DM Jerk Moments

[Umael]

Sinfire Titan - Your DM seems oddly possessing a sudden-start-and-sudden-stop mentality which is not conducive to social interaction. Why do you tolerate him?

[Dust]

I was reminded of one of my OWN DM Jerk Moments when I read about the grenade-against-the-closed-window story.

It was a superhero campaign, and the heroes were deep underground and trying to get to the surface. One of the PCs was this angry bruiser type, practically invulnerable to harm. At the end of the hallway was the elevator, and the player of said bruiser assumed it was locked. I thought to myself 'Elevator locks?' at this point in time, but he pressed on.

His character, he explained, was going to rip open the steel doors and start climbing, ripping handholds into the sides so that the party could follow suit. I allowed this, and he succeeded. I explained to him that he probably didn't actually have to do that since they still worked just fine, and the player accused me of being a jerk.

I was amused, and it was awesome.

[Drakevarg]

A fairly minor set of jerk moments on my part that happened in the same campaign, the last one I ran.

The PCs (all first level) had been hired to track down an evil druid that had been making the wolves in the area attack travelers. So, after a few days of wolf-stabbin, the party's druid manage to use Animal Empathy on one of the wolves (actually the animal companion of a minion druid) and had it lead them to the boss's cave. While exploring, this same druid found a small cavern where a large bear was hibernating.

For whatever reason, the druid decided that stabbing this bear was a good idea. He actually managed to knock it to about half-health with a sweet critical, but I just told him that the bear got very mad. So after the bear killed his animal companion in about two hits, the druid got wise and ran like hell. The bear followed him into the main chamber, where the rest of the party was. The druid decided to take cover behind the team's big fighter, who'd so far proved himself to be a high-calibur badass by lopping half the wolves he'd met in half with one swing.

The bear was not impressed, and managed to kill the fighter in the first half of his 2-claw attack, and killed the druid in the second half. My DMPC, apparently the only smart one in the group, scurried out of the cave on the rope we'd repelled in on.

I realized this was a **** move, but honestly, what kind of moron attacks a bear twice his size at first level? While it was sleeping, no less.

So, with the party all wiped out, I decided to just start over the next morning with a few additional players and without my DMPC. The group was now the druid, the fighter, a half-orc barbarian and an orc barbarian.

So same plot, they're hired to go kill this evil druid. At this time, I still had not properly figured out how the encounter table worked, so I was wiping small wolf packs at them as standard encounters. This usually meant in-game about 3 days of healing after each encounter. The tactic I'd been using to determine the number of wolves in each encounter was 1d6+3 wolves or something like that. Perhaps a bit much, but it's what I did.

So, one of the encounters actually rolled out as 8 wolves. SOMEHOW, though, the team managed to slaughter the entire group, largely due to some impressive criticals by the figher. So after this, the barbarians' players (both of them) had to leave for one reason or another. So they dumped the wolf carcasses on their cart (the barbarians were very adamant about having this cart) and dragged it back to town to sell the pelts.

Later, the rest of the party ran into a set of 5 wolves. Unluckily enough, a wolf manage to rip out the druid's throat in the first round on a lucky crit, leaving him gagging on the ground. It only went downhill from there, ending with the fighter with only about 3 HP trying his hardest to not get slaughtered by the two or three remaining wolves.

Luckily enough, the team's orc barbarian got back at this point. I decided that he was returning from delivering the pelts and would arrive in three rounds. Unfortunately, in the first round the druid bleed out and croaked. By the third, the barbarian crested the hilltop just in time to see the wolves finish off the fighter.

To make things worse, the wolves critted him to death in the first round. The end.

I think the main problem here was me not understanding the encounter charts and being unsympathetic with people doing mindbogglingly stupid things like poking the giant bear.

[Dust]

Packs of 1d6+3 standard wolves for a first-level unoptimized party? In 3.5, total or near-total party death is pretty much what I'd expect.

[Drakevarg]

Like I said, I hadn't figured out how the encounter sheet worked yet. And after they'd managed to beat 8 wolves without anyone going unconcious, 5 didn't seem too difficult. But crits can change the course of an encounter, it seems.

[Jalor]

I actually might have had one myself, looking back on the first session of my Planescape campaign. I'm running a 3.5 version of the Faction War adventure, which is epic and awesome. However, the first thing the players have to do in the adventure is escort a guy who does random stupid stuff until he gets arrested. Admittedly, the guy does turn out to be the leader of the Chaotic Stupid Xaositect faction, but it's still rather unpleasant for the PCs.

