A thread for players: the worst DMs you've ever had

[atemu1234]

Basically the opposite of this thread: here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?390728-A-thread-for-the-DMs-Worst-players-you-ve-had)

[LoyalPaladin]

I once had a DM that I could not stand! I felt railroaded and like I had zero character options. I then realized that it's because we were playing 4.0 and he is actually the best DM I've ever had. Viva la 3.5....

[Wiggins]

At level 3, we found a legendary plot device item that we didn't understand; at his encouragement for failing our knowledge checks we sold it, used the money to buy a level appropriate magic sword we could actually use.

The magic sword had been a murder weapon. We were tried, weren't allowed to make any rolls for knowledge of law or to convince the judge etc. by DM fiat. And were sent to jail with locks beyond the rogue, anti-magic we couldn't bypass, and bars we couldn't bend.

2 real time hours later, an NPC reveals that he has tunneled far enough into the wall of his nearby cell to get outside the AMF, teleports us to him one by one, then teleports us all out of prison.

A note is given to the rogue (it's a long lost relative), and we never see him again.

So we've lost all our equipment from the first 3 levels. We go to a university to get a new spellbook for the Wizard. He's framed for murder again, and so we just leave the continent.

There's an island where the colour blue is apparently religiously important. The druid solos a dungeon. We can't work out what's going on on this island.

From this point onwards, only the druid has any fun. The whole plot revolves around her, and any time the rest of us question it, we get eaten by a dragon or sent to a plane full of evil outsiders.

3 years later, the druid and her boyfriend are the dm's flatmates, and the rest of us haven't spoken to either of them for at least 2 years.

[LoyalPaladin]

3 years later, the druid and her boyfriend are the dm's flatmates, and the rest of us haven't spoken to either of them for at least 2 years.
It's because of situations like these that I always tell my new players: "I swear this game is the best game ever. But it can ruin a friendship faster than Mario Kart."

[Squirrel_Dude]

So here is a quick story of the worst DM decision I've ever seen, made by someone who wasn't the worst DM ever. Still, it's a story worth telling.

So, we are a relatively large party, made up of people vying for spotlight while we did a dungeon crawl. This was not a good situation. There were 5 relative veterans and 5 newer players. The dungeon also happened to be a wizards tower, aka the worst place in the world for a player to get hasty and ignore danger. One new player, a gnome wizard, made the mistake of getting hasty.

He was possessed by the soul of a wizard who had been put in a gem by a spell the DM called "a variation of magic jar." He would only recieve one save for the effect of the DM getting to take control of his character for the rest of the session. The possessing wizard would then proceed to do nothing for two hours, where he tried to possess another character because of their magical potential. He failed. An hour later he possessed the body of an unconscious/insane wizard defeated by some of the players.

The possessing wizard said nothing of interest, exposited no information, and added nothing to the game. He did manage to force one of the new players to sit on his hands for an entire session of a dungeon crawl.

[Vhaidara]

So, I switched from GM to player because my group voted me out from behind the screen (I was behind there to begin with because I was the only one willing, I voted myself out). So I basically turn the guy who was a semi-DMPC into a normal PC. I am a Tiefling Warlock. The new GM (who hadn't realized I was staying as a player, much less my class/race) introduces his Mary Sue, a Lawful Stupid Paladin who is insanely racist against planetouched (the group also contained 2 genasi). We go to the first dungeon, and it's full of golems. I am a level 7 warlock, so no vitriolic blast. We finish it up, and go to the next dungeon. At this point our druid leaves. The player want to take a break while we ran a dungeon the GM said would take 2 weeks, and they ran a side thing for the druid stopping a lich along side Mary Sue. I just hit level 8 and got Walk Unseen. Everything in the dungeon has True Seeing. Literally everything. We also get another 2 big Mary Sues: a Vampire pain-cultist who we have to vow not to finish off (I was the only non-lawful present) and the necromancer with inborn true seeing who we had to take alive.

The campaign fell apart after that.



It's because of situations like these that I always tell my new players: "I swear this game is the best game ever. But it can ruin a friendship faster than Mario Kart."

That's not fair. DnD makes the destruction a slow process.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I am still bitter about this: I really want to play an Apostle of Peace. Hardly optimal but super fluffy. However, given how disruptive Vow of Nonviolence is to a group I refuse to take it without the permission of all players currently in the group and I got it. I was all set to finally play my Apostle of Peace when my DM informed me that my dedication to peace would irritate an epic spellcaster and the DM couldn't guarantee he wouldn't drive me permanently insane at some point. I ended up not playing the Apostle because I really did not need the sword of Damocles there.

[atemu1234]

I am still bitter about this: I really want to play an Apostle of Peace. Hardly optimal but super fluffy. However, given how disruptive Vow of Nonviolence is to a group I refuse to take it without the permission of all players currently in the group and I got it. I was all set to finally play my Apostle of Peace when my DM informed me that my dedication to peace would irritate an epic spellcaster and the DM couldn't guarantee he wouldn't drive me permanently insane at some point. I ended up not playing the Apostle because I really did not need the sword of Damocles there.

Gods I hate passive aggressive DMs. If you don't want me to play something, just let me know ahead of time. If not, then shut it and let me play my own character and don't hide behind a DM screen and "roleplaying the NPCs".

[Squirrel_Dude]

That's not fair. DnD makes the destruction a slow process.Mario Party then. If you're really nerdy, Dokapon Kingdom.

