I've had my run of "interesting" fellow gamers. The stereotype of socially awkward gamers is a stereotype because it is true in many cases. I've played with a wide range of player types; those who had no life outside of gaming, those who need to tell everyone about their characters, those who want to be the center of attention, those who get angry when things don't go like they want, those who cheat, those who whine and many others. However, we always had one thing in common and that was our love of the game. This allowed me to usually overlook things that would annoy me about other people...
...until one campaign. I was a player in a large game at the local university. There were about 16 players and 1 DM. I had rolled pathetic on my stats (my highest stat was an 11 and my INT was a 5). I ended up making a straight-forward druid whose best spell was goodberries. I was pretty useless to the party power-wise. Druids back then weren't powerhouses and with my low stats I really couldn't pack a punch. The thing is, the DM was allowing all sorts of alternate rules and races. There were characters in the party that were Githyanki and vampires. In fact, the Githyanki character was a powerhouse all by himself with special weapons and abilities that let him almost solo everything; he certainly never feared death...and he made sure to let everyone know this.
The campaign went on for many weeks. The player of the Githyanki was one of the leaders of the group, simply by virtue of his character's abilities. One day, and I still don't know why, the player took it into his head to start messing with me. He purposefully began attacking trees and other parts of nature, knowing full well I couldn't in-character allow this to happen. He was provoking me into a fight, a fight he knew I couldn't possibly win. Basically, he was being a bully by picking on the weakest member of the party. Playing in-character I confronted him and I started getting my butt kicked. Fortunately, some other members of the group were also annoyed by his general arrogance and attacked him, driving him off. The player of the Githyanki never gamed at that table again; I think he got the message he was not welcome anymore.
I actually don't mind confidence in a character and some amount of arrogance, but this player went out of his way to ruin the fun of other players. He gained enjoyment from it. I don't mind players having their foibles but he broke the sense of community that gamers have with each other.
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