I've only done one actual bit of railroading so far, and it's necessary for the campaign's events to occur. When the escort-quest guy got arrested, the PCs ignored his advice to let him go quietly. The Wizard attempted to cast Black Tentacles on the Harmonium patrol, and I informed him that the patrol's leader was directly in front of him and would get an AoO. Nobody had actually said where they were standing yet, and the Wizard has a Cleric cohort who tanks for him. He insisted on casting the spell anyway, got smacked, failed the Concentration check, and got tripped. In my defense, the spell would've disabled the patrol, and the vaguely evil party would probably have slit their throats. A game of mystery and intrigue doesn't work out so well when Mercykillers pop up to kill you every few minutes.

I now ask them to keep their miniatures in marching order at all times, so I can't dictate their positions to them.

[Forbiddenwar]

Like I said, I hadn't figured out how the encounter sheet worked yet. And after they'd managed to beat 8 wolves without anyone going unconcious, 5 didn't seem too difficult. But crits can change the course of an encounter, it seems.

the bear was not jerkiness! the only thing a good DM can do is ask "Are you sure?" and then run it just like you did.
The second pack of wolves was not jeriness either. DMs screw up. It happens. A DM jerk is someone who never admits to a mistake. Someone who passes the mistakes on to the players and keeps making them.

[Mr. Pin]

Heh. I had a jerk DM for about half an hour. I'd been DMing the party for about a year, and after the big wrap-up of a big campaign, one of the newer players asked if he could be the DM for a while. Not wanting to appear ungracious, I allowed him.

Biggest mistake of my life.

First off, he had us attacked by, I am not joking here, a "boob monster". This guy is fully seventeen years old. when we explained to him that this was not cool or funny, he said "fine" and had "D.M. Lightning" strike us all dead on the spot. Then he tried to make us all play different gods of his own design. At this point, the guy whose house we were playing at kicked him out in a very polite manner. And the dude started crying. Yes, he actually began to cry.

The thing that confuses me is, he hadn't been a bad player; he came up with good, if slightly boring characters, had a good grasp of the rules, and never did anything ridiculous or not in-character. Maybe power corrupts.

[AlexanderRM]

Maybe he had a boot of striding and springing. :smalltongue:

Perfect! With only one boot of springing, he couldn't jump effectively on two legs, but when he lost one leg he didn't have to worry about balance. :smallbiggrin:






That indirectly gave me an awesome idea... I will handle railroading in my games just like a lot of video games do it: INVISIBLE WALLS!!

Not just the invisible walls that you physically cant get past, but also the kind where if you have a major quest in <x> city, and you try to leave, one of the party members will remind you "oh wait, we gotta do <y> first!!" and you involuntarily turn around :smallamused:

Actually, even in video games when I expect to be railroaded, I rather hate that. I suppose it's better than those things you run into occasionally where you have what appear to be "yes/no" questions where the person asking will only accept one answer.

[Skorj]

Perfect! With only one boot of springing, he couldn't jump effectively on two legs, but when he lost one leg he didn't have to worry about balance. :smallbiggrin:.

That's the best I've heard yet. :smallbiggrin:

[Tallis]

A fairly minor set of jerk moments on my part that happened in the same campaign, the last one I ran.

.................................................. ....

I think the main problem here was me not understanding the encounter charts and being unsympathetic with people doing mindbogglingly stupid things like poking the giant bear.

None of this strikes me as jerkiness. Attacking the bear was stupid on the druid's part and he suffered the consequences. Of course if he'd tried coup de gracing the bear it might have worked.

The wolves were just mistakes. It happens to everyone. For it to be a jerk moment your would have had to be screwing the players on purpose.

[Elfin]

I was reminded of one of my OWN DM Jerk Moments when I read about the grenade-against-the-closed-window story.

It was a superhero campaign, and the heroes were deep underground and trying to get to the surface. One of the PCs was this angry bruiser type, practically invulnerable to harm. At the end of the hallway was the elevator, and the player of said bruiser assumed it was locked. I thought to myself 'Elevator locks?' at this point in time, but he pressed on.

His character, he explained, was going to rip open the steel doors and start climbing, ripping handholds into the sides so that the party could follow suit. I allowed this, and he succeeded. I explained to him that he probably didn't actually have to do that since they still worked just fine, and the player accused me of being a jerk.

I was amused, and it was awesome.

That's not being a jerk at all, nor was it your fault. The player just absent-mindedly overthought the situation.

[rezplz]

I have to admit, this was probably my most "jerk-DM" moment - however, it was a one-time thing and I did it on purpose because I thought it was funny. Hell, it still amuses me.