[Toilet Cobra]

That's not fair. DnD makes the destruction a slow process.

But so much more thorough. If Mario Kart cuts a friendship in half, D&D grinds it to dust, like a glacier.

As for me, I have literally always been the DM since I was, like, fourteen. So I guess I am probably the worst DM I know. My long-time players could probably write a book.

[ComaVision]

Gods I hate passive aggressive DMs. If you don't want me to play something, just let me know ahead of time. If not, then shut it and let me play my own character and don't hide behind a DM screen and "roleplaying the NPCs".

I say stuff like this frequently but it's not passive aggressive. I have basically no restrictions for PCs, so when someone asks about a Drow or something I let them know they're absolutely welcome to but Drow are very hated and he'll suffer a lot of strife where the party is. This lets them know they either have to prepare for it or may want to rethink their decision.

FWIW, when I started this campaign I had a character in it with Vow of Peace and Nonviolence.

[Vhaidara]

I say stuff like this frequently but it's not passive aggressive. I have basically no restrictions for PCs, so when someone asks about a Drow or something I let them know they're absolutely welcome to but Drow are very hated and he'll suffer a lot of strife where the party is. This lets them know they either have to prepare for it or may want to rethink their decision.

FWIW, when I started this campaign I had a character in it with Vow of Peace and Nonviolence.

That's very different from saying "If you're too peaceful, it's going to piss off Megawizard McGee and he'll come hit you with Insanity"

[fishyfishyfishy]

Worst DM I ever had was a terrible story teller, insecure, didn't know the rules very well, and had a "DM vs. Players" mentality. She constantly threw bigger and badder enemies at us, but due to her lack of system mastery they were stomped every time. She would throw fits like a child and scream at us for defeating enemies and even resorted to violence once. I quite the game after that and formed my own group and I have been a DM ever since.

[ZamielVanWeber]

That's very different from saying "If you're too peaceful, it's going to piss off Megawizard McGee and he'll come hit you with Insanity"

I would have relished the deeper RP challenge, especially since it would have given me a chance to earn the Saint template. Saint + AoP is just 100% fluff.

[atemu1234]

I say stuff like this frequently but it's not passive aggressive. I have basically no restrictions for PCs, so when someone asks about a Drow or something I let them know they're absolutely welcome to but Drow are very hated and he'll suffer a lot of strife where the party is. This lets them know they either have to prepare for it or may want to rethink their decision.

FWIW, when I started this campaign I had a character in it with Vow of Peace and Nonviolence.


That's very different from saying "If you're too peaceful, it's going to piss off Megawizard McGee and he'll come hit you with Insanity"

What Keledrath said, basically. If you can justify the actions in a way that doesn't seem like you just bashing a character concept, then it's good. Like if you intended to use drow as villains, you should give them a shot to explain why they aren't evil, backstory-wise, and roleplay it as such. If you just intend to hit the nonviolent person with insanity for no apparent reason other than they're nonviolent, then there's an issue.

[Nibbens]

But so much more thorough. If Mario Kart cuts a friendship in half, D&D grinds it to dust, like a glacier.

As for me, I have literally always been the DM since I was, like, fourteen. So I guess I am probably the worst DM I know. My long-time players could probably write a book.

I would have to agree with this. DMing is a skill which you get better at as time goes on. I've been Dming for 17 years and I'm still learning.

As for the OP: One time, I killed an entire party (one of which who was dating my ex-gf at the time) except for the sorcerer (who was my ex-girlfriend). Everyone else was expendable - and made them all go through 2-3 character a piece before that game ended.

...

...

Yeah, I've been that guy we all hate. lol.

[LoyalPaladin]

That's not fair. DnD makes the destruction a slow process.
If there is a Kender in the party, I beg to differ.

[Fallenreality]

If there is a Kender in the party, I beg to differ.

Remember kids. Friends don't let friends play Kender.

[Vhaidara]

Remember kids. Friends don't let friends play Kender.

Except in a party of all Kender. Because that results in hot potato every time some reaches for anything.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Except in a party of all Kender. Because that results in hot potato every time some reaches for anything.

I would take Vow of Poverty for the mechanical advantage. No way I would be able to keep my WBL there.

[LoyalPaladin]

Remember kids. Friends don't let friends play Kender.
Can I sig this?


Except in a party of all Kender. Because that results in hot potato every time some reaches for anything.
I would not have the mental capacity to cope with that in a campaign.

[Vhaidara]

I would take Vow of Poverty for the mechanical advantage. No way I would be able to keep my WBL there.

You want to take VoP as a Kender? The race that WILL acquire someone else's wealth?

Remember, this is an ALL Kender party.

[Fallenreality]

Can I sig this?

Go ahead! I feel important now. :P

[ZamielVanWeber]

You want to take VoP as a Kender? The race that WILL acquire someone else's wealth?

Remember, this is an ALL Kender party.

I will cut off my wicked kendery hands and take surrogate spellcasting! (Warning: may steal with his teeth).

That or my kender will humbly steal items of literally no value what so ever and keep them as cherished heirlooms.

[LoyalPaladin]

You want to take VoP as a Kender? The race that WILL acquire someone else's wealth?

Remember, this is an all kender party.Remember, this is an all Kender party.All Kender Party
Ahhhh! More insanity text no one will see.


Go ahead! I feel important now. :P
Thank you!

[Fallenreality]

Keledrath, you're evil.

I believe this thread has been stolen by Kender. We should get it back.


