"'crazy' players" Topic

Just for anecdotes, have any of you played with an erratic, crazy or tempermental. The most bizarre I encountered with a fellow serviceman when we were stationed in the UK in the 80's. We were shivering in my barn which the only place I had to accomodate a large game.

There were 4 of us. 2 per side. One of my opponents was already getting chewed up on his side of the table. Poor guy couldn't see to do anything right and the die were cursing him.

Mon frere, in his fury, decided to make an impulsive unsopported advance/charge with a regiment of lancers. he took some arillery fire that chewed him up good, but he managed to come on. His face was red and he was muttering blasphemed oaths. Finally he got close enough to his infantry target to charge. The charge failed when he took too many casualties in the attempt.

With that, he picked up a handful of his lancers and hurled them across the barn. Me and my teammate were stunned but amused. His partner saw no humor at all in it, railing on 'what in hell are you doing?'

Game ended on that note and we walked down to the pub to get our heads around the event.

Anybody else encountered bizarre or emotional behavior?

Paul

Years ago at the first club I ever went to one bloke dragged another over the table and stuck one on him. However, the recipient was one of the most irritating little Tosser's you could ever meet….and they were playing 5th edition WRG Ancients… so, it was only to be expected really. I don't recall anyone leaping in to break it up until we'd made sure he'd had a couple of good slaps.

It's never failed to amaze me how grown men (it's always men) can get so worked up about a game of toy soldiers.

None of it matters a flying in the greater scheme of things, why take it so bloody seriously?

I have seen numerous dice thrown across many a room and various opponents ancestry questioned, but nothing really over the top.

Tom

- It's never failed to amaze me how grown men (it's always men) can get so worked up about a game of toy soldiers.-

Toy soldiers, cards, Monopoly, Xbox…if there's a winner and a loser, you'll find sore losers.

I always attempt to make fun of my own miserable dice throwing skills. That way, when something bad happens, it was expected, rather than being a surprise.

In our last ITGM game, one fellow at one end of the table was lamenting his own bad skill in rolling "6s" and stated that he and I ought to face off against one another in the next game. I replied that "nobody would die in a cavalry melee if we did that".

Not so much anymore, but we used to have a couple of guys in the group who made me want to smack them across the face and tell them to grow up

Group now is very good – lots of fun

Plus which, like Fritz, I often have enough bad dice karma that people don't have to worry about getting upset at their dice rolls

Heard of a game in a GW store. A Staff Member had a bad turn, lost a high value unit to some awful dice rolls and carefully placed the dice down and stamped on his opponents cased army on the floor totally wrecking it.

Lost his job.

I threw a die once, but I was fourteen (should have known better, but didn't). Now I find that kind of behavior really appalling.

I think a lot of times the people who do it are bad players anyway. They make a lot of dumb moves, then blame the dice when the inevitable failures occur.

"A Staff Member had a bad turn, lost a high value unit to some awful dice rolls and carefully placed the dice down and stamped on his opponents cased army on the floor totally wrecking it."

Wow, that is worth far more than just losing his job. He'd have to compensate for the loss of the army. Losing a game is not worth all that!

my motto is: "It's OK to lose, especially if you can do it colorfully!"…and trust me, I can be quite colorful at times.

I've seen several acts of 'bad' behavior from games…

1. I've been in the room many a time when someone's dice have been hurled across the room in a moment of lapsed judgement, and usually not aimed at someone.

2. During one A&A board game on a New Years eve, one player, who couldn't roll a good roll if he tried (lots of 5's and 6's, mocking and defying the odds of probability), finally went off in a tirade of f#@% this and all of you and proceeded to the kitchen to retrieve his beverages from the refrigerator. Of course the host, just to push him over the edge said, "if you slam that door I swear I'll call the cops." Well, 'SLAM' went the refrigerator door, and you know where the story went from there…

3. I was running a large 15mm Johnny Reb ACW game at a convention. At the conclusion of this game (which happened after a 14yo took a union 'grand battery', blasted a big hole through the confederate center division on the table and then making most of the reserve units, located directly behind, rout off the table. The rebels were being run by an adult player and his two grown children-[I've never seen such good vs. bad roles ever.]), for some mysterious reason all of my confederate general miniatures, located in the center division, came up missing. Gee, I wonder where they could have gone?

