Old school survival kit

[Dogbert]

So, now that "old is new again" and 5E is making all neckbeards crawl out of their holes to impose their One True Way, how about compiling a list of counter-measures people used back in the Bad Old Days to curb viking hat BS?

A previous thread already reminisced on the old custom of killing your character time and time again until you rolled one with stats that don't suck.

What other counter-measures do you people remember?

EDIT: For the purposes of this thread, the premise assumes the DM is an unrepentant neckbeard that can't be reasoned with, and no measures should imply fellatio or otherwise sucking up to him in any way. Measures that use his own crap against him are preferred.

[OgreBattle]

Talking with your friend running the game on the expectations of the story, what genre is meant to be emulated, and all that.

Also bring the tastiest snacks to share.

[Lago PARANOIA]

An encyclopedic knowledge of Burroughs, Leiber, and most importantly Tolkein. That way you could get away with limited metagaming as even DMs were forbidden to put worship of those fantasy giants ahead of Gygax.

[Voss]

You underestimate how much many grognards despise Tolkien for doing it wrong. That they didn't cut off the Balrog's head, pillage Isenguard, launch of full invasion of Mordor to correspond with Frodo's prolonged murder spree (rather than allegorical religious pilgrimage of suffering) across the interior of Mordor is a sin of the highest order. As is throwing the Ring away rather than claiming it.

Plus there were a lot of words, and you'd be surprised at how many gamers honestly don't appreciate that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I thought it was always more of a Holy Bible with modern believers sort of deal, where while they might not like the details when stripped of their framing device they're just plain not allowed to dismiss, ignore, or let alone argue the doctrine. The best they can do is rationalize it, which still allows a sufficiently silver-tongued practitioner of affinity fraud an in.

Player: But it says it right here, in ecclesiastes the Two Towers, so you gotta let me do it! What are you, some kind of atheist World of Darkness lover?
DM: [clearly aware he's in danger of committing HERESY] "Nnngh, nngh, GRRR! FINE, your halflings have a reaction bonus with the treants."
Player: "Whoohoo! Hail Tolkein! Hail Gygax!"
DM: [duckspeaking] Hail Tolkein! Hail Gygax!

[Chamomile]

There are only two satisfying solutions to a group of grognards who insist on dicking players over. The reasonable one is to walk away, perhaps trying to poach the more reasonable of the players away for your own game, and the cathartic one is to start punching them and not stop until the police arrive or you or them either can't get up or has stopped trying.

[Koumei]

What other counter-measures do you people remember?

EDIT: For the purposes of this thread, the premise assumes the DM is an unrepentant neckbeard that can't be reasoned with

More seriously: I don't play with fuckwads of that calibre. I would prefer "no game" to "shit game". If it were suddenly sprung out as a surprise, I would merely walk out. Possibly stopping to urinate in the DM's footwear.

[Wiseman]

Simple advice. Don't play. Nothings kills a bad DM like no players.

[Voss]

I thought it was always more of a Holy Bible with modern believers sort of deal, where while they might not like the details when stripped of their framing device they're just plain not allowed to dismiss, ignore, or let alone argue the doctrine. The best they can do is rationalize it, which still allows a sufficiently silver-tongued practitioner of affinity fraud an in.

Player: But it says it right here, in ecclesiastes the Two Towers, so you gotta let me do it! What are you, some kind of atheist World of Darkness lover?
DM: [clearly aware he's in danger of committing HERESY] "Nnngh, nngh, GRRR! FINE, your halflings have a reaction bonus with the treants."
Player: "Whoohoo! Hail Tolkein! Hail Gygax!"
DM: [duckspeaking] Hail Tolkein! Hail Gygax!

I really think your imagination is running away with you. If you actually meet someone of these people, expect some ridiculous attachment to some stupid anachronisms, but thats about it.

[PhoneLobster]

I really think your imagination is running away with you.

Pretty much.

There is a distinct divide between what "hard core" and "grognard" gamers say and do on the internet and say and do in real life.

A large part of it is just flat out inconsistency through stupidity and general shitty internet lies (to others and to themselves).

Take the whole stat rolling discussion on the other thread. Grognard/hardcore assholes will wank to 3d6 in order. But odds are good you turn up to their game with a genuine 3d6 in order character and they will be all "wow, you were unlucky or something everyone else has handed me characters with an 18 in their prime attribute (18/00 for all fighters, of course) and 16s on everything else! And clearly they got all got that on 3d6 in order without cheating because I don't understand maths so I believe that and all the mercy rerolls I offer vanish from my tiny memory the moment I benevolently grant them, you should like... reroll or something, or I will give you a mercy dice yeah! roll 1d4 and add it to stats... no wait that roll was shit, add another one... no wait start again... no wait lets just make that 18/23 an 18/00... hm, maybe another mercy dice?"