So after looting two spellbooks from a wizard's house, and burning down said house, the mystic theurge started to read the first spellbook. It went something like this:

"Feather fall, scorching ray, bull's strength, animate dead, explosive runes - take 6d6 damage as the book explodes." The actual list was longer, and he had to erase all of them. So he starts reading the second spellbook.

"I skip to third level spells and look for explosive runes. Does the book explode?"

"No."

"Okay, I read the book then."

"Feather fall, scorching ray, bull's strength, animate dead..."


He was pissed that he wrote them all down, had to erase them, and then write them all down again. He wasn't amused at all, but it amused me :)

[JadedDM]

That indirectly gave me an awesome idea... I will handle railroading in my games just like a lot of video games do it: INVISIBLE WALLS!!

Not just the invisible walls that you physically cant get past, but also the kind where if you have a major quest in <x> city, and you try to leave, one of the party members will remind you "oh wait, we gotta do <y> first!!" and you involuntarily turn around :smallamused:

Just stick an NPC, perhaps a town guard, on the only path out of town. The guard cannot be moved, even with powerful magic. Nor can the party climb over or slide by him, because he takes up the whole path, you see.

[pingcode20]

Just stick an NPC, perhaps a town guard, on the only path out of town. The guard cannot be moved, even with powerful magic. Nor can the party climb over or slide by him, because he takes up the whole path, you see.

Curse you, Sgt. Snorlax!

[Forbiddenwar]

I have to admit, this was probably my most "jerk-DM" moment - however, it was a one-time thing and I did it on purpose because I thought it was funny. Hell, it still amuses me.

So after looting two spellbooks from a wizard's house, and burning down said house, the mystic theurge started to read the first spellbook. It went something like this:

"Feather fall, scorching ray, bull's strength, animate dead, explosive runes - take 6d6 damage as the book explodes." The actual list was longer, and he had to erase all of them. So he starts reading the second spellbook.

"I skip to third level spells and look for explosive runes. Does the book explode?"

"No."

"Okay, I read the book then."

"Feather fall, scorching ray, bull's strength, animate dead..."


He was pissed that he wrote them all down, had to erase them, and then write them all down again. He wasn't amused at all, but it amused me :)
That's great. But I would have done it to both books :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

I dunno if this is really a DM jerk moment, but it's certainly a jerk moment.

A party consisting entirely of characters that were evil, chaotic, or chaotic evil + 1 lawful good, clueless paladin land at an island, ready to starve from lack of supplies. We find an elderly hermit on the island, that has been here for quite some time. He takes us in, restocks our ship, and gets us all ready to go. Paladin tells us that it's too risky to bother taking the old guy back, so we're going to leave him.

In the morning, we awaken to find our ship burning. Paladin(who has leadership) uses his ships crew to brutally interrogate the old man, who confesses that it was an illusion. He was so lonely from being there, that when he overheard he was going to be left, he thought he'd convince us to stay. At this point, every evil character is actually feeling sorry for this guy, and try to talk the paladin into taking him with.

The paladin is so incensed by this challenge to his leadership, that he order his crew to attack us, and initiates the fight by stabbing the unarmed man. Me, the feeble sorcerer, flees to the crows nest while the giant mob of Lv 1 characters swarm over the rest of the party, tying them up while the quite cheesy pally char starts owning them. Once there...I realize that every single character is within the blast range of a single fireball. Unfortunately, I did not recall where, precisely, we stored the gunpowder.

Those few of us who survived are now staying on the island after all.

[PId6]

I dunno if this is really a DM jerk moment, but it's certainly a jerk moment...
Wow... I think someone just out-Miko'd Miko.

[vampire2948]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120449), I think, is worthy of submission.

[Mordokai]

I dunno if this is really a DM jerk moment, but it's certainly a jerk moment.

A party consisting entirely of characters that were evil, chaotic, or chaotic evil + 1 lawful good, clueless paladin land at an island, ready to starve from lack of supplies. We find an elderly hermit on the island, that has been here for quite some time. He takes us in, restocks our ship, and gets us all ready to go. Paladin tells us that it's too risky to bother taking the old guy back, so we're going to leave him.

In the morning, we awaken to find our ship burning. Paladin(who has leadership) uses his ships crew to brutally interrogate the old man, who confesses that it was an illusion. He was so lonely from being there, that when he overheard he was going to be left, he thought he'd convince us to stay. At this point, every evil character is actually feeling sorry for this guy, and try to talk the paladin into taking him with.

