Bad DM

[ShadowPsyker]

We've all met them. Played with them. Some are merely inexperienced, but I'm not talking about those. It seems IMHO that 3rd edition has bred a lot of willfully BAD DM's. Case in point; I currently have a 3rd level fighter who despite being able to routinely make will saves in the 20's and sometimes 30's, is constantly falling prey to enemies with charm or illusion effects. I surmised that the DM was simply waiting for me to tell him my total and then saying "oh.. just missed" or "23? sorry needed a 24." My solution; tell him my roll and then when he revealed the outcome point out that since that's a mind affecting one (most are) I get another +4, so it looks like I saved :smallsmile:. Eventually he caught on, but for a while i was back to actually contributing.

There are of course other types. I posit 2 questions.
1) What in your opinion is the worst type of DM?
2) What (if any) fun or interesting work-arounds have you engaged in or attempted with bad DM's?

My vote for worst is hands down, the GOD complex DM. Anyone who describes D&D as the DM being GOD (or GOD of gods) and the players existing in his world is likely to be this. You know 'em... My word is law, no discussions, questioning something in game is tantamount to heresy, etc... I'm all for not looking up rules during the game, but the answer "cause I say so" was not acceptable when I was 10 and is definitely not acceptable as one adult to another in the shared fiction that is a above all else; a GAME!

[truemane]

It's got nothing to do with 3rd Edition. There've been willfully bad DM's as long as there've been role-playing games. The unique dynamic of table-top role-playing means that a certain kind of obnoxious player can wreak more havok than they can in a more traditional game (where there's no analogue to the DM).

But. Worst kind of DM? The one that feels his fun is more important than anyone else's. That's really what it comes down to. Some DM's try to make everyone have fun and just can't do it.

But the really bad ones are the ones that just don't seem to care.

[ShadowPsyker]

It's got nothing to do with 3rd Edition. There've been willfully bad DM's as long as there've been role-playing games. The unique dynamic of table-top role-playing means that a certain kind of obnoxious player can wreak more havok than they can in a more traditional game (where there's no analogue to the DM).

But. Worst kind of DM? The one that feels his fun is more important than anyone else's. That's really what it comes down to. Some DM's try to make everyone have fun and just can't do it.

But the really bad ones are the ones that just don't seem to care.

I have played way more games, from 1st edition D&D to Rifts and Gurps, than you can imagine and nowhere (outside maybe Vampire) have i seen an almost training ground level of output for bad DM's than in third and revised 3rd. However... you do remind me of an honorable mention for bad DM. The guy who is obsessed with making sure everyone is having fun to the point of making sure to routinely stop the game to ask if everyone is having fun,
"Can I do anything different? you guys sure... okay."
Without constant positive reinforcement, this can get annoying fast.

[Darrin]

1) What in your opinion is the worst type of DM?


Oh, there are so, so, so many flavors...



2) What (if any) fun or interesting work-arounds have you engaged in or attempted with bad DM's?


I think I wrote a guide (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CompSmeg1.html) for how to deal with some of the worst.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

I think I wrote a guide (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CompSmeg1.html) for how to deal with some of the worst.

Good read.

I have to say mine is the one who can't adapt. By this I mean if the players deviate from their set path they don't know what to do. Their whole plan was hinging on you taking the stupid request for help from the freedom fighters and when you say no everything falls apart etc.

[Keneth]

The rigid type who insists on railroading the party from one ambush scenario to another. It's not fun at all.

[Umbranar]

We had a DM who rolled suspiciously many Natural 20`s. We just rolled with it and finished the campaign but it was pretty funny when we discovered it was every 5th roll at one point. :smallbiggrin:

[truemane]

I have played way more games, from 1st edition D&D to Rifts and Gurps, than you can imagine and nowhere (outside maybe Vampire) have i seen an almost training ground level of output for bad DM's than in third and revised 3rd.

Really? In my experience it was the Palladium Spectrum of games seemed to generate the DM's with the highest Douchebag Ratings. But that might be as much a factor of my social circle at the time as it was anything else. I grew up in a rather small town (before the internet!) so when it came to niche activities like Gaming you really just had to deal with whoever was there.

But. That being said. I totally agree with you on Vampire.

[DruchiiConversion]

My vote for worst is hands down, the GOD complex DM. Anyone who describes D&D as the DM being GOD (or GOD of gods) and the players existing in his world is likely to be this. You know 'em... My word is law, no discussions, questioning something in game is tantamount to heresy, etc... I'm all for not looking up rules during the game, but the answer "cause I say so" was not acceptable when I was 10 and is definitely not acceptable as one adult to another in the shared fiction that is a above all else; a GAME!

I do this. The rules for the monsters I'm planning on using are looked up before the session and I know the rules in question. I also am happy to look up rules for something that a player brings up to me in advance - e.g. "I'm playing a TOB character, you know how maneuvers work right?". But once we're ingame, if I can't look it up in twenty seconds, I'm just going to make a ruling and move on. If you want to argue it, we can do it after the session - and you can educate me, and get a PC back if my ruling lead to a death or lost items or something. I do have a pretty good knowledge of 3.5's rules, but still - I don't think this is particularly uncommon in GMs, or a particularly bad thing.

My particular type of GM I dislike is the GM who changes the rules without understanding them. Making rules changes that go directly against the concept of balance is the main symptom, but banning out low-tier classes or inserting custom monsters with silly abilities that the group's casters (or more rarely, the group's non-casters) can abuse are both totally common as well. You'll usually find a GM like this running epic games because they're cool, but treating things like armies of peasants with pitchforks as serious threats the players can't win against.

[Blind Orc]

We had a DM who rolled suspiciously many Natural 20`s. We just rolled with it and finished the campaign but it was pretty funny when we discovered it was every 5th roll at one point. :smallbiggrin:

I do that too, but I can't get rid of the DM screen, bc you know, maybe I'll have to fudge them to misses someday.

[Menteith]

My particular type of GM I dislike is the GM who changes the rules without understanding them. Making rules changes that go directly against the concept of balance is the main symptom, but banning out low-tier classes or inserting custom monsters with silly abilities that the group's casters (or more rarely, the group's non-casters) can abuse are both totally common as well. You'll usually find a GM like this running epic games because they're cool, but treating things like armies of peasants with pitchforks as serious threats the players can't win against.

Oh boy, this a thousand times. I'm all for changing parts of D&D3.5, only if you know exactly why you're changing them, and how those changes will cascade through the game. I was once forcibly disarmed because someone had a crossbow trained on my DR8/adamantine, AC 42, 186 HP character. Just a regular heavy crossbow - apparently I "wouldn't want to risk it", even though it couldn't have actually hurt me....

My biggest issue is the anti-Railroader. They've heard stories of how little people like to have a forced plot, so they want to run a wide open sandbox, while providing absolutely no incentive to do anything, no plot hooks, no clues. Inevitably, the group devolves into attempting random actions to see if it can move a story forward. I've had this happen a few times, and it's even more frustrating to me than a heavy railroad game is (although not by much). To quote the wonderful article linked;

"Many bad GMs actually believe that slogging from one meaningless encounter to another is supposed to be a plot. A rare few might actually try to justify it, saying something like "the plot should be driven by the players, the GM is just there as a neutral observer"".

[Tim Proctor]

@Darrin, that was absolutely amazingly fun to read.

My biggest pet peeve in a DM is when the DMNPC is the focus of the story and not the group. When the PCs outright refuse to go along with the DMNPC (cause the mission is stupid) the DM gets all pissy and attempts to take revenge for foiling their stupid plot.

Example: In a campaign we were following a Dwarven Cleric of Pelor or something to go kill her dad which was an evil cleric dwarven lich thing. Anyways, we sign on to go do this quest and then end up sandboxing in an old mine outside a town and gain a following of a couple hundred kobolds (no real storyline given other than we beatup the trolls that were mean to the kobolds).