ON TOPIC:

I honestly don't have any horror stories. Most games I've been in have ended fairly peacefully.

My worst would be a DM from freshman year of college, and his main issues were out of the campaign. He was a fairly decent DM. The game never started up as after our first session his craziness outside of the game made him leave college.

[(Un)Inspired]

Worst DM I ever had was a terrible story teller, insecure, didn't know the rules very well, and had a "DM vs. Players" mentality. She constantly threw bigger and badder enemies at us, but due to her lack of system mastery they were stomped every time. She would throw fits like a child and scream at us for defeating enemies and even resorted to violence once. I quite the game after that and formed my own group and I have been a DM ever since.

Seriously? She was angry that you guys were just dying, or something? How was she planning on continuing the story if you didn't defeat your enemies?

What sort of physical violence did she resort to?

[Crake]

Wasn't the thread in the OP basically the opposite of another thread that was basically this thread already?

Ah well, may as well add my story to the mix. Pretty typical bad DMing really, ignoring player agency and railroading hard for the sake of his story. When I asked him why, if the players have no agency, he didn't just compile the story into a book and read it to us, since we have no input anyway, no acceptable answer was given. That, along with some other factors, including the fact that i was on my 9th character by level 13, I didn't feel like I was involved in the story or the party, so I just dropped from it.

[sideswipe]

i once had a DM that allowed players to optimise to an extent and had a group of around 8 players AND allowed summoners and minionmancers + leadership on all players.

on top of this, the entire campaign was railroaded, to the extent we had to enter a tower and fight our way up at lvl 13. so we tried teleporting, dimentional anchor, we tried going in higher and met permanent walls of force and riverine. every trick and bypass our wizard, cleric, psion and all our specialised people tried was adhoc stopped. no matter what we had to gi in the front door, so we thought it would be a powerful mage or something at the top... it was a mindless undead although powerful.

any out of the box thinking was stamped by making up excuses.

the good thing was the arena's in each city, where you could bet on yourselves and the odds were always 2-1 no matter the fight.
a lvl 13 party never killed so many giant bee's for epic level WBL before :smallbiggrin:

[fishyfishyfishy]

Seriously? She was angry that you guys were just dying, or something? How was she planning on continuing the story if you didn't defeat your enemies?

What sort of physical violence did she resort to?

I have no idea what she thought was supposed to happen. I guess she thought she was supposed to kill off multiple character per session or something. And it's not like we were highly optimized or anything either. We just made sound tactical decisions while she was the type to have a dragon land next to us and just full attack over and over again.

As for the violence she starting throwing things at us with the obvious intent to harm someone. Books, pens, dice, and a plate that broke against the wall.

[(Un)Inspired]

I have no idea what she thought was supposed to happen. I guess she thought she was supposed to kill off multiple character per session or something. And it's not like we were highly optimized or anything either. We just made sound tactical decisions while she was the type to have a dragon land next to us and just full attack over and over again.

As for the violence she starting throwing things at us with the obvious intent to harm someone. Books, pens, dice, and a plate that broke against the wall.

Whoa that's wild. I've seen people get steamed and need to take a walk for a little while but I've never heard of someone, let alone the DM, throwing things at others.

[LoyalPaladin]

Whoa that's wild. I've seen people get steamed and need to take a walk for a little while but I've never heard of someone, let alone the DM, throwing things at others.
That is crazy. I usually think of the DM as the person who is supposed to be the example. Not the child throwing plates.

[MagpieWench]

Once, I purchased foam d6 for the express purpose of throwing at others. I bought enough for everyone to have 3, including the gm. I don't remember them being used often, but I do remember them being used...

[Vhaidara]

Once, I purchased foam d6 for the express purpose of throwing at others. I bought enough for everyone to have 3, including the gm. I don't remember them being used often, but I do remember them being used...

I have a fuzzy dice. You know, the kind that people would hang from their rearview mirror? I used them as Hydra minis, since they actually fit 3x3 on our grid

[atemu1234]

I have a fuzzy dice. You know, the kind that people would hang from their rearview mirror? I used them as Hydra minis, since they actually fit 3x3 on our grid

And here I am throwing solid bits of plastic at players not holding the stick of talking (also functions as a +5 stick of whacking!) :smallbiggrin:.

[(Un)Inspired]

And here I am throwing solid bits of plastic at players not holding the stick of talking (also functions as a +5 stick of whacking!) :smallbiggrin:.

I thought stick of whacking was a whole different thing

[Renen]

Thread rating pending.

[fishyfishyfishy]

That is crazy. I usually think of the DM as the person who is supposed to be the example. Not the child throwing plates.

What makes it even crazier is that she was the oldest person at the table, with everyone else being 15-20 years younger, and yet she was the most immature. On top of that it was in my apartment and it was my plate she broke. She didn't even apologize until I mentioned it in conversation a few months ago (this happened in 2012). She was asking me about joining up a new game and I cited this story as the reason why I refused.

[Honest Tiefling]

Er...Why would you even continue to speak to her in any regard?

