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 Post subject: Mike: the be-all-end-all of gaming douchebaggery
PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:10 pm 
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I really enjoyed the January 13, 2003 and following strips revolving around what is perhaps Mikes greatest display of his prowess as a jerk. A few friends of mine were involved in a D&D game ran by a new DM. The problem was the involvement of the DMs boyfriend, who played a very pompous and annoying character reminiscent of himself, who reminded me of Mike very much. They were playing a chaotic evil campaign from the beginning, and he decided to...not play an evil character. I guess he joined hoping to turn the campaign around into some typical virtuously epic sort of game (I heard he pretty much aggrivated another group he was playing with after a pretty long run.) His whiney contradictory role pretty much set a sour mood in the group and the campaign fell apart. I've experienced this same thing in a few mmo's I've played, so I guess for every game there will always be a Mike to ruin it for everyone.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:25 pm 
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Ugh, I know. In an epic campaign I'm in, half of the party is Chaotic Good. One is Lawful Good, and he stated that there are times he's more Good than Lawful. There's a lawful neutral (for no reason) aaaaaand then there's another lawful good character. 'Cept this lawful good character really ought to be lawful neutral. He's... get this... a monk with VOW OF POVERTY, CHASTITY, NONVIOLENCE AND PEACE. For the AC. :roll: But he constantly hits the party if the party does any damage to monsters.

"You should have tried to subdue it!"

"...if you're nonviolent and peaceful, why did you hit me?"

Player: "Hahah! Character wrenches are fun! I love fucking with party dynamics! I fully expect this character to be killed within one or two sessions!"

.... so he can play a chaotic evil Talon of Tiamat.

I really hate players sometimes.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 2:10 pm 
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I think my best personal experience dealing with a Mike was playing a D20 based game (Exalted) with my friend Mark. He is a cool guy, but he turned into a Mike by GMing our game....basically by being power mad and making our experience very rigid, it didn't help that while GMing he had a character that was supposed to make scarce entrances except at key points relevant to the story, but became a normal participant. This became a problem when the situations we were put in became impossible for us to overcome (no matter what we tried, we'd get thwarted and the dilemna became irreversible.) So his character, who was obscenely overpowered, would single handedly turn the problem upside down while we stood by and watched, every fucking game. So it was like, "Hey guys, lets do whatever we want and be useless no matter how strong we become or what we try, Dues ex MARKina will surely save us!" When we'd play something else, he was not allowed to GM, and was upset when he failed rolls for a very difficult action. Power gaming ftl : (

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:09 pm 
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Yeah, I think everyone who games has experienced someone like Mike before. Usually I find it comes from guys who's only gaming experiance is from playing for a bit and then they descide that they are perfectly qualified to run a game.

I find that most people are either good players or good game masters, but not both. I thinks it's less common than most people think to find someone who is skilled in both aspects equally.

Then of course you have the fascinating subjects that are completely incapable of roleplaying at all. They're always a blast to deal with. /sarcasm

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:38 pm 
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Vigi-Kami wrote:
Then of course you have the fascinating subjects that are completely incapable of roleplaying at all. They're always a blast to deal with. /sarcasm

That would be me. So I'm good about it: I don't even bother to play. It ruins everyone else's time. I just show up to hang out with friends (there's usually two or three of us who are there "with" someone) and make the coffee.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:54 am 
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It's amusing. After my first experience with a "Mike," I've never had to play with one again.

I'm not certain whether that's just good luck or the positive consequences of blind, seething rage and eternal hatred.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:34 am 
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my favortie experience with a "Mike" group was in a game of marvel super heroes where we were acting out the "secret wars" module.
for those of you unfamilair, it is simply that alot of heroes and villians were put on to a strange planet with the only rules being who ever lives,gets thier fondest wish granted.

So after a while of rule butchery, the gm at the time decides to award them the prize of having the hereos tell Dr. Doom what their wish is.
they simply asked to go home.
they arrived there stripped of their powers and in the grasp of a New dr doom who had the a shatnerload of power from such items such as the infinity gems, all of those godlike elders in a cage with their powers drained.

they just gave up right there.


I personally go with the type of endings that PeeJee did with the
"rocks fall, everyone dies"

edit:
another memory os that game was when people started making their godlike charcters who had almost no weaknesses.
it pissed off other players and GM's
so i took a character similar to Nightcrawler from the X men and simply teleported away with their heads, and leaving them to die.
i swear some of them almost cried.
"i worked on that guy for hours!!!i drew him up and colored it in an EVERYTHING"...to where they would have to rip up the page and start all over again cursing me under their breath...

Blue Sun Missile
"i got your head!"

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:33 pm 
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Oh goodness. Ripping off their heads sounds like a bunch of fun actually. Come to think of it, it's the players in my campaigns (I typically only run 3.5e currently) that draw a picture and colour it in, or even print one off the 'net that end up first in the to-kill list. Takes a few times before the players realize that they mysteriously keep loosing miscellaneous items out of their inventory, and that for some reason, no one else seems to get caught in the traps...