So we go on this nation building fiasco for like 10 sessions and get absolutely nowhere. So we tell the cleric lady that we signed up for an quest to kill her dad not to build a kobold nation, and she blatantly says that we are no level close to being able to stop her dad and that we need to train. All of the PCs have these side quest backgrounds and goals they want to complete and rather than knock those out we are sitting in Koboldville (where my guy a Dwarven fighter/engineer is able to get them running water) doing jack-diddly.

So we abandon the Cleric after a couple more sessions of one PC haggling prices for every single piece of equipment for the kobold nation. The DM gets really mad at this point and while we haven't done anything and are camping in an alarmed/dimension anchored cave in the middle of nowhere (going to fight Drow in the underdark) he has invisible guys teleport in and coupe de grace my character. My character makes the save cause Legendary Leader automagic, and the DM is livid and then wants me to roll for massive damage (even though they didn't do 50), and then I get possessed by a Mindflayer (at this point it is whatever). So he has my character basically kill the other teammates.

Everyone is pissed at this point, and is telling the DM that he's an idiot, and this doesn't make any sense. So he then says we wake up back in the Koboldville and it was all a dream.

So I sold all my gear and bought Ponies with the money, took a level in Wizard and retrained a feat to get Improved Familiar (grabbed a pony) and would talk to all my ponies (thousands of them)... and then hired another Wizard to Polymorph me into a Pony and then I proceeded to have sex with all of the ponies. The DM was lost for words, I left after that.

Within 2 sessions all of the other players left the group also. After I left the DM tried to win everyone back by giving them high end gear, someone got a ring of elemental command (earth) and then he went and slaughtered all sorts of stuff in caves, which pissed the DM off so he had the invisible teleporting guys Coupe de Grace that character and steal the ring.

***
I have played all sorts of RPGs and bad DMs are not exclusive to D&D 3.5, the worst GM of all time was during a rotating GM campaign where one player when it was his turn simply gave his character a bunch of artifacts and gear, and then threw a fit when we tried taking the stuff back.

[NichG]

I wonder if its more that 3.5ed's particular design philosophy creates more conflict with certain kinds of DMs rather than actually creating those DMs from the start. It seems that DMs that want the world to work as 'makes sense to them' would be just fine in some systems: rules light stuff or systems where the system is designed around there being a lot of fiat decisions (NWP situations in 2ed come to mind).

But put that same DM at a table in 3.5, and there's friction due to the system giving a very strong message about how things 'really' work, that takes a lot of system experience to actually understand and read out. Naively, you might think that wizards would be blasters, clerics would be healbots, that martial characters wouldn't be able to make will saves, and that money would be a meaningful thing even at 9th level. So this DM might design their adventure or world with those 'obvious' things in mind, only to find that the system doesn't work that way in practice.

Anyhow, I'd say the worst characteristic in a DM is being unable to properly allow player agency. The lighter cases of this are still playable: you're doing a module, nothing you do beyond the scope of the module matters - I could do that for a game or two but it'd wear. The heavier cases mean you're basically a spectator. I've had a game where my character's actions were narrated for me for the entire night.

A hostile DM can be reacted to, you can change your play style or expectations to counter for it and have fun with it, even if it can get grating. A DM that changes the rules is fine once you understand their personal logic - it just means you have to play the game they're running, not the game that's written. But a DM that doesn't let you act, there's nothing to be done with. Literally.

[only1doug]

I had a GM for a while who didn't really understand 3rd edition, he was running it but he was more used to the older editions.

the part is investigating a burned out house, balance checks to move about amongst the rubble.

I rolled a 4, my friend rolled a 12. I failed and fell, he passed and was ok...
(sounds reasonable doesn't it....)
the trouble was the GM was working on the unmodified dice roll, my balance check total was actually 12 and my friends check total was 8. The GM didn't care, I rolled a 4 so I failed.

That campaign ended later when we encountered a black dragon and refused to follow the railway-line any further (we weren't high enough level to consider fighting it and weren't interested in bargaining with it so we ran away).
actually the black dragon encounter was another example of bad GMing so I'll give more details.

We had discovered that the swamp had a giant crocodile (30' long or so) that we needed to defeat in order to progress the plot, so we spent some time preparing for meeting it. We filled a barrel with alchemists fire and got everyone potions of flight then moved to the area where the giant croc was known to be, flying above with barrel of alchemists fire. No sign of the crocodile for awhile and then we see it (says the GM), OK, Initiate plan alpha, drop alchemists fire on crocodile, success.... or is it? on closer examination, its just a 10' long crocodile...
so we decide to look around for the real deal and see something under the water, it emerges and it is a black dragon, it offers us a deal, we can gain its assistance (progress the plot) if we prove strong enough, all we have to do is fight it or its pet (cue the real giant crocodile) and it will promise to (whatever it was that had to be done to progress the plot).
We considered its offer (and who was making it) and then left, at full speed as we wanted no part of fighting a dragon and didn't trust that a black dragon would keep its word (Dragons, colour coded for your convenience)

The campaign stopped there as we weren't going back to fight the dragon and the GM had no way to progress the railroad if we left the tracks plot if we didn't

We were 4th level.

[kharmakazy]

How does a third level fighter make a save in the 30s? There has to be some shenanigans going on there.

Your base will save is +1. Unless your ability score it astronomical, getting that up to a +10 or higher (higher is needed to make a save in the 30s) is pretty hard to do.

[dsmiles]

We had a DM who rolled suspiciously many Natural 20`s. We just rolled with it and finished the campaign but it was pretty funny when we discovered it was every 5th roll at one point. :smallbiggrin:Well, I do this too, behind my DM screen. (But I also use the same set of dice when I'm a player, and usually get more natural 20s, since I don't have to fudge the numbers down to not kill characters so quickly. :smalltongue:)

[Pink Ranger]

Anyhow, I'd say the worst characteristic in a DM is being unable to properly allow player agency. ... The heavier cases mean you're basically a spectator. ... a DM that doesn't let you act, there's nothing to be done with. Literally.

This. I once had a DM who would routinely protest anything our characters said or did, based on our alignment. "Your character wouldn't say that." "Your character thinks such-and-such." "Your character would want to do this."

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you were playing my character. I thought I was playing MY character!

Another DM I had decided to turn a novel they wrote into a D&D campaign, and then got pissed when the plot diverged from how it was "supposed" to go.

These types of DMs should become theatre directors instead. Then they can manage plot and characters all they want! :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

I wonder if its more that 3.5ed's particular design philosophy creates more conflict with certain kinds of DMs rather than actually creating those DMs from the start. It seems that DMs that want the world to work as 'makes sense to them' would be just fine in some systems: rules light stuff or systems where the system is designed around there being a lot of fiat decisions (NWP situations in 2ed come to mind).

This is part of it. And DMs not reading rules is part of it(and 3.5 has a LOT of those). Last, but not least, part of it is making rule zero explicit in the rulebook. I find that any system with that tends to cause more conflicts.

Look at it this way. You can make stuff up in any system. We all know this. But if it's a scenario when you have to look up rule zero, thump the book down, and tell the players "See, I can so do this", you've done something wrong. You've used rule zero to invent things that your group hates.

So, I don't think rule zero should be included in rulebooks.

[Namfuak]

I haven't had any DMs as bad as some people in this thread, and some of them sound pretty darn bad, but I do want to defend two things:

1. DMPCs: It can get really tiring as a DM when every character you actually make to fight is going to get killed after 1 battle. The antithesis to this would be to make a recurring villain who fights and gets away each time, but in order to do that without fiat you have to make a specific type of character (see "The Joker Bard"), so if there is a specific character concept you'd like to try you can toss it in with the party. However, the DMPC should never drive the plot, I had one while I was DMing and the only time he ever drove the plot was when they first met him, and he showed them how to get to a necromancer's cave. Another reason I introduced him was because the tank character was not going to be there that session, so he took over her role for the session, but I digress.