In practice most "hardcore" gamers turn out to be wankers like, was it Mistborn? who honestly believed he was playing "objective ultra hardcore 3.x by raw" or whatever bullshit with no "coddling" despite his party running through the entire lower levels without a single PC kill.

In practice most "grognard" gamers randomly like various bullshit things are randomly reasonable about others, and often don't even get the inconsistency since their actual reason for everything is well, basically Giant Frog. You could go to the table all filled with your Tolkien quotes only to find yourself facing a fucking game of thrones born again fanatic. Or worse, a god damn Conan fan, and then you have to figure out which splinter sect of movie/book franchise they adhere to!

What you are in practice dealing with is just crap GMs who are kinda stupid and often also kinda shitty people.

You can try and manipulate or trick them, but don't let them catch you because that above all else is the ultimate heresy and largely what all their hate filled venom against "rules lawyers" or "roll players" is all about.

Best to just not let them run games, by means of running games yourself and not playing in theirs.

[ishy]

There are only two satisfying solutions to a group of grognards who insist on dicking players over. The reasonable one is to walk away, perhaps trying to poach the more reasonable of the players away for your own game, and the cathartic one is to start punching them and not stop until the police arrive or you or them either can't get up or has stopped trying.

Yeah, whenever you feel the DM is dicking you over, you should just try to murder them. That will show them.

Or you could try talking to them, I guess, but just grabbing a gun and shooting them in the face is a much easier and quicker solution.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I think that Dogbert's point is that while raining down on your GM like a tidal wave of fists is rarely if ever effective (regardless of catharsis), there are situations where talking would be pointless and you can't just walk away (Maybe there are no other groups around, or you're tied inexorably to the group in one way or another).

Basically, a better question is "How do you beat Grognards at their own game?"

[fectin]

It's a competitive bullshitting contest, so treat it like one:
Invest in Dexterity and Charisma, and try to never roll dice (because if you're just narrating, you can't fail).
Remember that anything is possible, and that all things which are possible are guaranteed to be at least 1%, and trivially engineerable to at least 5%.
When you have to, try to roll the dice yourself if you're checking for outlandish occurrences, because you are likely to 'succeed' on a 20, where the MC is likely to roll percentile (i.e. best is "This is a temperate clime, so I find some tomatoes and make pasta." Next best is "What's my bonus to find tomatoes?" Try hard to avoid "Are there any tomatoes in the area?").
Make your plans 'fun' and 'wacky'.
Delve greedily and deep into the mundane equipment table. Pretend it's pixel bitching. Each time the MC makes something up, there's a decent chance it will be terribly broken. Iteratively propabil until you find one, then keep it in your back pocket.
Have some magic. Don't worry too much about what, but having magic is a 'get out of plausibility free' card.

---

In practice most "hardcore" gamers turn out to be wankers like, was it Mistborn? who honestly believed he was playing "objective ultra hardcore 3.x by raw" or whatever bullshit with no "coddling" despite his party running through the entire lower levels without a single PC kill.

Mr. GC (who might have been Roy).
Mistborn carried that torch for a while, but recanted.

[codeGlaze]

It's a competitive bullshitting contest, so treat it like one:

So, basically, it's like trying to pass high school/college English/Language Arts classes.

[TheFlatline]

When you have an unrepentant neckbeard DM and you're not intending on coming back, you break the game, or at least put the DM into situations where they look ridiculous for all their double-standards, because invariably these types of DMs get there because of a loyal troop of minions ready to suck down whatever BS the neckbeard chooses to vomit forth.

Knot-cut, break the 4th wall in character (aka pull a Deadpool) to point out how bullshit this is, whatever it takes within the confines of the game. Don't *break* the neckbeard's game, but make the neckbeard break it to maintain his ego.

[fectin]

Roughly, except you have to do it live. Like stereotypical English majors though, the more crazy your idea and the more invested in it you act, the more successful you will be.

Remember, actual, genuine grognard strategies for killing dragons include:
- hide behind a nearby waterfall and shoot it with arrows
- climb a nearby building and jump on top of it next time it flies by
- construct and operate a balista, from common household items
...and these are expected to work!

[TheFlatline]

"Look there's no rule that says I can't use a ballista to backstab!"

