"Fishmalks"? Please educate us.

Quote from: C.W.RichesonExcessive cutting up, planning missions, or anything that takes me away from the game for more than 15 minutes or so.  I love laughing and making wise cracks too, but you can reach a point where the game isn't being played.  That sucks.

I feel that.
And I add: when players get pedantic and plan endlessly about silly or non-important issues like: "do we put to rest the horses in this square?" "No put them in this other square..." "but this other square is better"... or discuss for 5 minutes about who and when should be guarding the camping.... "I'll do the rist turn!" "No you do the second, so I can learn the spells", "no you do the thirs turn and half of the fourth"... BOOOOORIIIIIING
I can get really mad after 20 seconds of this crap. LET'S FUCKING PLAY THE DAMN GAME!

And people who plan his moves to the tiny detail... holy crap, this is a RPG, not a wargame... PLAY! Be in character... your character DOESN'T FUCKIN KNOW HOW MANY SQUARES THERE ARE FROM HIM TO THE ENEMY... so go ahead and MOVE, without trying 234,897 alternatives before deciding!

And endless scribbling and taking notes and writing value of endless lists of equipment found. DAMN IT! Are you a fighter or an accountant? Next time, dumb-fuck, play a damn MERCHANT!

Quote from: JimBobOz"Fishmalks"? Please educate us.

A "fishmalk" is a term from Vampire: the Masquerade. In Vampire, one of the clans of Vampires is the "crazy" clan - the Malkavians ("Malks" for short). There's a kind of player out there who sees that and goes out and creates the silliest, stupidest character they possibly can and justifies it with "Well, they're crazy you know." The "fish" part supposedly comes from a famous story about someone creating such a character who would go around slapping people with a large fish for no goddamn reason. It's very similar to what other people call "Chaotic Stupid" but coming out of Vampire instead of D&D.

A real example I once saw online was a Malkavian character in a zootsuit who juggled chainsaws and talked in absolute gibberish and just basically fucked around in the game's Elysium room disrupting everyone else's RP. I used to play a Malkavian character on the WW chatboards, and I quit after I realised that the storytellers weren't going to tamp down on those shits at all.

Another Malkavian stereotype was the 'infant psychopath,' which was a regressed adult vampire wandering around clutching a teddy bear and talking in that hideously infuriating babyspeak. Of course if anyone crossed her she immediately transformed into a ravening monster that the players insisted was capable of carving any victim into strips.  

I think a version of this even appeared in one of the older clan books.

Players who refuse to engage an adventure. Look, pal, I am not into railroading. I don't force you. I even give you numerous adventure hooks. But when you use this freedom to sit on your rump and play the exciting game of domain administration, or the empty "I am hanging around the Fuckstone Inn" kind of "roleplaying", you've made the game boring for everyone else, and betrayed the fuckload of work and enthusiasm I put into designing the fucking adventure. Glarg. :violent-smiley-078:

Quote from: DrewAnother Malkavian stereotype was the 'infant psychopath,' which was a regressed adult vampire wandering around clutching a teddy bear and talking in that hideously infuriating babyspeak. Of course if anyone crossed them her she immediately transformed into a ravening monster that the players insisted was capable of carving any victim into strips.  

I think a version of this even appeared in one of the older clan books.

In one of my LARP groups, the main leader was a Changeling fan who had misread the age category table as meaning absolute age instead of age since awakening as a changeling.

So they, and everyone else in the group, were convinced that you couldn't play a Changeling older than about 6 years old.

But they still insisted on playing them regardless.

In the Seattle Camarilla chapter, where all the Malkavians wore suits and were insane in a reasonably genteel way, we called them "stuffed-animal Malkavians". One player who moved from Washington DC played his "fishmalk" -- stuffed tiger and all -- and got killed on his first game, just on general principles (well, he annoyed the Scourge).

Quote from: balzacqIn the Seattle Camarilla chapter, where all the Malkavians wore suits and were insane in a reasonably genteel way, we called them "stuffed-animal Malkavians". One player who moved from Washington DC played his "fishmalk" -- stuffed tiger and all -- and got killed on his first game, just on general principles (well, he annoyed the Scourge).

