joseph_torres•6d agoTop Commenter

The guy who ran a weekly D&D night turned into a rules lawyer in just 6 months and it ruined the group

I ran with a regular group for about two years, and we had this one guy, Mike, who was super chill always joking around. Then about 6 months ago he started watching these hyper-competitive online streams and bought three new rulebooks. Now he stops the game every 10 minutes to argue about line of sight or exact movement distances, even if it's just a casual tavern scene. Last session he argued for 20 minutes over whether a thrown torch counted as an improvised weapon or an environmental effect. It killed the vibe so bad that three people quit the group. Has anyone else seen a good player turn into a rules lawyer after getting into specific content online?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron8846d ago

I used to think people overreacted to rule lawyers but after watching Mike do the same thing to our group I totally get it now. @owens.cameron nailed it, some people just get too deep into that competitive stuff and forget the whole point is having fun together.

max_ross6d ago

@owens.cameron that podcast thing is exactly what happened with our table. I told the guy flat out "look, if you want to run it by the book that's fine, but I'm not stopping the game for a tape measure anymore" and that finally got through to him.

owens.cameron6d ago

My cousin had a similar thing happen with his group years back, except it was after he started listening to this one particular gaming podcast that really focused on tournament play. He went from being the guy who would cheerfully fudge a dice roll to keep a fun moment going to someone who would pull out a tape measure and insist on checking the exact distances between minis. It got so tense that the group actually banned miniatures for a while and just went to a pure theater of the mind style to get away from it. The funny thing is, the podcast host probably never intended for people to take that stuff so seriously, but some folks just get caught up in it and forget that the core of the game is about having a good time together.

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