[fectin]

Yes. The Gamers is a perfect example.

[Krusk]

My friends husband is one of these. I'm going to answer assuming you are in an awkward social situation and have been told by others that "Just telling the dude off" isn't an acceptable solution. Thats my real solution but also my real situation.

Steps to avoid playing in the game at all. I've gotten good at this. I'm rarely invited anymore.
Step 1 is to ask a lot of questions. Seriously. I got uninvited to a numenera game by this guy yesterday because I asked things like "What rules does it use" and "Tell me about the setting.". Other good questions can include "What sort of plot will it be" or "what is starting gold". In my experience they are looking for a player who will show up day of the session, roll a character with whatever character gen the GM pulls out of their ass. Asking about anything mechanical makes them think. They hate that. Do it often enough and you will get "Look if its not your thing its not your thing. You don't have to come". I got that gem after asking what neat rules it had, and why the setting was cool. The pitch i got for the game was "I found this new cool system numenera its got a really neat setting".

Step 2. Care about your character. Send a backstory to the GM and ask how to intergrate it with the rest of the party and the campaign overall. Not only do they hate questions, they hate reading. Asking them to do both is almost a gaurenteed uninvite.

Step 3. Read the rulebook. Just throw it out there that you've got the book and are looking it over. Rulebooks are sacred. And while the neckbeard hates reading, he also hates if anyone but him knows the rules. Ideally you can be labeled a rules lawyer and get banned.

Step 4. Ask what splats you can use. This is usually the nail in the coffin. You aren't supposed to be reading the books or learning the system, so using extra books is the worst. Especially if the GM doesn't have them.

----------
So somehow you managed to get forced in anyway. This happens occasionally when they are starved for players. Generally after banning everyone, and since you didn't punch them in the face when asked to play, you are "mercifully" unbanned. I'm usually unbanned on probation. Once in the game, I've never been kicked. Its actually really hard to do if you aren't openly leering at people of the opposite sex, or just punching people. Even then its hard. At this point you just help wind the game down. Not a mallicious thing. More like a mercy killing.

Step 1. Never make rolls. These DMs play with crit fails or other nonsense. You will play some sort of summoner or buffer who makes everyone else make rolls. Everyone but you will die. You will live through every encounter with ease. The only DM solution is "Rocks fall" and then you get to go home.

Step 2. Remind the GM how things work when he uses the rules wrong. They will use the rules wrong. Its best if you find some weird mechanic and use it all the time. I forget who had the punching wizard here, but thats a great example. Stealth rules and diplomacy rules are usually other good sources of this. As is grappling if you are playing 3.5 somehow.

Step 3. Follow the plot. This GM is used to people who only dungeon crawl and follow obvious hooks by the nose. You are going to actually pay attention. Note NPC names, motivations and affiliations. The GM won't. Everytime you notice something weird ask about it. Even better if you can get the other players on yourside and force it to become a new (off the rails) hook.

Step 4. avoid the rails as best you can. This is the GM who loves rails. Your goal is to do things the party finds fun and interesting. Generally best if through subtly edging others to lead the way.

These games generally last a single session, two at most, before people stop caring the GM included. It will always be brought up as "its a shame we didn't get to keep that going, i had really cool ideas" and you can just give it a "yeah sure". Regardless, usually you can poach the good players with things like "Oh in this game I'm running the players decided (anything)."

[Chamomile]

There are only two satisfying solutions to a group of grognards who insist on dicking players over. The reasonable one is to walk away, perhaps trying to poach the more reasonable of the players away for your own game, and the cathartic one is to start punching them and not stop until the police arrive or you or them either can't get up or has stopped trying.

Yeah, whenever you feel the DM is dicking you over, you should just try to murder them. That will show them.

Or you could try talking to them, I guess, but just grabbing a gun and shooting them in the face is a much easier and quicker solution.

The way you phrased this implies you didn't recognize that I was joking. Even though you acknowledge the fundamental ridiculousness of responding to GM dickery by beating them to death with your bare hands, you don't seem to have grokked that the ridiculousness is the point because it was a joke.

[kzt]

You underestimate how much many grognards despise Tolkien for doing it wrong. That they didn't cut off the Balrog's head, pillage Isenguard, launch of full invasion of Mordor to correspond with Frodo's prolonged murder spree (rather than allegorical religious pilgrimage of suffering) across the interior of Mordor is a sin of the highest order. As is throwing the Ring away rather than claiming it.

