Five Players Who Sabotage Their Own Fun - RPG Philosophy

[@nobodyofimprotance7615]

How to deal with worldbreaker: never answer these questions in terms of what you know, answer them in terms of what the character knows.

[@oh_gosh]

@@dnabre One issue with the knowledge roll type stuff is that they can then become a pouter or powder keg if you make the DCs too high (to avoid the derailment) or alternatively if they pass the check they feel vindicated when they finally get you to the "It's not that important" or "I didn't go that deep with my design" point. It's a good idea, but if you ever play with people you don't know that well outside of the game, it's sometimes a bad idea giving them game mechanics to back-up their derailment. It's much easier, in my experience, to get to a point where magic or some other "needs no further explaining" thing is the basis. If your tabletop system allows for that, I suppose.

[@simontmn]

@@oh_gosh Yup. Correct answer to worldbreaker is not "I don't know", it's "You don't know".

[@boli2746]

I answer it is : ok how do you get there?

[@AFirstWorldProblem]

If my character asked about the trap generally i'll say "your character now understands how the trap works" instead of explaining it myself

[@FairyRat]

"You pray for the answers. You hear nothing back."

[@z.adkins862]

Fun fact: Seth became a horror writer as cover for why his search history looked the way it did after he dealt with the pit trap guy.

[@RPGmodsFan]

:-D

[@grisch4329]

Hah! This cracked me up so much. Can't say I'd blame him.

[@phanboysmagoria8318]

That's why I became an erotic fiction writer.

[@danielmiller3596]

Valid. (Hides stories he drew)

[@solouno2280]

World breakers are like game hackers (people who either use game genie or game sharks) they're not simple cheaters, they're there just to destroy the game, finding new ways to break it instead of enjoying the game, they're not even enjoying themselves either. I remember one of my best friends used to be the world breaker to the point of softlocking various campaigns.

[@joeykonyha2414]

Jeff would have known how that pit trap worked.

[@NaskaRudd]

Such a good comment

[@magonus195]

At least he followed the dice, and that was the most important thing.

[@rpeterson9182]

Tester: “You passed the test!” DM: “…You didn’t.” Tester: “What do you mean? What test?” DM: “Whether or not it’s fun for ME to DM for YOU.”

[@ismirdochegal4804]

This way of thinking is underrated

[@candys7285]

@@ismirdochegal4804 This way of thinking also gets a LOT of players to suddenly be really shitty. I've killed a campaign because more than half the players were ignoring the game between their turns or had refused to learn the mechanics of the game for the 30th session in a row. They reacted like spoiled children. As a GM, you definitely need to discriminate on the matter of who you will let at your table. Some folks love wasting everyone's time.

[@Rags]

I become a Pouter when I go too long without an RPG Philosophy video.

[@Tony-dh7mz]

But one day, he will never return, and then i get a sweet sweet stereo!!!!! GLASS HALF FULL BABY!!.....er. i mean, it will be a very sad day...

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

Hi Rags! ... (Sorry, had to, never catch EFAP live to do this tiered old meme there where it's appropriate)

[@lovecraftianguy9555]

Rags is still alive? Impressive.

[@livecatgrenades]

Eyy wasn't expecting Rags here! Glad to see your alive.

[@handles_are_a_bit_rubbish]

Hi R'a'g's's's!

[@thejawgz6719]

I feel like this could be retitled "Five People Who Sabotage Their Own Fun" in life in general.

[@DolFan316]

AKA SJWs. ESpecially Type 1.

[@TheSarcasticModerate]

Kind of like how all videos on how to be a good player usually boil down to “How to be a decent human being and avoid being a dick.”

[@marcar9marcar972]

On not sure how number 3 applies to real life though. As far as I know the world is real

[@larsdahl5528]

@@marcar9marcar972 There are plenty of "World Breakers" IRL, they are just a bit... Uhm... Different... Flat-Earthers, Religious-Fanatics, Anti-Vaxers, UFO-Conspiracists, etc.

[@Dawning_Light]

@@marcar9marcar972 it’s very relatable to games in general, specifically like comparing games to each other. How every other game doesn’t compare to GTAV or RDR2 or anything compared to CP2077. I feel 2077 was ruined for a lot of people by these first three people. You could apply them to anything really, their job, a movie, someone’s friend.

[@FluffyTheGryphon]

Six: The Coward. The players that see every challenge as an insurmountable obstacle. These players will abandon whole quest lines and derail entire campaigns by saying they want to go elsewhere because their characters are in over their heads. This forces the dungeon master to either create a game with intentional minimal resistance, or constantly write new adventures because the players don't want to face the challenges the DM has created, leading to the DM burning out and resenting his group. I'm not salty.

[@JimMonsanto]

I've thought about creating the "frenzied" condition just for this. You take the "frightened" condition and you reverse it. The player can only move forward towards the target of their frenzied condition. They can't move parallel or away from it. They may, attack it, but they MUST use their movement to move towards it. Fuck your coward PC. He's going to die a quick death and then you can go roll up a NON coward PC.

[@DownToTruck]

I run into this sometimes. It always bewilders me. Why would a DM write up a scenario that is going just crush the party instantly, or whatever they're afraid of? Being the Coward as you describe, it doesn't respect the time put into prep, or the time of others at the table.

[@cyclone8974]

@@DownToTruck or why play a game when you know the DM is just going to go easy on you?

[@thegneech]

I have a player who's prone to this. It's annoying, but not insurmountable... the most brute-force-but-effective way to deal with it is "Okay, you go back to the tavern and have a dull and quiet evening... until the Dark Lord's troops show up. If only somebody had taken the fight to him!"

[@elgatochurro]

@@DownToTruck what's the point of heroism if you only fight what's beneath you?

