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I've heard that it's not uncommon for sore losers at MTG tournaments to rip their cards to shreds in frustration after a loss. In my view, this should be grounds for immediate expulsion, or even a long-term ban for repeat offenders. According to the guy I've heard this from, the issue is so prevalent that he knows someone who makes good money at MTG tournaments by selling new cards to overgrown toddlers who destroyed their own decks and somehow weren't shown the door.

For my part, as a tabletop wargamer, I've never witnessed this kind of disgraceful behavior in my Warhammer 40k community. I've faced many opponents, both in casual and competitive settings, but there are none I would actively avoid in the future. There was that one guy at a casual event (quite young, looked new to the hobby) who got annoyed easily by his slew of bad rolls, but his annoyance only showed in frequent sighs or growls, muttered curses and increasingly vigorous dice throws, not any rage-quitting or destruction of property. Afterwards, a player at a neighboring table quietly told me something along the lines of: "Wow, that guy really needs to cool off, I'm sorry you had to deal with him".

I've read of one very bad case of a 40k sore loser, clearly a teenager with some untreated mental illness, who at one point tore off the arms of one of his models after failing a roll. The post's author emphasized how he and all the other onlookers were aghast at the display. I hope the kid got help with his anger issues before he torched too many bridges, both in gaming and in life.

There's no question that geeky games are often a refuge for various kinds of neurodivergent and/or poorly socialized people, some of whom may be unpleasant to be around or play against. But are there certain games that are more prone than others to attracting or retaining a small number of "problem players"? And why?

I'm thinking the following factors may be involved:

- Competitive vs. casual game mechanics
- Average player age
- A community culture of tolerating or not tolerating bad behavior
- Presence or absence of a widely-adopted code of conduct for competitive events, which can become a template for community behavior even at the casual level
- Barrier-of-entry aspects (like building and painting miniatures) that require a more chill and patient personality
- Whether the game is primarily played in private spaces or community spaces
- Size of the community -- the bigger the community, the longer it takes to run out of people willing to put up with you
- Relatedly, the ability or inability to play the game online, where anonymity can shield someone from social consequences
- Thematic elements that attract a dubious crowd

.

To me rules lawyers are the bane of civilized gaming.

A few examples that I have witnessed personally working in gaming/comic stores:

1. We used to call MtG: Tragic, the Gathering. Especially once players started to bring in giant print-outs of rules definitions.

They would spend more time arguing over rule definitions than actually playing the game. But they spent a lot of money, so the Owner tolerated them.

2. The "It doesn't say I can't," argument reared it's ugly head in a Flames of War event, where a guy in his 20's was asked to leave when he was yelling at an older gentleman who was in full rules lawyer mode, when he made the argument that his troops could 'Dig in' in water features, since the rules didn't say that he couldn't.

3. The worst thing was when we had a physical fight in the store. With police and EMTs called in. Blood and violence over a board game: Scrabble.

Apparently the fight was over the rules disallowed a certain word type, but the Scrabble Dictionary has the word listed.

That was our first and last Scrabble tournament.

For the most part, there were no arguments involving players... parents of the players, on the other hand-that's a different story.

Many years back when I was new to the local WFB group, we had that one guy no one wanted to play. He wasn't a terrible player, but was clearly below-average and quite irritated by his ongoing losses. And if he won, apparently he was unbearable about it.

So... I played him. Beat him, yes, but afterwards I took the time to do an after-battle analysis with him and explain to him how I beat him. The next week, we did it again. On and off for several months, maybe a year. He got somewhat better at playing, learned how to lose gracefully, and even more importantly how to WIN gracefully too.

Sometimes all you need to do is use the game, won or lost, as a teaching moment to turn a bad player around.

There are bad apples in every hobby.

This doesn't mean you'll encounter them all; realise you've encountered them or meet any at all. Many groups might only have very minor problem people; many problems can be open to interpretation*; etc...

How active you are; how often you play; how many different kinds of people etc... Some of us might never even hear of these things save from the internet; whilst some people wil lhave gross bad luck to encounter many problem people .


*that guy who loves playing orks and shouting whaaaagh every turn might be REALLY annoying in one group and totally utterly fine in a different group



Honestly I don't think there's a "game" that's inherently more likely to attract such people. You get them in ALL things. Heck you want to talk about real problem attitudes - football hooligans. Who will beat, abuse, stab and even kill each other over if the team they support wins/loses or whatever in a sports match.
And football/sports is what "normal" people are into not the "niche" hobbies like making models and playing wargames


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:
Many years back when I was new to the local WFB group, we had that one guy no one wanted to play. He wasn't a terrible player, but was clearly below-average and quite irritated by his ongoing losses. And if he won, apparently he was unbearable about it.