**Gaming is certainly no place for sore losers, and as a general 'good' rule, try to keep the alcohol consumption to a minimum, if not at all.

Witnessed an Empire II or III game at a store in Chantilly (long since gone) where one player started screaming at the other for doing "something" wrong, threw some Russian Jaegers across the room, picked up the remaining minis with one sweep of the arm into a box and walked out.

I later found out that they had been playing for hours and had not gotten past turn 1. The story went that the one gamer kept arguing about the rules which drove the other gamer to snap.

Erik

I've heard that Empire rules will do that to you.

Playing in an ASL tourney with a guy who had never been to a tourney before, though he had apparently played extensively. The guy was tearing me up one side and down the other – he could do no wrong with any dice throw. I, on the other hand, couldn't hit the proverbial broadside of a barn until finally a desperation shot got through and destroyed one of his tanks (the only one of his tanks that I killed in the whole game). He questioned the shot – running through both the to hit and to kill process at least 4 or 5 times checking my numbers. In the end he declared that I didn't kill it, until I pointed out that the gun I was firing with had a +1 at that range due to superior penetration over the standard chart (by chapter H, for you ASLers out there – I think I had a Japanese 20 or 37). He was…er…ticked to say the least, despite the fact that he won the blinking scenario.

I've been on both sides of the dice throwing incident. I don't condone it but I understand it. A little frustrating at first, but if you crap out all night long it can get a little old. Like i said, I don't condone it but I understand it. Best course of action is give space and perhaps suspend the game for a while.

Games that take way way way too long to play can also be unnerving. Ending the game early because it's just too laborious is fine. Taking your ball and going home is childish. I see where the frustration comes from but you've got to control it.

When I was a kid, I attended a Dallas Con over near the Galleria. I played a game of Battle Tech like teenagers tend to do. An adult, who was acting as team captain, decided I was getting rooked by bad interpretation of the prone rules. I, as a meek little kid, was willing to go with what ever intrepetation the adult on the other side provided. But the captain of my team wasn't going to have anything to do with it. He argued and argued and argued until he got kicked out. I said over and over that i didn't want the shot. It was ok. My mech was about to be destroyed. But he was going to argue my case 'cause the man was trying to take advantage of a kid. I can't believe I still remember that guy. Shew he got mad about 1 AC10 shot.

I am infamous for bad dice rolling amongst my gaming buddies and confess to, as a fully grown "adult," having hurled a handful of my dice at an inoffensive wall. Much embarrassed, I apologized to all and have managed to control my temper since. Often I do desire to smash my dice with a hammer or burn them with a flame thrower. Some of my friends have been known to decline using my dice in a game because they are "mine." So I'm the worst I know.

Most of the bad behavior I have seen have seen has been at tournys or conventions, where who you play with isn't vetted [so to speak.]

When I was just starting in LA with Napoleonics, there was one fellow in our group that had the disconcerting habit of banging his head *hard* against the wall when a die roll was particularly bad. He would come away with real beautiful bruises and dented sheetrock at times. [always in His house--away at other folks' tables, he simply hit his head with the ruler or tape measure.] So, the anger was directed against himself, rather than others.

We made allowances, perhaps acting as enablers, but we would let him roll over sometimes, but always ignored his outbursts because they were relatively few in number. But I still remember them and cringe.

I also remember a club I belonged to for a few months. One player was held up as the best player. Two times, I had him on the ropes and the club president would come in and replace him with another player because 'he had to talk to him about something…' His win/loss record was always perfect… That was the only other 'bad' experience I had.
[And my win/loss record was crap…]

It is hard for some folks to enjoy the game, without getting to intense about the rules, while pretending they are involved in a fight to the death on the battlefield…. go figure.