The paladin is so incensed by this challenge to his leadership, that he order his crew to attack us, and initiates the fight by stabbing the unarmed man. Me, the feeble sorcerer, flees to the crows nest while the giant mob of Lv 1 characters swarm over the rest of the party, tying them up while the quite cheesy pally char starts owning them. Once there...I realize that every single character is within the blast range of a single fireball. Unfortunately, I did not recall where, precisely, we stored the gunpowder.

Those few of us who survived are now staying on the island after all.

That is a pretty awesome story... and another reason why people hate paladins, I guess. People like that really shouldn't be playing paladins.

[powerdemon]

That is a pretty awesome story... and another reason why people hate paladins, I guess. People like that really shouldn't be playing paladins.

Yes, Paladin is a great class if you do it right. But most people use their alignment as an excuse to PO the party.

[Sharkman1231]

My very first character was a lvl 6 or somthing rogue who wanted to get levels in assassin. He made it impossible for me to get a PrC, and he didn't houserule that PrC's were not allowed.

So the party finally gets to a large city that's rumored to have an assasins guild, but no matter what I did I could not find it. So I go to a church of Hextor, to see if a cleric there will use a divination to find. The cleric agrees, but first I need to kill someone for the cleric to help me (to prove myself or something). Apperently it's an apprentice wizard who works at some scroll shop. So I get there & the scrolls are pretty high level, seventh or something. So my logical conclusion is that the master wizard makes the scrolls and has a low level apprentice. So I get the apprentice outside the shop, and tell him there is going to be an attempt on his life, bluff, etc. He belives me then I try to stab him with my rapier. I roll really badly and miss. Okay, whatever. Then we roll init. He wins, then he casts power word kill. I was like, WTF!!!! He said the master wizard was 20th lvl and the apprentice was 17th. I said "why would that cleric tell me to kill a high level wizard if he knew he was uber-powerful and know that I would die?" He pulled some BS that the cleric was a contact of the assassins guild and wanted to see if I had the "wisdom" to refuse a job and know if I was out of my league. I said assassins and rogues don't use wisdom at all, it's all about intellegence. Then apperently the wizard disintigrated my body so I couldn't be raised. Then I said "screw this" switched to a druid and owned up.

Another time I was playing a rogue again and I felt like picking a commoners pocket. I roll a 19 which is about a 33 and apperently there was a guard looking and somehow I got caught. I said the guard shouldn't get a spot check because he needed to deliberatly watching me, and apperently he was because I was a rogue. And the DM didn't even roll a spot until I told him that. Somehow he still caught me and I was manacled and put in a cell. I tried to escape from my bonds by using escape artist I get a twenty evetually which us about 45 and he says I still can't free myslf and I get hung. Then I said I'm done with rogues, you seem to have a personal vendetta against them.
Lately he's stopped pulling this stuff but it still happens on occasion.

Edit: Earlier I had typed rouge instead of rogue which led to following interesting conversation. Spelling is not my forte. Though seriously, was what my DM did fair?

[FlawedParadigm]

All these rouges you keep playing...perhaps your DM is tired of the colour red?

[Elfin]

That DM certainly hates makeup.

[Sharkman1231]

All these rouges you keep playing...perhaps your DM is tired of the colour red?

2? After playing for a couple years?

[Elfin]

FlawedParadigm's comment was a joke...

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/wi_lidda.jpg
That's a rogue.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nOZ8T_-KiFA/SQCyaLt_M5I/AAAAAAAAAic/0p-9adyKje0/s400/rouge-volupte-allure-l.jpg
This is rouge.

[Sharkman1231]

Okay, I got it now. My bad

[Elfin]

No problem at all.

[Mordokai]

FlawedParadigm's comment was a joke...

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/wi_lidda.jpg
That's a rogue.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nOZ8T_-KiFA/SQCyaLt_M5I/AAAAAAAAAic/0p-9adyKje0/s400/rouge-volupte-allure-l.jpg
This is rouge.

Brings back memories :smallbiggrin:

[Drevius]

Heh I'm gonna make a Rogue named Rouge now lol.... Or a factotum named MacGarnagle.