2. Railroading: While I agree that many of the examples of railroading here are really egregious, I have to sympathize with the DM to an extent, because if you are like my group and do a session a week, you simply do not have time to make new encounters for every possible reason the PCs get off track. Using the necromancer cave as an example, I spent a lot of time a. Designing the dungeon, b. Designing some zombies, including a custom one, and c. Designing the necromancer (who was a straight Dread Necromancer so it was a bit easier, but you still get the point). Keep in mind that making a good enemy can take just as long as making a good PC - you can just give them weapon focus and combat casting if you want, and let them die very quickly, or you can add a few extra levels to compensate and make the battle a game of rocket tag, but if you really want to make a good enemy you have to go to the class guide, look up synergistic feats, look up good/synergistic spells, make sure you have all class features accounted for, etc. All this being said, if in my previous example the PCs had said "nah, we don't feel like fighting a necromancer today," I would have been justifiably peeved. And then of course I have two options - let them walk away and throw a random encounter at them (or just let them walk back to town and say "Well, I've got nothing else prepared, see ya'll next week!"), or "railroad" them into the cave (through the necromancer mind controlling them or something).

I'm not saying that railroading is always justified (forcing you to stay and make koboldville is a good example of bad railroading), but what I think some people forget is that the DM does put a lot of work into making a game that is fun for you, but unless he is good at improvisation or has some huge portfolio of premade NPCs it can be really hard to make a coherent story work and have memorable fights and roleplaying if the players insist on always doing the opposite of what the DM expects.

[lord pringle]

My biggest pet peeve in a DM is when the DMNPC is the focus of the story and not the group. When the PCs outright refuse to go along with the DMNPC (cause the mission is stupid) the DM gets all pissy and attempts to take revenge for foiling their stupid plot.

I have played all sorts of RPGs and bad DMs are not exclusive to D&D 3.5, the worst GM of all time was during a rotating GM campaign where one player when it was his turn simply gave his character a bunch of artifacts and gear, and then threw a fit when we tried taking the stuff back.

I once played in a game in which we were carted around by a 12th level wizard who every NPC loved and who had a young adult silver dragon for a familiar. Our PCs were 3rd level. There wasn't really any plot, and I quit when the wizard DMPC forced us to fight each other in his bag of holding using the worst possible gladiatorial combat rules.

[Amphetryon]

Oh, there are so, so, so many flavors...



I think I wrote a guide (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CompSmeg1.html) for how to deal with some of the worst.

Given the behaviors in the guide, I'm wondering how to be a Good DM by the metrics of the board.

[Andvare]

I am an old RP'er, having played RP games for some 25 years now (bloody hell, has it been that long? I feel old). My friends with which I play, all have similar length of gaming experience.

Enter this new kid.

He was new at roleplaying, and doubly so at DM'ing, mostly doing it because one of the players were a girl he was interested in.
My character was a very intelligent half-orc, so butt-ugly everyone assumed he was a full orc (partly based on a character from the Arcanum PC game).
I was working at a circus, being the "tame orc freak" act, and one day I decided I had had enough and left the place. The owner didn't want me to, so blocked my way. The GM at this point tried desperately for me to hit the fellow, which I wouldn't do, it wasn't in my characters, emm, character to hit a person he had had a long decent working relationship with, and certainly not enough to kill him, which is what my GM wanted.
After that, and it took forever for him to realize I didn't want to kill him, I somehow ended up in a foggy forest, and came to this dark foreboding altar in a small clearing.
Dark altar in the middle of nowhere? Yup, I'm not going anywhere near that thing. But nomatter where I go and what I do, I end up at the same clearing again.
So I decided to pee on it, but still refused to touch it. He then said I accidentally touch it, and was transported to Ravenloft (I think).

At this point I had lost all hope of this being a good campaign, and decided to play with the new GM. My friends all had come to the same conclusion So when he introduced his GOD-GM-PC (he was simply the best, cooler than all the rest), we beat him up, tied him down, played with him in a decidedly not-fit-for-children way and left him at the tavern, tied up, gagged and probably not all that happy.

And then it really went downhill.

A friend of mine who played a cleric of Saint Cuthbert (an extremely funny character), got the cudgel of Saint Cuthbert, at level 2. Of course he decided to not use it, because he deemed himself not worthy yet, and packed it in his backpack. That was priceless.

I stopped playing at this point, because the only reason to play, were to make fun of the poor fellow, but the group continued for a couple of sessions, the character that replaced me were specifically made to annoy the GM.


BTW, you can make sandbox work, but that depends on your players. The guys I'm playing with nowadays love sandboxes, as they take everything and makes it their own. The most fun we have had, have probably been a very poor scenario, filled to the brim with clichés. I had to stop halfway through the session to ask if they knew what was going on, and they, OOC, pretty much told me precisely what was going on behind the scene, they had just decided to ignore it and create their own fun (it was the scenario that is in the newest version of WarHammer). We have several times created a setting, without any driving force plots, and let the players go to town with it.

You can also make railroading work, which again depend on your players. It doesn't work in my group, but it can work.

No, the worst Gm is the one that cannot tell a story, and one that goes against the groups whishes.
An example:
A friend of mine had a wizard apprentice in WarHamster, and had used a lot of time preparing (in game) for his big wizard test. The test was basically the GM making some sound effects (zoom-bing-boing, no I'm not kidding), and, presto, he was a wizard. A huge anticlimactic letdown, and both showed an inability to tell a story, and not going with a player's RP idea.

[manyslayer]

I'll throw another vote to DMNPC. Played in a vampire campaign where the GM's character was basically allowed to do anything and could overpower and dominate anyone's character if they tried to go off the rails. It was horrible.

As a DM, I always try to be very careful if I end up having an NPC going with the party. In my current group, I NPC a scout with the group because they have no thief/wilderness trained character. She's 1 level lower and, though effective, does not outshine the PCs.

[lunar2]

DMs that want to control your character. you've got a million characters to play. i've got 1. that 1 is MINE so leave it alone. if i'm charmed or whatever, i'll play along, but otherwise my character thinks what i want it to think, says what i want it to say, and does what i want it to do, because it is my character.

[kharmakazy]

I still want to know how he is making a will save of 30 as a level 3 fighter. Best I can come up with is picking up the maneuver that lets you make a con check instead via bonus feat.. but even that is kind of low at level 3.

[Boci]

So, I don't think rule zero should be included in rulebooks.

I dunno. WoD doesn't seem to have this problem for me, and they stress over and over again that the most important rule is that there are no absolute rules.

[kharmakazy]

I dunno. WoD doesn't seem to have this problem for me, and they stress over and over again that the most important rule is that there are no absolute rules.

I find that to be the case too. Actually, it seems that the more rules a system has, the more necessary rule 0 really is. The more definite rules there are to the system, the more the players become attached to those rules and are bothered by changing them.

[Menteith]

I find that to be the case too. Actually, it seems that the more rules a system has, the more necessary rule 0 really is. The more definite rules there are to the system, the more the players become attached to those rules and are bothered by changing them.

A DM/ST/GM needs to know how the universe they're running works. In some systems, it's entirely up to them. In a rules heavy system like D&D, the mechanics of the world are more clearly defined, and a DM is going to be forced to know about them unless they're expecting to fall back on fiat every time they have an issue. This generally means that a DM should have greater system mastery than those that they game with. A good DM is going to be capable of accomplishing anything they want, within the context of the rules, without ever having to use Rule 0 in a game. This does demand additional work, however, and I understand why some people don't do it. Players get attached to rules because, well, they're the rules. And while a DM should have control over a setting, gaming is a collaborative activity, and it absolutely sucks to have to say "no" to a player about something they wanted to do, and thought they'd be able to.