[@michakozowski6026]

Literally me last D&D session: - I use my stone cunning ability, tell me what I can learn about this random tavern in this random village! - it's just a random tavern dude... - okay, sorry, my bad :D

[@richmcgee434]

I had a random chart for "mostly pointless things Stonecunning reveals to you" owing to too many Dwarven PCs in the group. Mostly it was "you spot a fossil of X" or "clearly cut with a #9 chisel" results, but it had snarky observations about inferior non-Dwarven stonemasonry, angles being off, and identifying what regions given construction materials had been quarried from. Utterly useless in general, but it gave me something to tell people when they asked about some random building/tunnel/etc. Once in a while a PC would obsess on one of the results ("Why would anyone import granite all the way from Quun?") and it would wind up leading to some side-quest or roleplaying opportunity, so that was fun.

[@sephikong8323]

I'll never forget when I had my players venture in an exploration themed campaign. Every. Single. Damn. Thing. Everything was asked about, that's on me, I made it about exploration I recon but when the mage interrupted the old snake guy in the middle of his speech to ask him what was the name of the pyramid next to them, I lost it and just crumbled into myself

[@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

Might as well give a little flavor: "Obviously not Dwarven craftsmanship, the foundation while strong is uneven in places. Not a big problem for a tavern."

[@Blackmuseops]

"The tavern is made of wood. Like most structures in a tiny random village" is a totally valid, medieval anchored answer too 😀

[@Subject_Keter]

Idk why but i picture a dwarf doing that to gauge how easy a wall will break so he can attack the wall and the rubble shatters a foe.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

man alive this hits home. My in-game "code" for "I haven't figured this out yet" is to name the inn the players want to stay at "The Bouncing Buffalo". They have learned that every time they stay at the Bouncing Buffalo it's a generic tavern that I threw in for them. Yeah the World Breaker still objects to it, but the other players now laugh at him because they know and love the place. Sometimes they tell him, "It's obviously a franchise!" stuff like that.

[@--enyo--]

I keep wondering whether I should make some code words like this for one of my groups who often make a lot of red herrings for themselves and sometimes get fixated on a detail that isn’t related at all. On one hand it’s a challenge for me as Keeper to be flexible and I don’t want to discourage curiosity and investigation. To my credit I do try to insert something to find where possible. Also my main worry is ruining their immersion. But on the other hand it can really bog the game down. Sometimes it means one player takes over, or they miss actual leads because they’re so focused on something else. And that campaign is now on a (irl) time limit, so we’re less able to make large side tracks. So yeah. Not sure.

[@elgatochurro]

"do you ask the name of the cashier at McDonald's every time you go?"

[@WillemUtUje]

I have the same with wherever my player want to find some random homeless person. From a campaign long long ago, there was Scuzzy John the Hobo, which was a scifi setting. Now, in any setting, they find Scuzzy John at lest once per campaign.

[@tobarstep]

The world breaker is a common figure on Internet forums as well. Especially RPG forums. I can't tell you how many times I've see discussions derailed because people want to start arguing about the inner workings of things that don't exist in the first place like FTL drives.

[@johnathansanford8206]

I'm a master of BS, I've felt with world breakers before and made them thoroughly agitated because they couldn't find a hole. Gives me a bright warm feeling inside every time. 🤣😂🤣

[@candys7285]

@@johnathansanford8206 Oh I bet you have LOTS of fun. Tell us a story please. I want to hear how this has played out. I've only seen it once in all of my years GMing and it was shut down by another player who was significantly more informed than the world breaker.

[@Subject_Keter]

I mean as long as it makes sense like "Focusing abilties or broken on being physically hit by melee or ranged attack" Not "you literally smacked a harpy in the face, she ignores it and keeps on singing to disrupt your group." Friggin baller gait 3

[@kdmendonk]

The real world breaker watching this video: "That's not even how my hair looks! That's fine I guess. I just hoped you'd made it realistic."

[@IceCoolTea]

I remember Seth calculating the blood needed to be collected for the Mithril Valves puzzle in Tomb of Horrors. 😂

[@LastMinuteEssays]

Man, the bit about world breakers just kills me every time. "Oh how exactly does this spell work?" idk dude it's magic, we're using abstract rules for a reason

[@krisp33bacon]

"If I knew how magic really worked, do you think I'd be sitting here explaining every detail of my rpg world to you, Doug?"

[@RockOfLions]

If you're asking in character you will need to find a sage to ask and have intelligence of [really large number]. If you're asking out of character you roll a d20 greater than [some number] and it has a range of [some other number]. Here's the book, look it up.

[@elgatochurro]

Some people can just never be happy tbh I've had players try to ask every npc a name and such... I would ask names but only for npcs I'm taking an interest in.

[@shealupkes]

I usually go with the "you're the warlock/sorcerer/bard/etc. you tell me"

[@trequor]

I love minutia like that. There is a lot of creativity to be found in the grey area of how spells actually work.

[@NecroSnak]

I had a world breaker in one of my games constantly looking into all the details of everything I put in front of him. We kind of turned it into a joke when I started saying things like, "Dammit Jim! I'm a Dungeon Master, Not and engineer!" or something to that affect every time he began world breaking. I'm sorry your world breaker threw off your rhythm. v_v!

[@liaml.e.5964]

I have another one: the living corpse. They seem to be at the table only physically but do not pay attention, do not take notes, do not interact with their fellow players and (in recent times) stay on their phones AL THE TIME...

[@larsdahl5528]

Ah! Yes, I call them zombies. One may think they are no problem, they can just be an extra. - If they are fine with it then... However... They are not fine with it; instead, they usually drain the other players' brains...

[@elgatochurro]

"imma play rdd" Why are you playing a video game during this? You can play a video game at ANY TIME I legit never got people who resign ALL their attention off the game... If you don't wanna play don't ruin the game for the others

[@jakesgenuineanarchy5955]

@@user-gj7lp5iz6k hi, It’s Jake, zoomer here. I think that you’re generalizing all Zoomers into being an exact stereotype, which has some basis in reality, but which actually is not definitively true. Phones are addicting. Anyone is susceptible to them, of any age. Have a nice day.

