Tales of *that* guy....

[Brian]

Okay, we've all been in a campaign (or twelve) with one of them.  You know, a that guy.  For me, that guy was my younger brother.  All 'that guy's are mostly people you keep gaming with despite issues for some obscure reason.  In this case, the reason I keep gaming with him is that, well, his parents adopted me when I was disowned, because they appreciated my influence on him.

Evidently I was doing some good.

Anyway, I'd like this thread to be about stories of various people that you've looked back with and told yourself, "I gamed with someone like that?  But ... _why_?"

I'll add one to this thread in a bit myself, but I thought it might be fun to throw this out there for now.

(Note: To try and avoid drama, let's not turn this thread into a bitchfest about another poster on the boards, current or retired.  We can be constructive about this; this thread is to complain about people who suck beyond redemption.)

[Brian]

There was a character I played with in an AR campaign run by Steinwinder.  Now, admittedly, Steinwinder is a terrible GM -- almost everything I learned about GMing, I actually learned from his examples of what not to do in a game.  Among other things, he was a manipulative sadist who enjoyed seeing what kinds of reactions and responses he could get from his players.  Hell, he's the guy who was responsible for the infamous Rape Boat scenario.  (Hmm, I can't find that anymore; we may have lost it.  A story for another time, I suppose.)

The story isn't about Steinwinder, though -- he'll come in later.

This is a story about, let's call him 'Sam', which is not his real name.

Now, an AR campaign is an Alternate Reality name, which means we made characters that were based on -- and supposed to be -- _us_.  The setting was the afterlife tournament, which was a bit tiresome, but some players handled it worse than others.  Among other things, the GM thought it would be fun to provide resources to the group, and allow no control over the use of those resources.  Meaning if one person wanted to spend them, they didn't need to consult with the rest of the team -- they could just _do_ it.

The team worked to earn those points, so most of us worked together and discussed spending them -- as a group -- so we could all benefit.

Sam was not a team player.  Those points could give him a personal powerup in every session, and he felt like that was a good call.  Now, it did benefit us to have someone with a powerup in every session, but we tried to approach it tactically and shift what that advantage was -- and who held it -- around.  Sam was only really interested in him having fun.

This led to a lot of resentment, naturally, since the rest of the team was basically forced into support roles for himself as the designated hero.  It was also a case of infighting escaping the bounds of the game and becoming a serious issue in game.

Things finally came to a head, and the other players generally came together and said that we didn't want him doing this anymore.  We wanted to put it to a vote and make the GM do something about it because Sam was really a huge pain, and we were starting to get pretty ticked off in general that he just ignored group decisions.  It wasn't just with powerups, once he got started -- it was with everything.  So when we reached an NPC and had to make a choice, he'd just go with what he thought would be cool or fun without waiting for anyone else's input.

So when the voting came around, Sam had two players on his side, and everyone else was against him (this game had an unreasonably large cast of players, which was part of the problem).  One of them was a player who planned on quitting in two sessions, and one was his brother.  The moment the second vote was cast, and it was against him, he started muttering about how 'we would have to split the party'.  Evidently he felt he needed to get rid of _us_.

That was pretty bad, but once he got into high gear and seriously (I kid you not) throwing a temper tantrum, I personally said, "Screw this -- this is supposed to be a game.  If there's this much drama, I'm quitting.  This is supposed to be fun, not ... this."

The GM's response was that he found this kind of interaction between his players 'interesting'.

Now ... I didn't see what happened next, but I heard it from Sterling and Jim, who I don't have any reason to believe lied about things.  Evidently, Sam saw me leaving as him gaining ground, so he started trying to convince everyone to side with him and just cede the role of team leader (a role we had not previously _needed_, thanks to a democratic approach) to him.  His first target was David.

When David told him, "Fuck off," Sam tried -- no joke -- to use force and shove David to show him who was boss, and that he should follow Sam's rules.

David was always very high on my list of people not to screw with, and this is why.  After being shoved, David reflexively jumped to his feet and pulled out his knife.  He said something along the lines of, "Try that again and I will gut you."

Long story short, a brawl was only just barely avoided, Sam got kicked out of the game, and the other players asked me to come back.

It takes some real screwing up to have a gaming session break down to the point where one player pulls a knife.  In self defense or not, _real_ violence over a _game_....

Later, due to other issues, the players who were sharing an apartment with Sam kicked him out ... but the genesis for it was ... a game.

Thankfully, that's the worst experience I've ever had with another player.

[VySaika]

I have stuff I could post here. But even the time it would take me to detail how he drove my wife into having a crying nervous breakdown, broke apart a friendship two other players in the game had, and basically existed as a miasma hanging over about 3 years of our lives, is more effort and consideration then he is worth. Suffice to say that he did these things, and his name is practically a swear word to me now.

Thankfully this was all online, so not as bad as a *knife getting pulled at a freaking tabletop game*. But still not something I want to get into.

And yes, different dude from the one I just posted about in Bitching. That was a new guy.