Problem players are a perennial subject on GMing blogs. But problems can go both ways. Here are some GM behaviors guaranteed to cause friction in your group. Please feel free to add more.

1. Force your PCs into a predetermined plot line and refuse to let them deviate from it.
2. View the players as opponents to be beaten.
3. Don’t listen to player suggestions. Get angry is someone even tries to talk to you about improving the game.
4. Spend a lot of time looking up rules during combat, especially to find that +1 modifier you know it there to give the NPCs an edge against the PCs.
5. Argue with your players. Tell them they’re not allowed to do certain actions.
6. Permit your players to argue with each other. Allow these arguments to consume large amounts of each game session.
7. Be obviously unprepared. Spend copious amounts of time shuffling papers trying to find the next page of the adventure.
8. Don’t keep an eye on the magic items your group has. Allow them to surprise you with a game-breakingly over-powered item you forgot you let them create.
9. Destroy, loose, or pick-pocket every helpful or impressive magic item the party ever gains.
10. Be very easy going and permissive one game session and hard-nosed rules-stickler the next.
11. Arbitrarily change the rules from one game session to the next.
12. Allow yourself to be bullied into decisions you don’t like by the players.
13. Regularly show up late to game session without an explanation. After all, you’re the GM; they have to wait for you.
14. Frequently cancel game sessions at the last minute.
15. Show obvious favoritism to certain players in your group — SO’s, best friends, etc…
16. Make all adventures as lethal as possible.
17. Don’t take the party’s abilities into account when designing encounters.
18. Regularly fudge die results in the NPCs favor. Make it obvious to the players.
19. Use an NPC to solve every major challenge. Don’t let the PCs do anything important.
20. Forget how many opponents the PCs are fighting. Increase that number midway through combat. Berate any player who tries to correct you.
21. Don’t allow your players to make changes to the game world. Make sure their actions have no permanent affect on the setting.

Do you have any more GMing pet peeves? Please tell us in the comments below.

Here are more quotes from actual game sessions:

General and Out of Character

“This is better than being several hundred people at once.”

“Do you have something to offer up to me as a ‘Get Self Stuck in Appliance’ skill?”

“Give me a resisted Style roll.”

“It’s been changed from commercial to ‘plot device’ zoning.”

“I think that grabbing someone from horseback is an outmoded courtship technique.”

Amber Diceless Roleplaying

“We could have completely botched the job.”
“That would not be completely suprising…”
–Alysis, daughter of Julian
–Allira, daughter of Florimel

“[Brand] wanted the throne, but being a deranged psychopath, his brothers had some issues with that.”
–Alysis, daughter of Julian

“Is there any reason why we shouldn’t bring Master Hardwin along?”
“Yes. [pause] Oh! You mean a good reason.”
–Aurelius Antoniusson, descendant of Corwin
–Lord Sirian of the Ways of Mirrus

Ars Magica

“Why are we taking the boat?”
“Because you are too slow and do not have enough feet.”
–Anya, follower of Jerbiton
–Ruyrick, follower of Bjornaer

“Is not my fault if other people do not have survival skills.”
“That is why we have civilization.”
–Ruyrick, follower of Bjornaer
–Anya, follower of Jerbiton

Call of Cthulhu

If this isn’t the CoC in a nutshell, I don’t know what is
“You are messing with forces you don’t want to understand!”
–John Stubble

Keeper: How would you like to go horribly insane and then have your head torn off by many-tentacled beings from beyond?
Potential Player: Well okay, if everyone else is…

Castle Falkenstein

“I’d hate to be shot by someone I haven’t been properly introduced to.”
–Mr. Espee

“You know, we could have framed anyone with this information.”
–Mr. Espee

“How do you spell ‘nn-tha-a-guuunnn?”
–Miss Margaret Evans

Dungeons & Dragons

And it did, too...
DM: The room is filled with the usual magical accoutraments: beakers, spell components, parts of spell components in jars, a coal-filled brassiere…
Several players: You mean brazier!?!!!
DM[pointing]: No, it says right here in the module: ‘brassiere’.

Old news to many of you, perhaps, but if you’re old enough to remember the old Dragon comic Wormy, Gaming Brouhaha is reposting the old strips, starting with #1. Check out his archives.

For those of you who joined the hobby later, check this out! It’s an absolutely hilarious comic. I loved this strip and it was always the first thing I read with each new issue of Dragon Magazine. It’s more than just a serious of funny situations and gags (though it’s definitely got plenty of those); the characters and their relationships to one another are well-thought out. Sometimes, Wormy and his buddies even play “D&D” . To this day, you’ll hear “Shut up Fred, you’re still unconscious” at our table.

Note: the strips are not being published with the original artist’s permission. However, Gaming Brouhaha went to every effort to attain permission from the original artist, David Trampier, but Trampier refuses to admit he even did the strips. For more information on this, check out the article on David Trampier at Wikipedia.

1. Be nice to the people who have your back.
2. When you leave home, always make sure you’ve got a bedding, food, water, a knife, and a light source, even if you’re just going to be gone “a few hours”. You never know when a freak storm may hit.
3. Babysitting missions are always more trouble than their pay is worth.
4. Romance blossoms between the unlikeliest people.
5. Bring your own rations — what your teammate eats may not be food to you.
6. Anyone who says “This is a simple job” is lying and looking for a cut-rate deal.
7. It’s hard to adventure when you’re carrying a baby.
8. Even when you’re sure the mama is dead and gone, leave the baby where it is.
9. A rope, a dagger, and a 50′ pole can overcome most obstacles.
10. If you think you’re being watched, you probably are.
11. On long trips, it really is nice to have someone who can sing.
12. Never trust someone else’s map.
13. Bring comfortable shoes — at some point, you’re going to need to hoof it.
14. Never pack more than you can carry.
15. Saying “Can’t we all just get along?” is the quickest way to being dead.
16. Never insult your employer. Especially about their name.
17. You don’t have to like the people you work with…but it sure helps.
18. Never leave horses, princesses, children or familiars by themselves.
19. Never assume someone can’t understand your language. Especially if you’re insulting them.
20. NEVER touch the “wam-wam”.

This article is part of the RPG Blog Carnival. I’d actually started this post before I discovered the Carnival, so I had to participlate. Each week I’m going to tackle a different questions from this month’s topic.

More seriously, I think I’ve learned most of my social skills from gaming. Since I started gaming in 1980, I’ve gone from being the classic “foot-in-your-mouth-inadvertantly-insult-everyone-you-talk-to gamer geek” (yes, girls can be gamer geeks too!) to being the “bard” of the party, in real life as well in game. You know, the person who does all the negotiations ’cause they get the best results and the best deals? Gaming gave me a reason to learn to get along with other people, especially people I may not like.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like now without D&D. I wouldn’t have met any of my closest friends, the people who’ve always “had my back” and who’ve stayed with me through thick and thin. Heck, without gaming, I wouldn’t have my son — his father and I met during a game session. I’ve learned how to plan projects, innovate solutions from tools found at hand, and carry things through to completion, even when they originally seemed “too hard”.

Without D&D I wouldn’t be the person I am.

I’m away from the computer today, so here’s a fun quiz. Back to Meadowbrook tomorrow!

Which Dungeons and Dragons Metallic Dragon Are You?

BTW, I got Bronze