[@jakesgenuineanarchy5955]

I could also just be immediately assuming that you meant zoomer’s in general, when you didn’t at all. Aaa...don’t you just love how vague text is?

[@utubebgay]

sounds like you have somebody in mind, lol

[@HenkkaArtGames]

The tester and similar types of players who waste time are probably the worst. Not that I don't enjoy a slowly moving game but then for someone to do everything to derail or poke holes into it is just so disrespectful. It's already really, REALLY difficult to organize a gaming session among 4-5 people who have jobs and other things in their lives, that it's infuriating when you eventually get to have a game session and then it devolves into these types of shenanigans. By the way, your RPG social contract video is top notch and more people really should see it.

[@mydroid2791]

How did you post your comment 14 hours ago when the video was posted only 9 hours ago?!? 😯

[@HenkkaArtGames]

@@mydroid2791 Early access through Patreon :)

[@Vergast]

I love the tester. "I go to the movies, what's playing?" Like dude, you chose to play an RPG. It's like being in a horror movie you gotta run up the stairs! hahaha

[@Tony-dh7mz]

Nope, you want boring, go for it, next player watya doin?

[@fran3ro]

You have to choose between Dragon Ball Evolution and the Last Airbender movie.

[@z.adkins862]

@@fran3ro Harsh yet still too fair.

[@dutch6857]

"What's playing? It's your choice. You can watch anything you want. By yourself. At your place. Us? We're going to play a game without you"

[@simonacerton3478]

The Tester is like that Knights of the Dinner Table Call of Cthulhu parody kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZvFl3yInZ2ehpo I've found that just making the action come to them usually fixes things. That letter they burned would have given them clues but the cultists have plans of their own and a timeline which I follow. Whoops.

[@RyuuKageDesu]

"How does the trap work?" * Saxophone begins to play. "A wizard did it!"

[@mattnerdy7236]

LMAO...!!!

[@rolanejo8512]

As long as it is the sax intro to Careless Whisper.

[@Tony-dh7mz]

LOL.....Stolen

[@krisp33bacon]

@@rolanejo8512 what about the sax from Baker Street?

[@vladpiranha]

I missed these.

[@abyssaldragonslayer4389]

Me too! These types of videos from Seth are my favorite

[@toryniemann5124]

Why you gotta call me out like this Seth? Not once but five times in one video!

[@DungeonMasterpiece]

I deal with world breakers by asking them the details they ask for and letting them world build if that's the details they want. Sometimes it even turns into an adventure.

[@andrewlance3898]

That's not a bad idea. At the very least, it deals with players driven by curiosity, but players who are trying to test you won't be satisfied

[@TrueAryador]

@@andrewlance3898 A player "testing" his gm as in actively trying to mess with him has no place at the table to begin with. A player testing his gm as in trying to see if they mesh well together or to see if the gm is good enough in accord to their standard by actually trying to play is fine. The first one is a troll and should just be banned on sight. The second is just someone testing the water.

[@andrewlance3898]

@@TrueAryador Of course. I wasn't approving of players who maliciously 'test' their GMs, just pointing out the solution proposed above would be insufficient for dealing with them

[@TrueAryador]

@@andrewlance3898 You can't exactly "deal" with someone being intentionally disruptive other then confronting them or just banning them without confrontation. Either way they're going to be toxic because that's their jam.

[@irkalla100]

The trapdoor guy was real?! Holy Molly! I thought it was an exaggeration to show the traits of that kind of player! So sorry you had to deal with that level of bs. Uff.

[@Jasonwolf1495]

Tbh back in my dad's day when he played the original d&d as well as some later versions it was standard for his group to strip dungeons clean so they actually had full breakdowns of things like that.

[@ArawnNox]

I have a friend with a very technical mind and he does stuff like that, but not in a detrimental way. It's usually more like he's trying to do something clever to bypass said trap. Heck, I do it sometimes, too.

[@RockOfLions]

Tbh I often wonder whose resetting these darts, arrows, rockfalls and other traps in these long abandoned catacombs, picking the corpses clean of valuables but leaving the skeletons.

[@Thurgosh_OG]

@@RockOfLions The corpses one is easy. There's a pet Gelatinous Cube that gets set free every night to roam the corridors for food. As it passes over the dead bodies it takes everything but the bones with it and the dungeon owner collects all the goodies in the morning (having a special suit or spell to remove them from the Cube without harming it). lol.

[@crazyeyes8962]

It's kinda necessary in AD&D style dungeoning sometimes (I defeated a poison gas trap by successfully deducing it was inside a statue) but if it's done with the purpose of challenging the GM's knowledge of engineering or "magic engineering" then it probably shouldn't be done.

[@rooksgate5574]

Sadly, all of these tropes have darkened the seats of my gaming table. There is one more: the Jokester. The fellow who deliberately assassinates the game atmosphere by non-stop non-sequiturs or toilet humor or out of character inanities. "The collapse has settled and ahead of you your flashlights claw through the settling dust to reveal statues of antediluvian antiquity. A passage leads on, the choking dust in the air now mingling with the faint stench of rotting fish..." Player: "Man I hate it when monsters forget to take out the compost. We should call the city and complain, let them clean this place out and get back to the public house for some beer and darts." or "I'm angling for some clues. There's some thing fishy here. Is there music here - because I'd hate it if it was out of tuna. Cod I hate that. Hey! I just kidding, no reason to trout about it!". OI!

[@HyperOrangeDragon]

I’d be honestly concerned for what might be going on in Dweebles life outside the game that might be stressing him out. That behavior was way out of character for him.

[@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

I've been watching these for years and I still have a hard time remembering that all these skit characters are the same actor. The voices alone are perfect.

[@timbuktu8069]

The pit trap "You climb down. You hear a click. The trap has locked into place. What's the rest of the party doing?" The town "After several days of research, you begin to run out of money. But you are making good contacts with the village elders. A merchant sees that you are clever and offers you a job as a clerk. What's the rest of the party doing?"

