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What are your pet peeves at the gaming table?


TheWilddog

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I am normally super laid back at the table, a true beer and pretzel gamer just wanting to enjoy the game and the whole game experience.  However, the one thing that really yanks my chain at the gaming table is when an opponent is eating and starts handling my miniatures. I was playing a game the other night against a guy who is a pretty good friend. One of the guys at the shop ordered pizza and my opponent grabbed a slice off him. I of course did not mind until he picked up my FEC Varghulf to remove it with his greasy mitts. I could see the grease stain on my Varghulf from across the table. 

He apologized and it was all good but man I can not think of something that gets to me on the table more. I will take slow play, constant cell phone interruptions , anything, just don't touch my minis!!!!

What are your casual gaming pet peeves?    

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I say this as an Ork/Orruk player of about 25 years or so...

Orc players who scream "WAAAGH!" at the top of their lungs, or loudly speak in Orky accents while gaming.  I applaud the enthusiasm, but maybe try and figure out how to behave in a social setting - even one that involves pushing little plastic men around

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18 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Players that take way too long to do their turn.  Forcing a game limit to end after a couple hours helps this but otherwise this becomes intolerable with some people.

This is a big issue in casual games? (original post inquired about casual games)

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1 minute ago, chord said:

This is a big issue in casual games? (original post inquired about casual games)

Yeah I have never had too much trouble with this in casual games. However, I do have one friend who does push even my limits sometimes.  He constantly jumps armies and is always seeming to learn a new rule set, so he drags games out quite a bit flipping through his stuff.  I along with most of the guys in the group enjoy his company so I usually just have another beer and try to chat with one of the bystanders.  I could see an issue arising if it was a casual meet up game with someone I have no social stock in.

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A few more:

1) People who don't pay attention to the game. Ok its a casual game and its nice to chat and be social, but Warhammer games take ages to setup and get started and its a nightmare if your opponent then wanders off to chat to other people or isn't paying attention etc... It doesn't just slow things down, but gives the impression that they really don't want to actually play the game with you. 

2) People who don't bring their rules but "its ok I memorized them". For reasons which I think I shouldn't have to state. 

3) Rough handling of miniatures - I've no problem with people moving my stuff, but please no people with ham-fisted approaches!

 

 

Ps I fully support Waaarrghing and Skaven-talk so long as the person doing so isn't obnoxious about it. Eg Waaghing right in your face or screaming very very loudly. I also support praise to the Emperor; general orkspeak; muttering chaos curses; "Only the faithful" and "For Sigmar!" 

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1 hour ago, Overread said:

!

 I fully support Waaarrghing and Skaven-talk so long as the person doing so isn't obnoxious about it. Eg Waaghing right in your face or screaming very very loudly. I also support praise to the Emperor; general orkspeak; muttering chaos curses; "Only the faithful" and "For Sigmar!" 

 

To be clear - making little jokes or impressions while gaming is one of the fun parts.  I mean who among us hasn't made little pew pew noises when their shooter guys attack?  Or made some sort of funny impersonation of the guys in your army?

Here's the deal though - I have never in my multi-decades of gaming come across someone who uttered "WAAAGH!!" without screaming it at the top of their lungs.  I have also known a couple of people who talk "Orky" for an entire game.  Every.  Single.   Phrase.  It's just so cringe-worthy.  Have you have ever had a friend tell a really off-colour joke to the wrong audience?  It's a similar sort of feeling.  

That's what is the pet peeve for me - the really loud, or really overboard behaviors that gamers engage in sometimes.

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1. People who I can smell across the table. This is sadly a common occurrence in the wargaming world.

2. People who agree to a narrative game with fluffy armies, then turn up with a list specifically designed to murder yours on turn 1 after you chatted about what you'd bring.

3. People playing with the same grey plastic army week after week, without any attempt whatsoever to paint it.

4. People who proxy almost every model in the army. I once played a game against round wooden counters with the type of model written on it, and a squeeky toy proxying one of the giant beastmen things. I nearly flipped the table over.

The list goes on, but those are my top four!

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21 minutes ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

People playing with the same grey plastic army week after week, without any attempt whatsoever to paint it.

People who proxy almost every model in the army. I once played a game against round wooden counters with the type of model written on it, and a squeeky toy proxying one of the giant beastmen things. I nearly flipped the table over.

These two get me a little bit too.  I understand occasionally having some grey or trying something new out that you do not have, but constantly having an unpainted or proxied army is a drag.

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My group is pretty new so we are all somewhat slow, so that does not bother me too much.  The thing that does irk me is one of my friends insisting to double check all my measurements. We are a friendly/casual group and the atmosphere is pretty light so this just seems pointless.  He is otherwise a nice guy but he is an architect so I guess he has a thing for precision!!!!  

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2 hours ago, Overread said:

2) People who don't bring their rules but "its ok I memorized them". For reasons which I think I shouldn't have to state.

I strongly dislike that, people that "have memorised" the rules usually cheat, I show my opponent all the rules from the app and the books and give him my army list printed clearly on a sheet of paper.

2 hours ago, Overread said:

Ps I fully support Waaarrghing and Skaven-talk so long as the person doing so isn't obnoxious about it. Eg Waaghing right in your face or screaming very very loudly. I also support praise to the Emperor; general orkspeak; muttering chaos curses; "Only the faithful" and "For Sigmar!" 

Sometimes a "For Sigmar's light" is needed for charging the dices with positive energy and luck, unfortunately it still haven't worked once.