[slade88green]

I have had two in the past. One was me when I started. I was horribly railroad. I am glad I learned to be far far better.
The worst DM I had while playing was at a game fair. I joined an AD&D game that I latter found out consisted of a group people that regularly played together. The DM, during the first combat, ruled my fireball spell only did 1/2 damage to the owlbears because one of the other players used cone of cold right after I had cast. The game went along like this for a little while until the DM saw that we were bored. He then asked "Do you guys just want to warp to the end"? I almost left at that point, but decided to hang in. The next door we open had a swirling portal inside it, which everyone stepped into without so much as a thought to what might happen (I was kinda hoping it was some sort of disintegration portal). We popped up in the main bad guys room. The bad guy said "I am the mighty Bane lich, you shall all die"! (can you guess what kind of monster the bad guy was)? So almost everyone charged. I was a mage, so I hung back not wanting to get too close to the BBEG and minions. I rolled poor on initiative so went near to, if not last. The rest of the group started beating on him and on the liches turn it proceeded to ignore all the people attacking it so far and target me, ok, fine, I take the damage, but am still alive. everyone continues to deal it damage. Its next turn, it targets me, I have yet to act against it as last turn I had to chug a potion of healing. I get hit and die. Its turn comes around again and it targets the only other person at the table that was not part of the standard gaming group, that person also did not damage the lich yet. They kill it next round. Apparently the DM needed his standard players to have some minions so his normal players didn't get hurt.

[danzibr]

Worst DM I ever had was a terrible story teller, insecure, didn't know the rules very well, and had a "DM vs. Players" mentality. She constantly threw bigger and badder enemies at us, but due to her lack of system mastery they were stomped every time. She would throw fits like a child and scream at us for defeating enemies and even resorted to violence once. I quite the game after that and formed my own group and I have been a DM ever since.
I have to chime in here.

DM vs. Players is a terrible mentality. When I DM, I try to treat it like I'm the person who creates the world, provides challenges, and hopefully gives everyone a good time. I had a DM with the DM vs. Player mentality... terrible.

[LoyalPaladin]

What makes it even crazier is that she was the oldest person at the table, with everyone else being 15-20 years younger, and yet she was the most immature.
Holy cow! What was the age group for this game? We have a 19-24 age group currently and our DM is probably 20+ years older than us. But we all see him as our wise mentor.


I have to chime in here.

DM vs. Players is a terrible mentality.
I would tend to agree. But, I've had my players ask for this before though. It was basically D&D: Smash Brothers Edition. It was a satisfying 3 sessions. Now we roll the regular way.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Er...Why would you even continue to speak to her in any regard?

Outside of D&D she was a nice enough person. I have had limited contact with her the past few years.


Holy cow! What was the age group for this game? We have a 19-24 age group currently and our DM is probably 20+ years older than us. But we all see him as our wise mentor.


Lets see...I was the oldest player at 23 while the youngest was 17.

[atemu1234]

Outside of D&D she was a nice enough person. I have had limited contact with her the past few years.



Lets see...I was the oldest player at 23 while the youngest was 17.

My first group was 17 and 18 year olds.

[Phanixis]

About six years ago I played a campaign with an awful DM. We all started at level 1 and I played a wizard. He informed me that because of the nature of the campaign, I would not be receiving my two wizard spells on level up. I of course assumed he planned to provide me spells through other means, such as finding scrolls as loot or finding traveling merchants and wizards. I stuck with the campaign until around level 5 or 6. We never found a single scroll as loot. I took every opportunity to find new spells, but was always stonewalled. We saved the hide of a bunch of elves at one point, but they wouldn't even trust me enough to have a look at their library. At one point I did find a wizard who was willing to sell me some spells at grossly inflated prices right at the end of one of our sessions, which I was still willing to accept since I possessed only level 1 spells. I unfortunately had to miss the next session and he wouldn't let me go back and pick up said spells, claiming I was "crying over spilled milk" every time I brought it up. So I had a wizard who could cast level 3 spells but only actually knew level 1 spells. Absolutely ridiculous.

More insanity from the same campaign. One of our characters became a half dragon somehow (so no wizard spells on level up but yes to random half-dragon template). While he was flying overhead, he got shot by a tethered ballista bolt with a grappling hook tip and was dragged toward an encampment filled with armed individuals. When we arrived on the scene, the DM informed us that these enemies had a "symbol" emblazoned on there armor. Up to this point, the primary antagonist had been these highly organized hobgoblins led by hobgoblin clerics of a rather dark deity. So naturally we assumed this symbol was another symbol of their dark god.

Anyway, battle breaks out and the enemies start throwing disabling attacks at the party. As disabling attacks are always really bad news (especially when the enemy serves a dark deity), we made a point of killing the bad guys as quickly as possible. Once we defeated them, a celestial being descends from the heavens, rebukes us for killing his servants, and curses the entire party. Turns out, the bad guys were actually human soldiers serving a local kingdom and had been order by the celestial thing to take us prisoner. This is a classic botched trick the party into attacking the good guys trap (I don't think I have ever seen this pulled of well). Of course the DM never told us the symbol was actually a coat of arms for said kingdom, the soldiers never ordered us the lay down our arms in the name of their king of kingdom, and perhaps most importantly, the DM never even bothered to tell us that the soldiers were in fact human and not the hobgoblin soldiers we had been repeatedly fighting up to this point. We pointed this out to him, but nope, we were still cursed by this thing. Even the way he punished the party was awful. What should of happened if this was actually a fair encounter and we killed these soldiers is that said kingdom would put a bounty on our heads (that is how I would have done it), and perhaps that also happened but I didn't stick around in the campaign that long to find out. But instead, we were literally smited from the heavens. This wasn't the first case of DM fiat either.

Just a downright awful DM.

[Shou]

About six years ago I played a campaign with an awful DM. We all started at level 1 and I played...

I've had some GM's who were really harsh on magic before. It always sucks, even if you're mundane it sucks.