[@SOPAonarope]

I'm guilty of being the tester. I'm going to ring up my old GM and apologize to him for that. Thanks for resurfacing those memories.

[@azraelle6232]

My brother-in-law was a bit of a worldbreaker. His wife created a whole homebrew game from the ground up, including an enormous detailed map full of continents. He told all his friends how amazing this game was gonna be, bragging about his wife's skills, all the hours' worth of adventures we'll have, etc. First game session, he announces that he wants to commission a ship and sail off into the unexplored ocean.

[@anthonyjackob7192]

This is actually interesting choice. Dick move, sure, but interesting one. Unexplored area can hold anything and offer adventure. That dungeon prepared for the first session? It can be used there, on a random island. Social meeting with local baron? Now he is a captain of a fleet you've just met. Did you just brought interesting artefact and a lot of gold from your voyage? The port city is now rich and important part of politics. Also, you can always find nothing and be forced to return to your home port with a scurvy - the area might not be as much unexplored as it actually holds very little to be explored...

[@Paul-nn9oj]

Must have wanted a divorce

[@Fuzzy_Barbarian]

One that I had some bad experiences with is the Flexer, the player with something to prove. I've played with someone who just NEEDED others to see that he knew the rules (so a lot of rules lawyering), that he had the best stats (which resulted in a lot of metagaming), that he was the best roleplayer (attention hog), that he had the coolest backstory, etc., and it got genuinely grating. This even extended to his GMing, which felt incredibly like he was trying to "beat" the players more than anything, just to show that he could.

[@Lenno94]

I also have one of those in my group. Thing is, those kind of players have good roleplay and can be funny but man are they exhausting..

[@SSkorkowsky]

I've seen that (though not as bad, thankfully). The Flexer is a good term for it.

[@cadenceclearwater4340]

The Raiders of the Lost Ark light trap? There's a light sensitive mushroom patch growing on the wall. When the light is interrupted it shrivels (or coils) in response, triggering the trap. At least, that's what I did when I ran The Raiders opening sequence as a dungeon.

[@capngio4589]

Watching this makes me grateful for the two players I have with cyberpunk 2020.

[@tavnerphillips4490]

Goated game!

[@herbreisig553]

The silky smooth voice of Seth Skorkowsky telling us like it is! Love these videos.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

I think the poor reaction to stealth rolls is because video games so often insta-kill the player when they get spotted, or stack the game to an unwinnable degree.

[@pdubb9754]

The micro-world breaker reminds me of a time a player got me to go into the details of how a door worked, how it was attached, how big it was, what it was made out of, etc. I made up answers on the fly to try to keep it real, and then he used my made up answers plus some dice rolls to develop a way to defeat a significant trap/problem solving challenge. Caught me off guard. Played me like a fiddle.

[@TheGiantRobot]

That's funny, I like how you took it well. I've been guilty of this sort of thing, but only when I had a shifty DM. I'd exhaust all reasonable powers and exits the enemy had and establish that they were trapped, then the DM couldn't rescue them without losing face.

[@SHDW-nf2ki]

I met a pouter, he was the worst. He got arrested for trying to pickpocket a town guard, got chased fumbled his rolls and ended up seriously injured after a nasty fall and arrested. We spent the whole session brainstorming about busting him out (since our characters were on a tight schedule and needed to get out of town and on with the mission ASAP) All he did was sit back, frown. Occasionally he'd interject to winge and just slowly sap everyone's energy and willingness to rescue him.

[@oEllery]

Worldbreaker is my #1 for sure. Just listening to your skit of the worldbreaker was enough to get under my skin. Personally I found a solution that works pretty well when dealing with this kind of player. I respond in an honest, direct, and terse manner. "I don't personally know how pit traps work, but it's not an important aspect of the game to me. It's just a game mechanic." If a player feels like realistic pit trap mechanics are important to them, they are free to find another group. Usually this method works pretty well since in my experience the worldbreaker never actually wants to find another group and the mechanics of the pit trap don't actually matter to them that much.

[@nyuzotturunk]

Wow. I'm an active gamemaster since 2000, I played with dozens of players, and I never encounterd the Tester. I'm familiar with the other player types (on this list and on Seth's other lists), but this one is completly new to me. Lucky me, I guess. :)

[@Tony-dh7mz]

Same,

[@richmcgee434]

They're often less obvious than the ones in the vid. Having one actually tell you flat out that they were testing you and not just, say, acting like a Worldbreaker or Agitator is rare in my experience. One of the guys I used to run CoC for in high school was a "Stealth Tester" - always kind of pain to run for, and behind my back he was constantly telling the rest of the group how good/bad a job I was doing as a GM each session. I never even knew I was being "graded" until I went to my twenty year reunion and got to talking with some of the other players. Did kind of wonder why the other guys tended to exclude him from future games once they started running their own campaigns, but I wasn't going to complain when they pointedly skipped inviting him in. Just glad to be free of him in other games. Kind of wish I knew what happened to the guy. He didn't show for the reunion and no one knew where he'd gotten off to past 1985.

[@Tony-dh7mz]

@@richmcgee434 Let them test, I would enjoy it, see if you can break it, Challenge Accepted

[@Maxbeedo2]

Everyone (especially the Pouter) takes it so personally when the dice don't go their way, although sometimes it's because the DM takes that opportunity to stick it to the player and tell them how much they and their character suck. When I DM, I usually try to tell the story as though, instead of the character failing horribly, the situation itself was just surprisingly insurmountable despite their prodigious skills. Maybe that Guard they can't seem to hide from or hit is actually "The Captain".

