Forbidden banished exiles. Especially in MMORPGs, I've found that the most common overall in-setting guild theme is "we don't belong in the society that this setting established." It's not just in MMORPGs, of course. It's often a crutch (or training wheels, if I'm being generous) for some roleplayers to participate by not participating. I'm not saying that a character (or a player for that matter) has to bend the knee to Lord So-And-So, but it's kind of hard to find plot excuses for the the forbidden banished exile to even be in the same picture, let alone get the quest to do the thing.

Plot armor dependents. Yes, it's quite likely that if I'm running the game and telling the story that I won't have the guards kill a player character on sight even if they do something exceptionally stupid just to see what happens, like stabbing a random citizen. Those kind of players don't tend to last long if their only contribution is "try to knock down the props just to see what happens on set."

People that directly lift an established character in well known fiction, often just changing the spelling, and often not even trying to resemble or act like that character. In an older MUD, I recall a "Frrodoh Bhaginz" that was a Half-Ogre hunter. Again, it didn't ruin the game, but it was annoying. I admit it can sometimes be a red flag warning, and a helpful one, if the lifted name is from chud fiction, like if they have "Rahl" in their name. It can show me what to expect, either in a tabletop group or in a MMORPG guild.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Why get angry when the set up for a story is “You’re kidnapped and press ganged onto a pirate ship (which you will presumably eventually mutiny against)” if you said you were going to be playing a game of Pirates? Why whine about getting caught in the Death Star’s tracker beam when you’re literally running Star Wars: A New Hope, the TTRPG?

    Personal experience may be shaping my opinion here, but the campaign that made me think of this was one where like 3 unrelated epic-level villains some form of magical compulsion to force Good-aligned characters to do quests on their behalf. It got to the point where I seriously felt like the best thing my character would do was throw himself off the nearest cliff because he was such a useful asset to the side of Evil.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      That does suck, if its just being strong-armed. And, again, you do need some degree of contingency for when the players buck the system. So subverting the will of the villains by doing as-stated-but-not-as-intended executions of jobs could be fun. Dethroning the good king by getting him to implement a parliamentary democracy, rather than by stabbing him in the back. Burning down the orphanage after you've evacuated all the kids, and then moving them into a new luxury town home that you've purchased with your adventuring money. Whatever.

      But simply having the GM announce "Your Paladin eats the baby because he has no choice" isn't particularly fun.