Certainly one of the large hurdles that has to be overcome in tabletop RPGs and gaming is the actual formation of the group. It’s not enough to pick a game to run — an arduous process on its own — but you need a venue, materials, schedule a date and time, and actually form a gaming group.
It’s with a nice bit of irony that the latest person to “join” our weekly group bailed yesterday, my birthday, after playing a grand total of zero sessions with us. Is the utter lack of common courtesy unique to gamers or is it just people in general?
So gather around as I weave a tale of gamer ineptitude.
I suspect the gaming group that I am in is really no different than any other. Sure, we may have higher median incomes, be a bit older and more “experienced” in gaming, but ultimately we just want to hang out with friends and have a good time. Gaming is a social experience.
So we obviously put a lot of thought into our gaming and consideration towards other players. After all, these are your friends, right? And you wouldn’t treat your friends like shit, right? Based on the gamers that have come and gone the past few years that sure doesn’t seem to be the case.
Originally I was going to remove their names to protect the “innocent.” But the truth is they’re NOT innocent, at least not in my mind. They’re flaky, inconsiderate, and in some cases, downright weird. They ought to be embarrassed by the following. We sure were.
Psycho Gamer
I can’t begin to tell a tale of gaming woe without including Psycho Gamer John. John was, by all intents and purposes, my best friend for a good length of time. It was strange, looking back on it now I see that it was such an incredibly abusive and one-way relationship that I can’t fathom how I missed it before. I guess good gaming makes you blind to lots of things.
Psycho Gamer John and I had good games. Nay, we had GREAT games. We were the cornerstone of any group and typically one of us was running a game for the other. We played in lots of games and had many memorable experiences. It was the stuff that happened away from the gaming table that was weird.
John might have been a compulsive liar. I don’t know, honestly. I do know that he was always full of BS and he wasn’t shy about dragging you into his tale of BS. He treated his wife like utter shit, bragged about cheating on her, and viewed himself as some great RPG author to-be, although by my count he never wrote anything amassing to more than 10K words. As a “friend” John was lacking to an incredible extent; he’d harass you, overstay his welcome, and generally treat you like crap. We fought a lot and had lengthy spells of not speaking to one another. Eventually we’d be so desperate to game we’d forget why we were fighting and get back together to game. It was a vicious cycle.
I distinctly remember trying to reach out to John on several occasions, trying to break through that veneer. It was tough. Eventually I realized it just wasn’t worth it. I was expending SO MUCH energy trying to keep the relationship going that I was miserable, both personally and at the gaming table. So, after our next blow up (they happened like clockwork) I just walked away. I was tired of being the only one to put the effort into the relationship to make it work.
He’s Psycho Gamer John because after that point he started stalking me. He’d call me, at work, out of the blue over a year later, asking “what’s up?” as if nothing was wrong. He’d show up at my house with the strangest of reasons. I’d get e-mails from the gaming community at Gen Con saying they spoke to some guy who was name dropping me as having worked together. Lots of strange SHIT.
Truth was, all I ever wanted to hear from John was “I’m sorry” or words thereof. I could have forgiven a lot. I spent so much time saying “I’m sorry” in that relationship that I’ve nearly removed the phrase from my vocabulary.
Psycho Gamer John has moved but in the back of my mind I know I’ll get a phone call or e-mail from him some day, totally oblivious to what happened between us.
Unwelcome Guests
I’ve blocked the next gamer and girlfriend-unit’s name from memory. I think he was a John as well, although he wasn’t psycho. I’m not sure the girl had a name at all; she never spoke. They seemed nice enough. It’s what they didn’t tell you that was the problem.
Getting together for an ad-hoc game, John and GFU showed up…with their two kids. They were probably five and seven years old and full of energy, bless them. While we made characters downstairs they destroyed the upstairs. After the session I found marks on my walls and gouges in the floorboards. My wife got stuck watching their kids while we gamed. John and GFU never thought to tell us that they had two kids or that they were coming every week.
Needless to say we pulled the plug on that one pretty quick. It was probably for the best; John wanted to play Nobillis anyway.
“Oh, I…is it Saturday?”
In years past I’ve been the person that brings people together and starts the gaming group. In the absence of leadership I tend to step in. Such was the case when I decided to form a new gaming group about two years ago. I called several people — old and new — and got them together at my place to hash out gaming. Patrick was one of them.
The first thing we decided was that we were gaming on Saturday. It worked out best for everyone and no one had a problem with it. Picking the day and time is always the big hurdle, so flush with success, we move onto picking the game.