I had a GM recently who banned my Paladin from his campaign. Now keep in mind the party had an Oracle, Wizard, and Sorcerer at the time and it later gained a Witch of which he only ever had a problem with the Sorcerer. Why? Because he spam used devils in his campaign and my holy smites of awesome let me win 1v1 with Bearded Devils at level 4 when one could cause some serious damage to the rest of the party. At one point I separated from the main party and had to face one Devil alone while the Cavalier, Swashbuckler, Wizard, and Oracle took the other. The Wizard was rendered unconscious and the Cavalier was bloodied, the Swashbuckler ran away at the start of the fight though. I got a crit and 2 shot mine. So he banned the Paladin for doing too much damage. He never cared about the Oracles luck or how the Wizard could be the party face and never failed a skill check.

He handled the magic users by using nothing but fire immune creatures when the Sorcerer was there and removing their magic frequently for plot reasons... and constructs. Lots and lots of constructs.

Then I had a GM who made all enemies bigger than you immune to combat maneuvers. He was a decent GM aside from how he made fights less fun for the martial characters.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Generally speaking I don't have a lot of experience with purely awful DMs because I leave when I see they have no redeeming qualities. I do not regret these decisions in the least.

For instance, I played a couple games with a DMPC twice our level with lots of magic gear who broke all sorts of rules based on the DM's tortured understanding of them, while the party couldn't even afford basic armor and weapons and potions and the like. We were highly railroaded into watching the DMPC steal the show, up until we're left to our own devices. Finally, right?

We end up seeing a party very suspiciously like us, but decked out with the gear that we've been asking for the whole time. "All right," I think. "A chance to gear up, if we can think tactically and best our better-equipped foes!" Nope. Total party wipe, as a cut scene. Aaaaand I'm out.

[atemu1234]

Generally speaking I don't have a lot of experience with purely awful DMs because I leave when I see they have no redeeming qualities. I do not regret these decisions in the least.

For instance, I played a couple games with a DMPC twice our level with lots of magic gear who broke all sorts of rules based on the DM's tortured understanding of them, while the party couldn't even afford basic armor and weapons and potions and the like. We were highly railroaded into watching the DMPC steal the show, up until we're left to our own devices. Finally, right?

We end up seeing a party very suspiciously like us, but decked out with the gear that we've been asking for the whole time. "All right," I think. "A chance to gear up, if we can think tactically and best our better-equipped foes!" Nope. Total party wipe, as a cut scene. Aaaaand I'm out.

Just... why?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Just... why?We were in high school, which explains... some of it. And they were there to capture us, I guess, but the DM didn't want anything pesky like player agency or the dice to get in the way. So we basically woke up stripped of what little gear we had, bound and gagged. Choo choo! But I was packing up and then walking away at that point.

[Honest Tiefling]

We end up seeing a party very suspiciously like us, but decked out with the gear that we've been asking for the whole time. "All right," I think. "A chance to gear up, if we can think tactically and best our better-equipped foes!"

I am so stealing this. I just need to find a way to get the PCs to fight similar characters...

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I am so stealing this. I just need to find a way to get the PCs to fight similar characters...Yeah, just don't steal the part right after that.

[jjcrpntr]

I've had 3 dm's (one only briefly). One of which I really liked how he ran things, with a few exceptions, the other really annoyed me.

Bad dm:

Had a NPC that apparently was important to the campaign. That's fine, but he made the dude unkillable. We encountered this guy and we did right around 75ish points of damage before he went down. After the fight the DM said well he had die hard which is why it took so much to drop him. Ok cool. 3 in game days later, our characters are being treated to a fancy dinner and look who's there, the NPC we just fought and he's trying to kill our instructor. So we engage. This was a gestalt game and we had a ranger/scout mix (level 3) the ranger/scout lit this dude up and critted him heavily. It was awhile ago but I want to say he did around 90 points of damage. DM says the guy gets scared and runs away. Scout follows the next round, NPC is gone and the scout apparently is unable to find any way of tracking even with a damn good roll on a survival check.

Bad DM: Approves something for a character (IE ACF) then when game starts up bitches about it and doesn't know how it works. This guy claimed to be the worlds expert at DND, owned just about every book in hard cover, hundreds of mini's and had been playing since first edition. Our ranger/scout takes the elven craft bow which lets him use it as a club in melee. DM had to be shown, in the book, where it said that every single week. My wiz/cleric had abrupt jaunt ACF, which he approved, so I told him let me know if something targets me so I can decide if I'm going to take the hit or not. He just kept saying "you get hit for x dmg" then getting pissed when I'd say well if it's attacking me I port 10 feet over here.

This DM also had this long ass list of party rules that he likes his players to institute. Things like:
1) Have a party leader. This person has the final say on ANYTHING in game including loot.
1a) refusal to obey party leader leads to you forfeiting 20% of your share of loot

2) If you play a character that other players don't like you can be voted, survivor style, to be forced into make a new character. Keep in mind I'm not talking like you are backstabbing other players or actively working against them stuff. I'm talking, I had a ranger that in his backstory he didn't like barbarians and didn't trust humans. He'd work with them but he would go out of his way to save them. Under his rules the barbarian and other human playing players could have voted to make me make a new character.

He had a ton of other stupid rules but those two were the big ones. He also had a **** ton of house rules. Which made my life hell because we ended up with a lot of the same players playing in my Pathfinder game and at least 1 of them had never played dnd before. So he thought this guys houserules were part of the actual rules.

