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.

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@DUNGEONCRAFT1]

My favorite parts are when you just call the player out, "This player is a dick."

[@Grayald]

It's refreshing. There are too many weak, pushover DM's these days.

[@hadeseye2297]

I see some people are like me. But I took it a step further. Once - Death on the Reik - I gave players 2 sessions to change their - PCs - behaviour. They didn't. Where's crime, there's punishment. TPK. Me: "I warned you." Gamer: "I like that character." Me: "And I like that campaign. But you become a dick."

[@Belphegorite]

@@Grayald And that's why we have to test them to see if they're worthy of running a game for us! Oh, wait...

[@ts25679]

Who else comes to these videos with a bundle of anxieties worrying if "Am I like that?"

[@YHLGguitargeek]

Turns out in a bit of a tester. :/

[@LB-yg2br]

Just you. You are like that. No one else

[@daniellugo6461]

Psychology would say..... just about everyone who clicks the video. 😁

[@trioofone8911]

Lol

[@burningbronze7555]

Me.

[@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!

[@Serutans]

Me: Haha these are such absurd examples. Seth: It's all real. Me: *takes stress damage*

[@andrewlance3898]

"The reality of problem players dawns on you. Make a SAN check."

[@radec5437]

@@andrewlance3898 roll 1d6 +1 for the cosmic horror realisation

[@Tony-dh7mz]

Why is it absurd? because you've never experienced it? That seems more absurd.... Are you a newb?

[@andrewlance3898]

@@Tony-dh7mz It's easy to dismiss videos like these as purely hypothetical unless you have personal experience with the subject matter. Learning at least some of the video's examples are based on Skorkowsky's personal experience makes them more real and thus more unpleasant

[@Tony-dh7mz]

@@andrewlance3898 no, experiencing them first hand makes it more real, dismissing someone else's experience of them as "absurd" is just ignorance at its worst... Hardly a qualified comment

[@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!

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@josephgioielli]

When it come to the world breakers, I would always say "Who are you talking too? Is your character talking to himself? He would need to find someone in town to ask. If you want to spend your time talking to the local elders to see if someone knows, that's great. But no one in this location would know the answers to these questions." If all else fails, double the wandering monsters.

[@kainthedragon1]

This! I was thinking this. Make it diagetic: if they start hitting up the bartender he can be all "buy an ale or hit the road" and if they keep harassing him with questions after buying the drink, do what a real bartender would do: find other things they "need" to do (help other patrons, converse with a regular away from the pc, cleaning, etc.) that gets them away from the weirdo playing 100 questions.

[@wendigo1619]

@@kainthedragon1 when i was a bouncer, if the guy playing 100 questions persisted for too long the bartender would call me over to toss him out... i give bartenders in my games challenge rating 18 and an instant knockout for that purpose

[@kainthedragon1]

@@wendigo1619 to be fair: most of my bar experience was small town bars without a formal bouncer position: the regulars (or the cook) just doubled as bouncer if called for.

[@wendigo1619]

@@kainthedragon1 i worked at a roadside biker bar in the middle of nowhere, they needed me because fights often ended with serious injury

[@jacobgrimm9475]

Tester: "I was testing you. Congratulations, you past." Me: "That's funny, so was I. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out."

[@DTDdeathmas]

The pit trap part reminds of when my group spent 40 minutes doing the math on pushing over a pot. Our gm was a physics major and it was pretty funny

[@Dawning_Light]

It’s always fun sounding when your study major can be applied to your role playing.

[@cristiaolson7327]

Our group has me, a bio major, my friend who was a med major but changed to bio, a friend with an associates in medical assistance, and another friend who has dabbled in both but perused pharma. We all know enough about anatomy (and are essentially impossible to gross out) that descriptions of injuries and corpses are exceedingly detailed when players ask those questions. Two sessions ago they dissected a yeti, and harvesting odd anatomical parts of monsters has become a pastime after battles.

[@virgilmcmath6363]

as long as your having fun i suppose

[@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. 😂

[@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 :)

[@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.