It was rather comical, tossing out about a dozen ideas, no one with any strong opinions. After discussing and debating, we trimmed the list down and did some voting and stack ranking. It was all very organized and had buy-in from everyone there. Eventually, after several hours, we settled on a game (and an alternate) and were ready to go! Success!
Then Patrick drops a little bombshell that he can’t play on Saturdays, at least not regularly, and never on the same Saturday. Chaos ensues and group essentially falls apart.
Xtreme!
We’d only met Chris briefly but really kind of liked him. He was full of energy and really personable and fun to be around. After so many duds, Chris was a breath of fresh air.
That is until his wife-unit sucked the air from the room.
She was tight-lipped, controlling, and uninvolved. She wouldn’t open up or speak, yet she insisted on playing with Chris and “being together.” She was, in short, a henchman.
Wife-unit didn’t know the rules and didn’t make her characters; Chris did. She didn’t play them either, aside to pick up the dice and make an occasional roll. She didn’t appear to enjoy gaming AT ALL but would show every time. We began to suspect she was a vampire.
Once they locked their car keys in the car in front of our house. Instead of gaming we had to wait an hour for a locksmith to open their car. Another time the drove all the way to my place (45 minute drive) and realized they left a candle burning on their stove. Driving back-and-forth, we got maybe an hour of playing in that evening. If it wasn’t one thing it was another with Chris and wife-unit.
After maybe four weeks of this, Chris’ schedule just wouldn’t allow him to game anymore and he had to drop out. We miss Chris…and the wife-unit.
I’m In…NOT!
This one hurts the most. It’s one thing to be screwed by a stranger, another by someone you consider a friend.
After gaming for over a year with a small, yet intimate group, we decided to try a new game. Well everyone (meaning “except me”) wanted to play D&D, Amy in particular. Being a team player and knowing what a great roleplayer Amy was, I begrudgingly was willing to give it a go. We spent a fair amount of time developing characters through e-mail and it really looked like this was going to be fun! We even rounded up a new player to join the group and get the iconic four person party going.
Then, without any explanation whatsoever, Amy drops from the group leaving us all hanging, including the DM.
It’s probably one of the most inconsiderate things I’ve seen happen in a gaming group over the years. She’s pretty much severed all ties with us as well.
Adding insult to injury was the fact that I got stuck playing D&D.
Flake v1.0
Our latest try was Aaron (v1.0). He seemed nice enough and after meeting him in person our only concern was that he might be too quiet. Gun-shy from all the earlier problems (see previous sections), we did a second interview where we hungg out at the FLGS, talked, and tried some simple games. The second time went really well and as a group decided to invite Aaron to join us.
We should have been worried during the sections of long silence between e-mails the first time around. We figured Aaron was just busy. Okay, can’t make Saturday on such short notice? That’s our fault…no worries.
Then, yesterday, when pinging Aaron for signs of life for this week’s game (that he has to make a character for) he drops the little bombshell, “Saturdays no longer work for me.”
You know what doesn’t work for me? People that just flake out like this. Sure, this is gaming and not Nobel Prize world-changing work, but if you think that Saturdays will be a problem would it have been so hard to have stated up front, over three weeks ago, and saved us all some trouble?
How about more than three days notice that you’re quitting the game that you never joined? Is your middle name secretly “Patrick” (or “Amy”)?
The End?
It really makes me sad to see people taking an already difficult hobby and making it into a chore. It’s no wonder we — as a hobby — are hemorrhaging players left and right. At times it’s made me question my own dedication and just walk away. Continue with the drama of trying to organize a game and players or just sit down and play WoW or my 360?
So, what are your gamer group horror stories?
(Honorable Mention: Doug for single-handedly killing our Hunter game. He made it to chargen and then Saturdays were no longer an option for him. It just so happened that his character tied all the other character’s background together! At least Doug showed remorse — none of the above did — but still, it feels like wasted time.)
That was a fun trip down memory lane. I’d heard the PGJ story before, and of course been through the rest with you, but it’s interesting to hear how it looked from your perspective. Not all that different than it looked from my POV, apparently.
You must have blocked this traumatic memory, but the night that Extreme! and Wife Unit locked their keys in their car was ALSO the same night that they left a candle burning at home. Followed by Wife Unit’s stony, unsettling silence for the rest of the evening. Shudder.
Every time this kind of crap happens, though, I think we’ve learned something. I no longer intend to leave any room for error in the initial emails. Saturdays aren’t negotiable, even if Jesus descended and felt like joining us. EVERY Saturday is negotiable — I think we’d all be happy with two games, if that worked out. But that’s it.
