Gamers

[Elennsar]

Posting this here because its only about 40% serious.

There are several types of gamers:

Real Roleplayers: Real Roleplayers play characters who are hopelessly gimped because wanting to play someone competent is power gaming.

Real Min-Maxers: Real min-maxers know how to push the system to its absolute limits, and can probably calculate whether it is better to buy more Dex or the things Dex influences in any game system while jerking off or even while having sex (this last has not been proven, as we have yet to find any signs they're able to get laid).

Real Morons (RPing): "My character would do this!" "Your character is a total dick/idiot/pain in the ass." "Yes, but I'm really roleplaying!"

Real Morons (gaming): "I cast fireball in a 10x10 room...which my allies are fighting in."

Ideal Players: "I have a character concept. I've some ideas on how to translate that into game terms, what would work best in your campaign?"

Rule Freaks: "It isn't specifically permited in the rules, therefore it is forbidden!" Some prefer "It isn't specifically forbidden, so it is permited!" Either way, their goal in life is to be the dominant force in terms of knowing what the rules are for the game. If they're DMing, this might be bearable. Otherwise, they're going to end up as dicks.

Setting Haters: "Even though there's no hobbit knights I want to be one because isn't that so cool!" and arguing that long past the point anyone is willing to accept the idea. Not to be confused with people Ideal Players who just have oddball ideas. There are oddballs out there, but Ideal Players know how far that can be pushed, Setting Haters don't (or don't care).

Natural newbies: People who don't get the purpose of house rules. They think the game is perfect as is.

Simps: People who think simpler = better. Even when something is simplified to the point where its removed despite being important.

Nitcounters: People who think more details are better by definition.

Storydictators: Railroading DMs.

[Caelic]

Socialites:  "...so I was telling Jerry the other day that Sheila...you remember Sheila?  ...yeah, she was with Mike and Tom, and there was this badger, and...huh?  Initiative?  What are we fighting?"


Wannabes: "...but of COURSE a ninja could balance on a flagpole while fighting!  Dude, have you SEEN any ninja movies?  They have REAL ULTIMATE POWER!"

Xeroxers:  "My new character is a Drow ranger named Drizz'le F'shizzle!"  "Dude, your last SEVEN characters have been Drow rangers named Drizz'le F'shizzle."  "Yeah, but this one's different...he wields LONGSWORDS, not scimitars!"

[Caelic]

Deleted duplicate response.

[emissary666]

Nationophiles: Create characters based solely on one real world nation and use their extensive knowledge of that nation to excuse behavior and so forth, often in a setting where the nation or any analog of it does not exist.

[bhu]

Jocks: "We're talking to people?? Why are we talking to people when we could be beating their ass?? Talking doesn't get us XP!! Talking doesn't level me up!! Screw these people we can kill them AND the monster and get twice as many levels!  No one's in this for plot or story, we're here to kick ass!"

[Elennsar]

Chipeaters: People who don't contribute much to the game, but eat the food. N/A online.

[Darius Stronghand]

Fiddlers: Players who allocate more of their time to arranging/stacking/spinning/color-coding/drawing on dice, than participating in the game itself.

[MilwaukeeJoe]

Shoot First, Talk Never
DM: "You enter the throne room to see a old man sitting upon it. He raises his head and says..."
Player: "Fireball... I cast fireball immediately as I enter the room!"
DM: "Um, but don't you wanna hear what..."
Player: "Nope. Fireball, now!"
DM: sigh. "Ok, roll 'em..."

(This is fine sometimes, but this particular player seemed to love to kill many avenues I had of advancing the plot via dialogue!)

[emissary666]

I AM LAWFUL GOOD!!!
Traits: Lawful Stupid

[RobbyPants]

Perverts: players who devote most of their time in game to trying to get laid, and then wanting graphic detail.

[InnaBinder]

Draggers: Players who insist on exclusively playing members of the opposite gender.  90% of the time, opposite gender = hot elf chick.

[RobbyPants]

Softballers: DMs who won't ever let a PC die, but won't admit it.  Tells them he'll let a PC die if they do something stupid, but this is a lie.

* DM rolls an attack roll *

"How many HP does your character have?"


Overpower-Softballers: Softballer DMs who throw really strong monsters at the party, then softball them when the fight inevitably starts going sour.  The difficulty of the fight might be a knee-jerk reaction to the party doing well in another fight due to luck or tactics. 

"They beat something 3 CRs higher than their level.  How about a level +5 CR fight this time?"


Tactic-lite-Softballers: DMs who inadvertantly softball players by not having monsters use any tactics at their disposal.  Common examples include a dragon flying in and engaging in full attacks, creatures not using special abilities (like an umber hulk's gaze that doesn't even take an action!), and monsters switching targets when the initial target is about to die (even if the new target hasn't posed any real threat).

[woodenbandman]

Crouching Tiger-Hidden Softballing- I'm guilty of this one a bit. I was a new DM and I couldn't guage my party effectively, so I nearly walked into several TPKs. One of them I was going to kill a guy, but I played it off as the demon who would have killed him was very lazy (I'd established it before), so he just walked over and attacked another guy instead.

Moral of the story: If you're going to softball, leave yourself an out in the beginning of the fight. Like say, oh they look like they might be scared of you, so they can run away if they kill you too hard.

I try to avoid softballing, but sometimes it's inevitable because I screw up by throwing something too strong at them.

[skydragonknight]

Subtypes! The Character Artists:

Character Artists(Min-maxers): A type of min-maxer who uses the rules to design a character that elegantly combines class features from multiples classes, prestige classes as wel as feats into a masterpiece that is several times more useful than the sum of it's parts. However, when subjected to an actual game, quickly becomes bored of the character and looks for another game to create a new masterpiece.

Character Artists(roleplayers): A type of roleplayer who elegantly uses the intricacies of a campaign setting as well as aspects of generic fantasy roleplaying and creates a character with a ten page backstory that reads like a short story written by a professional author. In game, the player continuously references their backstory, even at the strangest times. These characters usually die random deaths due to horrible builds, but are often saved by DM fiat if the DM likes their backstory.

[emissary666]

Forced Softballer
traits: Forced to softball by at least on player who complains if he takes any damage or if anything bad happens to his character

Crier:
Cries if anything bad happens to his character

I once ripped the crier's character's tongue out, he cried all session