So... I played him. Beat him, yes, but afterwards I took the time to do an after-battle analysis with him and explain to him how I beat him. The next week, we did it again. On and off for several months, maybe a year. He got somewhat better at playing, learned how to lose gracefully, and even more importantly how to WIN gracefully too.

Sometimes all you need to do is use the game, won or lost, as a teaching moment to turn a bad player around.

This is also really important to point out and great that you helped that person.
I've long said that wargaming is a strange hobby because we have insane levels of support for teaching, promoting and supporting ecah other when it comes to building, converting and painting. However when it comes to playing its a super-grey region of casual catch-all statements and very few actual hard facts - with most of the latter often just being very basic dice theory.


And yes sometimes people do need to learn how to win and how to lose not as actions in the game, but as a person experiencing those situations.

Sometimes a lot of this stress/problem behaviour stems from a strong lack of self confidence

What tabletop or card games tend to attract "problem players"?

In my experience, the most comercial (and competitive) games are the ones attracting those people.

Not sure warhams have a different proportion of them to the general population, but it's a very social hobby with lots of different concepts in it, so there's a lot of opportunity for bad behavior to come up. You wouldn't ever notice a guy in your hiking group is a rules lawyer or someone in your knitting class is a cheater.

Oh I'm sure there are rules in hiking!

Wearing the right socks; tying your shoelaces in the correct manner; the right emergency gear to take; the correct way to hike a specific trail etc...

The behaviour behind a rules-layer can simply manifest in a different way.

Same with cheating. You could 100% have someone who buys ready-made patterns and claims them as their own work in your knitting class.

My observation is the quality of rules writing is a factor and games with badly written, ambiguous, "conversational" rules encourage bad behaviour.

For example in GW games, known for their buggy rules I often encountered the attitude that knowing the rules well and playing according to them, and playing neatly and transparently makes you a bad guy while the right way is to fudge the rules, measure sloppily and hide things in hopes of getting a gotcha! on some technicality.

Which are all things these players tend to do in spades, so I guess this narrative must be so.e kind of self-validating, cognitive dissonnance defense mechanism.

On the other hand in games were rules are clear and unambiguous; clean, transparent, neat and correct play is not looked down on but rather the opposite it is desirable and encouraged.

It's a fair while since i did any gaming in store, as opposed to at home (or the occasional club),

but what seemed to attract the annoying folk was less the game (although warmachine in it's prime might count), it was more they type of game even with any sniff of prize support brining in the 'unfun' gamers you tended not to see otherwise

I don't think you're going to find a concrete answer to this question because I don't think it has much to do with the game itself.

Problem players tend to be looking for clout more than anything. What draws them to anything is the attention and popularity around it and the opportunity to stand in the spotlight. The more hype there is around your game, the more its going to draw in people who want to be at the center of that hype more than they're willing to work to earn it.

It All Depends.

Me? I love a good narrative campaign. Could be Necromunda, could be Mordheim, could be 40K or indeed any game. What I enjoy about that is the tale unfolding in often quite chaotic ways, where the seeming underdogs can turn it around with a single crushing victory in the right place. Where even if I choke? I’ve had fun in a collaborative effort to tell a hopefully interesting story.

A single player there, who sees winning every game as the entire point? Can derail that.

That doesn’t make them a Richard. Just not a good fit for that endeavour.

It’s the same reason I’m not signing up for Tournaments. I’m not good enough or rules knowledgeable enough to be enough of a challenge, and I’ve no interest in getting that good. If I did turn up? My opponents probably won’t find the games terribly engaging.

MTG? Again just got to find the right group for you. I’ve played against Netdeck Goons, and it’s zero fun. All about stacking their deck for a two card wombocombo, rather than just cobbling it together from what you have on hand and playing on your wits. Doesn’t make either approach The Right Approach of course. Just two kinds incompatible. The former well suited to tournaments and competitive play. The latter Pub Magic.

Problem players are going to be problem players no matter what they're playing. The problem is the player, not the game. For these players, the point of the game is to win.

For me, the object of the game is to win, but the point of the game is to have fun.

Problem players come in many shapes the "win at all costs" player; the cheater - these are just some forms


You get loads of others too - like the super casual who doesn't care if they win, lose, or even if they pay attention to the game the whole time and don't just wander off to do something else mid-match without warning.