[whibla]

A DM/ST/GM needs to know how the universe they're running works. In some systems, it's entirely up to them. In a rules heavy system like D&D ...

...the more likely you are to come up against rules that are unclear, illogical, badly written thus open to all sorts of abuse, or downright contradictory.

Rule 0 exists, in the first case, as a means for the DM to say: This is how I interpret this mess rule, and for the players to say: OK, you're the DM, and what you say goes. Either that or you could waste all your roleplay hours arguing over something essentially trivial. I know which I'd rather, even if I'm the player being told "It doesn't work like that".

If you're (not aimed at the quoted, or in fact at anyone in particular, I hasten to add) unhappy with this fact perhaps someone could suggest a better way of dealing with such conflicts.

Personally, I only know one bad DM, but fortunately I'm never playing when he's running the game. :smallamused:

[Tyndmyr]

I find that to be the case too. Actually, it seems that the more rules a system has, the more necessary rule 0 really is. The more definite rules there are to the system, the more the players become attached to those rules and are bothered by changing them.

Well yeah, if your rule system is short and sweet, everyone knows it. Expectations are being met, life is great.

When the GM doesn't know the rule system, and thus, his players expectations are NOT matching up with what he's doing...there's conflict. And the more complex the ruleset, the more likely this is to happen, since learning time is finite.

In short, rule zero, in rules heavy games, ends up being a crutch for those who don't know the rules. This is...very bad. They either need to read up on the rules, or just use a system more suited to what they want to do.

Remember, you can ALWAYS change the rules of a game provided people agree on a better way. This does not require any particular part of the rulebook to point at for authority. The sort of people that DO rely on "ultimate authority" to overrule everyone else...are not the sort of people that should be encouraged to do this.

[Menteith]

...the more likely you are to come up against rules that are unclear, illogical, badly written thus open to all sorts of abuse, or downright contradictory.

Rule 0 exists, in the first case, as a means for the DM to say: This is how I interpret this mess rule, and for the players to say: OK, you're the DM, and what you say goes. Either that or you could waste all your roleplay hours arguing over something essentially trivial. I know which I'd rather, even if I'm the player being told "It doesn't work like that".

If you're (not aimed at the quoted, or in fact at anyone in particular, I hasten to add) unhappy with this fact perhaps someone could suggest a better way of dealing with such conflicts.

Personally, I only know one bad DM, but fortunately I'm never playing when he's running the game. :smallamused:

Sure, Rule 0 has a place, and there are certainly instances in a game like D&D3.5 that have rule ambiguities. But honestly speaking, (and maybe I've just been lucky with groups), it's not something that needs to be prominent. Most of the really badly written rules rarely come up, or when they do, aren't going to cause a problem between player/DM (like how Drowning works or similar things). From my experience, the more often a DM overruled a sourcebook to either deny a player something or to further a plot, the worse off the game was.

[Yukitsu]

I hate DM's that would rather tell me something than let us all go through it in the way the players want to do things. I don't care if you think "x" rule is disruptive, I don't care if what we're doing breaks your plot, and I don't care if you think you are entitled to rule 0 to "fix" things.

The problem for me is, my blasted players when I DM just run along the pseudo rails that I have, when I've crafted most of it to have them jump off the rails and become their own people at some point. :smallsigh: Other, more railroady DM's have ruined my players for me.

[ThiagoMartell]

I hate DMs that use 'sandbox' as an excuse for 'no plot'.

[nedz]

I hate DMs that use 'sandbox' as an excuse for 'no plot'.

Sandbox games are a simulationist concept whereby the rules are used to simulate a world. Does real life have a plot ?

What these games need are NPCs and Institutions which have goals and agents who are intent upon achieving them. These create the plot with which the PCs can interact, or not.

[Boci]

Sandbox games are a simulationist concept whereby the rules are used to simulate a world. Does real life have a plot ?

What these games need are NPCs and Institutions which have goals and agents who are intent upon achieving them. These create the plot with which the PCs can interact, or not.

And by no plot, I pretty sure it was implied that such NPCs and institutions would be missing. Basically:

DM: I want to be the DM without having to write a story. I know, I'll run a sandbox game and then my players will have to do all the work, because that is how a sandbox game works.

[kharmakazy]

And by no plot, I pretty sure it was implied that such NPCs and institutions would be missing. Basically:

DM: I want to be the DM without having to write a story. I know, I'll run a sandbox game and then my players will have to do all the work, because that is how a sandbox game works.

I have a hard time envisioning a game where there are PCs but the DM fails to provide cities or NPCs. Or i guess you don't mean that level of uninvolvement? Like.. they go to cities but nothing happens unless the players instigate conflict?

[Menteith]

I have a hard time envisioning a game where there are PCs but the DM fails to provide cities or NPCs. Or i guess you don't mean that level of uninvolvement? Like.. they go to cities but nothing happens unless the players instigate conflict?

I'll give an exampled I've experienced;

It was a fresh campaign, taking place in a city that was supposedly full of intrigue. We all created our characters, found ways to know each other in the backstory and began to play. And then sort of sat around as the DM asked us what we'd like to do, with absolutely no incentive to do anything. There was no plot, nothing that involved us in the city's politics, no outer force that could change the status quo, just sitting. I think someone ended up actually making Profession checks to kill time....

[kharmakazy]

I'll give an exampled I've experienced;

It was a fresh campaign, taking place in a city that was supposedly full of intrigue. We all created our characters, found ways to know each other in the backstory and began to play. And then sort of sat around as the DM asked us what we'd like to do, with absolutely no incentive to do anything. There was no plot, nothing that involved us in the city's politics, no outer force that could change the status quo, just sitting. I think someone ended up actually making Profession checks to kill time....

Perhaps there would be hooks if you were to check out the city more? Visit the tavern? I find it's almost always helpful if the characters have some driving motivation to do something before the game even starts. Even the character from pokemon had more goals than "go to a city", specifically he wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was, catch them all, and secretly long for the approval of his father, or in his absence that of Oak.

[nedz]

Perhaps there would be hooks if you were to check out the city more? Visit the tavern? I find it's almost always helpful if the characters have some driving motivation to do something before the game even starts. Even the character from pokemon had more goals than "go to a city", specifically he wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was, catch them all, and secretly long for the approval of his father, or in his absence that of Oak.

In a sandbox some of this can be down to players, but yeah, the DM should make something happen even if just to create impetus.

[Boci]

I have a hard time envisioning a game where there are PCs but the DM fails to provide cities or NPCs. Or i guess you don't mean that level of uninvolvement? Like.. they go to cities but nothing happens unless the players instigate conflict?

No, I was trying to point out that sandboxe style games can be isused by lazy or new DMs who think that will mean less work for them when infact the opposite is true if it is to be done well.

[Togo]

My pet peeve is when a DM creates something in the game world and then wants to dictate how the players react to it. Sometimes it's an NPC, sometimes it's a city, or a law, or a cultural trait. Heroic but brutal half orcs that we're supposed to respect for their straighforwardness but they still come across as, well, bullies with no honour or respect for others. DMs who insist that we should either be suspicious of magic or worship the ground it walks on.

Another pet peeve is when DMs take an assumption about the game world and then bend the rules to fit.

"so I paint over it."

You can't do that. It's a powerful spell.

Yes, and I got zapped by it, and now I want to paint over it.

You have paint on your character sheet?

Right here.

But.. you can't just paint over the trap sigil. It's a spell, and only magic can counter magic.

If I can't paint over it, I glue a tarpaulin over it. It still needs line of effect?

But.. it's magic, and you can't cast spells!

[Menteith]

Perhaps there would be hooks if you were to check out the city more? Visit the tavern? I find it's almost always helpful if the characters have some driving motivation to do something before the game even starts. Even the character from pokemon had more goals than "go to a city", specifically he wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was, catch them all, and secretly long for the approval of his father, or in his absence that of Oak.

