I’ve been a dungeon master (the person who comes up with a story and runs a game) for several years now, and I’ve noticed that there are a couple common types of players. For my and your amusement, I’ve made a list of ten of those player archetypes.

I know I’ve been guilty of more than one of these roles when I’ve been a player! Read the list with a smile though, and if you see yourself in any of these, then just laugh along with me and be merry about it. Enjoy!

1. The Direction Despot - Whether or not they actually have a map, this person always grabs the steering wheel. You can be sure that they’ll spend a lot of time asserting themselves and trying to turn the other player characters into minions. Heck, some of the time, they’ll even try to play other people’s characters for them. Sometimes, they won’t even try to convince the rest of the party to go along with what they want to do. As the party is deciding whether or not to side with the king, they’ll just declare that their character walks into the palace because that’s what their character would do, “and the party has the option of coming along.”

2. The Uninterested Shell - In contrast to the Direction Despot, this person just sits. Everybody else kind of wonders why they like the game since all they really do during the five hours of playing is roll the dice a few times, but since they’re not disruptive and everybody tends to get along with this person, it’s cool. And sure, every once in a while, they’ll say something whenever somebody else is being particularly annoying. But for the most part, this person is devoid of any interaction or feedback.

3. The Entitled Mime - Similar to the Uninterested Shell, this person doesn’t do things on their own. Sure, they do some things, but the point is that they’re mostly quiet. Instead of thinking up things for their character to pursue, they think that their dungeon master is supposed to hand them significance. Whenever another player does something proactive and thus gets a lead role in a mission, they get outraged that the dungeon master is clearly playing favorites. And because they don’t think they have anything to do, they don’t really do anything other than roll dice, mutter angrily, and occasionally have their character do something random and disruptive just to remind everybody else how capable and important they are.

4. The Gabby Socialite - Little did you know when you started your campaign that you… weren’t starting a campaign. This person talks a lot, which is surprising since they’re often still aware of what’s happening in the game and engage their character in situations. But the trouble is that 99% of the time, they’re either not talking about the game at all or trying to turn whatever is happening in the game into a joke (they usually get carried away with the whole “It’s good to have a sense of humor at the table” thing).

5. The Moral Contortionist - Nobody is a cheater. Absolutely nobody, and certainly not the group that I’d like to call Moral Contortionists. Sure, they might make up their own dice results, fudge a few things on their character sheets, or generously interpret some rules, but since it’s all about having fun, then clearly nothing is wrong with this. And since nothing is wrong, then obviously there is no cheating. It’s not like they do it a lot (who’s counting?), so it’d be overkill to call them a cheater anyway. Not that they’re cheating, since we already talked about how cheating isn’t cheating. You just need to relax. And look the other way, please.

6. The Oversensitive Dignity - Everybody gets attached to their characters, but some people just take everything personally at the table. If you end up allowing this person’s character to get killed by the angry orcs or if you act out a judgmental sage that verbally berates their character, then expect this person to accuse you of being petty enough to petty enough to personally target their character for some unknown reason. Anything that happens at the table is a personal insult, actually. Perhaps they think that you telling them that they need to roll the diplomacy check too is you trying to make them feel inferior, or they think that making a ruling that isn’t to their liking means that you’re letting the authority get to your head. Basically, just expect them to be mad at you all the time.

7. The Ostentatious Attorney - This person has gone out of their way to try to outsmart you when it comes to the books. If they find out that you’ve read a new rulebook, then expect them to read two. If you cite anything that isn’t helpful to the party in a situation, expect them to ask for a moment to double check that. Naturally, they’ll be right once in a while, and they’ll delight in pointing it out in either an irritatingly passive aggressive or openly pretentious way, and use it to try to assert that they’re the foremost authority on the rules. They’re always watching and waiting, so it’s bound to happen. But also naturally, don’t expect them to count all the times they doubt you and dive into the book without resurfacing with anything.

8. The Balance Breaker - These power gamers just don’t have any self-restraint. They spend as much time reading the rulebooks as the Ostentatious Attorney and the dungeon master, but instead of doing it for the purpose of learning about as much of the game as possible, they’re just hunting for whatever can make their character even more awesomely powerful and broken. They take great pride in what they do, and are usually pretty clear about how everybody else should play the game like they do (after all, if everybody else was like this, the party would actually be balanced, they’ll say). Of course, they don’t want to face the fact that the books were actually designed by well-paid people whose whole job is to make the information accessible and the math easy enough for second graders.

9. The Transitive Expert - How long they’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons is irrelevant. The Transitive Expert started role-playing in some other game, and from this has come to view his or herself as an expert on role-playing, period. They come to the table with expectations of how things should be done, and will hold you and your campaign to standards of their creation. Anything they don’t like — and I do mean anything — is either a problem with you as a dungeon master, you as an inferior role-player, or with the Dungeons and Dragons system itself. Sometimes they really do have good ideas or are focusing on an aspect of another game that really does do something better than how Dungeons and Dragons does it, but more often than not, these people are just focusing on being upset with the same things anybody would be upset with instead of spending their time actually trying to play their character.

10. The Philosophy Robot - This is not a game, it’s a life pursuit, and it’s serious business, people! These people will talk about the game the same way that a priest talks about how to live; there is a right way to do it, and a wrong way. If you let them, they’ll preach for as long as you’ll listen about the proper way to get into and make decisions as your character. Or how to build your character to reflect your background story. Or when it is and is not appropriate to question the dungeon master. Or why parts of the book should be dismissed as invalid and illegitimate. Or whatever. Unless you particularly care, it’s probably best to either just nod politely and hope that they realize that they’re droning on, or poke them and very carefully tell them that it doesn’t really matter that much in the end as long as people are having a good time (but be ready for gasps and a long-winded rebuke if you mess this up).

*Obligatory Disclaimer: This list is not aimed at anybody in particular. I’ve seen each of the roles on this list filled by many, many people, and we all giggle about it now. It’s not a sneaky, childish attempt at getting anybody to change, but instead, it’s just like I said at the beginning. This is purely for the entertainment of anybody who has ever played Dungeons and Dragons. Turn that frown upside down and giggle with us!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 am and is filed under My Life, Ridiculous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.