Bad DMs: this time it's personal

[akward Lad]

Ok, first off the title of this thread is a little misleading, this thread is not about bad DMs you have had but about how you feel you are failing as a DM. People are welcome to post stories about how they fell short trying to run these games that hold such passion for all of us. I would also welcome individuals who have advice for those of is willing to share our failures. My goal is that this thread will become a bit of a guide for new DMs and veterans alike on what to look out for and how to improve your games.

I'll go first.

I'm a bit of a storyteller. I like it when I have some sort of overarching plot where PCs can fight there way to the top of the tower and save the world. Now I know that isn't a bad thing, but I have this nagging itch that the stories and the adventures that I put so much effort into building: all the lighthearted moments, the dark betrayals, everything is wrong.
It's all railroading. All it does is remove player agency.
See I'm a long term planner, I build characters from lv1-20 no matter what. I want to see what my characters are at all points of there progression. How they start, how they grow, and where they end up, and unfortunately I build my campaigns the same way.
I pepper my settings with unique and beautiful landscapes and am almost insulted if the PCs don't go see all of them. That combined with the fact that deep down I really want the PCs to win they tend to walk around with plot armor.
"I can't cause a TPK they were the only ones who could save this world, and besides if they die no one but me will know the final twist"
Sometimes I feel like I end up caring for the PCs more than their players. It creates a weird "Truman Show" situation where everything in the universe is trying to passive-aggressively get the PCs dressed up and ready to fight Mr. BBEG all while drop kicking anything that shows up with a "Free Truman" poster.
It gets my players doing things like "Checking their quest log" and whatnot the few times I want them to explore.
Now I am am exaggerating. I have never actually had a player complain about being forced to do something that their character didn't want to, I have killed my entire player base due to one poor decision, and despite all my planning I end up having to think on my feet a ton. But stepping back and looking at my own games I can see the tracks of my railroad.
And I hate myself for it.

I don't know. Does anyone have any advice. Or does anyone want to share what they hate about their own DMing style.

[nedz]

Advice:
There's not right way to play this game but IMHO DMs who don't learn and grow are fairly ordinary. The fact that you have created this thread indicates that you are not one of those — which is good.

Also it's not really rail-roading if you are not making the PC's decisions for them, DMs are supposed to control the NPCs.

[Vhaidara]

I do the same thing. Combined with the fact that my dice hate me.

I has an encounter with a pair of Arrow Demons and three carnage demons. The party rips through the carnage demons in two rounds while the arrow demons fire off a total of 16 shots without a hit. So, third turn comes up. One arrow demon lands all four shots. Worse, two of them crit. My group is level 6. And I was rolling in the open because we didn't have enough table space for me to hide rolls. Worse, the guy who got hit is my roommate, and a first time player.

I forced minimum damage, but no one bought it.

My other problems include
Joking about taking in game retribution. I thought I was clear that I was joking (I never once actually did it), but it was part of what ended up getting me replaced (we're all still good, I'm actually a player in the campaign I started)

Freaking out about TO. This was when I was just getting back onto the forums and realizing how OP casters were. My group had 2 wizards (both experienced), 2 druids (both completely new), a monk with 3LA (same level as me), and a spellthief (completely new). One of the wizards is a common lurker on these forums, and he would frequently bring up TO tricks (thought bottle abuse primary among them since he was playing a crafter) in conversations with me, pointing out that he could do that. And it scared the crap out of me, and my first reaction was threaten with smitings. It seems that I was on both ends of the "I'm kidding and you don't get it" street, but still.

[akward Lad]

Advice:
There's not right way to play this game but IMHO DMs who don't learn and grow are fairly ordinary. The fact that you have created this thread indicates that you are not one of those — which is good.

Also it's not really rail-roading if you are not making the PC's decisions for them, DMs are supposed to control the NPCs.