[@joshbecka6110]

I knew a guy…cuoisidently he is/was the Dweebles of the group…that was the pouter keg. Depended on the night, but he was either pouting or slamming thing around when it didn’t go towards his plan…

[@mr.pavone9719]

Oooh, "pouter keg". Now THAT is a good one!

[@leilanalseides1815]

One of the friends I regularly play with is one of those as well. It has really been making it difficult for me to enjoy preparing and enjoying that game from time to time.

[@SSkorkowsky]

* Hangs head in shame that I didn't think of calling it Pouter Keg *

[@nicknumber1512]

@@SSkorkowsky Dammit! I never make my pun rolls in time! Screw this!

[@Ouvii]

@@SSkorkowsky wait, double take... I thought you did call it a pouter keg in the video. Ok I see-literally see; I usually only listen most of your videos. I thought you were already making the pun haha

[@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.

[@toryniemann5124]

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

[@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.

[@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.

[@InfiniteWit]

I've definitely been a pouter in the past. But I cut that shit out when I wasn't having fun. Mostly due to watching the RPG social contract

[@cyclone8974]

yeah except when you can't roll for crap, to the point that people are yelling at you to roll another dice to only roll even worse with their dice. "LOL just role play it or play a silly character. It's your choice to have fun or not!" yeah but what if I don't want to play that kind of character? What if it's not fun to never be able to do anything because the dice defeat you at every turn. It's why I mostly don't play "rollplay" games anymore.

[@JimMonsanto]

Same, but only after a LONG string of shitty rolls. There's only so much "roleplaying" you can do to roll with the punches, so to speak before you just sigh and say fuck it.

[@luisg.lazzarisdoamaral3016]

@@cyclone8974 you don't have to roleplay a hopelessly clumsy character. Maybe the insatisfaction comes from a lack of description of how you go about failing. When I'm the DM it's easy to come up with millions of different ways to say someone missed an attack rather than just "you miss" or "your character is now dumb because they are rolling low". I have seen players do that out of their own initiative too and it's fun

[@rpeterson9182]

You all need to watch Seth Skorkowsky’s “Cure your dice curse with 1 easy fix” video. 😆🎲🐔

[@rossjackson8259]

Ehh.. we all have bad days sometimes. It’s not always easy to laugh it off when you really wanted your character to succeed at something.

[@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.

[@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.

[@vladpiranha]

I missed these.

[@abyssaldragonslayer4389]

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

[@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?

[@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.

[@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!

[@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

[@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.

[@williamfawkes8379]

You pulled all of these lists from my tortured psyche, didn't you Seth, I can feel your mental fingers digging around in there. I hope you washed your hands after that, its a real mess inside my mind.

[@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.

[@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.

[@bradlee7875]

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

[@carloscaro9121]

Another one of the weird World Breakers is the player who has a real life skill or knowledge and then they turn on the GM any time that skill or knowledge is not painstakingly portrayed as true to life, even if the GM does not actually take artistic license and just resolves something with a die roll. Example: the player is a computer programmer and insists on a detailed explanation of the irrelevant task of breaking into a laptop when the story isn't how they got into the laptop, but the files contained therein.

[@herbreisig553]

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

[@seb24789]

Oh god i'm so tired of The Critic. "This rule is stupid!" "5e is garbage!" "My own homebrew system is sooooooo much better".

[@brianjacob8728]

5e is garbage.

[@RobotsPajamas]

I can't even imagine getting a chance to play with Seth and then later being so annoying as to appear as a character in one of his videos.

[@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

[@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!

[@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. 😒" 🤭

[@capngio4589]

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

[@tavnerphillips4490]

Goated game!

[@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.