I think we have all been a problem player of some sort when we were younger, from sore winners to vindictive losers.

If we look back at our own gaming history, I'm willing to bet that we can pull out a game or three where we were the problem player. We could've been having a bad day, known from the setup that we were going to lose, been distracted by something, etc.

I remember one game from the last century, when I was losing a game badly. The scatter die had betrayed me and half of my Terminators decided to scatter into walls, Rhinos, or off the board. I was not happy, and my sportsmanship disintegrated.

Instead of trying to play the mission and make a come back, I turned my army into a tool of vengeance against my opponent and spent two turns trying to wipe his favorite model (that he had spent a lot of time converting and paying a lot of money to a guy to paint for him) off the board.

I'm willing to bet that my opponent classified me as a "problem player," and as a result we didn't play against each other for months after that game.

Heck, I've seen games where through no fault of their own, two opponents either have a clash of personalities or what they want from the game. (ie. The player who is trying to learn a new army versus the player who is trying to prepare for a GT. Neither player is in the wrong, but not the best choice of opponent for the player standing a Ross the board from them.)

Cyel wrote:
My observation is the quality of rules writing is a factor and games with badly written, ambiguous, "conversational" rules encourage bad behaviour.

For example in GW games, known for their buggy rules I often encountered the attitude that knowing the rules well and playing according to them, and playing neatly and transparently makes you a bad guy while the right way is to fudge the rules, measure sloppily and hide things in hopes of getting a gotcha! on some technicality.

Which are all things these players tend to do in spades, so I guess this narrative must be so.e kind of self-validating, cognitive dissonnance defense mechanism.

On the other hand in games were rules are clear and unambiguous; clean, transparent, neat and correct play is not looked down on but rather the opposite it is desirable and encouraged.

Hunh. I've had exactly the opposite experience playing GW games. Well, no two game groups are the same, so I have no doubt that the groups you wound up with are indeed just as bad as you say.

But there are better groups out there. Just sayin'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BorderCountess wrote:
Problem players are going to be problem players no matter what they're playing. The problem is the player, not the game. For these players, the point of the game is to win.

For me, the object of the game is to win, but the point of the game is to have fun.

This. This. Ten thousand times this.

Doesn't matter what the game is, problem PLAYERS will make it unfun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Quixote wrote:
I think we have all been a problem player of some sort when we were younger, from sore winners to vindictive losers.

If we look back at our own gaming history, I'm willing to bet that we can pull out a game or three where we were the problem player. We could've been having a bad day, known from the setup that we were going to lose, been distracted by something, etc.

I remember one game from the last century, when I was losing a game badly. The scatter die had betrayed me and half of my Terminators decided to scatter into walls, Rhinos, or off the board. I was not happy, and my sportsmanship disintegrated.

Instead of trying to play the mission and make a come back, I turned my army into a tool of vengeance against my opponent and spent two turns trying to wipe his favorite model (that he had spent a lot of time converting and paying a lot of money to a guy to paint for him) off the board.

I'm willing to bet that my opponent classified me as a "problem player," and as a result we didn't play against each other for months after that game.

Heck, I've seen games where through no fault of their own, two opponents either have a clash of personalities or what they want from the game. (ie. The player who is trying to learn a new army versus the player who is trying to prepare for a GT. Neither player is in the wrong, but not the best choice of opponent for the player standing a Ross the board from them.)

Interesting.

I've had battles where things went wrong, I KNEW I was going to lose, and I would set myself the objective of 'at least I'm going to take THAT down with me!'

And the two of us playing just laugh about it, because at that point it's a tacit concession of the original game, and the start of a new one - 'kill the man' - so the fun can continue a bit longer without needing to reset for a whole new game.

I mean, sure, if you're sitting there grinding your teeth and quietly (or eve not-so-quietly) cursing the whole time, I can see where that would be unfun to play against. I just find the mindset... a bit alien, to be frank. Just because I want to win the game, doesn't mean losing sucks all the fun out of it. I'm here with friends - or at least friendly people - playing a game I enjoy and showing off how much better my painting has gotten over the years. It's not like it's being stuck at work or anything...

 Vulcan wrote:
[

Hunh. I've had exactly the opposite experience playing GW games. Well, no two game groups are the same, so I have no doubt that the groups you wound up with are indeed just as bad as you say.

But there are better groups out there. Just sayin'.


[

It's not "my group", it's surprisingly many people on the internet, including this forum.

For example: "Using tools like laser or steppers to be correct and neat and transparent in your measurements? You bad bad person! You need to be sloppy and clunky with your measurements and get them wrong even when it can be avoided. Only then do you play the game the right way, like me, The Good Player!"