I don't mean to say that people that post their flaws in this thread are bad DMs (myself included) though I guess that is what I get for trying for a catchy thread title

But my campaigns tend to have a "you are the last chance for humanity" feel to them simply because I want my players to feel awesome, I want them to be the best.
And while I might not be railroading in a puppet master since I do feel like I am railroading.
That is why I used the Truman Show as an example. Though not quite as exaggerated, my world is inevitably built for the PCs to star in the story, a story that I have prebuilt events to happen when they reach that point in the story.
No matter how long the barbarian spends tending his beet farm the BBEG's plan will not advance until they are ready to move on with the story.
Or on the other hand if players somehow stumble on to a dungeon I was hoping to save for latter the BBEG will be waiting monologue ready because that was what was supposed to happen.
I'm honestly glad I haven't actually had a player that really did want to go off the rails in one of my games I don't know what I would have done when all my precariously built plot had to be thrown away.

[Flashy]

I have prebuilt events to happen when they reach that point in the story.


Or on the other hand if players somehow stumble on to a dungeon I was hoping to save for latter the BBEG will be waiting monologue ready because that was what was supposed to happen

That's honestly not bad, it's just a style of GMing. You can totally run games that way, and it totally works. I've run sessions where the key points the players needed to reach were hanging somewhere in the ether until the players happened to walk into a likely looking building. Schrodinger's campaign, essentially. Open ended you-can-do-anything style campaigns are great, but they aren't the only way to play tabletops. Having a story is unquestionably a valid style.

A classical storyteller GM wouldn't let the players walk into the dungeon in the first place until the story Officially Called For It. What you're talking about is adapting the events you had written to the decisions the players were making, not compelling them to follow your story as written. Why shouldn't the BBEG give his monologue when they bust in early? He was going to give a monologue, the players walked into his lair, he might as well deliver the damn monologue. No need to waste perfectly good preparation just because things didn't happen in exactly the pre-planned order. This is the sort of thing you HAVE TO DO if you're going to maintain any kind of consistent overarching story and still grant the players meaningful agency, which it seems like you're doing.


I don't know what I would have done when all my precariously built plot had to be thrown away.

So what you're saying is that you like GMing stories, but could probably stand to learn to improvise better. Try reading this, it's an amazing resource for learning to GM without needing to follow pre-planned structures. http://lookrobot.co.uk/2014/06/30/learned-stop-worrying-hate-plot-improv-kinder-planning/ (That blog is crammed with great GM/tabletop advice).

In general always try to say yes to your players. If someone asks "Is there a rogue's guild in this town?" say yes so long as its even faintly reasonable. Didn't write any magicians into this city? Well the wizard just asked where he'd find some, so now you're telling him about the Magi of the Gilded Tower and he's on his way to meet with the archmage, a tiny man with a booming voice and a huge bushy mustache. Obviously you shouldn't contradict things you've actually planned, but don't be afraid to let players expand your world by asking about things. Keep a list of npc names on hand just in case. If you have trouble thinking of description on the spot keep the list next to a handy table of pre-generated distinguishing features. Write down the combinations you pick. Basically just let your world grow and breathe as the players explore it.

And if you're going to say no to something you have to have a reason. Maybe you don't want there to be a rogue's guild or a circle of magi, and that's fine, but you have to be willing to explain it. Maybe the town is way too small to support them or the city guard is particularly adept at apprehending thieves or this city has banned the practice of arcane magic or there's a bizarre tentacled horror that stalks the streets eating people who cast prestidigitation or ANYTHING. You just can't deny the existence of something reasonable and move on, because that makes the players feel like you're trying to drive them towards a specific objective and THAT is the mark of a storyteller GM.

[Bloodgruve]

Where do I fail..

I don't give myself the time to prep.

I'm not doing justice to the Eberron setting.

I'm strongly mechanical and light on Role Play.

I'm a player at heart and DM out of necessity for a game :/

I want to give my players a full progression game but I'm strongly considering kicking them down to level 1 and running a PF adventure path as I feel it may be funner for the group. I can't sink the time into creating a truly engaging campaign currently.

That being said my players are enjoying the game so I may be over critical...