How much people really adore LotR seemed to have connection to whether they had read fantasy books that came after it first and if so which ones they had read. If LotR was really the first real epic fantasy book you read you were awestruck by it. If you had just read the crappy ripoffs of the LotR you also loved LotR. If you had read multiple well crafted books that got to the fucking point in a few hundred pages you were less impressed at first exposure.

Don't get me wrong, LotR is amazing and was what inspired pretty much everything else after it, but I didn't find it exactly a gripping page turner that you read in one sitting (at least as much as you can read a 2000 page set of 3 volumes in one sitting).

I have no experience in how people whose first introduction to Fantasy was murder-hoboing across Greyhawk would react to it, but yeah, I could see that whole "doing it wrong" meme...

[Voss]

Eh, LotR was one of my first fantasy series (along with Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles), which I read when I was nine. My reaction to it is still generally indifference.

The fun part is I'm also fairly indifferent to Leiber, Howard and the like, which is the other root of modern fantasy that doesn't come from Tolkien.

Mostly because in both cases, the characters all feel like cardboard cutouts. At best, they're a personality trait or symbol, and not fully-fleshed characters.

But as guides to how D&Dland functions, the latter group does a better job than Tolkien, as the episodic nature and thin plots are actually a bonus for a game, rather than the drawback they are for stories.

[Voss]

Eh, LotR was one of my first fantasy series (along with Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles), which I read when I was nine. My reaction to it is still generally indifference.

The fun part is I'm also fairly indifferent to Leiber, Howard and the like, which is the another root of modern fantasy that doesn't come from Tolkien.

Mostly because in both cases, the characters all feel like cardboard cutouts. At best, they're a personality trait or symbol, and not fully-fleshed characters.

But as guides to how D&Dland functions, the latter group does a better job than Tolkien, as the episodic nature and thin plots are actually a bonus for a game, rather than the drawback they are for stories.

[animea90]

I really think your imagination is running away with you.

Pretty much.

There is a distinct divide between what "hard core" and "grognard" gamers say and do on the internet and say and do in real life.

A large part of it is just flat out inconsistency through stupidity and general shitty internet lies (to others and to themselves).

Take the whole stat rolling discussion on the other thread. Grognard/hardcore assholes will wank to 3d6 in order. But odds are good you turn up to their game with a genuine 3d6 in order character and they will be all "wow, you were unlucky or something everyone else has handed me characters with an 18 in their prime attribute (18/00 for all fighters, of course) and 16s on everything else! And clearly they got all got that on 3d6 in order without cheating because I don't understand maths so I believe that and all the mercy rerolls I offer vanish from my tiny memory the moment I benevolently grant them, you should like... reroll or something, or I will give you a mercy dice yeah! roll 1d4 and add it to stats... no wait that roll was shit, add another one... no wait start again... no wait lets just make that 18/23 an 18/00... hm, maybe another mercy dice?"

In practice most "hardcore" gamers turn out to be wankers like, was it Mistborn? who honestly believed he was playing "objective ultra hardcore 3.x by raw" or whatever bullshit with no "coddling" despite his party running through the entire lower levels without a single PC kill.

In practice most "grognard" gamers randomly like various bullshit things are randomly reasonable about others, and often don't even get the inconsistency since their actual reason for everything is well, basically Giant Frog. You could go to the table all filled with your Tolkien quotes only to find yourself facing a fucking game of thrones born again fanatic. Or worse, a god damn Conan fan, and then you have to figure out which splinter sect of movie/book franchise they adhere to!

What you are in practice dealing with is just crap GMs who are kinda stupid and often also kinda shitty people.

You can try and manipulate or trick them, but don't let them catch you because that above all else is the ultimate heresy and largely what all their hate filled venom against "rules lawyers" or "roll players" is all about.

Best to just not let them run games, by means of running games yourself and not playing in theirs.

This is the best answer. The key to these GMs is that they have huge egos. What really pisses them off is players who challenge their authority.

What they *really* miss about early DnD is the level of power GMs had. Back then the rules were incredibly lethal and nobody had access to them other than the GM(no internet and the dungeonmaster guide actually discouraged players from reading it), so the GM could just say what happened and everyone went along with it.

Heck, in order for the party to not constantly die horribly, the GM had to make house rules. So the GM comes off as the good guy when he doesn't just have your character die on a no save trap. And if the character does, well thats just in the rules.

Modern DnD rules are much more player friendly and available to the players. This pisses off grognards who can't stand that this stands in the way of the GM doing whatever he wants.

[TiaC]

Remove the names from the quotes to fix your tags.