[KrimsonNekros]

Worst DM I ever had you couldn't give your character any usable backstory. If you did he'd forcibly shoehorn something in from early levels to "provide motivation" even if their motivation was already present via the backstory. Worse incident possible though was when he kept forcing a certain PC to stay with the party. TO elaborate the player had deliberately made an unlikable character that the more neutral party members were just short of actively trying to kill. He meant it to be that way and we were having fun with it. However when the character wandered off to certain death and the rest of the party said leave him, they were DXMed back to the party at the end of the dungeon to everyone's annoyance, including the character's player.

[Solaris]

2) If you play a character that other players don't like you can be voted, survivor style, to be forced into make a new character. Keep in mind I'm not talking like you are backstabbing other players or actively working against them stuff. I'm talking, I had a ranger that in his backstory he didn't like barbarians and didn't trust humans. He'd work with them but he would go out of his way to save them. Under his rules the barbarian and other human playing players could have voted to make me make a new character.

What's wrong with this one? I've quit games over a player who made his character hate my character's race and made sure everybody knew it (after attempts at resolving the situation failed; turns out you can't expect people to be reasonable about some things). It's surprisingly less fun than you might think to have a jerk PC in the party.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think the problem is that the voting has replaced the whole talking about the situation as the first step to resolving the issue.

[Yahzi]

If you play a character that other players don't like you can be voted, survivor style, to be forced into make a new character
I agree with Solaris, this is a good rule. If the other players can't figure out why their characters are still associating your character, then they should stop. It's a group game. If somebody doesn't want to be part of the group, there's no reason the group should tolerate them. That character should go off and have his own adventures.

[Vhaidara]

I agree with Solaris, this is a good rule. If the other players can't figure out why their characters are still associating your character, then they should stop. It's a group game. If somebody doesn't want to be part of the group, there's no reason the group should tolerate them. That character should go off and have his own adventures.

My objection to it is that there is no trial period or anything. It's just: We don't like the sound of that. Make something new.

The least you could do is give it a session or two to figure out if they are going to do something interesting with it.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I agree with Solaris, this is a good rule. If the other players can't figure out why their characters are still associating your character, then they should stop. It's a group game. If somebody doesn't want to be part of the group, there's no reason the group should tolerate them. That character should go off and have his own adventures.This only works if the other players don't abuse the power. Consider a 3 player group with two collaborators. They could essentially force the third player to make a subservient character or vote him off. That extreme form is probably a sign to walk, but I could definitely see lesser forms of abuse cropping up if players are given that sort of veto power. I'd actually prefer to have the DM be able to receive legitimate concerns and arbitrate; it's what he's there for.

[Solaris]

I think the problem is that the voting has replaced the whole talking about the situation as the first step to resolving the issue.

And if we operate with the assumption that a discussion takes place?


My objection to it is that there is no trial period or anything. It's just: We don't like the sound of that. Make something new.

The least you could do is give it a session or two to figure out if they are going to do something interesting with it.

jjcrpntr said 'play', not 'make'. That suggests there's been some play involved.

Even with that, I don't see that letting the character into the game is necessarily necessary for determining its unsuitability. In the extreme example, there'd be no reason to assume a CE barbarian has a place in a party that has a LG paladin. If you describe your character as a barbarian-hating, human-mistrusting elf ranger in a human party with a barbarian, it's perfectly reasonable for a new group unfamiliar with you to assume you're not capable of running that character in a manner that doesn't disrupt everyone else's fun. If they're familiar with you, then they might well have even more reason to believe you can't handle the character without killing everyone else's fun.


This only works if the other players don't abuse the power. Consider a 3 player group with two collaborators. They could essentially force the third player to make a subservient character or vote him off. That extreme form is probably absolutely a sign to walk, but I could definitely see lesser forms of abuse cropping up if players are given that sort of veto power. I'd actually prefer to have the DM be able to receive legitimate concerns and arbitrate; it's what he's there for.

Fixed it for you. If the party is doing their in-game rendition of the two wolves and the sheep voting on what's for dinner, it's time to go. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

Why is it the DM's job to determine what is and is not a legitimate concern? This thread is full of examples that suggest the DM ought not to have that sort of power over the players' decision-making processes. It's one thing for the group to collectively say "Your character is unsuitable", it's another for the DM to do it. The only reason he should be vetoing character is unsuitability to the setting (making a Starfleet officer on Faerun) or power imbalance due to excessive (or inadequate) optimization.

[RedMage125]

This is a story I like to share, especially on alignment threads where people complain about how alignment "allows" a DM to basically forbid your character to do certain actions, or force your character to make other decisions. Which, btw, alignment does not do. A DM hell-bent on railroading you is going to do it, even in a game where you throw alignment out the window. I like this example, because it highlights that kind of DM, who never used aignment as a hammer, but still accomplished the same kind of thing alignment detractors compain about.

In college (Alma, Michigan), I had a DM (game started in 3.0, before the revision came out) who would frequently have the party encounter literally epic-level threats when we were like, level 5. We were defending a city under seige, led by an epic-level orc warlord astride an advanced nightmare. We could do nothing to him, and the city looked like it was going to fall, until...lo and behold, the DM's other epic-level NPC shows up and saves the day.

I want to stop the story for a minute to highlight this, as it was the main bone of contention with this DM's style. PCs were not the heroes who saved the world in his game, his own NPCs were. The rest of us players were just there to sit and watch the DM play out his hero fantasy, I guess.