The same applies to respecting other rules and not breaking them.

But yes, experiences vary. For example the Polish Warmachine community is extremely welcoming and has been a paragon of sportmanship, probably because it has always been smaller than GW one, so members went out of their way to attract and keep precious new players (a well known anecdote is a top WTC player kind of throwing a game at a tournament to teach his opponent, a newbie, how to beat him). And a common opinion on this game's community from other countries seems to be that it is terrible, unfriendly and full of cheaters.

There’s a term not come up yet.

TFG. That Flipping* Guy.

TFG is as the name suggests, a walking problem. They tend to embody the worst of all things.

Not so much WAAC ‘I know my army inside and out and have mathhammered it to within an inch of its life”.

TFG doesn’t just want to win every game, but win it by the largest possible margin, and by any means they deem necessary.

It could be the old “front to back base” movement to get a faster pace. Could be stretchy measuring tapes to squeak out a bit more range on their weapons. Could be dubious rules lawyering. Could be outright cheating (lying about stats, bringing too many points etc).

They’re also typically Bad Losers and Poor Winners.

The sort that take what’s meant to be mutual enjoyment and just crush all joy and happiness that their opponent might find.

The curious thing about TFG? It tends to be everyone agreeing they’re TFG. Filthy Casuals, WAAC, everyone in between considers them a chore to be plating against.

*No, not flipping. Yes, another f word. Some might say the F Word.

"Table Flipping Guy" though is real concern though its one I've tended to only hear of happening in cardgames. Probably because cards falling on the floor is a pain but not insanely damaging whilst anyone flipping a whole table of models on the floor just smashed their own stuff as much as their opponents and when you consider the value and lost hours on building/painting that can become a serious enough cost to get smallclaims and police involved.

I’ve seen a kid sweep their blood bowl models off the board. He hadn’t lost the game. All that happened was his Bull Centaur was knocked down by a Block.

I’ve also seen a few people throwing their models back into their case following a loss.

But never a full on table flip.

Honestly I think its well up there with the "burning models because of old world ending"

Ergo its likely happened once or twice the world over; been reported a bunch more times but never really anything most of us will ever ever have to worry about.

But yeah table or mat flips are way more a cardgame fear from TFG rather than a wargame.


The whole "throwing models in the box" I've seen more of, esp when people tend to lump their models into just a random box. Kids cna be like that, but some adults too if they just treat them as toys and such.

I think MTG may have a wider issue thanks to the Prize Money.

At the top level, you can literally make a comfortable living. And so it only takes an overly confident person that’s already decided they’re the best and the prize money is really theirs by right, and you get some awful behaviour when they choke, or worse, find out they’re nowhere near good or cunning enough to hit the big time.

Likewise if victory or loss is a matter of what a rule actually means? You can bet you’re gonna get people who just won’t let it go.

I’ve heard a story about a TTG Player (can’t remember specifics) where one of his tactics was to be as smelly as possible to distract his opponent.

As in, he wasn’t hygiencally challenged in the classical “what’s deodorant, precious? Filthy Soapses!” sense. Rather a deliberate choice to reek as badly as possible.

SU-152 wrote:

What tabletop or card games tend to attract "problem players"?

In my experience, the most comercial (and competitive) games are the ones attracting those people.

Especially when there is money as the grand prize. As soon as money is mentioned, the a-holes come out to play.

I'm not sure if there are specific games that attract them or not. I don't really hang out in Game Stores except to play in 40k tournaments. Back in my Star Wars CCG days (late 90s mostly), I rarely ran into That F-ing Guy (TFGs). We mostly played pick up games, and buttheads would probably have been ostracized pretty quickly.

 Overread wrote:
but some adults too if they just treat them as toys and such.

I hate to break this to you, but miniatures ARE toys.
They can also be awesome display pieces and treasured possessions that you pour hours into... But they're toys too.

Good topic and lots of interesting factors listed in the OP. However, I'd take issue with this aspect:

- Competitive vs. casual game mechanics

I'm not sure this makes quite as much difference as one might assume. Competitive games might attract slightly more of the wrong sort, but as long as the gamers are in agreement about whether they want to play casually or competitively then I don't think it should be a problem. I have no desire to play in tournaments or with competitive gamers, but I meet alot of nice folks who love that scene. More power to them.

Really though, I think jerks will appear everywhere and the more there is for them to gain (socially, monetarily, etc), the more likely it is they will appear.

