I want to emphasize that so I don't get weird personal messages or the like from someone feeling called out. The things that annoy me, or annoy you, may not be bad for every tabletop group or campaign story, and may even be fun for some groups or there may be exceptions that make them bearable and so on and so on. :zizek-ok:

With that disclaimer aside, I'll list some of my pet peeves, both when I'm running a campaign and when I'm playing in one.

The exile that doesn't actually experience any stigma or negative social consequences for being exiled, but the player insists that the character is exiled somehow because it sounded cool and badass. This gets extra annoying if the exile thing nearly becomes a plot point but that plot point is thwarted because the person playing the exile starts to complain about it.

"The last" whatever they are. Some wonderful stories are about someone being the last of their kind, but when it's used as a cheap and lazy gimmick to try to make a character seem special in a paradoxically basic and commonly-used way, it annoys me.

The walking talking powergaming template. Yes, I can tell that the player knows the rulebook and supplemental materials well, but when asked who the character is, this is the person that talks about the template's superiority and often can't come up with even basic character motivations besides "win and dominate in a game that is supposed to be about cooperation and interactive storytelling."

Direct lifts from any existing well known IP. They aren't just uncreative; I have yet to see a player play such a character convincingly or even design the character well enough to match the intended material. I might actually be impressed if someone pulled it off for a one-off or casual campaign.

Characters that are just the player in real life, but transplanted into the setting with better stats and cool powers. I think it's nearly impossible (and probably not worth the effort) to try to play a character that has absolutely nothing in common with the player's personality, interests, quirks, or the like, but with that said, a direct player-is-the-character player is almost always going to be trouble. In my experience, setbacks, injuries, and especially death can and often will make such players take it very personally, get vindictive, and sometimes have an Epic G*mer moment that can get profane, even violent. Not fun.

  • soiejo [he/him,any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    One of my biggest annoyances is when people make a 3 page long retelling of all the feats and battles their charater went through as a backstory... at level 1. Mind you, I personally think even a high level character being created shouldn't have a massive backstory, but it is specially jarring when your badass battle hardened veteran gets ganked by 3 goblins.

    CW:SA

    This isn't a "character concept" but a friend of mine once had a habit of putting random sexual assault mentions in their backstories, to make them more tragic or something. Thankfully after I realised that it was a recurring theme I asked them to, you know, maybe tone down the sexual assault in our lighthearted adventure game, they got it and stopped with that:::

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      That's chilling. The only way it could be worse (I only read about it being this worse) is a DM being so creepy that he announces that the characters were sexually assaulted as an edgy variant of "you wake up in a dungeon." The incident I read about even included the "this is just realistic" excuse that chuds are so fond of.

    • NomadicWarMachine [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah pretty much every game I’ve been it started at level 5-6 just cuz the DM said that would let players have more justifiably badass backstories. If you’re really starting at level one your character should be a fresh off the boat peasant, maybe with some mild combat training. But everyone wants a cool backstory so just start at a higher level.