What gets under your skin?

[Shadow]

My current group of PCs wouldn't play unless I let them make non-standard charactors. Know what they chose? A half-dragon, a natural werewolf, and an elf-dwarf crossbreed he made me invent! I thought I could at least convince the werewolf player to reconsider, telling him it was foolish because he would be continually infecting enimies he fought. But he would have none of it. And they all were shocked when they were not greeted with open arms in Mordentshire.

It sounds like your group is playing in the wrong setting. Maybe you should let them romp around the Forgotten Realms for awhile.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Careful Shadow, the only thing that gets under some GMs Skins more than players is other people suggesting they shouldn't take half-dragons into Ravenloft

[JinnTolser]

Careful Shadow, the only thing that gets under some GMs Skins more than players is other people suggesting they shouldn't take half-dragons into Ravenloft

Yeah, I have a friend who was told that on the Kargatane board once, and he got very mad at the person who told him.

[AdamGarou]

A few thoughts--'cause there's ALWAYS a way to turn this kind of thing to your advantage:

For the natural werewolf: Bring the party to Verbrek (as has been suggested), and see how Alfred Timothy and the rest of the Verbrekers like a lycanthropic "race-traitor" (assuming the werewolf isn't just as evil as they are). Alternately, bring the party to Kartakass and introduce them to some of Harkon Lukas's greater wolfwere friends--I'm sure they'll all have lots to talk about, since werewolves and wolfweres get along so famously.

For the half-dragon: Depending on how comfortable you are with the terrain of Darkon, introduce the party to Azalin--or more specifically to Ebb (and possibly Gloom, if you use the Dread Possibility from the Gazetteer). While I've never dealt directly in-game with a half-dragon, I would think any full dragon (particularly an EVIL full dragon) would see a half-dragon as (at best) a useful servant or (at worst) a weak and pathetic abomination to be exterminated. You know, something along the lines of "you polluted half-breed b*****d." The half-dragon blood might make him/her unusually susceptible to Ebb's commands, operating as if under a continual charm person spell whenever they're within a mile of each other.

For the "dwelf": There're plenty of possibilities here--bring them to Sithicus and see how antsy the Sithican elves get when they see some creature that has recognizable elvish blood but distinctly dwarven features as well. Or, depending on how freaky this character looks, bring them north to the Sleeping Beast mountains in Lamordia, where it's rumored a battered dwarven city still ekes out a meager existence--I think the Mordent Cartographic Society's maps call it Mitternacht or Dunkelheit. Despite the chilly air, I'm sure they'd get a "warm" reception.

Alternately, bring them into the main "demi-human haters" domains, such as Falkovnia (where all non-humans are state property), Lamordia (where no one believes in that foolishness anyway), or the Shadow Rift (where they can meet Gwydion, who pretty much hates everything).

I know these ideas may seem heavy-handed, but if they're real power-gamers they may actually enjoy it. Of course, being a power-gamer/munchkin/etc. brings with it its own problems--and if they're powerful enough to wade through most "garden-variety" Ravenloft threats, bring out the big guns, shoot at the PCs' feet, and watch them dance.

I've offered these suggestions under the assumption that the players are doing this primarily to irritate you as the DM, and to generally be annoying. If they're simply players who've seen it all and done it all before and just want a new roleplaying experience (and are willing to work in partnership with you as the DM to make that experience better), then it's a different situation. My DM has been gaming (in Ravenloft, the Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Dragonlance and Greyhawk) for about 15 years now, so I typically don't blink when he creates a female sea-spirit-folk Oriental monk/ranger/druid/illusionist natural seawolf lycanthrope with a magical torc that allows her to shapeshift into a Tarrasque.

Um, well, okay, I blink a little. But everyone has their own limits on what constitutes playable characters and what is simply a detour into the ridiculous.

Anyway, hope these gave you some ideas. When these characters continually get run out of villages by angry mobs (brandishing the requisite torches and/or pitchforks) or attacked by Darklords (or their most powerful servants), they might start taking steps to conceal their exotic nature. In fact, if at that point you feel charitable enough to throw in a hat of disguise, you might get to see them fight each other over it.

[Hrtofdrkns]

I've offered these suggestions under the assumption that the players are doing this primarily to irritate you as the DM, and to generally be annoying.

No, I really don't think it was to irritate me. As has been said, they think that the standard races are boring. Even though this was the first D20 game any of them had ever played. Really, this was their first game.
I don't think I can do the things that you suggested. These guys may not be the sharpest swords in the armory, but they would know if I did something just to punish them for picking unusual characters.

However, wandering the core in a campaign that focused on them beating legendary monsters like the green madien and the whistling fiend, all leading up to a showdown with Ebb, might be a reasonable compromise.

[Brandi]

Truth be told, you might just be better off running a non-Ravenloft game for them, and maybe introducing Ravenloft in the time-honored "weekend in hell" style. These guys sound like old-fashioned KTaTTS grognards and trying to force them into a style they don't seem to be interested in will more than likely lead to bad feelings all around.