Oh, we (eventually) did do things, but for the most part they were completely unconnected, sporadic, and meaningless. It's hard to have a driving character motivation when things are actually going quite well for you and everyone you know.

[The Random NPC]

Oh, we (eventually) did do things, but for the most part they were completely unconnected, sporadic, and meaningless. It's hard to have a driving character motivation when things are actually going quite well for you and everyone you know.

This is my problem with games set in the modern age, and I "will be exposed to the supernatural." It invariably ends up with me roleplaying seeking a job and a D&D group for the weekends.

[Othniel Edden]

Sandbox games are a simulationist concept whereby the rules are used to simulate a world. Does real life have a plot ?

Depends on your point of view. I'm inclined to say yes.

[kharmakazy]

This is my problem with games set in the modern age, and I "will be exposed to the supernatural." It invariably ends up with me roleplaying seeking a job and a D&D group for the weekends.

My last modern game started during several apocalypsis.. or whatever the plural of apocalypse is and the players locked in weapon X type vats as labrats. One of them opened a bar anyway.

[molten_dragon]

I've been relatively lucky over the years. I've only gamed with 2 really bad DMs.

One of them used a lot of houserules. Only the problem was, he wasn't good at pointing out when he was using a houserule, so a lot of the time, I had no idea if he was houseruling something, or if he just didn't know the rules. And if I pointed out that RAW went against what he was doing, he'd throw a big fit about how he hated rules lawyers, and I needed to respect rule 0, and it was his game to change how he saw fit etc etc. I tried pointing out several times that I wasn't trying to be a rules lawyer, and I didn't have a problem with houserules. I just wanted them to be consistent, and I wanted him to tell us when he was using a houserule. It didn't end up working out though.

The other bad DM had a lot of problems. She was a control freak. She gave out more XP for things you did outside of the game (like bringing snacks, adding to your background, filling out these questionnaires she would make, and reading novels set in the campaign setting) than inside the game. She was also extremely ADD. I played with her for 6 months, and the campaign changed 3 times. We started off playing a normal 3.5 campaign, which everyone was happy with. Shortly after, 4.0 came out, and she wanted to try that, so we did for a couple months, and no one really liked it. So then we switched back to a different 3.5 campaign, where she had us make like 4 characters each, and depending on who was there, we would play different combinations of characters, who were all part of this adventuring guild. When I told her that I didn't like that idea, because I was getting really tired of low-level characters and wanted to be able to level up faster, she kind of flipped out. When I suggested that we create at least one of the multiple characters at something higher, like 5th level instead of first, she really flipped her lid and started ranting at me about how if I wanted to play higher level I had to earn it, and she didn't want to give out freebies, etc. etc. I ended up leaving that group too.

[The Boz]

The worst kind of DM is the guy with an epic BBEG and epic DMPC locked in an eternal struggle, with all the little PCs meandering about the game world like pawns who have no idea what's going on, where to go, what to do, and the world keeps minding its own business.

Example:
This DM, let's call him Japanophile, had us play various specialists that work as mercenaries for some kind of multiverse high-tech cyberpunk corporation. We have virtually no background about the world, except for the fact that in our timeline, and in about half of the others, the multiverse is a known fact, even exploited for trade, energy, etc.
OK, so, the leader of our organization, let's call him Furball, gives us a task: we are to facilitate a transfer of some kind of valuable artifact in Timeline X34 Viridian or somesuch. Who, what, why? Doesn't matter. OK, so my big fat heavy-armored tactical omnitrooper gets on his big fat freightbike (a motorcycle designed to haul massive cargo; the only thing powerful enough to hold my weight) and I start driving toward the multiflux (think multiverse subway), a friend activates his gravsuit and flies next to me while a third guy gets in his tank and follows us.
As we get to the platform, a massive vortex opens up in the sky, a massive flying warship comes out, with the BBEG, let's call him Mechadude, standing proud on the prow, screaming about his mechanical triumph or some such. At this point, we have no clue what's going on, nothing that can possibly challenge a warship, and there are no Storm Trooper mooks coming off it for us to kill; the warship is just shooting around randomly. This includes "random" shots at us, the players. My bike and the other dude's tank get utterly destroyed (I love it when a DM takes my toys away at will) by stray shots; I barely survive thanks to my thick armor and emergency revival equipment, but the tank dude is knocked out.
As I try to move in to help him, a sudden flash of light in the air! It is Furball! With a huge katana! And he is levitating somehow! And glowing! And he is shouting at Mechadude, challenging him to a duel! And then Mechadude abides, grabs at the metal rod that is poking out from the warship's prow, and pulls out a massive buster sword. And they fly at each other. And they have at it in the air. And they're duking it out. I see an opening and target the Mechadude with a missile, but he hijacks it midflight and turns it against me, all the time swinging his massive sword at Furball who is parrying, countering, dodging, whatever. Both characters are shouting constantly, calling their attacks so loud that we can hear them easily (they're about 100 meters above us, in the air, there's a warship shooting at everything). "White attack! Brighter than white!" goes the Furball, "Nanovortex Phantasm!" counters the Mechadude, "No! You shall not win this day! Ancestral cannon, I summon you! Maximum photon barrage!" Furball again. Yeah. Whatever.
I give up on the "I'll help" idea and proceed to drag the tank dude away from the wreckage. I ask the DM how he's doing, is he even alive, and I swear, for a moment, he seemed distracted as if he was watching The Avengers and somebody dared to ask for the time. "Yeah, he's out cold, but he should be fine thanks to your heroism!" he says, and then continues the Mechadude and Furball duel, with swords and explosions (!) flying everywhere. Suddenly, Mechadude jumps back to his warship, they warp the hell out of there, and Furball comes down from the heavens to ask us how we are. "Too bad you failed your first mission. I'll try to not hold that against you." he says. Yeah. Right.
Basically, he called us up to watch him masturbate.
The first, the last, and the only session with that guy.

[Togo]

Sandbox games are a simulationist concept whereby the rules are used to simulate a world. Does real life have a plot ?

Depends on your point of view. I'm inclined to say yes.


Not a very realistic one, though.

I find I'm particularly unrealistic. As a D&D character, I'd be considered almost unplayable.

[137beth]

Oh, there are so, so, so many flavors...



I think I wrote a guide (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/CompSmeg1.html) for how to deal with some of the worst.
Wow, great read!
For me, it is railroading. Now, I actually don't mind "realistic traps" from 1E (i.e. poke this and you die), if that is what the group is comfortable with. I simply won't spend weeks thinking of character backgrounds. But there should be some possible way to avoid the trap/whatever, even if I had no way of ever possibly figuring it out (to disable the trap, enter the combination. The villain was to smart to leave the combination conveniently written on a scroll in the center of the dungeon in an obviously important treasure chest. So you will just have to guess.) That makes since. However, telling me "sorry, no attacking Joe Smith," does not make since. If you are going to railroad me, at LEAST come up with a game/story reason that I can't do anything else.
And yes, I tend to be unusually forgiving about bad DMs, I know many people wouldn't stand for any insta-kill traps.

[Slipperychicken]

The other bad DM had a lot of problems. She was a control freak. She gave out more XP for things you did outside of the game (like bringing snacks, adding to your background, filling out these questionnaires she would make, and reading novels set in the campaign setting) than inside the game.

With my current DM, I think I've actually accumulated about as much XP from out-of-game activities as from in-game ones (I once accrued 3,100xp in a RL game of frisbee). Although he has an "xp as money" system (level-ups happen whenever he says so) where you basically remain a dirt-poor bastard, spend xp on items, and it costs an amount of gold varying on whether the DM wants to let you have the item or not.

Since my DM doesn't give out WBL, and I apparently do a lot of things he approves of, my characters come out far better-equipped than anyone else's. It's really sickening to know that you're gaining an in-character advantage from out-of-character action, even when you know you'd do that stuff regardless. Things like bringing lotion to a game because his girlfriend has some allergy, or making him laugh when my character buys a fancy handkerchief, or finishing our in-game bosses' sentences for him. The kind of stuff I do on my own volition, for free.