[@KimKhan]

Holy shit, seeing the examples of the Critic made my blood pressure rise - a player dictating what should and should not happen in a game out of their control (i.e. the gear of enemies) would make me livid as a GM. The Pouter feels like someone trying to use emotional blackmail on the GM, hoping the GM will retroactively change bad results. I kind of feel the same way with players I have had that are -too- worried about their characters dying, going so far that if a character died for any reason, they wouldn't want to play anymore at all. The Worldbreaker feels like a perfect example of a player that doesn't want to work with the GM, and instead try to satisfy their own ego by "being smarter and betterer" by finding faults. The Agitator... I didn't realize they existed, I thought they'd just be kicked out of a game the first time they show this behaviour. It also sounds like a case of "Schrödinger's Joke". It's a joke, and serious, at the same time until it is called out. ... But after all that is said and done, the Tester sound like a legitimate sociopath.

[@IanWright_au]

My experience with a worldbreaker was that they where actually motivated by trying to find 'loopholes' to exploit in the world. They often had a plan in mind already of some spell or ability they wanted to use for some non-standard way and rather than just saying up front what they want to do, instead ask leading and specific questions inorder to try to trap the GM in advance. It's when the GM unintentionally blocks their idea that they claim something is 'not realistic' and pout. It's a playstyle of someone that thinks they need to outsmart the DM rather than play together.

[@magonus195]

I've seen this recently in my group, but that's because our GM occasionally nerfs things we like to do, so we'll just pretend to bumble into things naturally sometimes.

[@oasntet]

The problem with the worldbreaker isn't the excited digging into details, it's the scale and the purpose. I wish I had a lightweight worldbreaker or two in my games, one who is willing to accept "this is a fiction constructed by one human" but still likes digging to see how detailed the fiction is. Having the worldbreaker DM a session or two also seems like a pretty easy cure.

[@SSkorkowsky]

So the World Breaker I talked about in the video has started playing with me again (the pit trap incident was like 15 years ago). How'd he get over the World Breaking issue? He started GMing and saw certain behaviors he didn't like and realized he'd been guilty of them in the past.

[@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)

[@Faldang]

Great video! It's kinda funny how I sort of visualize each type by having a mental image of some people I've gamed with :P I gotta say, the only kind I haven't had is the agitator, and I'm happy about it.

[@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.

[@worthasandwich]

The one that bothers me the most is the subverter. The player that always looks for the easiest solution to an encounter. The kind of player that would do anything to bypass a challenge or encounter and find an easy or clever way. In a Star Wars game I had a player want to "hack" Darth Vader's armor so his life support system would kill him. They wanted to do this instead of fighting Darth Vader. In an RPG if one of the options is to fight Darth Vader why on earth would you ever pick a different option?

[@patchbunny]

I was gaming with a powder keg when I was a teen. They were an adult. When things didn't go their way and I beat their character, they threw their 3-ring binder rules collection across the room. I'm sitting there scared and wondering if he's getting physical with me next. Some groups you just walk away from.

[@neckbeardiadnd2245]

its shocking how fast negativity can infect people

[@Paul-nn9oj]

Nothing travels faster than the speed of doubt -Norman Gunsten (aussie comedian)

[@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

[@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.

[@malonemalo]

It helps if you're the World Breaker and *also* the GM. That way, you are constantly asking yourself why you did what you did.

[@jamestaylor3805]

World breakers make the best DMs, if they can ever pull the trigger on finally running thier campaigns they've been thinking about for 20 years...

[@malonemalo]

@@jamestaylor3805 and then you hit your players with some random backstory as to why regular dwarves call regullar goats "small goats", but call big, riding and work goats just "goat".

[@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?"

[@WillemUtUje]

I actually know how that Raiders of the Lost Ark trap worked. It's advanced alien photo-optics tech. Don't forget that that scene took place in Peru, where Indy would later find the Crystal Skull tech too.