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Mainly when people touch my miniatures.  Knew a guy who in his phase would make a splat noise and knock over one of your minis for every failed save roll you'd make.  It was unbearable and he wouldn't stop after multiple warnings until you got stern, which shouldn't be the case in a game of two adults.  He got the picture once he was being passively ousted from the store.  I too can't stand egregious yelling, a yell of joy at rolling a necessary six is just part of the game and good fun but like others have said ork players are unfortunately the main suspects most oft than not.  Lastly as others have stated, a general cleanliness issue and inability to read basic social queues as an adult is cringey.  EDIT: wow I sound quite harsh but all of this comes from some pretty horrible instances I've experienced.

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I echo most of the same, the biggest being slow-play. There are a decent amount of new or casual players here so I understand it to some degree, but a 1k game should not take 4+ hours to get through. I try to teach people as best I can to be more proactive and thinking ahead during my turns, but if you're struggling to remember any of your own rules\spells\warscrolls, then you may want to sit down and study before you schedule another game.

4 hours ago, mmimzie said:

When people say "sorry" after they've won or lost.  Lol i'm not sorry i had fun playing a game win or lose? who needs an apology for winning or losing. I can't even wrap my brain around that. 

This one is hard for me as I find that I do that sometimes, especially with the amount of new\casual players we have and I often handicap myself out of fear of them quitting the game, or at least not playing against me anymore. All too often I've had a pack of Stormfiends rip through units Turn 2 with some of the luckiest rolls I've ever had, only to see the other player get quite visibly discouraged and irritated when they still have plenty of units left.

I've started to step away from doing any of this and more recently I let them know what my units can do, what they should avoid\go after\etc. and to try to have them understand that the game can be very swingy and to just have fun with it while playing smart. People getting upset over losing units in a Wargame just really confounds me sometimes.

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Mostly dice stuff for me.

1) Dice that can't be read from across the table (or even from right next to them!) because of their size and/or design.  When someone has dice I can't read, I pretty much write off the game as a competitive endeavour, check out mentally, and treat it as a practice/demo game.  I'm not going to stand over the person when they roll, or accuse them of anything shady.  I just stop caring about W/L/D.  Might even have more fun haha.

2) Picking up hits, rather than picking up misses.  Drives me bonkers.

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1 hour ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

2. People who agree to a narrative game with fluffy armies, then turn up with a list specifically designed to murder yours on turn 1 after you chatted about what you'd bring.

3. People playing with the same grey plastic army week after week, without any attempt whatsoever to paint it.

 

1) The first rule in war* is to guard your plans closely. Anything you divulge to the enemy can and will be used against you (even unintentionally**)

2) I find that many who have armies of grey fit into two categories
a) The lazy who cannot be helped, encouraged but not helped
b) Those who lack the skill and understanding to paint well and might also have serious confidence issues with their painting. A few club-night painting sessions and helping out show them how to devise an army scheme and helping them paint can turn this group around very readily. 

* Ok maybe not the first.

** It will often be that what race you play, what map you're playing and known objectives will form the foundation for an army design. If the player knows exactly what you're taking its hard for many to avoid taking "good" choices. 

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1 hour ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

People who agree to a narrative game with fluffy armies, then turn up with a list specifically designed to murder yours on turn 1 after you chatted about what you'd bring.

This one can be expanded out to managing expectations - I witnessed (wasn't a player, but was in the room) the aftermath after a guy specifically requested a hard army battle test of a tournament list, and then got pissy about how hard he got spanked and what a ****** list the other guy was using.

 

(ETA: The word I used was very mild, but I enjoy the ****s so I'm not updating it haha)

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-Not using markers of some sort - nothing is worse than getting ready to roll to wound only to hear 'oh you were at -1 to hit'. I'm not asking for pro made tokens but put something on the table
-Picking up hits rather than misses (and generally dice with confusing symbols)
-Dubious wound tracking - there are plenty of options that aren't a d6 out there. 

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I feel a lot of the pet peeves listed here are partially the fault of the people upset for not saying anything. I find in general wargamers (I mean this with no offense, there is nothing wrong with different types of personalities) are more likely to lack the social skills or confidence needed to confront someone firmly so they let themselves get run over. 

If you suspect someone is bending the rules, or touching people's minis, or proxying too many models, or whatever--what's the difficulty in saying firmly "You shouldn't do [that activity they are doing] because it makes the gaming experience worse for me?" Once played a match against someone who annoyed me by using ridiculous proxies. I told him it made the game unejoyable for me, and even though I liked him he wouldn't play again if he proxied more than one model. I communicated my need clearly, and he didn't do it again. And if he had, I wouldn't have played with him again and let him know why. 

So I'd say one of my biggest gaming pet peeves are people that build resentment instead of making their boundaries clear and enforcing them. If someone spends one game touching your minis, or re-measuring everything you do, etc then that's on them. If it happens again, that's on you. 

Especially because a lot of the people committing these violations might lack an understanding of social interactions (like the Ork players yelling WAAAGH all game). Pull him aside after the game and let him know it got on some people's nerves. They don't want to be annoying any more than you want them to

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1. Smelly gamers.

2. Guys who feel they have a right to your gaming supplies/ tools because they forgot their own.  Like grabbing my dice off my side of the table,  or my tape measure,  or taking my battletome without asking,  while muttering  "i forgot mine", or "this ok,  right?".

3. Picking up hits,  or speed - rolling dice without declaring what the roll is for.  Unclear play,  I guess,  in general. 

4. Most of all (guess this should have been number one...) the guy who didn't bring a rulebook,  doesn't have the PDF on his phone,  doesn't own a battletome,  admits that most of his rules knowledge comes from Reddit or d4chan, and then has the audacity to question every stat, rule, move,  and phase that my army does. While proclaiming with conviction that he knows every rule inside and out for his models,  but then stares at me when I explain how battleshock works like all of a sudden he no longer speaks English. 

That guy.... oh man. That guy tests my patience something fierce. LOL 

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