[@UrsaFrank]

I'm gonna add one from my own personal expiriance. The drunk, someone who sees every game as an excuse to get wasted even if they're the only one who's drinking. You can imagine how the game devolves overtime with one person getting more drunk as the game continues until everything breaks down. After a few games just trying to put up with this I tried confronting the guy from my group but it ended with "it's how you have fun" and "this is why I'm the only one having fun" kind of bullcrap from them and ultimately refusing to stop. As you can imagine, I don't play with him anymore.

[@OriginalWarwood]

Yeah, after a few bad experiences I pretty much instituted a rule of "limit your consumption to a sipping beverage, or don't drink at all" (think, sticking to no more than 1 to 1.5 drinks per hour). I am no prude or "teetotaler" (don't knock tea now), but if they cannot stick to sober or close enough to sober while playing the game, no point in even trying to play. I've had a couple people not want to join in at my table because of that, and I'm fine with their choices.

[@UrsaFrank]

@@OriginalWarwood Yeah I have no problem with alcohol in general either, I'll even happily sip a can of Cider while playing myself. It's just the "getting wasted" part that ruins the experience, so having a table rule to limit alcohol intake helps a lot.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Back in college I instituted a draconian and very hated "No Drinking, No Drugs" rule. We play stone sober. Reason being was that every single time I allowed it there was that one person who got wasted and the game fell apart. As we got older, and games became fewer and fewer, they also grew longer to compensate. So instead of weekly 3-4 hour games, they were monthly 8-10 hour games. The rule still stands because even light drinking over 8 hours has proven to be problematic. One thing I've learned in the 20+ years of this rule is that those who complain about it the most are 100% the problem players anyway.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I feel very fortunate for having only experienced a few of these at the table. Some, like the Agitator, are just universal and it sucks when that kind of person also brings it to a game.

[@WeirdMole]

I'm a simple man: the Gang's back in force, I click like, comment and start sharing the video everywhere :D

[@crimfan]

I think all of us have these tendencies in ourselves to varying degrees, but some people just seem to be unable to avoid "going there" to their misery place(s) over and over. It's really hard to deal with someone with serious emotional issues.

[@hfbdbsijenbd]

Dweebles should have done a Fight Back instead of Dodge. I can't believe you railroaded him like that! Glad to see you doing these again!

[@oz_jones]

Thats what i thought too. Or run

[@hammond1994]

Once again, I forgot that all these guys are Seth. He is so good at portraying them all.

[@joshuabevins8244]

I don't like how The critic awoken repressed memories, I was born in 1990 and I just remembered that show existed

[@charlessmith5465]

5:12 I'm imagining if the map had been a 3d globe he still would have pointed away from it. 🤣 _Let's go to space!! 🙃_

[@asthmeresivolisk3129]

I had a campaign where my players spent more time trying to push their planet into the sun than actually interacting with the world I had spent months preparing for them.

[@charlessmith5465]

@@asthmeresivolisk3129 "this hemisphere is where we'll build the rocket. Wait, what'd you say the rotational speed and orbital trajectory are? Oh, I thought it was a realistic world. 😒" 🤭

[@RPGmodsFan]

This is what is so great about D&D. It has the potential to teach you on how to deal with problem people.

[@RPGmodsFan]

Problem people like me. :-P

[@Luunyby]

I think a way to sum up a lot of DND complaints is that it's less a game and more a collaborative story-telling experience. The dice rolls are just there to add some honesty to what boils down to "Well my dude has a crossbow and shoots your dude in the head!" and forces some depth of thought into what options your character has available.

[@kingduckie9135]

I had a experience once where the GM slowly turned the whole table into a group of complainers. Sometimes we just felt things were unfair like at one point we were fighting a buffed up vampire, we got it down pretty low and managed to get it into a beam of sunlight, where it promptly restored all of its health and got a bonus to AC and damage and we had to kill it all over again apparently the only way to kill this vampire was to throw salt on its coffin which we only found out because an NPC did it. Then another time we saved up a ridiculous amount of money because we wanted to buy a castle and just randomly we get teleported to 'The Thieves' Realm' which was never mentioned before or after and the only way to escape was to give all of our money up. So after a level 3-10 campaign of this everytime the GM did anything we were all being extremely picky about it and complaining the whole way through. Luckily we all got out over time but they were a friend so I was one of the last to go.

[@traumachild1737]

Seth: "These players can suck..." Me: 😳 Seth: "...the fun out of the room."

[@KyuuStarr]

Sometimes you just have to tell a Worldbreaker “It’s magic” Magically treated rope was example

[@pkamingusu7094]

High tech sci fi version: your character doesn’t understand the technology.

[@pkamingusu7094]

And of course you can make them try a difficult skill roll to try to understand it, but they have to be able to investigate it further. Hints about the amount of time required should help many players along.

[@Daniel-Strain]

Or simply treat it like the warp drive in a Star Trek game... "It works in a really cool and interesting way and your character now understands it." That is all that's needed - not for the PLAYERS or the GM to understand it.

[@TorianTammas]

Simple solution 500 year old traps don't work. Not to mention who actually put them in there and how they bought he silence of the builder. Egyptian had these problems with their graves and grave robbers.

[@Audioworm]

One more thing I'd like to say about the World Breaker section that I routinely need to remind myself of just for regular worldbuilding: You don't need to be an engineer to design a fantasy world. Nor do you need to be a geographer, geologist, astrophysicist, meteorologist, biologist, anthropologist, or historian. ('Astrophysicist' is there because I had to stop myself from looking up orbital mechanics after deciding my world had two moons.)

[@erc1971erc1971]

Last player I had to ask to leave our group was a Powder Keg. The sad part is, he was great to play with for years then developed that personality later. After the rest of us spent way too long trying to help him (to no avail), it became too much to deal with. For the last 10 years our group has been A+! In 40 years of gaming I have never ran into a World Breaker or a Tester. I never knew players like this existed. See, this old dog can learn something new!

[@BlueEyeQ]

I've never dealt with a 'Tester' but I totally understand why you hate that more than the rest.

