A few weeks ago, I learned that my friend David has an extreme aversion to the inclusion of steampunk elements in fantasy games. The mere mention of the idea is enough to turn this usually jovial person into an incredibly angry person, especially if you mention skyships in any capacity. Being a curious person at heart, I felt the need to find out why he seemed to have this really peculiar reaction to something so harmless.
The origin of this strange hatred, like most things within this hobby, seems to be a particularly bad experience with a previous group. David was preparing to run a Pathfinder campaign and decided to create the game world with his players, but they apparently made some inclusions that ended up causing the game to collapse, with one of those inclusions being steampunk skyships. Hearing him tell this tale of woe makes me believe the skyship was the straw that broke the camel's back, hence why its the focal point of his hatred.
Initially I found this somewhat irrational, but I quickly began to think about certain subjects that immediately cause a metaphorical red flag to spring up within my mind because one utterly awful experience. For example, I will automatically veto any Drow characters that are brought to my table. The only exception to this is if we're playing an evil campaign where everyone's playing Drow. The cause of this extreme reation are, pardon my french, dick-waffles who wanted to play Drizzt Do'Urden clones with the Marty Sue levels turned WAY passed 11.
Yes, it's irrational. Yes, it's kind of silly. Unfortunately, I can't help it. Like David's hatred of mixing some steampunk peanut butter into his fantasy chocolate, my disdain for players wanting to be Drow characters is like a scar that won't go away and occasionally rears its ugly head when you least suspect it.
With that in mind, I'd like to ask you a question, dear readers. Do you have any gaming scars? What are they? Leave your answers in the comments below.
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