"I'm going to Win D&D"
I’ve found myself spoiled over the last decade or so. I haven’t had to deal with cheese monkeys. I haven’t had to deal with Munchkins. I haven’t had to deal with rules lawyers. I certainly haven’t had to deal with kids trying to “Win D&D.”
I had to deal with that this weekend. For the first time in 4 years I DMed a game with a bunch of high school friends. We’re all older now and we all brought significant others. I brought Crystal, Jake brought Sarah, Mike brought his wife Casey, Daria (Mike’s older sister and the player of the immortal Wizbang) brought Robert. Kevin, as is often the case, was single. Also along for the ride was Daria’s friend Mykal (renamed after Joe McCarthy’s PC from High School*, just incase slander/libel becomes an issue), who no one there other than she and Robert had met before.
I don’t restrict my players much. I really don’t. I asked that anyone playing a non-standard race run it by me. I asked that anyone playing a non-standard class run it by me. I said no Evil PCs. Mykal showed up with a Minotaur Fighter/Mage. It’s something I would have allowed (with party consent) had he asked. After some talk about this being his pet PC, I let it in. I didn’t even think to check his Alignment. I said in every message sent out no evil PCs. Turns out he was an Evil PC.
By Saturday evening (about halfway through the first day of gaming) two players had pulled me aside and asked where the hell this guy had come from. I explained he was a friend of Daria’s and he’d not be showing up again if I had anything to say about it. He’d claimed to have killed the Dragon. He tried to steal the party’s loot. He was an ass to the nth degree.
One piece of treasure that I tossed in there was the Deck of Many Things. For those that don’t play AD&D, the deck of many things is a magic item with a lot of random effects. Half of those effects are good, half bad. Everyone took their turns drawing cards. Everyone laughed when the half-orc lost 3 points of Int. Everyone watched as the Paladin fought Death and won. Eventually it came to Minotaur Boy’s turn.
In an effort to screw other PCs out of loot, he put on a ring earlier. The ring was cursed. Next he found a book and immediately read the book, to stake his claim. As he was doing this he said “there’d never be 2 cursed Items in one treasure...” Right, cause I’m a nice DM. The book was a cursed book of bad advice... Or at least time consuming advice. No matter what he had to read the book and search it’s pages to advise him on the best course of action. This took 1d8 turns for quick actions and 1d4 days for longer actions.
He announced he was pulling 5 cards. 2 of those cards were the Donjon and the Void. I’d said those would be redrawn until new bad cards were drawn (those two involve entire quests to undo). Afterwards he ended up with 7 cards, 2 of which were good. He tried to argue that he’d said 7 originally. Everyone at the table immediately refuted this. I chose which of his 5 good ones he kept (trust me, I didn’t pick the best cards). Then he realized that he had to fight Death.
He cracked his fingers and prepared to show everyone how a real player kills death. He looked up at hearing a die roll. “You have to consult the book for 6 turns to see the best way to face death.” His face melted. It was beautiful. He died a very clean death to Death.
He did his damnedest to ruin the rest of the night for everyone, including making an int 4 PC named “Brian Westbrook.” I don’t follow sports. If I did, and I realized he was poking fun at one of the Eagles star players, when the entire rest of the table is Eagles fans, I’d have sent him home. As it stood when we wrapped for the night, he and his SO went home. Everyone prayed that he not come back the next day.
Secret gatherings were had all over. We tried to figure out how to tell Daria that her friend was a tool.
As we gathered around the table the next morning, Daria looked at us all and said, “Hey guys, I just wanted to apologize for Mykal last night...” Everyone heaved a sigh of relief and “Thank God”s passed around the table. We resumed game and he never showed up again.
All in all it was a good weekend. Everyone had a lot of fun, even with that puts.
*Mykal Starcatcher was the name of Joey McCarthy’s Minotaur Fighter/Mage back in high school. The play style of this schmuck and Joe was extremely similar.
P.S. - Heat's out at my work.