Watching the link that Pete just posted about competitive gaming between friends made me wonder. What are some of the biggest game night freak-outs you guys have had? What moments did you have where someone threw a tantrum or just started yelling at everyone else? We like to think that our friends wouldn't do this, but that simply isn't true. So what are the best freak-out stories around the Fort?

My own was about three years ago, playing Battlestar Galactica at a church game night (but not my church). Two people at the table were playing off of each other, basically pretending to be pissed off to get the other person to crack. Me, I'm the kind of guy who hates when people are actually fighting at the table, and I kept trying to calm them down. But they kept ramping it up, and to me it looked like it was getting out of hand. I eventually stood up and said, "Guys, if we can't actually cool it we are done with this game." They calmed me down, but I was so pissed that I had to go get a drink. Evidently while I was gone they were barely containing their laughter at my outburst.

I came back, we finished the game fine and we moved on. But after that the host of the game night took me aside and told me that if I had any more outbursts like that I was welcome to not come back. I felt absolutely AWFUL about the whole thing, because anyone who knows me knows that it takes a lot to get me angry enough to actually do something like this. It's fitting that it happened not with me fighting with other people, but in an effort to keep other people from fighting.

So what are your best freak-out stories?

I got shitty with a guy at GenCon. He is a friend, though, and it basically amounted to me being in the top 10 at a Heroscape tourney (which NEVER HAPPENS) and I was beating this guy who I also knew and was cool with (although he really is a cheating motherfucker, for real...)

Anyhow, my dude Jason is standing behind me being a total dickhead as he always does, which is part of the reason I love the guy. "Pete, dude, you're going to move there? You sure? OOOh bad roll. That had to hurt. Are you sure you know how to play this? Have you ever played this before? Did you pick that army out on purpose?" that kind of shit. Over and over for like ten minutes. Maybe longer. I was laughing at first, but it was fucking with my concentration.

I stood up, turned and faced him, and said, "Jason, I'm going to fuck you up. You think because you know me you can act the fool, but you don't know me like that. If you don't shut the fuck up right now, so help me God, I will deliver a beating upon you that you have never imagined was even possible. I will fucking BREAK you. Now sod the fuck off RIGHT NOW."

And he did, without a word. He saw the crazy look.

Later I apologized, because normally I'd have been laughing. But I wanted to beat this guy I was playing so damned bad, mainly because he was a cheating SOB, and Jason was being just SUCH a dick over and over and over. Like a henpecking wife, but worse because of the stress. And I really was going to beat the living shit out of him if he had said another word. Felt like an asshole.

I'd have immediately regretted it, because Jason is one of the most awesome guys I've ever met.

One other time I got in a guy's ass because he cheated against my kid and I called him a fat motherfucker who probably ate his parents while still living in their home at 40. He started to say something and I said to him, and I vividly recall it because it was so funny to me, "Listen you fat fuck, if you say another word to me I'm going to kick you in the face so hard it will shatter your jaw, and there's nothing your slow, feeble ass can do about it. I watched you cheat my 10 year old, you pathetic loser, and there's nothing you can say that will make me decide that I don't want to kill you. My buddy's here so he can take my kid home, and I have no problem making bail. You need to get on your hoveround and get the fuck back to the Hometown Buffet before I hurt you." And he left. And I was completely prepared to beat his fat ass into a pile. He had it coming, cheated my kid, and was talking down to her like she was retarded. Fucking cunt had it coming.

Good stuff - I almost lost my temper at a guy at WBC in a game of Galactic Emperor. Bad situation as I was playing with strangers, but two of them I'd just met and played something else with and they were harmless, nice euro guys. Then another dude plops down asking if he can get in because he wants to try GE. Dude cheated and was clearly trying to game the system. Not wanting to wail and cry I just tried my damnedest to beat him fairly. Probably didnt help that I was kinda stoked to try the game out and was majorly disappointed with its euroness.

Oh, and one time in my early teens a friend hurled dice across the room and stormed out because he thought we were ganging up on him. The game? Risk.

I saw a Star Wars Minis player flip the hell out and start with the stages of meltdown...

Screaming profanities...
then
Reasoning with the judges that were saying he was cheating...
then
Crying, and I mean SOBBING...
then
Being escorted off.

It was AWESOME! The best part was when this random dude walked by him, started laughing, and said something to him like "pull up your skirt, pussy" while he was weeping...that was the icing. Me and some of the Heroscape guys were laughing our balls off.

I had a few good ones until reasoned board games are nothing to get worked up upon.

When I was a kid, we were playing Risk and I had like 14 dudes fighting one dude in Siam, with the hope of taking over Australia. The SOB rolled like a fiend and beat every one of my guys, with the last 4 rolls being 6s.

I was so pissed I took a hammer and caved his skull in, but I didn't stop hitting until Australia and Asia were covered with his brain and blood.

The others were laughing their f'ing asses off, way before LMFAO was invented.

What?


:)

This is why I tell people to play more games. Because when you play them often enough, losing one here and there never really bothers you.

I've seen a few freak outs at game night, but none because of me. I'm a grown up and I act like one. That said however, when I was a kid and unable to control my hormonal levels, we had several RPG group blowouts. I remember one time ending it with a fist fight and no one in the group talking to each other for a month.

I never had any good stories like that, but I was known as an agent provocateur when it came to Illuminati in my fraternity group. I would fuck with one of my better friends until it got to the point where he proclaimed, "I'm not playing against Scott anymore, his sole purpose in this game is to fuck with me." He said it with a grin and a histrionic lilt to his voice.

I took it as a complement and we still played.

ZMan wrote:



I didn't realize until the internet that EVERYBODY had the "I sent 10 dudes at his one, and he killed ALL OF THEM" story.

Last time that happened to me is I believe the last time I played vanilla Risk, ever.

Zev, any tips for getting brains and blood off of cardboard?

The last time I freaked out over a game was about 12 years ago. We were playing an 8-player game of Jyhad at my apartment, and one of the players was very new to the game. It's a very complex game, and he kept doing things wrong during combat, which is the most complex part of the game. First there are pre-combat cards to play. Then the determination of range. Then the attacker plays a strike, followed by the defender. There is damage prevention, the possibility of additional strikes, and the possibility of a press to another round of combat.

I didn't know this guy, he was the friend of a friend, and neither one of them knew any of the other guys at the table. Two other guys started getting really upset over his inability to get the combat rules straight and started verbally harassing him. No threats, just constant and aggressive criticism of his stupidity.

Suddenly, I reached my limit. I'm tall but not heavy-set, but I can make my voice go really deep and really LOUD. My oldest friends call it The Voice of Doom. I slapped the table hard and said ENOUGH. I loudly reminded these two guys that Jyhad is difficult game and this guy hadn't played before. If they didn't back off, they were going to answer to me, personally. They started to argue, and I firmly repeated myself, with The Voice of Doom. There was an awkward silence and then the game resumed. The one guy did a better job of playing correctly and the other two guys stopped harassing him.

I have very mixed feelings about that incident. The verbal harassment was wrong and needed to stop, but my method was crude and hypocritical. On the other hand, my friend who was also friends with the victim had repeatedly told me that it was the coolest thing that he ever saw me do. And since he was one of my role models for cool (he was very goth and also a musician in a local band that did a couple of decent albums), that did make me feel better about my outburst.