I've been playing table top rpgs since I was about 8 or 9 which has also influenced my preference for Pathfinder over DnD (most likely will not be discussing this in another part). I ended up as a forever DM for my friends though one did decide he wanted to try and so I kinda helped him along. Though my years of playing, I've been pretty lucky with cooperative players and a lot of good moments, but I also know about the horror stories people, both DMs and players, have faced. While a good chunk of it is just people being assholes, I also want to pin some blame on memes and, to a certain extent that I'll explain, Critical Roll. I have less to say on the latter so I'll start with that.
While I'm happy that Critical Roll has gotten people interested in ttrpgs as a whole, I feel like it's also done a bit of harm. Some people who start because of CR develope unreasonable expectations of their DMs, seeming to forget that Matt Mercer not only has years of DMing under his belt, but is also a famous voice actor. This can severely damage a DM's self-esteem regardless of their experience when someone is upset that they're basically not Matt Mercer and let them know. I haven't had a friend group large enough to play properly as PF still doesn't have the best following where I am, but I am thankful that they let me know things I can work on without comparing me to someone else unless they're telling me about a house rule they experienced and wonder if I'd give them a try.
Now...let's talk about the memes. We all know them and we can usually get a good chuckle...until you experience them. I want to state for the record that I don't have a problem with meme characters like if someone made Shrek as their character...it's the players who play based solely on memes and nothing else that bother me. I am of the school of thought that their is no right way to role play, but there are definite wrong ways namely the ways that make things uncomfortable (unless it was previously discussed and boundaries set) or if it ruins others fun including the DM. These are the players who play horny bard and that's all the personality they have in every situation, the murderhobo because "it's what my character would do", and the 'I'm CN so that means "lol-random".'
The horny bard is only "funny" and enjoyable if it's a single part of who they are along with the rest of the personality. It makes for a more interesting character who, as an example, maybe suffers from nymphomania but tries to keep it in check rather than horny for no reason with no other personality. Some people seem to think "Oh, I see this in a lot of memes so people must love it when people do it" but that could not be further from the truth. If your character is horny, give them some more personality traits so you have more to go on in different situations.
I hate murderhobo players because I think it's a lazy way to play. There's usually no thought that goes into these characters and it can ruin the fun of the table when one person just kills everything regardless of what it is and their affiliation. Now, this character can be played well if they have the desire to murder due to some curse/trauma but wants to hold it back (discuss with DM on how to decide how and when you lose control). The issue isn't the character but rather how no effort is often put into it and I really hate it. Low effort characters are one thing, but no effort characters infuriate me.
Now...for the "lol, so random" players who play CN...these people can be just as annoying and sometimes coincide with murderhobos. I hate them for the same reasons listed above for murderhobos, but also because it doesn't take the alignment system into account (I'll do a part on why I like the alignment system as well as how I understand it). These are the people who steal everything, burn down buildings for no reason, or kill people just because they can. These players are extremely annoying since they just do whatever they want without putting any consideration for others both in and out of character.
ns 15.158.11.167da2