[Hrtofdrkns]

Your probably right Brandi. Sigh. I just wanted to use some of my ideas that involved Ravenloft rules. Oh well, mabey next time.

Anyway enough about my problems everybody. What irritates you? I,m talking about the kind of thing that makes you want to hang up your dice bag in frustration.

[Hrtofdrkns]

KTaTTS grognards???

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

Well, in the grand old days of 2E another thing would rub me the wrong way, players that would moan for weeks that I didn't let them up their charisma to 17 so they could be a paladin.

Again my answer eventually came with a big heavy book attached, usually that players own PHB Hey, I wasn't going to ruin mine by hitting people with it, it took enough punishment from constant use for many long years.

And ummm.... yes, what are KTaTTS grognards?

[Brandi]

KTaTTS == Kill Them and Take Their Stuff

Grognards == the term is usually used for wargamers and in the RPG sense may mean someone who tries to play an RPG like a wargame.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Careful Shadow, the only thing that gets under some GMs Skins more than players is other people suggesting they shouldn't take half-dragons into Ravenloft

Yeah, I have a friend who was told that on the Kargatane board once, and he got very mad at the person who told him.

As someone who defended the position of the offended DM (I think it was the same one--how many times has this happened?) I'd be inclined to do so again, if the DM in this case felt people weren't treating him fairly, but it seems that that isn't the case.

And yes, it gets under my skin when people say you can't do such and such in your own RL campaign. It may break with tradition, it may never resemble canon in the slightest, and I personally may gag at the concept, but for people to say that you can't do it is not only immature, it's downright false. It's your game, do what you want.

I witnessed a local "RL" game wherein the DM designed the adventure so that all the PC's were pureblood Vistani who were chosen to assassinate Mallochio. The entire campaign consisted of the PC's using a DM-created artifact to take on the bodies of various monsters using a variation of Magic Jar that allowed a strange mix of both characters' abilities. These host bodies were then sent on dungeoncrawl after dungeoncrawl through more dungeons than I ever thought existed in RL--the DM made all the dungeons himself--against drow and orcs, with the primary Vistani PC's simply taking on a new body if the old one got killed.

The DM rolled powers checks almost arbitrarily, but never for killing anyone nor for the use of a powerful necromantic artifact. To my knowledge, he never rolled a fear or horror check, although he had his own madness rules for the artifact which only seemed to make the PC's more powerful. He seemed genuinely surprised when I showed him in his own RL book that Magic Jar has been altered in RL--it's the single most altered spell in the setting, period.

Oh, and he had his own names for Mallochio and the immediately surrounding DL's and domains.

I practically cringed every time he told me about "his RL game." If I had been a player, I would have quit on day one. I mentioned to him it broke a hundred RL rules, which he didn't seem to mind. When his players and I talked about it afterward, we had nothing good to say about it. But I would never tell him what he could or could not do in his own game.

That gets under my skin.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

And yes, it gets under my skin when people say you can't do such and such in your own RL campaign. It may break with tradition, it may never resemble canon in the slightest, and I personally may gag at the concept, but for people to say that you can't do it is not only immature, it's downright false. It's your game, do what you want.

Very much agreed. If the players and the DM's are having fun, go ahead and do it. (Of course if the players are ramming their ideas down the DM's throat or vice-versa, there is a fundamental problem.)

[midnightcat]

what to do when you have one power player /rules lawyer in the group?
I have a group of 4 , sometimes 5, and they like Ravenloft alot and role play. Thier is this one player , who just like to rule lawyer everything, and complains when the bad things happen. He not a bad perosn overall, and i like him, but he wants to be the most powerfull character in the world, and he will argue his point and hold up the game. Atleast he no bad as his firnend, who cmae for awhile. He wasn't interested in gaming and would hold up the game with talk and trivia. Finally, I and my friend, who was also a dm, asked him to leave. Now we just have to get the guy who plays the Dwarf in line, heheh.

[Brandi]

Depends on how the other players feel. If he's spoiling their fun, I'd invite him to leave just for the comfort of the majority.

[midnightcat]

Depends on how the other players feel. If he's spoiling their fun, I'd invite him to leave just for the comfort of the majority.

Well, he not so bad to the point were I would tell him to leave. He is everybody's friends too, plus he does power game/rule lawyer at everyone's game. My other friend I mentioned, she also runs a D&D ,and he does the same thing to her too. We are just trying to figure out how to cure him of his power gaming/ rule lawyering. He does try to role play but the the "how hard can I kill this" gets in his head. Atleast I have 3 other players who aren't into the "Hulk smash" style of play. The 5th player that comes once in a blue moon, plays a half vistani and she is a good player ,but she gets this evil streak in her, as in she tends to do evil. I can handle that with power checks.


What gets under the skin the most. I once had a plyer that wanted the world for EVER character. An example, he asked for a 19 intellegent for his wizard and wanted all the spells in the player handbook. When he ran a game he wouldn't let anyone play anything special, and was so controlling to the point it suffocated the players. Plus he would quit the game when he got bored. When I say quit the game, I mean he would quit the campaign.
Well I stoped playing with him.