I wonder if sometimes we’ve put the bar too high but then I sit back and realize, the bar is pretty darn low!
All we really look for is someone who’s fun to hang out with, who we could see being friends with, who wants to game and can make it fit into their schedule.
It’s not like we’re looking for world-class gamers.
I’m not married to Saturday, personally, but if someone just drops out of the blue (like Aaron v1.0) then the problem probably wasn’t really Saturday, it was something else.
At least Doug showed remorse
And I still feel bad about it, actually…
Yea, we’ll be using that as a weapon to guilt you into playing another game, like SG-4.
While I’ve recently been incredibly lucky in games and groups, there have been a lot of flakes in the past. A lot of players use “I’m busy” or “I can’t make Saturdays” as an excuse to drop a game without (direct) conflict.
It’s harder to say, “I’m not enjoying this game… is it just me?” Part of the reason people don’t protest is that everyone accepts that the GM is putting in a lot of work and they don’t want to sound ungrateful… but they’re also not happy. Why waste your time doing something you don’t enjoy? Critiquing a GM is tricky– it can go wrong so many ways.
My all-winner was the player who largely dropped off the face of the earth after getting married. We managed to get him to come game with us again, but the Thursday night right before the Saturday session we get an email telling us that his wife is feeling fragile that day and he wouldn’t be able to make the game that weekend.
Real WTF moment. I guess she was made of glass. If she’s feeling fragile on Thursday, how exactly does that translate to you losing your whole weekend?
eek, scary. i’ve had to deal with some flakes (cthulhu, who never did show up over the span of a month or two until we finally stopped bothering to remind him), but the dice must roll…
It doesn’t help when you are trying to form a group, but you may have dodged a bullet with the Flake. At my local internet-forum-based RPG group I started a D&D game for people who didn’t have a game to play. Jon was eager and had a friend who wanted to play too. After he didn’t show up for the first three games I took his name off my list of players. He took offence and stormed off the forum.
Six months later I saw someone seeking local players on another forum. I went along to the meeting he arranged to let people know about the existing group which already had many games and players.
This is from my blog entry of that day:
“Jon was enthusiastic about getting back into D&D. The last time he played the game stopped because when the good characters were killed by the evil characters their players generated some more evil characters and the party ended up just fighting each other. And then there was another game which ended when a character stole his magic pendant and the GM said his character didn’t know which one did it, so his character coshed them all in their sleep and tortured them until they confessed. But he’s really looking forward to getting back into it again. He doesn’t know how people can play good characters because sometimes you just want to lash out and kill something.”
I don’t think he recognized me. It’s a pity when you lose players like Chris and Doug. It’s a blessing when you miss out on players like Jon.
Yea, we’ll be using that as a weapon to guilt you into playing another game, like SG-4.
Somehow, I’m not surprised. And if any game could sorely tempt me, it would be SG-4.
Unfortunately, it looks like the alternate Saturday thing still isn’t viable for me at this time (We have all three “triplets” that night and Aja would probably skin me if I tried to leave her alone with them. And I’d likely deserve it, too…)
“Then, without any explanation whatsoever, Amy drops from the group leaving us all hanging, including the DM.”
I thought I had given explanations at the time. If my reasons were insufficient, or misunderstood, or just unacceptable…I apologize.
“It’s probably one of the most inconsiderate things I’ve seen happen in a gaming group over the years. She’s pretty much severed all ties with us as well.”
I have been guilty of silence…but my phone hasn’t been ringing off the hook either. And my email, which I have been checking regularly hoping for an invitation to revive Dr. Grace Raynes, has been similarly silent.
I am sincerely sorry for the hard feelings caused by an apparent lack of communication on my part.
“And my email, which I have been checking regularly hoping for an invitation to revive Dr. Grace Raynes, has been similarly silent.”
There’s none forthcoming, as your actions made in clear (to me) that you had no intention of gaming/socializing with us. Remember when we asked you for Hunter? Jaben’s birthday party? Walking out on work? You also laid down an ultimatum on the condition of your playing with us that we, as a group, were not going to capitulate to (SO package deal).
So I’m not entirely sure where the disconnect is at; we’ve invited you multiple times and been rebuffed. The message we’ve gleaned from that was “not interested.”
Removed at author’s request.
“It wasn’t the kind of behavior that I expect from a friend.”
And that’s why it hurt so much.
I understand. And I apologize again for hurting everyone.
Many things have changed since then.
If you want to discuss anything further, you (both) have my phone number and email address. If you don’t feel discussion is necessary or desirable, I understand that, too.
At any rate, I won’t take up any more space on the boards.