Guide on "How to Annoy Your GM"

By: M. Zaiem Beg

It's Saturday night, and it's the local munchkin's turn to GM. He's not even very creative, and his campaigns are mediocre at best. On top of all this, you were really pressured into gaming that night when you REALLY didn't want to anyhow. What do you do?

Now with this guide, you too can annoy your GM AND make the best out of it.

First of all, this takes a GM who isn't going to hate you for doing this. Make sure he's resilient.

With that said and done:

  1. Create a new character and fudge your IQ roll. Make him INCREDIBLY stupid (around 3 at best). Give him just enough to be annoyingly dangerous, powerwise. that is, choose a right O.C.C.
      These skills came in handy last night when the local munchkin GM was GMing. For this, I used a 7'2" negro burster with an IQ of 3. He was obsessed with fire ("look at da pretty flame") and his only reaction to adversity was to burst into flames. I set half the forest on fire this way. I HATE munchkinism, and a human burster was perfect, powerwise. Not that powerful, but just enough to be greatly annoying.
  2. DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER. The GM may get annoyed at you and kill your character. This is partly what you want him to do, so you can go home and go to sleep and nobody yells at you for this. When I tried this, the GM was RIDICULOUS about keeping me alive. That sort of made it all the more fun. But if the GM does kill you, don't care. Choose something that you didn't put alot of thought into as far as character concept or background goes.
  3. Be detrimental to the party. We ended up exploring a cave with possible pockets of explosive gas. As a burster (on fire), this was very hazardous. Nobody could convince me to "put out da pretty flame. Da flame is my friend".
  4. Don't let horror factor scare you. Contend you are too stupid to realize that it's scary. You may be afraid to die, but you don't have to make a connection between a big drooling monster with fangs standing in front of you and death (much like Lenny in Of Mice and Men didn't like killing things, but didn't make the connection between killing something and snapping its neck). Be stupid. If your GM wants you to be alive at all costs (like mine was), watch him struggle.
  5. If you get knocked out, have a backup plan. I played Tetris while my character was out cold. My GM didn't want me killing everyone, so he found ways to KO me. TETRIS TIME!!! If Tetris isn't available, perhaps a TV, or book, or perhaps some artwork... something to pass the time satisfactorily. You don't want to torture yourself in your quest to annoy your GM.
  6. Suicide is always an option. If your GM has you somehow be "enlightened" and your IQ becomes very high, end it all. Contend that you, in your newfound knowledge, find life to be a horrible place which you never understood, and while you may be mentally acute, you are not emotionally. Impale yourself on something, ask another character to kill you, jump off a cliff, whatever. And if your GM doesn't let you die, then it's all the more fun to see him struggle as he tries to save you AGAIN and AGAIN.

Don't do it too often, and be subtle. Insist you are role-playing (which you really are. The low intelligence thing is much more fun than hack and slash any day). And voila. You have annoyed your annoying GM and made the best out of an otherwise unbearable situation.

Enjoy. =-)

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                 -M. Zaiem Beg       zbeg@holly.colostate.edu
     "Pain is a state of mind and I don't mind your pain."

Guide_to_Annoy_GM.php -- Revised: January 27, 2021.