Anyway, so this epic-level NPC is not entirely a good guy, but he opposes the really bad guys. The party ends up working for him. Turns out, he's an Epic-level Werewolf, and even his Lycanthropy curse is Epic, so much so, that when he forces lycanthropy on the whole party, he even infects the paladin (who had explicit immunity to lycanthropy). Since Mr. Epic NPC is the pack leader, all the PCs were forced to follow his orders. He could force a transformation in any member of the party, from any distance (and somehow was telepathically aware of what the party was doing at all times, so if anyone considered disobeying him, they got turned into a wolf and then had no resistance against the pack leader's orders). Since she was being forced to follow his will, the paladin never fell from grace from committing any morally questionable acts.

I left that game before it got to the lycanthropy bit, but I still had some of my friends playing in it, and they kept me informed of the plotline (we had started an anime/gaming club at that college, so we all frequently shared stories).

DMs should always remember that the PCs deserve to be in the spotlight. People do not sit down to a D&D game to watch the DM have NPCs battle each other, no matter how cool the NPCs are. NPCs of higher level than the party shouldn't be doing the party's work for them. Hell, the only time I've ever even HAD a higher level NPC join a party was when the PARTY decided to hire the guy as a guide (which took a lot of convincing, and just about all of the 17th level party's liquid cash assets, a price I had set to encourage them to do it without the NPCs help, but they decided as a group that it was worth it).

And the lesson here is that a Bad DM who has decided to railroad the party is going to do it. Because the problem with this situation is not mind-control effects, not lycanthropy, and not alignment or any other D&D mechanic. The mechanics of the game were fine, but the DM involved was the issue.

[Vhaidara]

Eh, I suppose I'm biased on the voting issue because I was voted out of the table because two of the guys decided they didn't like me (personally) after I was the one who got them into DnD. And they made the decision over the summer, when I didn't see them for 3 months. And didn't give me any indication until about 5 minutes before the game was supposed to start, so I was still hyped to play for the first time in three months.

[atemu1234]

Eh, I suppose I'm biased on the voting issue because I was voted out of the table because two of the guys decided they didn't like me (personally) after I was the one who got them into DnD. And they made the decision over the summer, when I didn't see them for 3 months. And didn't give me any indication until about 5 minutes before the game was supposed to start, so I was still hyped to play for the first time in three months.

Damn. Why'd they just decide they didn't like you?

[Vhaidara]

Damn. Why'd they just decide they didn't like you?

No idea. The reason they gave was that in the major campaign my bard was taking over the sorcerer's role as the face. The sorcerer who joined after me, and was the main guy for kicking me. The other one was just following what he said. They gave the GM the option of "us or him", and the GM went with the option that kept the most players. Still ran a few side sessions to finish up a plotline for my character though.

[Arbane]

I want to stop the story for a minute to highlight this, as it was the main bone of contention with this DM's style. PCs were not the heroes who saved the world in his game, his own NPCs were. The rest of us players were just there to sit and watch the DM play out his hero fantasy, I guess.


Ah, yes. The ever-popular (with bad GMs) 'Tour Guide' philosophy of GMing. Keep your arms and legs inside the railroad at all times!

[SangoProduction]

I only ever had one DM who was really, truly bad. And I am forever salty about it because it was also the one time I felt like continuing a character from a previous campaign that went unfinished. Probably the last time I'm going to mention this again in public.

TL;DR - In a single session, the DM had managed to destroy one arm of my character who focused in scythes (a 2 handed weapon); threw us in jail without food or water; made me lose all my paladin levels for not staying in jail (wtf? And trust me, I even tried talking to the guards); made me go down to 10 speed because of lice...yeah. no better reason. just lice; and got all of our equipment trapped in an eternal pit of "f*** you" which locked us out when we escaped the jail (why is this even in a prison?!?!).

Long story:
My character was a Warforged Paladin with item familiar: scythe. (Because that was the closest adaptation of my character I could get with official rules, didn't even do much with item familiar was just to be able to upgrade my weapon without swapping out his holy "Azuma's Fang".) It was approved by the GM as perfectly acceptable.
(skipping the 2 or so hours for the party to reach the top of the dungeon to find me...fun way to start a campaign)
First thing to happen to me was they try to throw rope to my cage so they could climb up and open it. How convenient that this cage rusts me whenever I touch it, but it somehow took the entire arm off. Fine, fine. I can just repair it. No DM does this without expecting the player to be able to recover in a timely fashion. So, I was reasonably hesitant to do anything. But, 10 minutes of the party accomplishing exactly nothing, I realize that I am standing on the cage and it's not rusting me. So, I had a great idea to burst through the bottom of the cage. Nope. It causes rust. I don't even get it. Hell, I don't even know how I got out - possibly because I left for about a half hour because nothing was getting done, and it was made abundantly clear that I wasn't allowed to do anything.

Come back, we are at camp. Awesome, I use my tools to repair myself. Nope, have to be at a town to do that for some reason (ignore the rule books). Also, healing and repair spells don't work for it. Fine, fine. We'll probably be at a town soon then. Something happened and we were fighting giant spiders. Yay. I am totally capable of fighting without any weaponry and one armed. He was also decidedly against being cinematic in combat. Then something happened and we were in jail. Again, don't know why. I was mostly bored to tears at this point, but hopeful that something really awesome was going to happen.

