The other killer trope was that we had one guy who would wander in and out of our group who would join the game and then refuse to play the main conceit of the campaign.
For instance we play a campaign where the main characters find themselves drawn to each other from across the globe and this guy, this terrible player dude, bringing the entire time, talks about how he's not going. Like he wants to have an entire separate plot line where he was the smart one who didn't go or whatever.
I never understood why it kept letting that guy come back into any games. He just thought it was the cleverest possible thing to subvert the game.
You could be playing a dragon slayer campaign and his character just doesn't believe in dragons or something.
I was lucky not to have railroaders like that. If someone tried to go "off script" I'd spank them back on track. See, my leverage was literally no one else in our social milieu could be bothered to DM - they wanted to show off their edgy, brooding, outcast characters xD
It wasn't even about railroading. He was trying to subvert the inciting incident.
Literally the DM says "each of you has woken up with a strange ability or unexpected strength and you feel this urge, this compulsion to converge on St petersburg."
"Well I'm not going to go and you can't make me."
It's like refusing to go to the tavern where everybody is supposed to meet for the first time because my character doesn't drink or something.
DM: This is going to be a mystery and heist taking place on an interstellar Cruise ship. ... GRINNING TOOL: Well I'm going to stay at home because my character hates cruise ships and vacationing.
There was no railroad in the campaign, he was literally trying to fort the framing device and demanding that we keep cutting away to his character puttering around the house or whatever.
You and me both. Like I said I had no idea why he kept getting invited back. He was a nice enough guy but he just grinned the entire time he was trying to submarine the game. I wasn't the person in charge of the group so it wasn't like I had the ability to veto his presence.
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u/BitOBear 6d ago
The other killer trope was that we had one guy who would wander in and out of our group who would join the game and then refuse to play the main conceit of the campaign.
For instance we play a campaign where the main characters find themselves drawn to each other from across the globe and this guy, this terrible player dude, bringing the entire time, talks about how he's not going. Like he wants to have an entire separate plot line where he was the smart one who didn't go or whatever.
I never understood why it kept letting that guy come back into any games. He just thought it was the cleverest possible thing to subvert the game.
You could be playing a dragon slayer campaign and his character just doesn't believe in dragons or something.