I digress, however.

There's only been two times I've ever come up against a power-hungry-munchkin-twink mike type of person. One I simply let the players deal with, since he was the newbie to the group. They ate him and devoured his character sheet, although, I still maintained they left too much DNA evidence of his existance. They did a far better job than I could have, and he, strangely enough, never did return.

The other one played the God GM mode. He'd set up an impossible campaign, get us to (reluctantly) agree to let him GM ("C'mon guys, it's not like last time! I swear!"), and then proceed to stick us up against impossible and impervious monsters of his own devising. Sick bastard, but what do you do? Oh yeah, ban him from the GM'ing rotation. Don't think he ever did catch on, since it was a very casual group. He stayed with the group for about two years before the group disbanded.

So I think it is possible to live with a mike character type in the party, but... If you bring in enough spare character sheets, a sense of humour, and a shovel in your trunk for those "just in case" moments, it's not too horrible. Most of the time the idio... um, person, doesn't quite realize they're being made fun of behind everyone else's back, and it's always good to have someone to be the first to enter any area... Even if he is playing the spellcaster. Can always find a good reason that he should go first. ^_^ And if he complains, he can always go last, and get gobbled by whatever's stalking the party.

/inane rambling that derailed itself before it even began...

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:02 pm 
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Anything that involves people and the pretense of fun will always require snipping someone out of the scene, like a patients body rejecting a blood transfusion.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:03 pm 
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my own personal experiece with bad players was when i was with and acquaintance of my brother jerry. his name was brad.


brad wanted to DM in D&D for the very first time ever in his life.

how cute....


as friends of his (and having nothing better to do for the week) we accepted.


the game turned into a power mongering, power leveling fiasco when another friend, josh, joined.

today, josh isnt really a friend of anyone's anymore cuz hes a dousche/recluse/horny F-er. and im not basing that off my own personal experience, everyone one of us has unanimously agreed to label him that way, cuz in fact, he is.

josh took advantage of brad's niaevety and started running the game he wanted to play.

bad josh, bad! metagaming is for losers!

But somehow he would always convince brad that there was no point in rolling this or that (you should always roll, even in doubt!) and that he could do these things because they were in the books (ruiles he made up and instread of looking for his lies, brad just agreed).

in the end, everyone was playing a level 20 character, but acting level 60, were considered dieties and could drop stadium sized castles on top of armies about three times and win the battle.

but wheres the bad part you ask?

josh was the ONLY one who could not die, hasd the best EVERYTHING, and nobody called his bullshit.

brad studied up, stuck it to him afterwards and was never allowed to play when brad was DMing. but brad never did DM again cuz we didnt want a possibility of power gaming (when the real fun is struggling to survive!) ever again.

in conclusion:
dont take presidence over someones incompetence just because you want to brag about your character being super uber (whgich he did for MONTHS >=( )

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 12:12 am 
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I think Mikes are created by not really understanding where the enjoyable parts of a role playing game are drawn from. I think power gaming is reserved for online games like fucking Warcraft. "HAHA i HAVES THE GRWEAT POWER SWORD OF KILL u GOOD BECAUSE I HAVE NO JOB AND R AFRAID OF GIRLZ HAHA~LOL FTW WTF FTW@1 WTB GOLD WITH MY ALLOWANCE PST"

The most mechanical parts of the game give it definition, the players and the DM pour in story and character development which exceed the limitations of a basic gaming system without destroying the dynamic, rather enhancing it (yeah yeah, obviously...Mikes can't seem to understand this.)

Monkeys experience is the pinnacle of bad bad bad gaming, good lord. Give me substance or give me "Exalted."

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:33 am 
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Maybe the mikes out there just really enjoy getting powerful stuff at not cost to them. Some people are just really odd like that. Just like somewhere, somehow, in some distant... well, whatever, but I'm sure there's someone somewhere that doesn't get playing a normal non-twinked character, and makes fun of those that do. Just a seperate mindset, I'm hoping.

Either that or they're over compensating for something (men and women, not just physical aspects either. could be they feel their inability to have fun with the rest of us. ^_^)

~Kams

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:37 pm 
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World of Warcraft has given all of the Mikes of the world something to do to keep them hidden in their homes to rot in front of their computer screens.

Blizzard, how much do I love thee? Oh, let me count the ways...

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:03 pm 
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Kuran wrote:
World of Warcraft has given all of the Mikes of the world something to do to keep them hidden in their homes to rot in front of their computer screens.

Blizzard, how much do I love thee? Oh, let me count the ways...


Small text makes the baby jesus cry.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:18 pm 
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[takes notes]

<== Has just been invited to her first-ever gaming night and is at least developing a decent idea of what not to do.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:28 pm 
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Awesome, hope you have a fun Mike-free time : )

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:51 am 
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Kuran wrote:
World of Warcraft has given all of the Mikes of the world something to do to keep them hidden in their homes to rot in front of their computer screens.

Blizzard, how much do I love thee? Oh, let me count the ways...

Amen to that. :cheers:

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