Bill H.

I have to admit that I've thrown a die once. I literally failed every die roll in that game. I felt a lot better after that!

With that, he picked up a handful of his lancers and hurled them across the barn. Me and my teammate were stunned but amused. His partner saw no humor at all in it, railing on 'what in hell are you doing?'

Whose figures was he playing with ?

I think I can hazard a guess.

When I was in the service I attended an ACW game. Don't remember the rules name but they had tables similar to WSIM to calculate combat. [Table 1, Table 3, and modifiers were +/- so many tables)

This game was part of an ongoing campaign. In essence your unit started as green and if it wiped out an enemy unit, it bumped up to average, veteran and elite (or something like that). If you got wiped out, you started the next game as a Green unit.

The figs were 25mm metals.

My first game. I was given some Reb Rifled artillery and 2-3 infantry units. I was told to drag the artillery up on some high ground and essentially stay out of the way and try not to get any units wiped out.

This I did. Not too long thereafter on came 'Custer's Cavalry'. These were hands down the best painted ACW cav I have ever seen. Each and every unit in this cav force were Elite. It was with great confidence Custer's Cav went rocketing down the road in a road column -- presenting it's flank to my rifled artillery.

Well you cannot pass up a shot like that can you?

Then the fight began. There were any number of infantry units between my artillery and the cavalry. However the rules said that a unit only screened 12 inches beyond the interposing unit. (I didn't know this -- I just figured it was worth a try).

A dispute over the rules broke out that was debated by the old hands. Apparently nothing like this had ever come up before. In the end, I was allowed to take my shots into the flank of the cavalry in road column. The cavalry were obliterated.

The owner of the cavalry then appealed to the old hands. In essence pleading for a reprieve. The Reb players (who likely had suffered the depredations of Custer's Cav for a long time) shrugged their shoulders and said, "hey its what the rules say".

The owner of the cav then took handfuls of figures and threw them into the wall. (I don't remember this part well as I was in utter shock). He then stormed out vowing never to return. Kinda put an end to the game and I never had a chance to play with these guys again.

To this day I have mixed emotions about the entire episode. I suspect there was more to this than I will ever know.

mjc

I do not remember the details (such as the era or the rules or the exact circumstances) but one of our players was NOT happy with our GM and host, Hap Jordan. The player made a fist and punched the table about five or six times, punctuating each hit with, "HAP!" The player was kind enough to punch a section that did not have terrain on it but he also ended up punching directly on top of a nail head that was protruding up. After about the 2nd punch and "HAP!" little bits of red starting to appear. By the time he stopped there was a fair bit of blood on his hand, the table, himself, and some adjacent reserve miniatures. Everyone just stood there, jaws hanging open, watching him watch his hand. He then started laughing, said something to the effect, "It is just a game. Where's the first aid kit, Hap?" He came back a little while later, more than a bit embarrassed by his emotional outburst and announced that pizza was on him that night.

================================

On a similar note, I have never seen anyone throw miniatures at the wall. The people I gamed with, even when seeing red, were still able to me in control enough to not destroy troops! But, one time, during a Napoloenic game another friend was visiting us from Canada for a weekend of gaming. He was telling some story, gesturing wildly with his hands, and banged a box on the shelf behind him. The box, which had no top, fell onto a lower shelf, landing upside down. Our friend, John Plows, was mortified at what he had done to Hap's miniatures and everyone near him started gingerly picking up the pieces (sometimes literally picking up pieces!). These were put out on a clear area of the table while the damage was assessed. Hap, who had dropped a tray or two in his time, took it all in stride. In fact, he actually started to smile. That smile soon turn into a grin the cheshire cat would be envious of! It then dawned on John that the tray contained his reinforcements for the battle! He was even more mortified, especially because he was a stickler for NOT putting broken units on the board and was against substitute units. He lost several units of cavalry before they ever saw the battlefield. The poor sods.