Anyways a few more jerk dm stories from a different dm,

This guy was a jerk, in game and out. Always ninja'd loot and complaining when someone else picked it up first and getting angry when his character wasn't leading and going wherever he wanted.
Anyways he wanted to dm a game and decided it would be an epic level campaign. We, the regular group decided it would be okay since epic is something we rarely do and that the jerk player would be dm so maybe he would TRY to be fair and learn from how we split loot co operate etc....Nope.
He introduces his dmpc a halfling wizard named Herbert. This guy was ninja'ing loot worse and when he wasn't around all we fought was giant crabs that were killed without even a thought. Then he had the gall to tell me that my fighter dervish twf blender had too many attacks and shouldn't be able to hit opponents when it wasn't his turn which would be true except I had to keep explaining to him about robilar's gambit allowing AoO against enemies who attack me. After a while of fighting giant crabs everyone was getting bored so he finally threw something a little more challenging at us, a Tarrasque. Finally the game looked a bit more fun with us actually taking more than a round on combat, unfortunately he railroaded the encounter having a adamantine golem come in and teleport the tarrasque away forcing us to battle...more...crabs. The game never made it to 2nd session.


Another more entertaining dm moment came when our other dm, who tends to make grand show stealing npc's got a little come uppance. He was very fond of a twf ranger/dervish style fighter who was always well out of our CR and styled after the Prince of Persia character. Well one of the first games in 3.5 i ever played he had him come in but since all the people playing were new we had no idea who he was or to be afraid of his power so later in the game we ripped off a gold shipment from the shadow thieves of amn, and the "Prince" was sent to take us out, a group of three level 4 characters, a human barbarian, me a human ranger with a crossbow and two daggers and a rogue who was an elf. We trounced him.... my completely unoptomized ranger loaded alchemist fire onto his xbow bolts and fired and kept on doing so until he died, with the rogue doing the same and the barbarian riding by with a greataxe over and over. The dm was in shock because we had over 100,000 gp in wagons that was now ours at level 4.
This NPC was recurring with some sort of ressurecting ability but he became a joke character almost every time he showed up a few highlights are:

1. Failing a save vs. a psion PC's death urge and dying (also low level)

2. Failing blindness/deafness, twice and being imprisoned in a shell of stone via stone shape.

3. being bullrushed off the top of a castle, by the age category old wizard (me) with the help of my raven familiar and dying.

4. and being death attacked by a fresh faced new assassin (1 lvl in the class) and nat 1 on the save dying.

[FlawedParadigm]

I was actually referencing rouge as the French word for "red", but the make-up reference also works, and is more widely known for that particular joke. One's also based off of the other, so it really works either way.

Sorry for making an issue, that particular spelling error is something of a pet peeve. :smallwink:

[Forbiddenwar]

Another time I was playing a rogue again and I felt like picking a commoners pocket. I roll a 19 which is about a 33 and apperently there was a guard looking and somehow I got caught. I said the guard shouldn't get a spot check because he needed to deliberatly watching me, and apperently he was because I was a rogue. And the DM didn't even roll a spot until I told him that. Somehow he still caught me and I was manacled and put in a cell. I tried to escape from my bonds by using escape artist I get a twenty evetually which us about 45 and he says I still can't free myslf and I get hung. Then I said I'm done with rogues, you seem to have a personal vendetta against them.
Lately he's stopped pulling this stuff but it still happens on occasion.

Edit: Though seriously, was what my DM did fair?

*HONK*HONK* Plot bus
No not fair. That is definite jerkiness.

[Elfin]

Complete jerkiness indeed. And FP, sorry for misinterpreting the joke.

[FlawedParadigm]

Complete jerkiness indeed. And FP, sorry for misinterpreting the joke.

Like I said, far from a problem. They both boil down to the same thing (the usage as make-up comes from the colour meaning, so yeah) either way.

Trust me, this used to come up a lot on the NWN boards which tended towards...shall we say...a more vocabulary-challenged crowd than we have here, in general.

[Foeofthelance]

A word of caution to burgeoning DMs: When running a mystery style campaign, be sure to include plenty of clues/suspects for your players to discover or interrogate. Witnesses might be helpful, and not everything needs to be a red herring.

DM I had a while back forgot that simple rule. We spent three nights, in real world time (so figure about 20-25 hours of game play) combing the city for some clue of who the bad guy was. All we ever found out was that the victim had two strange bite marks on her neck. There were no witnesses. There were no clues. We weren't allowed to go places, and never offered a means of earning access. Searches turned up nothing. Speak with the Dead turned up nothing, as the girl hadn't seen anything and her bones melted right after we talked to her. We had one suspect, and he had about forty people vouching for his alibi.

Eventually the necromancer I was playing and the druid got kicked out of the city for getting rough with some of the guards. So we unleashed a plague of rabbit skeletons into the city to hunt down some clues/stalk the suspect. After that didn't work, the rest of the party just torched his house and there was a big fight. Key notes were:

1) Explaining that deflect arrows only blocks one shot a round
2) Vampires are not Goku; they cannot instantly regenerate to double their hitpoints the round right after they've been beaten down
3) The Necromancer's minion's are undead; mind affecting abilities don't work on them...
4) An ever increasing saving throw for the vampire's gaze effect.