Blood~

[Suzuha]

My problems tend to be my player dynamics. With a certain group- one player has decided he'd switch out characters. He's not satisfied with what he's got and I'm all "Okay, cool. Build what you want and get back to me before we play again." Of course, one of my other players feels like that person's character was his character's friend and that it's hard to travel without them.

I know- character death should make that kind of thing less prevalent, but I admit that I pull my punches when I DM. In fact, with THIS group, I think character death would only hurt it even more. Both players are much younger than me, and it's killed a few of my games before.

I did start up another game with another group using a rehashed story that I tried to run before, but the players I have for that have been busy with MMOs and it's been hard to set a time when they're all serious about 'raid times' and such.

TL;DR- I picked up a cursed item. I'm sure of it.

[gorilla-turtle]

Awkward Lad, that does not sound like the mark of a bad dungeon master. Setting up stories and settings that you have an idea for your players to go through, and them going through them, sounds like a decent time for everyone.

To use a philosophy for a certain real world element that will get no further clarification: You may know everything that will happen in the rest of the world, and you may even know every single thing the players may or may not do. But the players still have worth in what they do, because it is still the choice of the players that matters, and shapes all else.

[akward Lad]

You are honestly all to kind.
My goals of this thread were simply to peer review my progress and having lurked this forum far longer than the time I actually have had my account, I could think of no better place to get advice.

Flashy the link you posted was golden and exactly the kind of advice I needed
Though I was feeling previously a bit burned out you might have rekindled my desire to run 3.5 again soon (though I have just purchased M&M3 and really want to play it despite my IRL group having reservations)

But enough about me let's try and keep the positive advice and self analysis going.

[The_Rook]

If you want to let go of the reigns of your campaign world a little, read Apocalypse World. It's a good read, and it's very cleverly written. It has three valid points of advice that I'll outline here, though:

Play to discover what happens. The rules ban you from planning out future events - indeed, if you try, the system starts to break down. Instead, it works with motivations and reactions; the GM is another player, but they have the whole world as their character.

Be a fan of the characters. I'm a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I like watching the show; I like it when Buffy does well. But I also like it when she has hardships and difficulties, because that lets her shine. (Or die. Or... both.) I'm not a fan of, say, my wife, because I don't like it when bad things happen to her, though, I want to protect her - I love her. Don't fall in love with the player characters.

See everything through crosshairs. Another way that the book describes this is "Drive your NPCs like stolen cars." Treat your game rough. Do the players really like a tavern owner? Kill him. Have they grown bored of your Wizards' Guild plot? Kill it. Destroy everything. Think of it in two ways - on one hand, you're leveraging their emotions about things they really care about (and good stories come from emotion.) In the other way, you're editing your game on the fly. You don't just forget about the Wizard plot; you raze it to the ground, and use the flames to cast a new light on what remains.

I'm waffling. Read Apocalypse World - even if you never play it, it'll give you some valuable lessons in how to be a reactive and dynamic GM.

[Thealtruistorc]

My first time DMing was one of the most embarassing moments in my life. I did everything wrong, giving next to no flavor to the game and turning it into a cliche, railroaded zombie game that engaged the players in almost no way. Thankfully, I have learned much, and my second time dming resulted in a much more fun, much more flavorful adventure that me and my friends will remember for quite a while.

[FidgetySquirrel]

Well, my players like homebrew settings, so I always try to give them something new. Problem is, I'm not sure I'm always as inventive as I'd like to be. Not to mention, having to build entire cities, nations, societies, cultures from scratch... it seems overwhelming at times. I'll usually just end up making all of the big stuff and kind of improv the rest, and I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

I typically have a good idea of how I want things to kick off, and an idea of how I'd like it to wrap up, knowing it will likely look NOTHING like that, of course. However, when things start to get about halfway through, I start to struggle with how to keep things going until the climax.

Sometimes it takes me longer than I'd like to figure out the power level of the party. For the first few sessions, and our sessions tend to be marathons, encounters tend to swing from unintentional trash-mob, to unintentional damn-near TPK.

[nedz]

If you want to broaden your style you need to run different styles of games. You could try something with higher levels of PC mortality e.g. Paranoia or CoC, or just a one off - Tomb of Horrors maybe ?

