This one’s easy. It’s also a tale of how some folks take gaming way too seriously.

Early ’90s. I had just moved back to my hometown in Pennsylvania and couldn’t find a group. I wound up introducing a regular customer that hung out at the gas station I was working nights at to gaming. I was running Space:1889 using the old GDW rules and the Cloudships and Gunboats minis for the ship combat. A few sessions ensued, a few more folks from the local college joined in.

In an epic battle between the heroes, who had been stranded at a British frontier station on Mars after the cloudship was damaged in a fight, they found themselves pitted against a large force of Martians from a local “empire”. They were fighting to get back to the station after an unsuccessful foray, and running out of ammunition and support, they needed to withdraw. But not this guy. While shouting that he would bring down the might of the British empire (or some such), he charged alone into a horde of baddies.

And died really quickly and ignominiously.

This was done even after the classic GM letting you know you’re idea is truly stupid — “You sure about that?” It was also the way he played the character that made this more comic than tragic or even brave. Afterward, he let me know that he felt the other players weren’t giving Sir Diesalot his appropriate due and that he had a dream where the character had “haunted him” over their lack of respect.

So, he was out of the group quickety-quick. That’s a bit too much lack of reality for me, and honestly, gaming was probably not the healthiest pastime for him, it would appear.

This guy and the “ninja” from my time in Philadelphia are two of the reasons that I vet gamers in a neutral area (you don’t get my address until I know you’re not a kook) and we’re pretty fussy about newcomers.