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As for why grown men get this way over something that is just a game, well, it probably has to do with the fact that while it is just a game it is a game that many of us are extremely passionate about, and when participating in such an event it is no uncommon that those passionate feelings rise to the surface and sometimes they override common sense and common decency.

if you play enough, you are bound to run into an immature player or two. Why not a thread about nice players?

Hey Dan B.

I agree, though it isn't as entertaining. ;-j My rule of thumb is, "If you agree to play the rules, you don't go stopping the game to question them."

Hope you and your family are well.

Bill H.

Why is it that most of the contributors to this thread seem to be self confessed bad dice throwers?

I had one little episode of poor inpulse control involving a dice throwing incident. We were playing a great big Napoleonics game in when I was at Texas A&M – one of those bring what you have and we'll fit it in sort of affairs. I was opposite my buddy Gar (aka The Dread Pirate Garness) and had set up my forces to charge only to have one of those dice exchanges where you roll improbably bad while your opponent rolls improbably well. My forces failed to close and were cut down in a flash. I picked up the offending die and tossed it towards Gar's tummy. The d20 must have turned to the perfect angle to hit point first because it happened to hit right on the face of Gar's watch (hanging from his belt under his T-shirt), breaking the face and causing the yellow oil inside to spill out and stain his shirt. I was so embarrassed that I have not thrown a die since, although I have gently tossed a few under the couch so as not to pollute the rest of the pile of dice with their incompetence.

My Brother and I used to dispute rules a lot back when I was 16 and he was 13. My tiny unit of Imperial guard would obliterate swathes of Dark Eldar he had. We weren't playing exactly to the rules but he would get mad. He wouldn't yell but he would accuse me of cheating.

We haven't had any problems since those years though. We've had good fun battles of 40k and the occasional Ancients game.

I don't really want to see a grown man pout though. I really cannot see something like that going down without wanting to punch or slap the guy in the face to wake him up out of his state.

Otto
noizehive.blogspot.com

Most all of the really bad outbursts I've seen have been while playing Diplomacy.
Usually I go into a game assuming I'll lose but determined to make the other guy pay dearly for the victory.
Happily I've yet to throw anything or have anything thrown at me… though I'm sure I've frustrated people.

I throw stuff. And I'm not the only DFW Irregular to do it. But it's always in fun – it seems the 's' in our group are the ones who never care about winning!

One time I had spent a MONTH painting a Rebel artillery battery – three guns, crew, limbers. Long story short, on the first turn of the game it got hit and through a series of bizzare chart results the whole battery was destroyed along with half a regiment of infantry next to it. So I took a hammer to one of the guns.

It's amazing how hard it is to flatten a figure…try it if you don't belive me.

Anyway, we have jokers in our group who will actually paint a figure to match somebody's general and pretend a fit of rage and pick up the opposing piece, palm it, and throw the 'fake' one. It's quite funny when you do it to somebody who's uptight.

I used to playtest at Yaquinto and the corner of the gaming room where the soda machine was had HUNDREDS of dice in it. Every time Craig Taylor had a bad roll – zoom, there went the dice! Very funny. Especially when you have an unending supply.

Remember that it's important to have a 'sacrificial' figure or stand in your collection for those moments when you just want to make a point.

Hah, it edits 'Toss-er'!

A roommate of a friend visited us for a NATO / Warsaw Pact game. I have a collection of die cast Soviet Armor in HO scale that I got from pen pals during the Cold War that we used for the Reds. They were kind of rare.

The roommate pocketed a half a dozen of them and took them home. I noticed they were gone when I was picking the models up, but I figured they were just misplaced, it happens often enough.

My friend had kicked out his roommate and discovered the models in some of the stuff he left behind; my friend returned them to me.

Mike "Bunkermeister" Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

but strangely…not the plural…Tosser's

@Clay the Historicon Survivor, too bad no makes one of these stress balls in the shape of wargaming miniatures!

Christot, you mean "…not the POSSESSIVE…". (I always want to throw an incorrectly used apostrophe across the room when I see it…)

"but strangely…not the plural…Tosser's"

there's no apostrophe in the plural … s.
- and it bleeps it!!

