While I'll always consider myself first and foremost a game master, I do enjoy playing on occasion. Things are always different on the other side of the screen. As a game master, I'm used to looking at the grand scheme of things. As a player, my focus is... well... a lot more focused.

There are certain things that I find irritating as a player. Some of them are easy to identify with no matter which side of the screen you're sitting on. Others really aren't appreciated unless you're sitting on the player side of the screen. I thought I'd point out a few of my pet peeves as a player in today's column. Some of you may not agree that I should be bothered by some of these, and that's okay. I decided to list these here in case a GM might find this a useful checklist or troubleshooter.

Now, without further ado…

1. The bait and switch

I've discussed this one in past columns, but my pet peeve list would not be complete without it. The typical bait and switch scheme goes like this: the GM does not want the players to create characters that are ultra competent in combat, so he downplays the importance of combat in the upcoming campaign, usually by emphasizing "roleplaying." The players react by creating characters that aren't combat monsters. Once the game begins, the players are routinely sent through combat encounters, with little roleplaying whatsoever.

It's easy to sympathize with the GM on this pet peeve. We've all had to deal with our share of unbalanced combat monsters, and I can empathize with the GM that tries to limit them. I don't, however, think that tricking the players is the solution. Not only do you run the risk of setting them when they realize that they've been had, but you may also upset players, who actually enjoyed the idea of the game that you pitched.

2. The Game Master Player Character

This is another peeve I've written about previously. The GMPC is a character that exists in the party for no useful reason other than that the GM gets to keep his player hat on while he is running the adventure. Unfortunately, the GM is still privy to adventure information, so the GMPC never makes lethal mistakes.

In the worst cases, the GMPC becomes a major, if not the major, actor within the party. He may be the one always riding to the party's rescue. He may be the one leading the party through the dungeon and keeping them from straying from the GM’s prepared notes. After a while, the rest of the PCs start to feel like disposable "red shirts" (for those of you not Star Trek-savvy, "red shirt" refers to an unnamed security guard that would beam down to a planet with the main characters just to get killed by the threat of the week).

3. Automatic failure

I ran into this one recently. I was playing an elf in a Shadowrun campaign that was well versed in social skills. Her shtick was to get what she wanted through diplomacy and seduction rather than violence. Unfortunately, my GM decided to take a harsh racial stance and made my character's seduction attempts automatically fail whenever she tried it on an ork, dwarf or troll (his reasoning: "How can an ork possibly find an elf attractive?"). In essence, a large portion of my character sheet was shut down more than half the time.

I'm not advocating that there never be a time when the GM calls for an automatic failure. Nor am I advocating that there should never be circumstantial modifiers to a skill roll. In fact, had the GM merely applied a higher level of difficulty to my attempt, I probably would not have gotten bent out of shape. Nor would have I been upset if a particular NPC turned out to be so racist as to be immune to my character's charms. It was only when I realized that this would be a common, recurrent theme that I had a problem.

4. Being part of a novel

This is one of those pet peeves that are sometimes difficult to see from the game master's side of the screen. When creating adventures, we GMs sometimes become so enamored of our plots and their resolutions that we don't realize or understand that the players might approach things differently. Worse, we might even start leading players by the nose. As a result, there are points in an adventure when the players feel like nothing that they decide matters. No matter what happens, the GM will lead them with prejudice towards the resolution.

This is an especially tough "peeve" because I’ve been guilty of doing this myself as a GM. It's easy to get used to lending the PCs a helping hand when they get stuck or glossing over bumps along the way. One of my players that especially enjoyed solving mysteries told me that he just wasn't having fun in one of my investigative campaigns because I wasn't encouraging the other players to be good investigators. He was correct. If my other players lagged, an NPC would always show up to push things forward. If a clue was missed, it ended up in the PC's hands anyway. I believe I'd mentioned this before, but I also once played in a campaign (for all of one session) where the GM literally dictated the entire scene, including my own character's observations and actions.

5. Illogical motivations

I can't stand adventures that rely on a premise that the PCs will do something illogical (or even stupid) in order for the scenario to progress. This often results in the GM sheepishly and overtly railroading the players. Suspension of belief is destroyed, and if something bad happens to the players, the GM will have to deal with a number of "the only reason that we're even in this situation is because the adventure strong-armed us into being here" questions.

Currently, I'm planning on running a Call of Cthulhu night with some friends. As I've been perusing published adventures in order to find one suitable, I’m shocked at how many times this peeve pops up. Apparently, the "curiosity" of the PCs is always supposed to lead them into the adventure, even when it doesn't make sense for them to do so. There are often other illogical points as well, such as every police department in the country willing to open their police files to any curious bunch of people who ask.

[While today's column is about my player pet peeves, I’d like to put my GM hat back on for a moment. As a GM, I get peeved whenever I see one of these illogical motivations pop up in a published scenario, with no advice on what to do if the players pick the far more logical path to follow.]

6. Obvious GM fudging in the player's favor

This one may seem odd. Why would a player get upset if the GM throws a little karma his way? The answer is simple. As a player, I want to feel like I succeeded in the adventure through my own actions. If I become aware of GM fudging, then my enthusiasm is lost. It's like my character is tearing through the dungeon levels with all of the cheat codes enabled.

Some GMs are particularly bad at hiding this. I once played with a GM who didn't realize that a PC had very few hit points left when he announced that a foe just scored a critical hit. There was a look of horror in his face as he glanced down at the result of the fistful of dice he just threw behind the screen. He spent several seconds "computing" the results, and then announced that the PC only took three points of damage. Not only did I laugh out loud, but my own PC started taking ridiculous risks from that point forward. Why be cautious if the GM will save you anyway?

7. Sacred dice rolling

I'll end off with this one, another one that I've been guilty of as a GM in the past. It's a peeve of mine when a GM insists on a dice roll for every use of a skill, including routine tasks. Often these GMs don't even bother to add modifiers. As a result, especially for beginning characters, a few bad rolls can often make them feel completely incompetent.

For example, I create a mythology professor in an occult campaign. An NPC asks him about banshees. The GM asks for a roll. I botch, and suddenly my professor has never heard of such a creature. Perplexed, he heads to the library, but he fails a research roll and can't find a book on Irish mythology. Frustrated, he types "banshee" in Google. Unfortunately, another failed roll means that he misspelled it in the search engine and still can't find it. (Conversely, a good GM, at least in my humble opinion, would allow the PC to recall the basics of banshees and the most common myths without a roll).

Keeping Kosher

Sometimes, it helps to put your player hat on when designing and running adventures. I'd be really curious to hear what other pet peeves GMs that also play have as players.

Good Gaming!