[@seansteele6532]

The trap issue with worldbreakers is "Hey I don't actually know how to engineer a scything trap... there is a scything trap in this hallway but like... if you asked me to build one in real life and gave me all the required materials I can't do that."

[@snlmp]

the personalised captions are such a huge bonus on skorkowsky videos. one of the many reasons youre my favorite rpg content creator by far. sincerely, me and my friends with hearing issues

[@ImaginerImagines]

You nailed this one. I have a game ending because of a player like this who has many of these behaviors. I have entire world I made for this group simply because the ONE player didn't want to play in the world I have had for over 20 years with 11 binders full of materials and games, that everyone else seemed to love. Now he is unsatisfied AGAIN and says this will be the last game he plays in. Well this time I accept. I am done. No game, sad as that is, is better than a bad game. Watching this video was therapy for me.

[@timosburn1441]

I actually had an experience with a "Pouter GM" a year or so ago. A local shop I frequented hosted a weekly D&D 5E game, and a local "gaming group" agreed to run the games for the shop and had began running a published campaign module. The original DM was decent, but their work schedule changed and another in the group stepped in to take their place. That player had been trying to develop their own RPG system because he THOUGHT that 5E was "broken", and that they could do better. (They couldn't.) One week they asked if we would mind doing a "playtest" of their so-called game system that was "better" (it wasn't). It amounted to them having just rearranged some of the 5E rules and changed the names of some terms, and the "playtest" was nothing more than turning the session into a tabletop skirmish game with no actual plot and repetitively doing the same battle over and over again. Then they bring it out again for more "playtesting", and was basically just hijacking our D&D game that the players WANTED to play. Some of us complained to the shop owner because we felt that this DM was pulling a bait and switch with our game and we and wanted to continue and finish the campaign. So this DM (a grown adult, mind you) starts the next session of the campaign we were playing and the very first battle, pretended to be all frazzled/confused and declared that the math/rules were "too hard" and had to leave the table for 20 minutes to work out how to do it, and then just tried to shoehorn some of the rules of their own game into it. Again, some of the players complained about the obvious attempt to pull a bait and switch on us. The next 2 or 3 times, that GM would show up, sit at a table by himself all pouty, and then conveniently "get sick", and have to be taken home (didn't drive) before the night's game even got started. Then they claimed to be sick and didn't show up at all. Then another person in the group took over GMing duties, but they just rushed the rest of the campaign to the "end", because they wanted to start on a different one. They did start the new one but didn't finish it, because at that point everyone with that "gaming group" started acting sketchy and just being no-shows on their commitments to run the games for that shop. This caused a good number of our core players to just quit because they were tired of this group's BS.

[@hermanpsnelling5264]

Eor is not a pouter. He's just bored with your presence. Great video, as always. Thanks man.

[@deanlol]

I empathize with the pit trap issue. As a player when I run across someone like this I just say "Can we just move on, this isn't important."

[@synthetic240]

I had a player, who also DM'd and worked in construction, who was kinda the world-breaker just because of his expertise. He'd want to take off doors and be hyper specific about how he interacts with traps so they don't go off.

[@VaSoapman]

Tester: Congrats you passed my test! DM: Congrats you have failed mine!

[@Madkingstoe]

I've been playing with a Tester and World Breaker for 20 years, and now I realize why I so rarely manage to run a successful campaign. I just thought I was a bad GM.

[@bigblue344]

I feel sorry for you. The longest I had was an antagonizer DM for two years just because I was new to the game.

[@andyraff4465]

Enjoying (for a given value) both the flashbacks to past tabletop groups and how relevant to live-roleplaying fests these examples are.

[@symbionte7987]

It’s really funny coming back and rewatching this. I just had a session of D&D where I rolled five ones in a row, the worst luck I’ve ever had. And I was annoyed but I was able to laugh it off for the most part and kept the game going

[@maciejkukla9615]

I'm just starting to get worried I'm one or all of these guys.

[@bigblue344]

If you realize and accept it you are already better then them.

[@ViewtifulZeke]

We all have been, or have the potential to be, one of these at some point or another. The important bit is to not *keep* being one.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Knowledge of the problem is the first step to recovery.

[@AbsurdandFantastical]

I have become a pouter due to bad rolls. I get upset and frustrated, but when I catch myself doing it, I then usually try and laugh it off as me just being an idiot. Online though, it feels 10 times worse for some reason. When you get bad roll after bad roll, and you're trying to have fun and participate but it all just goes horrible skew, and you can't make eye contact an realise what you're doing and set it right. Online it just becomes so difficult to catch yourself doing it. But I do know that about myself, and I try and curb it as best I can.

[@scuffedwizard]

The best mindset to have is definitely: It's just a game.

[@richmcgee434]

"You should really just relax." - MST3K Mantra holds true for RPGs too.

[@Tony-dh7mz]

No, just a game is monopoly, just a game is halo, just a game is poker or chess THIS - IS - ROLEPLAYING!!!!! Then I kick you, and you fall backwards down a big hole in slow motion.......

[@Talkshowhorse_Echna]

I had a problem player, where this mindset became the problem, cause consequnces where not real to him, but to the group.

[@Tony-dh7mz]

@@Talkshowhorse_Echna Yeah, its a poor attitude to have considering the time and effort put in by everyone else, its disrespectful

[@Talkshowhorse_Echna]

@@Tony-dh7mz Well after he nerly killed our chars multiple times he maneged to kill his own character and got the hint, that we tried more.

[@murgel2006]

Well, I also have a good answer to the world breaker. WB: "How does it work?" GM: "I don't know actually but I think it's magic." - "I don't know. This technology is so far advanced it looks like magic to me." - "I could tell you but then you would have to GM for the next few years!" :-D

[@stephenmartin1982]

I have something to confess. I was a DM who was a World Breaker working against myself. I was so tangled up in totally emersive realism I sabotaged all my own work

[@richmcgee434]

Overbuilding your own setting is a thing that happens. Easy trap to fall into.