Most of these stylistic issues are related to the group's dynamics though so playing with different players would be helpful. Most groups contain players with a range of play styles; if the DM's style is too different from some of the player's styles then they will simply lose players. I'm guessing your player's are happy with your DMing style, well you haven't stated that they have complained about anything.

[Wacky89]

I do the same thing. Combined with the fact that my dice hate me.
I has an encounter with a pair of Arrow Demons and three carnage demons. The party rips through the carnage demons in two rounds while the arrow demons fire off a total of 16 shots without a hit. So, third turn comes up. One arrow demon lands all four shots. Worse, two of them crit. My group is level 6. And I was rolling in the open because we didn't have enough table space for me to hide rolls. Worse, the guy who got hit is my roommate, and a first time player.


Wow this encounter was waaaay to high CR for them.

3 Arrow Demons only is a level 10 encounter.
I dont know what CR the Carnage Demons are

[Vhaidara]

First off, 2 arrow demons

They'd been wrecking every encounter I threw at them (including a pair of 8 headed hydras). The carnage demons are CR3 IIRC, but they were just a buffer for the arrow demons.

[Wacky89]

First off, 2 arrow demons

They'd been wrecking every encounter I threw at them (including a pair of 8 headed hydras). The carnage demons are CR3 IIRC, but they were just a buffer for the arrow demons.

oh I read it as a third turns up :D

[Averis Vol]

As far as I can tell my biggest flaws as a DM are:

1) I have a huge problem properly allocating game time. My group has a tendency to split, and when I get deep into something (Because I plan maybe one out of every twenty encounters ahead, that is another problem though) I have trouble finding a good break point to switch groups on.

2) I hardly ever plan ahead. I know the basic skeleton of my plot, but on an encounter to encounter basis I'm making it up on the fly. This tends to lead to me forgetting a lot of little details, both plot and combat wise, and it screws up immersion a little.

3) I expect my players to do things they normally wont think of. I never have one set way to finish an encounter, but I add minute things my players don't really pick up on (Like the murder weapon being an incredibly expensive dagger. This should say that someone rich is the culprit, but my players tend to forget 1.4k is pretty darn expensive for non adventurers. Or I make an NPC that is really cocky, my PC's immediately assume that means they're going to kick the living crap out of them.)

[Balor01]

I have no flaws. My descriptions of the world are vivid, consequences of actions are slow to accumulate, if PCs want to take a detour around Great BBEG, so be it.

I am very average at optimising so munchkins enjoy raping CR-appropriate encoutners and for noobs I can gauge the perfect challenge.



Joking about taking in game retribution. I thought I was clear that I was joking (I never once actually did it), but it was part of what ended up getting me replaced (we're all still good, I'm actually a player in the campaign I started)

An important thing. I never ever joke about that. DM has absolute power and being a **** in this way is completelly unacepptable.

[ElenionAncalima]

My biggest failing is that sometimes in the heat of the moment I skim over descriptions. In minor cases this just makes the game a little less immersive, but sometimes the ommissions can be really important. For example, I forgot to mention that some thugs attacking the players were using saps/non-lethal, which lead to an awkward moment when one of them was killed. In general, I work on this just by being generally aware of it. I write down important descriptions for myself, I try to slow myself down when introducing new elements and I have made sure my players know I won't get annoyed at them if they ask for more details. Fortuanatley what I lack in descriptions I can usually make up for with roleplaying.

[Kalmageddon]

I roll far too many nat. 20s when I DM.
It's ridicolous. I could cause a TPK simply by virtue of rolling 2-3 natural 20s one after another with relatively weak creatures. So obviously I have to fudge my rolls, because after the second time a natural 20 critical has been confirmed by another natural 20, my players think I might be cheating.
The worst part is, when I'm the player I NEVER roll this good.

[Flashy]

I have no art skills. At all. My groups frequently get confused/lost because my overland maps are such utter, utter garbage. I try not to sketch a city unless absolutely forced to. It's so bad.