[@janwitts2688]

Well... dnd etc don't do themselves ant favours... only a few pages of prices and we are supposed to consider it a medieval kind of setting.. where one or two acres somehow supports a whole family.. buying tools for gold??? Really. ... would be better if someone wrote a medieval roleplaying game and just added some sections on fantasy monsters and magic... take the dnd 5e starter set... interesting but obviously bs... oh there's nothing else of value.. really?,? Crates of product and barrels of food.. that's like hundreds and hundreds of GP. .... oh glastaff had the cellars expanded.. oh did he??? Where's the workforce... the tools... the 100000 cubic foot of rock and soil... just laying in a heap somewhere??? And so on and so forth..... weak and seriously impared npcs... oh this elf has an orchard.. but no stats... really.... oh no one else has any stats ... none of the wizards have spellbooks to salvage.... some magical books didn't burn.. ok guess I will have to work that out myself.... let's reuse some monster manual pics.. so these gouls are eating hundred year old bones.. that have flesh on... making orks into mini ogres with uber hp... wtf orks have 1 dice doh.... now 1 ork needs concentrated weapon fire.. really .... you kill a goblin.. he has no treasure.. ok I sell his scimitar for half value at the nearest town... oh no its not made of good metal... really.. did he do less damage then? Did he roll for weapon breakage? Penalty to hit? The problem with challenging challenging... is that you end up with adventures being a book.. written by the gm and the players are just allowed to go through it.... I don't like people picking apart scenarios and such.. and certainly not crapping the game up.. but it's also upto the dm and scenario dash system writers to make something workable.... dnd produce dozens of books.. big glossy expensive books... how about a few actual chapters on useful things like.. how crops worked... what the villagers actually did at different times of year etc.... I see most gamesystems as poor to average efforts.. like what movies were like before 'the warlord' where they got about 30 percent of the stuff right... however the detail for reenactment of peasant life.. Hamlets villages etc were still not explored... how about some actual background stuff... you know... players having to clean their kit... keep things safe.. not just oh.. yea the packhorse which we never feed has 30000 GP on it etc.. just saying... I actually find the action much more satisfying if the other battles.. such as saving for winter etc are included.. or is the possibility of fighting the elements not fantasy enough?

[@clericofchaos1]

HA! Well, i can't blame the dude for not wanting to die, but it's a game. death doesn't really matter, it's just part of the experience...unless, while researching something cool for your campaign, you actually have managed to invoke an ancient curse or summon a real demon. In which case, you die in the game, you die for real!

[@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.

[@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.

[@traumachild1737]

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

[@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.

[@BrewerMeister]

Oh, no. My fears have been realized. I'm in one of Seth's list videos! I can be a bit of a world breaker. I'm not trying to break the world, but I ask lots of questions that the DM might not have an answer to. I'm just curious and want to learn more about the game world and plot.

[@CowCommando]

Mee too, but I figure now that we're aware of it we can be careful of it in the future to not take it too far. Depending on the DM, it can be nice to show interest in something they spent time creating. Just keep it in check.

[@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.

[@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.

[@SabreXT]

If you do another one of these videos, you should include The Min Maxer. Unless you're running a tournament module or something like that, players shouldn't tune a character to such an extreme they can banish the villain to the outer planes forever from the comfort of the inn due to a combination of obscure rules and spells. This ruins their own fun because either- -The game is a cake walk as they curb stomp everything. -The DM rules that he can't use that particular exploit, thus that character was wasted. -The DM makes encounters to counter the build, which can have various bad results depending on the build in question. I'd also include Social Desirability Bias, where players say they want a grim and gritty hardcore game of social conflict and politics, when in practice they like monster filled dungeon crawls for cool loot. But I don't know how you'd fit that into the list in a simple way.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Min/Maxers and Power Gamers are a difficult one to discuss. Reason being is that I don't see an actual problem with them by themselves. It's more of an issue of compatibility with the group's tastes. A group that is fine with or encourages Min/Maxing will love it and have a total blast together. But throw one in a group that isn't, and that's when problems arise. Now what I do consider problematic is the Min/Maxer Powergamer who also plays like a coward. I don't mean their character is a coward. I mean that no matter what character they have, they are always jacked up to the extreme, have all the biggest and baddest toys, and then refuse to engage with anything that's not clearly and hilariously lower powered to them, even throwing a fit if they receive the slightest damage or inconvenience. The Power Coward (just made that up) is the type that only wants to fight goblins. Not cool goblins with cool abilities and spells and can pose a threat, but tiny low-level peons that pose them zero threat, otherwise the Power Coward runs away, complains that it's too difficult, and that the GM is out to kill them. Power Cowards drive me bats.