[@zomgl2pnoobffs]

How I handle things like the pit trap: Ask them to roll in-character for pit-trap investigation. If they pass, tell them their character now knows more details about how the pit trap works and can note it on their sheet so that when, in the future, they construct their own dungeon, they can incorporate pit traps that have a chance of lasting 1000 years.

[@rdmrdm2659]

“That is realistic open ocean. Like exists in reality.”

[@briand3200]

These example strike a cord with me. I think I have some PTSD from my old gaming group due to these personality types. Seth, have you read Robin’s Laws? Would be interesting to see a video on how to create a game that offers something for everyone (as Robin’s Laws suggests). Thanks for the great content! I always look forward to your videos!

[@rotwang2000]

Perhaps the best pouter we ever had was in Jorune. He had rolled a character that could channel energy and in every fight he could nuke anything that moved while we barely could get a hit in sideways. He kept saying "I'm scum, I'm nothing, I'm a weeb ..." turns out he was really the worst kind of energy channeler possible, with the bare minimum of ability while the average one was considerably more effective. He's like a wizard with fireball, but he is limited to 1's on every die.

[@Wolfsspinne]

Having GM'ed a lot of FATE lately, I have a great solution for world breakes: GM: "Give me a knowledge check." Player: "I got a success." GM: "Cool, you may come up with up to 2 distinct features or plot points about that Character. You can tell us later when the party regroups."

[@richmcgee434]

Good technique. I'd let them come up with their features/plot points even on a fail, and then have them turn out to be somehow horribly mistaken about some aspect of what they came out with when it comes up during play. "Well, yes, the baron's ancestors were hereditary enemies of the Duchy of Quun, but the baron himself spent his childhood as a political hostage, was raised in the duke's own household, and has strong ties to Quun that his own relatives and subjects disapprove of. He doesn't seem to be very happy with your boasting about having slaughtered a company of the Duke's Own Light Horse during your last adventure."

[@garridy2834]

Had a game where the DM threw in a waterfall "puzzle". Basically it was a 2,000ft high waterfall inside a cave tunnel with no dry land, just the river flowing through. We didn't have fly or featherfall and tried thinking of ways to get down, but came up with nothing. Because of the dark we had no way of knowing how deep it really was, just that it was really high up, and had no idea what was at the bottom. After lowing a party member down on a rope to get a better look; my character, the cleric, believed that the guy lowered on the rope had fallen off (can't remember why). Feeling responsible for the friend, I decided to make a literal leap of faith and jumped off the edge in hopes of maybe healing the friend that fell if I survived (we couldn't figure out the puzzle anyways). I was ok with dying or living, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't kill me, and decided to call the bluff, so to say. Would this be considered a tester moment?

[@KrazyKupo]

Pouter Keg. Had a player who was a bit like that, they even threw their dice so we threw the player after a few warnings. Usually everyone tends do some of this stuff once or twice, sometimes on an off day or down to personal logic but managing to do it for a year every session was impressive. As someone has already used #6 for a coward I'll volunteer #7 as the self destructive player. Someone who does dumb things to get killed or intentionally creates characters who aren't heroes in a hero setting and then gets depressed they can't do awesome things like everyone else.

[@PluckyD]

My first group to DM had a combo 3-5 player and it literally gave me panic attacks about DMing for weeks. I ended up compiling another group and things got better. Never played with that person ever again though.

[@Barquevious_Jackson]

That first one hits me in a real tender spot, I'll never forget the time I almost scared off one of my closest high-school friends from the role playing hobby, one in which me and the other players all were bonded together by. We made our own game systems and ran them for one another in settings that no other fantasy world compared too in terms of originality, it was a closely knit group that made stuff by itself to for itself. I started some totally random argument while this friend was running, I can't even remember it, and I spoiled the whole game and made a total ass of my self. I didn't talk to him for over a year and it would be until recently, a whole 2 maybe 3 years later, that I spoke to him regularly and offered him a seat at my table for this current game wrapping up on Thursday. Love the friends you got, and try your best to appreciate all the hard work people put into this hobby.

[@Mauther]

My primary weapon against the world breaker is "What skill/ability are you using to determine this?" What to know how the trap works, better have trapmaking skill. Want to know why the economics works as seen? Hope you have Economics as a skill. Handles about 90% of the issue. The remaining 10% I typically use the Punt option. "Cool, you rolled 5 successes om traps and are able to tell the inner workings of the trap. How DOES the trap work?" And let them fill in the blank. If they come up with a lame explanation, the other players will deliver the beatdown for you. Passive Aggression is the best aggression.

[@mattnerdy7236]

Hey Seth, great video!!! You didn't do the Wimp! Encounter #1 Three Kobolds; I don't know guys, I have a bad feeling about this one. Encounter #2 Stairs; I don't know guys, we should go another way. Encounter #3 Two Orcs; I don't know guys, we should go back to town and get more hirelings. Thanks Seth you have a wonderful day!

[@ddis29]

my best friend in high school was this. one time i did a rival party made of parodies of my players. said player hadn't caught on yet. the expy said something and he says "my god! this guy is such a weiner!" one of the other players was uncontrollably laughing for a few minutes.

[@simonacerton3478]

Depends on what you are playing. In B/X this is smart play, in GURPS also. Not so much in 5E. If its Traveller, well that's just weird.

[@MercSet1]

Over the years I have learned Politics is just two people fighting over the same resources.

[@Danmarinja]

For me, it’s the player that thinks having secrets is the coolest. Granted, this is true with other players, but as a Game Master, I can help them have fun IF I KNOW WHAT THAT SECRET IS.

[@awaytoanywhere699]

Trebuchets are awesome! loved them when I played a lot of ‘Age of Empires 2 -conqueros edition’ back in the day!