After finally killing the vampire for a second time, we managed to badger some details out of the DM. Apparently we were supposed to ask this guy for a job. Never mind the prime suspect bit, and the fact that he never actually offered us one...

Unsurprisingly we didn't return for the next session. Instead I started a Dragonlance/Eberron mishmash featuring a kender paladin wielding a talking Holy Avenger twice his size, but that's another storry...

[Sharkman1231]

I have a kind of funny story about another DM of mine, so the 2 veteran DM's were players (me and my friend) an another friend was running his first adventure (he didn't prepare a whole lot). So my friend and I are running 2nd lvl characters. So we get a quest from some old woman. She said some guy stole a gem from her house and we had to go through a maze to get it. She offer us 400 gp to get it back. We asked him what the gem looks like & it's size. She says it's blue and roughly the size of a football (more spherical and a little smaller). We were like "Holy ****" we can take the gem and kill the old lady (we were evil). He let us have really powerful characters for 2nd lvl, so we killed every enemy easily. Then we ask him what the terrain is in the maze. I don't what the matter with him was, but he wouldn't/couldn't answer our question. So he finally said "nothing" and we ask if we're in a void. He gets really flustered and we start annoying him about the "void maze" and the session ended. It's was our fault for being jerks, but it was still really funny. He stopped DM'ing but is still a good player.

[PaladinBoy]

You know, I just remembered one of my own DM jerk moments.

I was DMing a Forgotten Realms campaign, and one of the players (a druid) had just read the Draconomicon for the first time. He decided that he wanted to convert to worshipping Garyx, draconic god of destruction. I was thinking something along the lines of "this is a good campaign; having a devotee of an evil god would be bad..." Had I actually been thinking, I probably could have worked it out, but...

So I tell him he has to find a cleric of Garyx to convert. He does so, and I have the cleric challenge him to prove himself by randomly destroying an elven village for no particular reason. I figured he would realize that this was Evil and refuse.

A few rounds of call lightning later, I realized that he might actually be serious about this plan. I was a little annoyed, since I was now forced to let him proceed with his conversion, as well as the fact that he'd just blasted an elven village into smoking rubble.

... Next session, the first thing I did was have the area's epic level elven archmage teleport in. Needless to say, the druid lasted about six seconds, and that player was forced to roll up a new character.

[Zephyros]

I remember one group I DMed for in WarcraftRPG reaaaally tested my patience when they deliberately ignored every single plot hook that would make them work together. So after I ran about 10 solo quests for lvl1 characters (all the time being extra-careful not to kaput anyone) and as Azeroth is not ye olde sandbox setting I said "screw-it" and started the session with a very original way: "Each and every one of you smarty-pants is arrested and knocked unconscious by Jungle-trolls for disturbing the peace of Booty Bay. You all wake up in the same prison cell.:smallbiggrin:"
annoyed player1: "Is there-by any chance-a guard outside the cell?"
me: "Why...yes :smallamused: your typical muscle-bound-Jungle troll."
annoyed player2: "I ask him where the f*ck we are"
me: "After slapping you with his large stick (take 1d6 non-lethal) he replies: "In da Gurubashi areeena gladiator cells... You are up next mon..."
:smallbiggrin:

Fortunately that campaign lasted long and was satisfying for all of us after those first 2-3 sessions.

[Giggling Ghast]

Here's a Off the Rails (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OffTheRails) story I found while perusing TV Tropes. It's not so much a DM Jerk Moment as the players getting fed up with his sparkly GMPC, but it's still funny.


Okay, it's my first Werewolf game, which is basically my first White-Wolf game. I set it in Portland. The players all belong to a pack attempting to reignite a long-lost caern. The secret power of the city is one Strake, your average, myserious, cooler-than-thou black guy who runs a nightclub, and who has his finger on the pulse of the city, and who knows everything that goes on before everybody else does.

In hindsight, I know why Strake sucks, but I was young, and I was into the whole "storytelling" thing, so I thought this kind of character would just sell itself.

So the PCs are trying to get their caern going, and they finally figure out the city's Big Secret, which is that the vampire Prince is a massive devil-worshipping bad guy in league with The Wyrm. And the PCs, proud of the legwork they've done, call Strake, who comes up in his limo. In the limo are three young children of various ethnicities who all underwent their First Change recently and who Strake is going to entrust to the PCs' care.