[@thegneech]

I have been a couple of the early ones, and it still fills me with shame. -.- That said, thanks for giving Ramones Shirt Guy (can't remember his name atm) a break and having Dweebles be the jerk for a change. XD

[@KarmaSpaz12]

Sometimes it is the down to earth looking guys who are the most explosive. Preface with we are all grown men. Had a game with a friend who wanted to bring a mate along. Never met him before but said ok as the friend was a good person. This bloke rocks up, a round faced, chummy, easy smiles kind of guy who is polite, who you could imagine being anyone's friend if they let him, the kind of guy you seeing running FLGS games for the kids. Game starts, we don't even get fifteen minutes in before this guy gets two bad rolls in a row, nothing lethal - and he blows up. Now he's a big guy and on the second failed roll his face instantly turns beetroot red and just goes off as if he's twelve years old. Fist pounding, screaming, shouting, finger one inch away from face waving mess. I won't say how I got him to leave but I got him to leave and told my friend that when I said I didn't want to see that guy again, I didn't mean just in game, I mean ever, anywhere, ever again.

[@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.

[@nicholaskumpula4011]

Woof...this is too accurate 😳 I should be able to subtly send this to a few people. Awesome job as always!

[@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.

[@kurtoogle4576]

I DM a ton, and I know that none of these issues are addressed subtly. Pause the game right then and there, state that you can't let this slide, and ask that the group discuss why this behavior is a problem. Make it a meta-game conversation about keeping the group enjoyable for all - including you, respecting each other, story-building, and capturing the game's tone. If you don't take on these 5 issues head-on, your good players will leave and you'll hear endless complaining.

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

I kinda like the world breaker. Maybe I'm one of those? : P Sounds a bit like a OSR mindset. The guy wants to understand the world as it works and solve it through engagement and clever thinking rather than just rolling some dice and have his character work it out for him. The "I was hoping you made it realistic" is the questionable part, as it undermines the world for everyone else. If you can read the cues that the DM just doesn't feel like developing those details or you are dragging the game, you should just say something like "Oh, alright..."

[@stevedowdy1]

I think the problem is not so much players wanting details of the world so they can play better (or at least differently); but it's where they start to drift into 'Tester' territory, where they're demanding increasingly obscure details that couldn't realistically have any bearing on their characters actions just so that they can find that one detail that the GM didn't plan for and can't improvise on the spot in order that they can feel like they've 'won' something by outsmarting the GM.

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

@@stevedowdy1 Agreed. But then, that's more of an issue with the 'Tester' type, isn't it? Then again, how are we to judge the true intentions of why they pick and prove at our descriptions? maybe they really are interested or they really could use those descriptions as part of their plans.

[@stevedowdy1]

@@Rodrigo_Vega Oh I agree it's a bit of a grey area. I think the difference is in intent (which, as you say, can be hard to judge). Are they asking because they're genuinely interested, or are they asking because they're just trying to stump the GM. It's the difference between the World _Investigator_ and the World _Breaker_, one is trying to find details of the world, the other is trying to find flaws in the world.

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

@@stevedowdy1 It's possible that most of those players are also a bit of both and neither and the DM's attitude towards the early stages of this behaviour will settle what they'll become. I feel a lot of DMs might react defensively whenever the mechanics of their world are examined or their improv skills are challenged and in turn the player feels their engament and curiosity are punished or disregarded. It's probably best to just assume the best intentions from everyone and encourage cooperative behaviour so that everyone can assists on filling the gaps. "Well, you character is the expert on traps. You tell me, how he would expect this kind of mechanism to work?" Even having some _other_ cooperative players at the table can save your skin and curve those interactions "Well of course this building's layout makes no sense, it was built by a _mad_ wizard, wasn't it?" and you are like "yea.... right, that's... that's what it is."

