all the loot for himself sharing only a pittance when pressed by his good and neutral friends.
> rolling dice loudly and pointedly when you have no real reason to be rolling dice
I AM SO SORRY
I had a player that would spin them. He was very good at it and could get 5-6 of them going at once.
I used to do all of these things, but not because I was impatient or bored, but because I love dice! I had a Crown Royal bag full of them when really all I needed was one set.
NERD!
Hey, I still have my crown royal bag full of dice!
munchkin: A player who is told that the setting is 14th century Italy, and the focus is on politics and intrigue and power struggles, and responds “my character is a telekinetic ninja!”
I can see how that might be a problem with the player… but also a problem with the DM as well.
“What do you mean the setting is Jane Eyre?”
Jane Eyre…with zombies!