[ShadowPsyker]

How does a third level fighter make a save in the 30s? There has to be some shenanigans going on there.

Your base will save is +1. Unless your ability score it astronomical, getting that up to a +10 or higher (higher is needed to make a save in the 30s) is pretty hard to do.

He's built to make saves and survive things he shouldn't, and is prepped all the way to 12th level (he's now 4th). But quite simply;

1st) Scorpions resolve (That's the +4 vs mind affecting)
H 1st) Iron Will (+2 and qualifies me for Indomitable Soul)
F 1st) Endurance (Qualifies me for Steadfast determination & Indomitable Soul)
F 2nd) Indomitable soul (Allows me to roll 2d20 for making a save versus mind affecting or fear and use the highest roll)
3rd) Steadfast determination (Allows me to use my con modifier for will saves which, with enhancement is +6 & I don't auto-fail on fortitude saves of a natural 1)

And of course I have a vest of resistance +2.
TOTAL: +15 vs mind affecting (and can roll twice).
As for accusing me of shenanigans, I'm personally offended.

[Amoren]

I do that too, but I can't get rid of the DM screen, bc you know, maybe I'll have to fudge them to misses someday.,,,

...You wouldn't happen to be my friend that DM'ed that hilariously fatal 3.5 campain, would you? xD

[Mnemnosyne]

The things I feel make for the worst DM's are generally anything arbitrary.

Right from the start I dislike any DM that arbitrarily bans something. Anything, doesn't matter what it is, if he can't give me a logical reason for banning it, I dislike it. And very often, no, 'flavor' doesn't count, because many things can be portrayed in an appropriate manner. Banning things based on what book they happen to be in is part of the same issue; if the player can show the book to the DM, the DM should ban only based on solid reasons, not because it happens to be in a book with a name he doesn't like.

Following the arbitrary theme, any DM that arbitrarily changes things mid-game, and then doesn't give the player a chance to rework any affected parts of their character. If I do something you consider overpowered and you houserule it away, I may not be happy about it - in fact, I will probably be very unhappy because you didn't establish this houserule in the first place, and I was probably excited about playing a character with whatever trick I was using - but I can accept a houserule. What I can't accept is a houserule that suddenly gets sprung on me, and I am not allowed to then rebuild my entire character from the ground up if I need to.

I also dislike DMs that either intentionally help or hinder players by secretly (or not so secretly) changing the rules on them, fudging dice, or making characters behave in implausible manners in order to either help or hinder the party. If I survive only because of DM Fiat, I would have rather died, most of the time (unless it was some arbitrary DM Fiat that got me into that situation in the first place). Anything less, and my actions don't matter so much.

I suppose DMs that tell you you 'can't' do something (as in, can't even make the attempt to do so) are even worse, but I consider that a whole 'nother level of terrible that goes way beyond bad DM, and a DM saying that my character doesn't take the action I state she does is basically an immediate stand up from the table and walk away sort of deal.

[Tyndmyr]

And by no plot, I pretty sure it was implied that such NPCs and institutions would be missing. Basically:

DM: I want to be the DM without having to write a story. I know, I'll run a sandbox game and then my players will have to do all the work, because that is how a sandbox game works.

And that's a fair complaint. It's a poor way to run sandbox, in D&D. Other systems allow for player world creation(see also, Dresden Files), so you CAN just sit down and jump in...but D&D assumes the DM takes care of world selection/creation.

If you're not in the mood to prep for sandbox play(and that's SIGNIFICANT prep work), grab a premade campaign setting instead. If you're not doing any prep work, but not selecting an existing setting, and expecting the players to do the work...thats not good.

[Tim Proctor]

And that's a fair complaint. It's a poor way to run sandbox, in D&D. Other systems allow for player world creation(see also, Dresden Files), so you CAN just sit down and jump in...but D&D assumes the DM takes care of world selection/creation.


That really is the only way to run a sandbox isn't it? You have to create an entire dynamic world with plots for NPCs, Towns, Organizations, Cities, Kingdoms, Churches, Cults, etc. It makes Sandbox games probably the hardest to do.

[The Succubus]

So I sold all my gear and bought Ponies with the money, took a level in Wizard and retrained a feat to get Improved Familiar (grabbed a pony) and would talk to all my ponies (thousands of them)... and then hired another Wizard to Polymorph me into a Pony and then I proceeded to have sex with all of the ponies.

This should be the default solution for dealing with stroppy GMs.

[Zerter]

I am an old RP'er, having played RP games for some 25 years now (bloody hell, has it been that long? I feel old). My friends with which I play, all have similar length of gaming experience.

Enter this new kid.

He was new at roleplaying, and doubly so at DM'ing, mostly doing it because one of the players were a girl he was interested in.
My character was a very intelligent half-orc, so butt-ugly everyone assumed he was a full orc (partly based on a character from the Arcanum PC game).
I was working at a circus, being the "tame orc freak" act, and one day I decided I had had enough and left the place. The owner didn't want me to, so blocked my way. The GM at this point tried desperately for me to hit the fellow, which I wouldn't do, it wasn't in my characters, emm, character to hit a person he had had a long decent working relationship with, and certainly not enough to kill him, which is what my GM wanted.
After that, and it took forever for him to realize I didn't want to kill him, I somehow ended up in a foggy forest, and came to this dark foreboding altar in a small clearing.
Dark altar in the middle of nowhere? Yup, I'm not going anywhere near that thing. But nomatter where I go and what I do, I end up at the same clearing again.
So I decided to pee on it, but still refused to touch it. He then said I accidentally touch it, and was transported to Ravenloft (I think).

At this point I had lost all hope of this being a good campaign, and decided to play with the new GM. My friends all had come to the same conclusion So when he introduced his GOD-GM-PC (he was simply the best, cooler than all the rest), we beat him up, tied him down, played with him in a decidedly not-fit-for-children way and left him at the tavern, tied up, gagged and probably not all that happy.

And then it really went downhill.

A friend of mine who played a cleric of Saint Cuthbert (an extremely funny character), got the cudgel of Saint Cuthbert, at level 2. Of course he decided to not use it, because he deemed himself not worthy yet, and packed it in his backpack. That was priceless.

I stopped playing at this point, because the only reason to play, were to make fun of the poor fellow, but the group continued for a couple of sessions, the character that replaced me were specifically made to annoy the GM.

So wait, you all use your 25 years of experience to gang up against a new DM and activally sabotage his campaign? What's the point of starting the campaign in the first place then since you should have known all of this before you started, figured it would be nice to spend a few weeks bullying someone through D&D?

[only1doug]

I find it hard to credit that we are on the second page of a Bad DM thread and no one has mentioned Lanky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784) yet.

[Andvare]

So wait, you all use your 25 years of experience to gang up against a new DM and activally sabotage his campaign? What's the point of starting the campaign in the first place then since you should have known all of this before you started, figured it would be nice to spend a few weeks bullying someone through D&D?

I didn't know it to start with, none of us did, it didn't start out as a sabotage action, quite the opposite, we reacted to his heavy handed railroading by going a completely different way than he wanted (and staying in character, he didn't set the campaign up in any way to suit our characters, which is a problem when you are told to just create a character without any idea of what the campaign is about).
And for my part, it was only one session.

Though I should just have said it straight to his face, and left the game, that is true.
I stayed partly because I wanted to give him a chance to see that it wouldn't work, partly because I'm a mischievous bastard sometimes.

It is a story of a bad GM, but also how the lack of communication between GM and players can destroy a story.
He was at fault for trying to force us into something that was against our characters*, but we were also at fault for not handling it in a constructive manner.