We can always rely on you Mike.
I am well aware the plural doesn't contain an apostrophe, however, as a possessive ie. belonging to a aforementioned Tarsser (West Country phonetic spelling) it would indeed contain the apostrophe.
In the end one is faced with the choice of correctness,and the non-appearance of the word due to Bill's random censorship, or using the apostrophe out of context,and having it slide in under the radar.
I choose the latter.

Yeah, dice throwing is perfectly acceptable with most of the people I play with as long as you don't throw them at anyone. A pal of mine once took a hammer to a particularly disobedient d20 pour encourager les autres. It didn't work.

20thMaine,
The figures were his own. Back in the mid-80s and we were in the UK. They were Minifigs. If I recall back then the usual availability was Minifig or Hinchliffe from the shops we visited.

Our figures back then were abysmally painted and the terrain was crude. Even paper/cardboard buildings. Lots of Guinness, overflowing ashtrays in my barn. Best days. In spite of the airborne lancers..

I threw a pair of dice into the garbage once during a game. The dice WHERE evil so I felt justified. Besides, it could never have been my generalship that caused the problem in the first place.

While I've chucked dice across the room many times (always when playing with one gent I now refuse to associate with), I have one thing to say in my defense: in 200+ die rolls, I didn't have a single roll over 10, and over 100 rolls under 6… using 40 different d20s!

The best story I've heard is from a Warmachine tournament, using the Steamroller rules (10-minute timed turns): a player of the Legion of Everblight (often referred to as the Lesion of Evarcheez, since they only follow about a third of the core rules of the game and are considered an "I win" button) got perhaps a third of the way through his activations, and was told that he was out of time. He shrilly screamed "That's not *FAIR*!" and stormed out of the tournament, and hasn't been seen since. This player was known for analysis paralysis, and usually took 30+ minute turns.

I've been lucky with having very nice folks to game with! However,I did once meet a player who liked to flick over (my) infantry stands when he would lose one;getting more forceful as the game went on. After asking nicely (twice) to stop doing that, I flicked him upside his head,resulting in him acting like a 3 year old as he went storming out the building.After 5 minutes of laughter,the rest of the game went along fine.

I remember playing in NYC at a convention one time and an organizer kicked some young punk out for using loaded dice. How low is that!

I have tossed some dice in the past, although these days I try to limit it to tossing them in the trash when they abandon me.

Many years ago, the group with which I was gaming was primarily playing WRG 7th Ed. This was a very unforgiving ruleset.

A rather intense individual, who found winning often beyond the grasp of his Arab Conquest army, began to resort to ever more bizarre behavior.

Once he met us at the door to his house dressed as an Arab mullah. He genuinely thought it would assist his dice rolling. I detected no improvement.

On another occasion, he announced he would no longer eat pork. He was quite serious. Again, I detected no discernible improvement in his dice.

He ran a real estate business from his home and eventually displaced everything in his office to allow for the painting of a new version of the Arabs, "from the lead up" as it were.

In the end, his business failed for lack of attention, he sold his home and moved.

Crazy? Certainly obsessed.

Nothing like the horror stories here. Nearly 40 years of playing in the UK, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, and the US.

Problems – more annoyances than anything else, usually form ancient tournament minded players who 'play the rules' not the game. Other than that one ACW game where I asked if I could do something, was told the rules did not let me make what I know to be an historically correct move. Two moves later the same 'win at any costs' player did the same move he had object to me making against me and now claimed it was legal within the rules. I objected but the others seemed to want to keep the peace with this individual, I finished the game and never went back.

So I suppose I've been luck.

I once ran a 40 player Naps game (Battle of Nations@Cancon anyone?) and we'd kriegspieled the campaign beforehand to create the on-board starting situation. French v Russians/Prussians and a sea landing of some English troops along the Baltic coast.

For some reason the rather timid Allied commander chose to give battle in circumstances rather like Friedland with a river behind a good proportion of his Russian forces.