So the PCs go up to Strake and tell him, "Hey, we finally realized what the Big Secret is that we were sent to figure out! Laureno is a devil-worshipper!"

And Strake goes, "Yes, you finally figured it out!" Because Strake knows everything, and wanted them to learn on their own, because PCs love that.

Now here's where we go off the script, so to speak, because one of the PCs, finally tired of Strake's Mary Sue ass, pulls out his gun and shouts, "**** you, Strake!" and shoots him, point-blank, in the face. Strake is standing at the door of his limo, so the kids behind him catch splatter, Strake's body falls into the limo, and the driver, scared crapless, pulls away.

My group still do slow-motion impressions of it to this day, in faux-"Buckwheat has been shot..." voiceovers, with one of them pointing his forefinger at the other like a gun while shouting slowly, "**** youuuuu, Strake!" and the other clapping his hands to his face and going, "Noooo...."

The worst part is, young dork that I was, I brought Strake back to life, and had him show up next session. It took me a good two years to understand that I was horribly, horribly wrong about what PCs liked, and I still think the point of a time-machine is so that I can back in time and kick my own ass.

[Lycan 01]

I put a bomb in one character's head.

...

Yeah, I know it sounds horrible. But the look on his face when his buddy said the code-word was great. :smallbiggrin:


Okay, okay, here's the real deal. It was Dark Heresy, and the guy wanted to be a psyker. The player is famous in my group - he's a rules lawyer to the extreme, and he studies the rulebooks to try and find loopholes and circumstances to make him awesome. There have been times when we'll be in the middle of a game, and he'll whip out an obscure rule that helps him come out on top. His characters also tend to be greedy power-hungry psychopaths.

So yeah, I had a rules lawyer with a thirst for power playing as a psychic who could eventually wield the power of a god if he played his cards right.

Do you see now why I put a bomb in his head? :smallconfused:

Besides, it made sense. In the game, psykers aren't trusted, and are usually monitored secretly by their superiors. So I figured a contingency plan was believable... I just knew that one day, he'd go mad with power and try to kill his teammates, and they'd be powerless to stop him. So I gave his partner the passcode.

All it would take to make the psyker's head asplode were the words "The Traitor's hand lies closer than you think."


Sure enough, there came a day when a daemonhost offered both players unlimited knowledge, power, pleasure, or whatever else they wanted in exchange for them helping it. Heck, it even offered them a free gift just to see if they liked it... Well, here's the kicker:

The psyker said no. He said that no matter how much he wanted power, he'd never stoop to that level and allow himself to give in to such temptations. He basically said that even though his character wanted the power of a god, he'd never allow himself to wield it without earning it.

I was moved. I gave him a Fate Point - a very rare and hard to achieve thing in Dark Heresy. And a few minutes later, the words "The Traitor's hand lies closer than you think..." were spoken by the other player, who DID fall to the seductive call of the Chaos gods...

The psyker's player stared at me, and then explained that he was happy his character got to die such an awesome death. I explained everything to him, and he said that I was an awesome DM, and that he felt flattered that I actually had such plans set up in case he pulled a stunt like that.

Overall, I came out of it as a good DM... even though I put a bomb in one of the character's head.

[FoE]

I remember one group I DMed for in WarcraftRPG reaaaally tested my patience when they deliberately ignored every single plot hook that would make them work together. So after I ran about 10 solo quests for lvl1 characters (all the time being extra-careful not to kaput anyone) and as Azeroth is not ye olde sandbox setting I said "screw-it" and started the session with a very original way: "Each and every one of you smarty-pants is arrested and knocked unconscious by Jungle-trolls for disturbing the peace of Booty Bay. You all wake up in the same prison cell.:smallbiggrin:"

You were way more patient than I would have been. :smallamused:

[Alaris]

A DM of mine actually had a DM jerk moment happen to her. Had some 20th level characters, if I recall, hers being a Paladin, going up against a Tarrasque. As expected, she lost... but the DM honestly didn't need to burn and shred her Character Sheet on the spot like that. Kind of jerkish if you ask me.

[waterpenguin43]

I had a 3 moments like that in a small session, but the DM wasn't really being a jerk, he just wasn't really experienced.
Here's how it worked out:
Incident 1:
DM: OK, so you see a ring of stone tablets, ferns, and dirt in a circle in the center of the clearing, what do you do?
Me: I cast detect magic on the circle.
DM: Uh, how does that work?
Me: *long and boring explanation of the schools of magic*
DM: (perplexed) Uh, OK it's not magical.

