There are a million blogs and articles full of how to be a good DM. I want to talk about the flip side of the coin, how to be a better player.
Now, I'm going to use D&D3e for my examples, but these apply to any RPG.
My credentials? I used to do a lot of convention play, which means I could play with up to 30 other players each convention, and I would do this four or five times a year, if not more. I've seen just about every type of player that was in Living Greyhawk.
@Canageek The ineffective character.
I played with a halfling fighter 2/cleric 2/wizard 2. That means at 6th level they will die if they go into melee, and yet that can't cast any of the useful wizard or cleric spells. A default wizard, cleric OR fighter would all be more useful then this character.
Don't be this person. You are forcing everyone else to spend their time keeping you alive, without giving anything back.
@Canageek When building a character ask "What do I bring to the party?" That can be fighting ability, spells, social abilities, anything. Now, talk to your DM about what you're party needs. I brought a character to my current game that is far more combat heavy then we need (though this is in part due to the changing nature of the campaign over four years)
But if I ask you what you contribute you should have an answer. #RPGchat
@Canageek Also, it needs to be something fairly general, OK?
I knew another halfling fighter that was an acrobat type. So if he needed to fight on a ship's mast in a storm, he was ready. Great, you are useful like, once a year. (I don't know what it is about halfling players)
I mean, it came up, but we were a landlocked nation.
By the same token, if you are doing a swashbuckling campaign, don't be the default fighter in plate who is great any time you are off the ship.
@Canageek That last example would make me constantly throw storms and turbulent seas at them
@ryusei That unfairly penalises the other five party members who built characters that don't have that ability. Doubly so as we were from a semi-arid country that is land locked.
@Canageek Communication between the GM and the players about the future campaign and group character creation can go a long way. Then they could at least talk about the fact that one player wants a swashbuckling character and can talk about how much swashbuckling will go on in the campaign
@Canageek Is one of the rules that the party must all survive the campaign? Otherwise it may be the smart choice to let bad characters die so the rest of the party can finish the campaign (assuming that would be an in-character action)
@USBloveDog in living greyhawk it was expected that everyone do their best to ensure a total party survival. and deliberately attacking another character was grants for that character being removed from the campaign.
@USBloveDog I would also say that that's a decidedly evil action, that is deliberately letting someone die for your own gain.
that is also moving the responsibility off the player and on to the rest of the party.
@Canageek That’s an evil characters only option, for sure (or amoral characters at best).
@Canageek I need to convince an Irl friend of mine to make an account on Dice Camp, since he’s into tabletop RPGs and has stories of creating a deliberately stupid character when he finds out his party is entirely fun vampires, rules lawyers, or meta gamers.
@Canageek I very much hate playing with these players. I could optimize like them but it’s not fun for me. I actively avoid them at cons. I hate what they do to adventure design. If I’m stuck in a whole group of them I check out and ride out the adventure. It’s harder when it’s 1 or 2 because they suck up the fun of 4-5 people.
The stories I hear from friends about things like the table where 4 people had staves of power, or the group of paladins riding shapeshifted druids make me shudder.
@mpetruzz Actually that second one sounds roleplay fun. We had a few optimisers that still rped heavily, so they'd show up and make the gave fun.
@Canageek Could be, but nah. I know who it was. I call them Team Power-gamer for a reason. I think they even had the same magic items. They made their characters to do that at cons. They had to have leveled separately and played the same adventures repeatedly to do that. When the DM has to go ask another DM for advice for how to make the adventure combats not trivial, it’s you not them.
@Canageek There was a group of players who would show up to the local cons called the fun vampires. As in, they showed up and sucked out all the fun.
They all had hyper-optimized characters, only cared about combat, and didn't respect people who couldn't keep up with then in combat.
This resulted in an arms race with local adventure writers until a few local people stepped in, as it made the adventures too lethal for everyone else.
#RPGchat