The Russian commander was completely unconcered at having two Corps with their backs to ariver and one bridge to service them thinking the high ground beyond with lots of guns etc would provide 'covering fire'.

The French couldn't believe their luck. Anyways on the day of the game we are all setting up and get under way and no sign of the Russian commander and his subordinates, the French were itching to get going (with a 3-1 superiority in troops ready to pounce on the Russians before the other Allied forces could arrive).

But then they do turn up- they'd be in character all night apparently drinking vodka and singing Russian folk songs. The Russian command then proceeds he's hear to 'beat the French in the name of teh Czar' and go to sleep under the table having giving orders to his generals to fight to the last bayonet.

So they did. The French steamroller got into gear- complete with a rolling grand battery of Guard Horse artillery that pinned a Cavalry Corps against the river who were wiped out.

The Allied commanders were aghast as they flank was destroyed in about four turns (this was an Elan game). Our Russian commander woke in time to charge personally the remnants of his forces and die manfully on the champ du honneur.

i was given the command of the right flank of the Austrian army and there was a 3 tyre(spelling) high hill between me and the rest of the army.it was coverd in wood so i couldn't get orders from the commander to ofton or see what was going on?
I had 2 reg.(4 BATT.) of line and 1 batt. of grenz and a horse gun to hold the left flank.well when the french attacked they had 3 REG.(9 BATT.)1 batt. light inf.2sq. of light horse and 2 foot guns.
i let the french come to me for 2 turns and i was ready for them when i got an order to send my grenzer's to the center.since the center and right flank was falling apart.the frech was charging all long the line all at once.the dice rolls were not going good for my commander and the right flank.Well i sent the grenz to the center like a good General should when ordered.when i did that the french attacked the next turn and i was going to be in really bad trouble.
well when my grenz got to the top of the hill the french in front of me where in 3 colums and charging with the lights out front and guns fireing and the cav.in a spot where they could be in support for a break through.
i change the order and brought the grenz back down the hill and fired into the french in the side and back.and at the same time my line fired and took care of the lights(french).at the end of the turn they had to check morale.one batt. was rout off the board and out of the rest one more was routed,4 batt.fall back 2 and 2 batt. fall back 1 and 1 batt.stand.the 2cav. squ. fall back 1 and 1 gun fall back 1 also.on the next turn i captured the gun that was left and i saved the left flank to fight another day! To this day the 1st batt 4th grenz have never failed a moale check,very lucky also??
it was the best game i ever had.very lucky to???

robert

I know it makes no logical sense, but I've dramatically reduced the instances of angrily tossing dice across the room after a bad throw in the games I've GM'd by having several sets of different colored dice available. If I notice a player is getting overly angry after several disappointing throws I encourage him to use a different die the next time. Don't know what it is, but even if they roll badly with the new die the first time they're not nearly as upset.
I mentioned this to a teaching colleague of mine in the Psych department and she was so intrigued she is having one of her Psych graduate students write a formal academic paper on it as part of a research seminar. I'm looking forward to reading it.

I saw a crazy Naps player once; did his facings in cherry red not Amaranth red – the guy was a complete nutjob I tell ya.

Great story about the drunk Russian CinC!

I tossed a d10 this weekend. We had a multi-player ACW game and were drinking beer, eating BBQ and killing each other with style. My opponent literally rolled five '9' results in a row with the same die. I asked to see it and promptly threw it into the far corner of the room. It was very funny – especially when somebody dug through the box it landed in so he could use it! (But we told him all the nines were used up)

I've seen a couple of epic sulks, but never violence (though I can close to it once with the Rules Lawyer).

A freind didn't take a hammer to his d20 that rolled 5'1's in a row. Oh no, he set up his other dice amphitheatre style, and took a blowtorch to the plastic offender in front of them. In case you are thinking 'you stole that from Larry Leadhead' I sent them that story after the 'holes in walls' strip. He was mortified to find he had his own LL- his wife thought it was hilarious though.

If you want a spectacular sulk you need to play with my Aspergers son.