*And for creating "über-cool" god GM-PCs, I hate those, every time I meet them, I try to destroy them in some way.

[Zerter]

I didn't know it to start with, none of us did, it didn't start out as a sabotage action, quite the opposite, we reacted to his heavy handed railroading by going a completely different way than he wanted (and staying in character, he didn't set the campaign up in any way to suit our characters, which is a problem when you are told to just create a character without any idea of what the campaign is about).
And for my part, it was only one session.

Okay, fair enough, sorry for accusing you. I was under the impression you knew you were dealing with a new player beforehand.

[Tyndmyr]

That really is the only way to run a sandbox isn't it? You have to create an entire dynamic world with plots for NPCs, Towns, Organizations, Cities, Kingdoms, Churches, Cults, etc. It makes Sandbox games probably the hardest to do.

Precisely. I figure, players should be able to change locations basically at will, and there should always be a giant pile of plot hooks in any given location, so the world is always interesting and engaging. This can be as simple as an odd jobs board in a local tavern for many of these things, but it should be about players choosing what to pursue, not about players desperately searching for a plot hook.


Not a very realistic one, though.

I find I'm particularly unrealistic. As a D&D character, I'd be considered almost unplayable.

I'd probably be a munchkin. *shrug* People are clearly generated via random means, and the rules are fuzzy. I'm pretty ok with viewing life as a roleplaying game, but I see no reason to base a game on real life. I play games to try something different.

[Andvare]

Okay, fair enough, sorry for accusing you. I was under the impression you knew you were dealing with a new player beforehand.

Oh, I think you were right in accusing me, it wasn't a constructive decent thing to do, it just wasn't as bad as it sounded in the first post. ;)


Edit:


I find it hard to credit that we are on the second page of a Bad DM thread and no one has mentioned Lanky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784) yet.

Wow. :smalleek:

[Kesnit]

I find it hard to credit that we are on the second page of a Bad DM thread and no one has mentioned Lanky (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784) yet.

I considered bringing that up, but decided it wouldn't be fair to anyone else. There is just no way to compare when faced with that disaster.

[Trebloc]

Worst DM for us was a complete control freak and loved to play favorites. One PC in particular (her coworker) always happened to "know someone" in every city we went in who just so happened to have the info we needed to continue on. Changed her world whenever things didn't line up well to her liking or when holes were poked into her carefully crafted story that we had to follow to the T. Not that we as a group don't like a good bit of railroading, but hers was to a degree that if you even thought about thinking outside the box, it'd result in reality shifting against you.

Best case I can give was part of her storyline where we were trying to stop a pair of dragons from wiping out the good guy army. In her world, there was no good dragons. So, we figured out where one was living and went a knocking. Before blood started spilling, we found out from the evil dragon that her child had been taken and she was forced to work for the bad guys. Not a huge issue, we agree to go find the baby, she agrees to help the good guys, so all's well.

We track down the baby to some sort of organization that has captured about 100 evil dragons, placed them in some sort of dimension (sorted by color, so 5 dimensions) where they had no means of leaving at all. The dragons were mistreated and starving, and basically being farmed for whatever ingredients could be gotten from them for magic spells/items. Alrighty we think, dragons are evil, but this is more evil, so we wipe out the organization. So now we have to figure out what to do with the dragons.

We figure out Plane Shift works to get them out, so my character is about ready to start the slow process of plane shifting them back to our home plane. The session ends there for the week.

During the week, we get informed that we wouldn't plane shift them back to their homes because they're evil dragons by the DM. We argued that they were unjustly taken from their homes, were basically slaves, so freeing them would be the right thing to do. The DM then said we should instead plane shift them to the 9 hells. She then continues to tell us how dragons were considered to be as evil as the Devil, and were basically kill on sight to anyone good, that there was even a registry of evil dragons and their evil acts for good guys to use to go hunting them.

Back the truck up the party said. Why in the world are we helping an evil dragon when they're basically pure evil? Why in the world did we wreck an organization that had removed such an evil threat from the world? Much headaches insued as she tried to cover herself and her world bending to make it all legit. What ended up is that when we tried to plane shift the dragons home, they suddently decided to attack us on sight. Many baby dragons kicked the bucket that day.

[Tyndmyr]

Many baby dragons kicked the bucket that day.

This made me lol quite a bit.

Reminds me of the time I decided to toss the pcs a moral dilemma, and when statting up a village, made sure to include kids and babies. They felt a little bad about slaughtering the entire village's adults when they got to the hut where the children were being hidden, so they quickly hid the little ones in a bag of holding(monster was approaching, lured there by the party).

Sadly, in the resulting fun and games, everyone forgot about the baby kobolds. A few weeks later, they ran out of extradimensional storage unexpectedly early, and while rooting around, realized what had happened. The next several gaming sessions involved thinking up creative solutions via use of dead baby kobolds.

[ShadowPsyker]

I have never had a problem with DM's who have to use Rails, as long as they are giving us as players options which make sense. Of the thousands of games I've run (that is not hyperbole, and yes I mean games not just sessions) I can only remember about 6 where I used rails. No one noticed. Why? Two reasons;
1) Fallout from each adventure led to trouble and NPC interactions that guided them along the path, often while trying to mitigate some of the damage they themselves invoked. As a result, they felt that their actions had value and consequence.
2) If they did something unexpected (like going the long way) I allowed it and played out pieces of the world they were eventually going to see later anyway, but gave them hints and reminders that they left something unfinished. When they did return to the story, i advanced the plot as a result of their late arrival (instead of defending the town in a desperate bid for survival against the horde of hunter spiders they themselves had technically unleashed by opening a passage from their first adventure, they found the town in ruins with fewer spiders to deal with; but much bigger and a small band of people hiding in the main hall).

[DrDeth]

DMPC's.

DM's that can't control the Players so make them play in a 'low magic" campaign. (Low magic isn't so very horrible, depending, but if the reason why you're doing it is because those darn meddling spellcasters always outwit you evil plans, then it's time to bow out)

Those DM's so immersed in telling their story they say things like "No, your character wouldn't do that".:smallfurious:

[Zombiegirl89]

the worst kind of DM is the one who has forgotten what its like to be a player.

a good DM knows what its like to be a player, knows how to read their players, and create a game thats fun for everyone, including themselves.

a DM's job is not to subjugate their players and make them feel helpless, its not DM vs Players. your job is not to kill them. your job is not to destroy everything they try to do. your job is to take each player as an individual and know their motivations, wants and desires, and find a way to fulfill these, along with the group's ultimate goal. that's not to say make it easy on them, but at least give them a chance.

besides, its more fun when you let them live with those emotional scars you gave them from that vivid description of the village that was massacred because they decided to spend seven days exploring the temple when they knew the United Ork Tribes were marching towards the towns on the border and the king wouldn't act without proof...

[Menteith]

Thinking about it more, the worst DM trait that I've experienced, and one that many of the problems stem from, is the idea that DMs are supposed to act antagonistically toward the players. I don't believe that the game should be able a player against the DM - they should both be working to create a new and interesting story and experience. The antiquated idea that a DM is "against" a player leads to a lot of the problems people have talked about here, and it's a depressingly common trait that I've seen with bad DMs, across a range of systems. DMs need to trust that players aren't looking for ways to wreck the game (and hopefully, that trust will go rewarded).

[Lost Demiurge]

Thinking about it more, the worst DM trait that I've experienced, and one that many of the problems stem from, is the idea that DMs are supposed to act antagonistically toward the players. I don't believe that the game should be able a player against the DM - they should both be working to create a new and interesting story and experience. The antiquated idea that a DM is "against" a player leads to a lot of the problems people have talked about here, and it's a depressingly common trait that I've seen with bad DMs, across a range of systems. DMs need to trust that players aren't looking for ways to wreck the game (and hopefully, that trust will go rewarded).

This. Definitely this.

