B.A.D.D. is coming back!

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by darksaba

Has anyone ever been seriously hurt/killed from role-playing getting out of hand?

Once in a GURPS game years ago a PC tried to knock out an NPC by pistol whipping him at the base of his neck. The NPC made his HT roll, and wasn't knocked out. The player got upset, and we started one of those retarded gaming arguments.
Player: "That's not realistic. You should be able to knock somebody out by hitting them really hard in the back of the neck."
Me: "It's a lot harder to knock somebody out then you think. The NPC made his HT roll. He's not knocked out."
Player: "Maybe if he was super-tough or something, but he's just some guy."
Me: "It's harder than you think. You probably couldn't knock me out. He's not knocked out. He is hurt. Let's get on with it."

A little while later, the Player had gone to restroom and I was bending over my notes, when a felt a sharp thud at the base of my neck and saw stars for a millisecond. At which point I jumped up and put the player in a choke hold. Somebody else had to tackle me and hold me down until I calmed down.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by darksaba

Now I was watching a detective show tonight, and the plot point was "guy unable to separate reality and fantasy goes for a swim with lead weights attached to his feet because he believes himself to be immortal from playing too many RPGs". The story was badly researched, and IMHO badly executed and normally I'd have just written it off as another attack against our hobby by lazy Hollywood writers, but as theres this thread going on I'd though I'd ask: Has anyone ever been seriously hurt/killed from role-playing getting out of hand? Does anyone know of any real cases? Is there a shred of evidence that these things ever happen?

Yes. I have an acquaintance, who, while GMing, when a particular unstable player's character was killed, attacked him. Rest of the group restrained him. Then tossed him out.

I've had more bad luck with Civ and Supremacy boardgames. One particularly petulant SOB flipped the table on a supremacy game when he was about to be invaded, and not one of his nukes made it through the LStar clusters. Same bloke flipped his own copy of Civ when no one would trade with him, and everyone dumped secondary effects on him. (He had been in the lead on the AST... and crowing about it... and suddenly, was going backwards...)

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Eben

That was NCIS. It did seem to me that the sailor was shown as crazy on his own and he just latched onto the game as a reality filter. Kind of like the people who become obsessed over their D&D character.

Yeah, I agree. I remember that episode.

[Ed the Coastie]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Hey, Mormon paranoia pushed me into the arms of GURPS.

See, my mother, devout Mormon that she was, had heard that D&D was evil, therefore, I wasn't allowed to play it. However, she agreed with me that the church had explicitly stated that D&D was evil, not role-playing. Therefore, I was allowed to spend my days playing Traveller, FASERIP Marvel, WoD (yes, World of Darkness) and GURPS.

(And really, she did the sensible, parenting thing: She sat in on a few sessions, played along a bit, and saw that this hobby certainly wasn't harmful or creepy, and so gave me her blessing)

Yeah, I remember when the "the Church said D&D was evil" rumors were going around. In fact, that particular rumor still crops up from time to time.

I did some checking on it about a year ago, when I was preparing for a game that I would be running for some of the youth in my ward. A couple of months later, I received a reply to the effect that the Church did not view participation in roleplaying games -- including D&D -- in itself to be any more harmful than participation in most other hobby activities; the primary concerns are and always have been 1) individuals who participate in a hobby (of any sort) to the point of obsession, and 2) those individuals who view RPGs in general and D&D in particular as a medium for glorifying evil.

Given that, my bishop had no problem with me setting up a game for those youth in the church who were interested in playing...especially since one of those prospective players was his own son.

(Unfortunately, that particular game never came about. I lost my job a week or so later and thus became too busy focusing on my job search to devote any time to continuing with setting up the game. By the time I found and settled into a new job, the opportunity for running the campaign had passed.)

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A little while later, the Player had gone to restroom and I was bending over my notes, when a felt a sharp thud at the base of my neck and saw stars for a millisecond. At which point I jumped up and put the player in a choke hold. Somebody else had to tackle me and hold me down until I calmed down.

Well, at the very least you proved your point!

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Try hate, paranoia and delusions, rather than religious fervor. He merely masquerades his mental illness as religious ferver.

Likely true, but let's be polite. He's not quite on the Westboro Church level.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Once in a GURPS game years ago a PC tried to knock out an NPC by pistol whipping him at the base of his neck. The NPC made his HT roll, and wasn't knocked out. The player got upset, and we started one of those retarded gaming arguments.
Player: "That's not realistic. You should be able to knock somebody out by hitting them really hard in the back of the neck."
Me: "It's a lot harder to knock somebody out then you think. The NPC made his HT roll. He's not knocked out."
Player: "Maybe if he was super-tough or something, but he's just some guy."
Me: "It's harder than you think. You probably couldn't knock me out. He's not knocked out. He is hurt. Let's get on with it."

A little while later, the Player had gone to restroom and I was bending over my notes, when a felt a sharp thud at the base of my neck and saw stars for a millisecond. At which point I jumped up and put the player in a choke hold. Somebody else had to tackle me and hold me down until I calmed down.

I used to play with a guy who got kicked out because he threw a CAT paws first into the chest of a player he was having an argument with (and losing).

A couple of years later, he walked into a game store some of the players from that game were in, and got a second chance with them.

I was passing notes to the GM and he got the idea I was out to assassinate his PC and snatched the note pad I was using (a bunch of preforated 3.5 index cards bound by a spiral) out of my hand. He didn't find the evidence he was sure it had (no interest in his character whatsoever) and was about to start tearing of the chads of previously removed cards..

I told him to give me my property back and he threw the damn thing in my face spiral first.

Even the second violence didn't stop two of our group from going to his house to play for a while. What finally did him in socially was that the Girl friend of one of his two remainging players lost internet access after a year of unemployment and he offered to let her play City of Heroes on his computer, by which he meant he intended to use up most of her account when she wasn't there.

Never steal from a player's GF.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Likely true, but let's be polite. He's not quite on the Westboro Church level.

From my point of view, he's worse. Then again, I'm Catholic, and a gamer... two of his target groups. Plus, the theology espoused in many of his tracts is pretty poor. "Better to be tied to a stone and thrown in the sea than to mislead one of my little ones."

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

From my point of view, he's worse.

There's like three people in the Westboro Baptist Church and they are generally hated by everybody. Jack Chick distributes his tracts all over the world in several languages and they are often given out by established churches. When I was in Iraq somebody had set up a table in the chow hall to distribute them in both English and Arabic.

Plus, the theology espoused in many of his tracts is pretty poor.

It essentially boils down to "If you do something bad, God will instantly kill you and send you to hell."

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There's like three people in the Westboro Baptist Church and they are generally hated by everybody. Jack Chick distributes his tracts all over the world in several languages and they are often given out by established churches. When I was in Iraq somebody had set up a table in the chow hall to distribute them in both English and Arabic. It essentially boils down to "If you do something bad, God will instantly kill you and send you to hell."

Westborough does little true evil. The hate Jack Chick spews, and the lies, are far more pernicious. He's destroyed more confused kids' relationships with their parents than the number of people hurt by the Wesborough crowd by several orders of magnitude.