Later....
Me: I try to pull myself out of the dirt!!!
*Roll a total of 18*
DM: You can't, it's magical!!!
Me: I cast detect magic, and you said it wasn't!!!
DM: Well I didn't really understand!!!

Incident 2:
DM: Three nymphs pop up, and say: Oh come down here, we have something that might help you. What do you do?
Me: Roll Sense Motive.
DM: What's Sense Motive?
Me: An opposed role to a Bluff check to find out if their lying.
DM: Umm, OK, she makes a Bluff check.
Me: Um, you know that I know she's lying now, right?
DM: Um, whatever!!! She's not then.

Incident 3:
(The nymphs are trying to stuff me in the groud)
Me: I command my celestial dogs that I summoned to smite evil on the nymphs!!
DM: Uh, their not evil.
Me: Their trying to stuff me into the ground!!!!
DM: Well, they could be trying to show you aomething helpful!!!

Later...
(Nymphs are defeated)
Me: OK, I spend hours digging until I say not too!!!
DM: You dig, and did and dig. And still at 30 ft, there is just dirt.
Me: They were evil, face it.
This was my experience with an inexperienced DM.

[Kylarra]

Just as a point of fact I guess, you don't have to be evil to be attacking an adventurer. :smalltongue: Incidents 1,2 and 4 are kind of just ... yeah

[waterpenguin43]

Just as a point of fact I guess, you don't have to be evil to be attacking an adventurer. :smalltongue: Incidents 1,2 and 4 are kind of just ... yeah

I tried to negotiate with them. They tried to seduce me and stuffed me in the ground.

[Jergmo]

Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!


I tried to negotiate with them. They tried to seduce me and stuffed me in the ground.

I dunno, stuffing you into the ground is a bit of a downer, though I see nothing wrong with being seduced by a trio of beautiful fey. :smalltongue:

[Superglucose]

A DM of mine actually had a DM jerk moment happen to her. Had some 20th level characters, if I recall, hers being a Paladin, going up against a Tarrasque. As expected, she lost... but the DM honestly didn't need to burn and shred her Character Sheet on the spot like that. Kind of jerkish if you ask me.

THat's kind of idiotic...

DM jerk moments... well calling for a visceral strike (which is a "it hits you, you die" attack) on my unarmed telepath with his sniper was a biiiit uncalled for.

**** him though, the dice let me live. Then I hopped back up after being healed (literally!) and proceeded to find the sniper with my small army of tiny flying robots and lead my powered-armor-friend to his position.

Splatter.

(Well actually that adventure ended because someone else accidentally set off about ten pounds of C4 and blew up a city block, and the GM threw a fit... even though HE was the one to set the C4 off. One of our players decided to try the suicide bomber tactic, and instead of trying to incapacitate or flee, the BBEG decided to set off the player's explosive stockpile. Much lulz was had.)

[stenver]

Story of my friends jerk DM.

2 Level 1 characters walk down the road.

Moment later, a BODAK jumps out of the bush! Completely by surprise. He Immediately kills one player.

Needless to say the other player started to run away as fast as he could.

The bodak was faster and kill him 2. The session started 10 minutes ago.

What.

[Volthawk]

Story of my friends jerk DM.

2 Level 1 characters walk down the road.

Moment later, a BODAK jumps out of the bush! Completely by surprise. He Immediately kills one player.

Needless to say the other player started to run away as fast as he could.

The bodak was faster and kill him 2. The session started 10 minutes ago.

What.

http://www.novarata.net/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

[stenver]

I stumbled on the thread through search. I liked the thread. I wanted to give it another chance.

[KillianHawkeye]

I stumbled on the thread through search. I liked the thread. I wanted to give it another chance.

Allow me to direct you to the Forum Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1).

[Myou]

Allow me to direct you to the Forum Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/announcement.php?a=1).

Why exactly is it that you can't post in older threads? :smallconfused:

[druid91]

here is a whole thread for reasons (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142424).

[KillianHawkeye]

Why exactly is it that you can't post in older threads? :smallconfused:

I don't make the rules, I just follow them. :smallsigh:

[Akal Saris]

I remember stumbling onto my first gaming forum back in 99 and excitedly responding to a post ("yeah I love sword fighters too" or something), and then all the replies were 'OMG Necro LOL!'

I think it scarred me a little bit :smalleek: I was seriously pissed off at the people for being so rude, not to mention embarrassed that I didn't know anything about posting etiquette or whatever. It was a few years before I started posting rather than lurking in any forums.

So yeah...just felt like sharing that :P

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Thread necromancy = no.