A DM controls quite a lot of power at a game, they can "win" any time they want. Which makes it quite meaningless, and thus it is NOT the point of most good games.

The point is to help the players have fun, and have some for yourself along the way by cooperatively telling a story about fictional characters, and utilizing dice or other randomizers to keep it from being too predictable. That's all it is at the core of things, really. Antagonism, while occasionally okay for a very rare mix of GM and players, is a bad addition to goals like this, usually.

[ShadowPsyker]

To the point of antagonism; I think some of the wording in the DMG and other books intimates that this is acceptable. I feel that this is a left over of 1st edition that really needs to die. The game is so much different now that the goals are not even the same (i.e. levels & loot vs. engaging story/play).

[Slipperychicken]

A really bad DM trait is mid-session, stupid, useless houserules that you cling to just because you're stubborn. If you don't want to learn or keep track of rules, don't pretend you're playing a rules-heavy system. All that does is trick people into learning an complicated ruleset, when you're really playing "whatever I want happens, because I'm some kind of impatient control-freak who gets off on messing with people's expectations".


You don't need rules or dice to pretend to stab dragons and shmooze with nobles. At least without the pretense of fairness or impartial rules, players won't be surprised when they find you determining success entirely on your whim, and making new houserules every session.

[Fighter1000]

My friend K-Money is not a bad DM, but he once made a pretty big mistake while he was DMing. My group was playing D&D 3.5 and K-Money was the DM, and he switched to 4th edition right in the middle of it. I was like "what the heck, dude?"
It ruined my character, and other people's characters as well. A_MASSIVE_RULES_SHIFT.
Cuz we all know how different 4th edition is from 3.5.
Well, b4 this cataclysmic act by K-Money, my character was an Aasimar Fighter with a merchant background and who used a longsword but not a shield. I wanted to free up my off-hand for something else, like catching something or climbing or whatever. He also ate the corpse of a wererat, and was on his way to becoming a lycanthrope.
But when the devastating switch to 4e came, all that interesting stuff about my character was gone. I was turned into a normal human who never became a lycanthrope and who had a totally different fighting style. Instead he used that empty off-hand to grab opponents and then proceed to cut them up with a battleaxe. That's right, my longsword got taken away and was replaced with a battleaxe. Lame. And because Appraise is not a skill in 4e, the merchant part of my character was gone too.
All in all, it was quite disappointing. But in the end, my character became a god, so I say eat poop.

[Togo]

You don't need rules or dice to pretend to stab dragons and shmooze with nobles. At least without the pretense of fairness or impartial rules, players won't be surprised when they find you determining success entirely on your whim, and making new houserules every session.

Indeed not. In fact I have run games where I made it very clear that we weren't sticking to the rules, and that rulings would be essentially abitrary, and to my surprise the players accepted the premise and enthusiastically embraced it. It was one of my more sucessful games.

I run rules heavy games too, of course. I find different people like different things.

[Menteith]

Indeed not. In fact I have run games where I made it very clear that we weren't sticking to the rules, and that rulings would be essentially abitrary, and to my surprise the players accepted the premise and enthusiastically embraced it. It was one of my more sucessful games.

I run rules heavy games too, of course. I find different people like different things.

Very true - the difference is that you made it clear that it would be a game unbound from the rules, while in many of the frustrating cases, a DM claims that it will be a system only to change enough of the system to make it unrecognizable. From what I know of you, you're intelligent enough to make the changes that might need to be changed, and a strong enough DM to have reasonable rulings - you're going to actually improve the game for your group, and they knew that going into a session; I've been in situations with people who lacked your understanding trying to rewrite D&D while claiming that they were doing everything by the book, which is far more frustrating.

[Slipperychicken]

I've been in situations with people who lacked your understanding trying to rewrite D&D while claiming that they were doing everything by the book, which is far more frustrating.

Seconded. I've played with a DM who tried to rewrite dnd with nothing but the vague notion that "Wizards are overpowered" and "Fighters are underpowered", wound up banning half the Sorc/Wiz list, and creating a "melee" class with 6/day Timestop, a Rage which gives free Haste, and free-action (Ex) Etherealness. He said "Core dnd 3.5", and when I asked for a list of his houserules, he didn't even mention spells or classes.

It is all about expectations. You can't just say "DnD 3.5... uhh yeah of course the rules work as written" then wait till everyone's made characters, go into the session, and THEN mention your pile of unwritten houserules which could fill a hundred pages if ever recorded. You have to say "DnD 3.5, and I have heavily modified the game. Here is a complete and accurate list of the houserules I use", or else you will piss people off.


Basically, you have to make it clear before the game starts that you are ignoring rules and determining success on your whims, so people can make an informed decision whether to play in the game, and will know what to expect before going in.

[Togo]

Well it's broader than that, of course. You need to tell people what your ruling is on various topics. I've seen people who rule that shapechange gives you spellcasting, and people who don't. Both consider their own ruling to be RAW, and so it's worth making sure they know what your position is (and if you're a player, you have a certain responsibility to ask).

I've run almost rules-free games, but they're most successful when they've done on the back of lighter systems, like BESM, rather than heavier systems like D&D. People generally want to play D&D because they want a heavier system, or because they like the results and game logic that it embodies. That's why people get so upset when you change the rules of the game on them, because you're breaking the tacit agreement of how you were going to spend the evening in the first place. People don't want to spend an hour or two playing chess before suddenly being told it's really a game of backgammon. If you were playing tiddlywinks to start with, chances are they'll be less annoyed.

[Kadarai]

Problems start when DMs realize they have powah and start abusing said powah. We know you can kill us with a thought, we know this is your world and you can do waht you want in here but, this is a table-top game and if we don't like it we can go play tichu or smth and you can go back playing alone with dolls *cough* action figures...

And it gets worse when new DMs- ex powerobsessed players with suppressed emotions and/or mental issues get the chance to run a game.

I once was in a session, where all the npcs where munchkins created by the DM but never used in a campaign, probably cause none allowed them or becasue they sucked in a campaign environment (An ubercharger/shocktrooper/cavalier does not need intelligence or skill points to become captain of the guard if his is played by the DM, just full STR). Similarly every single npc is a secret ex-commando with a +5vorpal fullblade in his dimensional pocketspace. I have seen DMs use this as a campaign element and it was at that time fun and interesting, and i have seen DMs abuse it just to railroad every1.

Last type i hate is the DMs that design every single small or big encoutner specifically to counter a specific PC, and i don't mean extreme examples when an overpowered PC tramples everything, i eman every single encoutner designed specifically to counter the party (like a pack of wolves with a bloody 2 int that on the first round of combat outmaneuver the group to flank the spellcaster that is sitting in the middle of the group, even readying an action to interrupt his web spell). It is not fun if you know taht everything you think and train for will be easily countered at every corner and by literally anything.

[ShadowPsyker]

To the point about a DM being able to kill the players with a thought, vis a vis; His world and he can do what he wants. I have to disagree. It's not his world, it's a shared world of fiction endeavored by a group and not a lone madman with a DMG. On several occasions in which a DM got "pissy" and decided my character was to die, I said no thank you. Took my character and left to find another game. Two of these times ended up killing the game, as other players followed me. Any DM who believes he has power should realize that the only power he has is what power the players are willing to give him.

[Tyndmyr]

To the point about a DM being able to kill the players with a thought, vis a vis; His world and he can do what he wants. I have to disagree. It's not his world, it's a shared world of fiction endeavored by a group and not a lone madman with a DMG. On several occasions in which a DM got "pissy" and decided my character was to die, I said no thank you. Took my character and left to find another game. Two of these times ended up killing the game, as other players followed me. Any DM who believes he has power should realize that the only power he has is what power the players are willing to give him.

Agreed. If a DM says "rocks fall, everyone dies", my group will generally reply with "that's stupid. Also, you're not DMing anymore".

And we merrily continue on with someone who doesn't do that.