Thankfully, most of my groups avoided Malkavians, because they were generally percieved as being too ridiculous, primarily because of stories like these.

There was only one, as I recall, and he was a serial killer.  The palyer was the same creepy fucker who would many years later go on to enact a torture scene in a D&D game that would've made the wardens at Abu Ghraib uncomfortable (a comparison that actually came up in game . . .)

It's really sad because there's some intriguing potential to the Malkavian clan, but it's so often destroyed by people's misconceptions of what mental disorder actually is.  

I mean hell, you'd think in the World of Angst, a character type that has an inbuilt excuse to start with clinical depression would be lapped up like mother's milk.

Players who are like little children and are always trying to be the center of attention, to the point of doing every tiny stupid thing they can come up just to be on the spotlight.
Players that metagame just to get the slightiest advantage, like if the game was some kind of competition.
Players that all they do is to fuck around and behave with utter stupidity all the time, to the point that the other pc's would try to kill him.
Players whose "character" are only a collection of stats.
Players who cheat.
Players who cheat and then brag about how baddass their characters are.

Quote from: balzacqIn the Seattle Camarilla chapter, where all the Malkavians wore suits and were insane in a reasonably genteel way, we called them "stuffed-animal Malkavians". One player who moved from Washington DC played his "fishmalk" -- stuffed tiger and all -- and got killed on his first game, just on general principles (well, he annoyed the Scourge).

Make me a happy man, tell me that the Seattle Cam has cleaned up their act since 1996. When I last lived there, many of the Vampire LARPers had decided that trying to freak out people not in the game was fun and should be pursued at every chance.

Heckling.

Specifically the kind of heckling that consists of mindlessly parrotting some buzzwords off the internet. Extra points for adding "I'm kidding. Not really. But I sort of am. But not really. etc." at the end.

Some interesting gripes in this thread. Allow me to add my own:

Players or GMs who are unable to tell the difference between the game rules and the setting.

Quote from: SosthenesBut numero uno of what pisses of Michael: Players who can't hold still while the focus is on other people. While two characters are discussing something with the king while the rest is outside, please shut up. I don't want to constantly hear someone jibber-jabber about his cool WoW exploits while we're trying to play. It's disruptive and disrespectful. Reading magazines or rule books is less offensive, but still not very polite sometimes.

Yes, especially because I refuse to explain what just happened when that player wasn't listening, was checking his email, talking, etc.  

Pete

Here's one: unjustified grandstanding, on the part of players or GMs.

This is the odious practice of having your beloved (N)PC stand up and make a speech and expecting everyone to listen. When it's justified - when it's something which everyone present is actually interested in, when it's reasonably well-delivered, and when it's kept brief and to the point - I can just about accept it.

But so, so often, it just isn't justified. Perhaps the person responsible just drones on and on in a boring manner. Perhaps they're giving a speech that I'm not interested in. Or perhaps they just think that their (N)PC is so fucking special that everyone else should stand there and pay close attention to what they are saying and take them seriously.

This sort of bullshit is especially common in socially-focused LARPs (like Mind's Eye Theatre, as opposed to combat-focused LARPs with latex weapons), but I've also seen it in tabletops. It's an especially egregious manifestation of another pet peeve of mine: assuming that your precious (N)PC is inherently special and interesting and unique and important. Sorry, chum, if your character's personality and actions scream "boring chump" to mine, my (N)PC is going to treat them like a boring chump, no matter how interesting and important you say they are in the character background.

I'm cool if you want to play a character who is sneaky and good at finding stuff out, but if so, please do tell the other characters what you found out.  If only your guy knows it, you're the only sneaky guy and you don't use the info or tell anyone, effectively nobody knows it and you've wasted my time with the whole finding out the secrets scene.

Also, adventure dodgers.  Act in character by all means, I prefer it if you do, but when creating a character make it someone who will want to adventure.  There's a limit to what I can do if your main goal is a quiet life.

Try at least vaguely to fit in with the party, conflict is fine but if they're playing medieval Spanish priests and their entourage then creating a witch is not going to lead us to a happy place.

Fortunately, I don't encounter these issues much these days.  The guy who used to do the sneaky thing had many other good things going on in his gaming and was a great member of the group, but that particular habit did annoy me a touch.