JNAProductions wrote:

 Overread wrote:
but some adults too if they just treat them as toys and such.

I hate to break this to you, but miniatures ARE toys.
They can also be awesome display pieces and treasured possessions that you pour hours into... But they're toys too.

I agree that they're all toys, but they aren't toys that can be just tossed into a bag. I agree with Overread that it likely shows a degree of immaturity and lack of emotional regulation if an adult begins to just toss their minis in a box as a response to loosing. Certainly I'd see it as a red flag to steer clear of gaming with that person.

 Eilif wrote:
I agree that they're all toys, but they aren't toys that can be just tossed into a bag. I agree with Overread that it likely shows a degree of immaturity and lack of emotional regulation if an adult begins to just toss their minis in a box as a response to loosing. Certainly I'd see it as a red flag to steer clear of gaming with that person.

Yeah. If someone went off in a huff because they weren't rolling hot and slammed their minis into a box, that'd be a red flag.
But to me, by far the bigger red flag is the sore loser bit, not the cheap case bit.

I think one thing with wargamers is that when our models are on the table our opponent is going to touch/be near them.

We trust our opponents to handle our models the same as we do - which when you then see someone willing to throw their models around; makes you just that bit concerned that they'll be as ham-fisted with yours on the table.

I think it might be a cultural thing too.

I had a roommate (who was in his 30's) who would play Modern Warfare, get annihilated in the game, yell into the microphone, and immediately report the people who were playing as cheaters, and block them on Xbox Live.

I witnessed this event multiple times (at least 20).

He once showed interest in 40k, but I was afraid of his reaction to losing at a wargame involving miniatures, people you can see, and the outside world.

He might even been on his best behavior when dealing with regular people, but I didn't want to take the chance... I was already "Casual Game Knight Guy," and didn't want my limited cool points to vanish altogether.

Eh its a person thing - my brother was a very sore loser. He'd storm off in boardgames if he went down one snake in snakes and ladders; he'd hit the keyboard (and eventually broke the spacebar) when he'd lose in Football manager.

Some people learn how to cope with winning and losing really well - others don't. Everyone else is on a sliding scale between the two.

It's also one of those skills that you're just kind of assumed to learn so if you wind up not having it then its often tricky to learn it because most people "just behave" and don't know how to frame how to teach someone - nor do they want to invest into the teachingin the first place.

> Wearing the right socks; tying your shoelaces in the correct manner; the right emergency gear to take; the correct way to hike a specific trail etc...

Late reply, but, in our own painting hobby, you have painters who are adamant in telling you what brush to use, what size, etc. etc. You should tell others what works for *you* but you need to not just not say that your way is the "one true way" but also you need to understand why your choice works for *you* because not everyone *is* you.

Another IRL is raising children. Look at the history of how parents were supposed to raise children, and you'll see trends, unsupported claims, and other ways to compound the stress of a parent. Go ask Dad about the days when kids were praised for everything because nobody wanted to hurt their self-esteem, or the days when ADHD diagnoses shot up and kids were prescribed drugs when they were just acting up like kids do.

 ced1106 wrote:
> Wearing the right socks; tying your shoelaces in the correct manner; the right emergency gear to take; the correct way to hike a specific trail etc...

Late reply, but, in our own painting hobby, you have painters who are adamant in telling you what brush to use, what size, etc. etc. You should tell others what works for *you* but you need to not just not say that your way is the "one true way" but also you need to understand why your choice works for *you* because not everyone *is* you.

Another IRL is raising children. Look at the history of how parents were supposed to raise children, and you'll see trends, unsupported claims, and other ways to compound the stress of a parent. Go ask Dad about the days when kids were praised for everything because nobody wanted to hurt their self-esteem, or the days when ADHD diagnoses shot up and kids were prescribed drugs when they were just acting up like kids do.

Things were not always better in the "good old days."

Instead of medications, it was a common practice in the late 1950s and 1950s lobotomize children.

Walter J. Freeman II, a neurologist used to travel across America, lobotomizing children in a procedure that took less than 10 minutes. Most cases the child would've been diagnosed as ADHD/ADD today.

I suggest reading the book: My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey from a survivor, who was lobotomized as a child by Dr. Freeman. It is a really depressing book, of how mental illnesses were treated in America.

In all, more than 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States, most between 1949 and 1952.

Mental Health has definitely improved in this century, over the last.

But I digress. Poor sportsmanship is in all competitions, from Football to Pokemon CCGs.

Its just a part of playing the game. The best way to avoid poor players is play with your friends.

If your friends are poor players, maybe it's time to find new friends.