[@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.

[@Satori2046]

I came across a few of these during my years as a Dm. Only one solution, talk to the player privately, if they dont understand and change their behaviour = Fired.

[@chazblank2717]

If you ever revise this video you should parentheses subtitle the Powder Keg as the Pouter Keg.

[@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

[@TKFKU]

This is a really great video, but I was hoping it would be more realistic.

[@markadkins1842]

Is there a World Breaker Variant called the Day Trader? It's similar to a World Breaker in their obsessive search for the one thing the GM never thought of, but with a twist of, "Okay, so how can I manipulate this for a profit?" All I'm saying is, please stop asking me for the Black Market price of the eggs of the monsters you're being paid to hunt!

[@TorianTammas]

The answer is they have no bloody idea. Why should they have any worth at all?

[@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

[@EvilDMMk3]

There is one I am struggling with. The Paranoid. A player so risk averse they refuse to do anything

[@SSkorkowsky]

I touched on those in '5 Player Habits That Can Go Bad'. They cripple themselves with inaction. There was a lot of "Oh, paranoid players are the fault of the GM for always doing bad stuff to them," and while that can certainly be true, I've had brand-new players walk in with that problem. Maybe it's video games. Maybe it's them thinking the GM is jerk or flashbacks of a jerk GM from years before. Maybe it's just their natural setting to be overly paranoid. Whatever the cause, they're terribly frustrating.

[@Malchiwick]

I like how the agitator is in a Cyberpunk Red game

[@davidnorthcutt]

Great video as per usual. Oh man Dweebles got pretty dark in this one - I don't even know him anymore!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Dweebles once ordered the death of his GM's teddy bear and threatened to have Mike cut off the GM's fingers. He also may or may not have stolen his GM's dice and then shot him. Dweebles is and always has been the dark one. Don't let that cute demeaner fool you.

[@christreedee]

@@SSkorkowsky ha, I have had many good folk at the table but.... these types show up in public games and you can see their markers very quick, if I see a player happy and enjoying a]game then another takes their time to "eff" around or with them, then they have to leave the table, everyone breaths a sigh of relief .... thanks for the video Seth.....

[@cambionblack7939]

Maybe the prep time of dressing up as Dweebles, with the slick down hair and chin glue, sends Seth to his dark place ;). Seth/Dweebles looks in the mirror: “You talkin’ to me?” :)

[@sebbychou]

I only GM because as a player I'm all of the first part and it's not fun for anyone.

[@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".

[@alicelirette4380]

Missed the slam dunk pun "the pouterkeg"

[@SSkorkowsky]

To my eternal shame, I completely missed it.

[@MichaelB-jw5po]

I cant stand people who spend the whole session whining about how bad their dice rolls are and how they keep failing skill checks. Once you've played RPGs for long enough, you learn to not worry so much about the dice rolls and just enjoy the social experience, but some people never progress to that level.

[@larsdahl5528]

Sometimes the real problem can be something else. Can be: "Roll Play" -> Too many dice rolls required.

[@johanneskaiser8188]

Gotta hand to Todd that AC is dumb. Easy, yes, but dumb. Have to admit, I can be a bit of pouter sometimes. Dice usually don't like me at all and it can get a bit mich sometimes depending on the extent.

[@boingthegoat7764]

Sometimes I embellish a bit to take advantage of AC being an abstraction. "Your plasma bolt connects, but does no damage to his stonking power armor."

[@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

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

Hey, Todd wasn't the only example jerk in this episode!

[@DasKame]

5:17 Awwww §$%((, i know this Guy. HATED this, and i was not even the GM!

[@terrainaholic]

Ya I've played with these people:)!!!!! Tester the least thankfully.

[@awaytoanywhere699]

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

[@scottturner3831]

Also, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Be realistic...

[@ArawnNox]

A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. It's realistic. :)

[@patchbunny]

Are you measuring by tonnage or square feet?