[@pberrigan19]

It's great to see these again! I really enjoyed the call back to the Role Play Terrorist. A couple of those consistently ruined my Conan game to the point where we as a group just didn't want to game together anymore. Granted I know I made mistakes as a GM as well but these folks only seemed to want to gather with the specific purpose of stopping other ppl's fun. I was lucky though bc I found a new group who are great and we've been having a great time with a game of Traveller.

[@johngleeman8347]

I'm always happy to see my good pal Dweebles.

[@johngleeman8347]

I've acted similar to these examples before. I need to become a better player.

[@pez5767]

I love your RPG Philosophy Vids. So Good. The only other one I would add (and perhaps this is a world breaker) is the person who always needs to have a character that's totally contrary to the campaign being set up. EdgeLords fit in here, but they're honestly just one small facet of this problem. GM: "We're going to play MERP and play out Balin's expedition to reclaim Moria!" Sabotaging Player: Shows up with a character that is half elven and half goblin.

[@SSkorkowsky]

In my very first list video I covered those. We call them '13th Warriors'. I ended up taking that old vid down for a variety of reasons, but a big one is that I've learned that to adequately explain why it's a problem player, I first need to do a video explaining what a Theme Game is (I hadn't considered that many people didn't know of them). So I plan to eventually do a "Why Theme Games Rule" video that then goes into what happens when you have that one player who just refuses to go with the pre-agreed theme.

[@gidofter_lukge]

I like GURPS' way of attacking and defending. you see if you hit with a roll, then the enemy can try to defend with their own roll

[@Garresh1]

I like that you draw the line between constant complaining and one off comments or helpful criticism. I always enjoy when my players talk about how an npc is a dick or trashtalk npcs. It's great when they can get annoyed in character(especially when the npc IS a dick) but don't let it ruin the fun. As long as it's all in good fun, I love back and forth snark. I feel like if I'm getting different reactions to different characters and they're enjoying even the negative interactions then they're drawn into the world. But all my regular players have a good sense of humor and love that kind of shenanigans.

[@megamanx2056]

My first ever game was set in a seedy Rogueport like town that the rest of the party abandoned two sessions in while I couldn't make it. #3 resonated with me a lot.

[@luminyam6145]

My sons have a couple of friends like that one who is the world breaker. They don't play d and d with them for just that reason.

[@MuttTehSuper]

This is a great video and really has helped me self reflect, and really helped put things in perspective. Thank you so much Seth, you continue to help me be a better Story Teller and Player

[@etherd]

I have found myself being a world breaker not on purpose mind you its just deep immersion and I build things irl so I like learning but after seeing this I can see how I need to tone that back some. Thats why I like these videos they help people become better players.

[@CowCommando]

Yep, I realise now I do this too from time to time. Gonna remind myself it's just a game and we're all here to have fun when I recognize it happening next time.

[@bordenfleetwood5773]

I honestly got lucky with my current group. Had a couple of the "world breaker" trope start asking random questions about guards and random NPCs around the world, their backstories and motivations (through rp, thankfully), and asking oddly specific questions about how various things in the world worked. Again, I'll say that I got lucky, as I happened to have ready answers, and they accepted the fact that, even if the answer was odd or unusual, there was an answer that made internal logic. It was never enough to fully derail a session, and after the third, they stopped altogether, content that whenever they *did* end up needing some weird answer, it would be there for them. It was strange; just knowing that the answers "exist" let them be content with not personally knowing how things worked, so long as they believed that *I* know how they work. And then the time that they asked something weird ("how do these two nobles know each other?") And I had to say I didn't know, they just kinda... Went with it. I had every expectation that they were gonna call disbelief on me.

[@drawfiend3104]

I see you're taking it easy on Todd and making the other guys the bad players, too.

[@robertnett9793]

About No. 2.... We've all been there. There is just this evening at the table where literally everything goes wrong. And while I try to be the cheery, encouraging one (yes, I've seen your vid with the crucial tip 'expect to have fun')... sometimes it just don't work... Especially when the fails are at rather mundane tasks making the character an instant-idiot.... "Sooo - our great sniper *missed* the target three times, shot himself in the foot AND managed to break his gun. And alerted the whole.... hemisphere to our presence..." you know those days. When the dice decide your character is a bumbling fool with half a dozen left hands.

[@knottheory79220]

I admit I am ALL of these at different times, but I try to dial it back. Like a lot. And I don't stay that way forever.

[@bradlee7875]

I played for almost a decade with an entire table of these. I wouldn't recommend it. >.

[@CollinBuckman]

I've always worried about being the Pouter or the Powderkeg due to Aspergers giving me some trouble regulating my emotions and causing me to overreact at times, but thankfully I've done well in my campaigns so far. Only one major issue has ever happened, but I feel a bit justified in it (my PC was downed sorta near an enemy, party member wanted to cast a spell that would've 100% caught my character in the blast and killed him, and tried to justify it to us as being what his character would do)

[@wagnerags]

Great to hear these “Hello, internet! Seth Skorkowsky!”! Made my morning. Hey, Seth. Are you going to do a review on Uncle Timothy’s Will? I had a really good time watching that. You guys are awesome roleplayers, and I really enjoyed your version of Harvey Duncan Allen! Thanks!

[@SSkorkowsky]

I'll do it eventually. I've since picked up Blood Brothers which it was published in, and plan on gutting and running one of the other adventures in there.

[@wagnerags]

@@SSkorkowsky Wow! Great to hear that! Since watching you guys I also picked up Blood Brothers. Still think the best one there is Uncle Timothy’s, but a few others caught my eye. The Mummy Bride, The Swarming, Spawn of the Deep… Really looking forward to your reviews!

[@gaminreasons8941]

Had a player that was a bit of a pouter/powderkeg. Big example was when he was very clearly misunderstanding a class ability he had and what it could do. I explained to him that it wasn't how it works but he was adamant that he was right and just got grumpy when I didn't let him do it. (Specifically he was a 5e War Cleric and he was misunderstanding the War Priest ability.)