The guards refused to give my party food or water. So, awesome. I get a chance to be diplomatic, the one strength my character still had. Nope. They refused my requests. During this time, my Warforged somehow became afflicted with lice (how?!??!?!?!) and lost 10 move speed. Then our cells open for no explained reason, I walk out, all paladin like and ask the guards more directly for food and water, and said we'd go back in if you gave us it. Did these level 1 bastards do the sane, logical thing? No, the ran suicidally into a group of adventurers while armed with nothing but batons. My guy can't fight, so I just grapple one of the guys, and try to convince him to listen, "activating" my aura of good. Didn't work. "I'll kill you all!" The guard yells. Well, I can't let him just try and harm my friends, regardless of how ineffective he is. I snap his neck. Boom! Lose all paladin levels. My only kill in the entire game, after repeated attempts at non-combat, and being met with death threats, as well as legitimate attempts to kill us via neglect, was enough to lose my paladin levels.

At this point I didn't give a single ... about the campaign. First and last session with the bastard. Oddly enough, the campaign where he played as a player with me ended soon afterward as well. He wasn't an awful player. He may have broken the fundamental rule of TTRPGs of not going off on your own, but I couldn't have expected him to be so terrible, especially after he invited me to play. He never explained himself, even after confronting him 1 on 1 afterwards.

[jjcrpntr]

What's wrong with this one? I've quit games over a player who made his character hate my character's race and made sure everybody knew it (after attempts at resolving the situation failed; turns out you can't expect people to be reasonable about some things). It's surprisingly less fun than you might think to have a jerk PC in the party.

I completely agree with you. The problem I had/have with this rule is the situational thing.

For example the only instant where this could have come in to play (we didn't have this dm very long).

I made a wood elf ranger whose back story had it where he didn't like barbarians and didn't trust humans. He'd work them if he had to but he really didn't like them. Our party at the time was a human cleric, human swordsage, human barbarian and gnome bard.

The concept I had with the character was that it would be sort of like a gimli, legolas thing. He'd start out not liking the barbarian but over time (and via roleplay) would come to begrudgingly respect and maybe even like the guy. He was never hostile to the other players, helped them out in combat and was a good teammate. The issue I had with the DM's rule is that the other players upon hearing my concept could have just said "No we don't like that make something different".

I have no problem if a PC is being a **** and messing with the adventure, or is an evil character in a good campaign asking them to reroll. But this DM's rules were 0 tolerance.

[Vizzerdrix]

I wrote about it here several times, but I'll summarize the worst DM I had.

Flanking is cheating.
Aid another is cheating.
Improved Init is cheating.
Scrolls are cheating.
Casting any spell is cheating.
Horses before level 5 is cheating.
Flight is cheating.
Max ranks in skills is cheating.
Power attack on a non fighter/Barb is cheating.

Unless you where the DMGF/DMBFF, then go ahead, take several turns in a row and free loot too.

And that isn't even half of it. Things got so bad, I gave away all my books and quit all table top games for a few years. I didn't touch the hobby again until I was invited to sit in on a 3.5 game for optimized players. Man that was fun. Best group I ever played with :)

[IZ42]

I wrote about it here several times, but I'll summarize the worst DM I had.

Flanking is cheating.
Aid another is cheating.
Improved Init is cheating.
Scrolls are cheating.
Casting any spell is cheating.
Horses before level 5 is cheating.
Flight is cheating.
Max ranks in skills is cheating.
Power attack on a non fighter/Barb is cheating.

Unless you where the DMGF/DMBFF, then go ahead, take several turns in a row and free loot too.

And that isn't even half of it. Things got so bad, I gave away all my books and quit all table top games for a few years. I didn't touch the hobby again until I was invited to sit in on a 3.5 game for optimized players. Man that was fun. Best group I ever played with :)

My brain broke reading this. How? What? Why? What is life now? Seriously, I can't blame you for walking on that.

[jjcrpntr]

I wrote about it here several times, but I'll summarize the worst DM I had.

Flanking is cheating.
Aid another is cheating.
Improved Init is cheating.
Scrolls are cheating.
Casting any spell is cheating.
Horses before level 5 is cheating.
Flight is cheating.
Max ranks in skills is cheating.
Power attack on a non fighter/Barb is cheating.

Unless you where the DMGF/DMBFF, then go ahead, take several turns in a row and free loot too.

And that isn't even half of it. Things got so bad, I gave away all my books and quit all table top games for a few years. I didn't touch the hobby again until I was invited to sit in on a 3.5 game for optimized players. Man that was fun. Best group I ever played with :)

Man that sucks. My best dm I had (in my brief time playing so far) also had his GF in the group. He didn't take it any easier on her and in fact several games he'd do something and she'd just say "dude... you're a ****" or he'd do something and people would argue (playfully) and she'd take our side again saying he was a ****. Made it nice that it was obviously no favoritism.

[Solaris]

Eh, I suppose I'm biased on the voting issue because I was voted out of the table because two of the guys decided they didn't like me (personally) after I was the one who got them into DnD. And they made the decision over the summer, when I didn't see them for 3 months. And didn't give me any indication until about 5 minutes before the game was supposed to start, so I was still hyped to play for the first time in three months.

Yeah, I could see how that could sour you on the idea of voting.
But hey, on the plus side you... uh... didn't have to endure a game session with people who hated you for no reason?


I completely agree with you. The problem I had/have with this rule is the situational thing.

For example the only instant where this could have come in to play (we didn't have this dm very long).

I made a wood elf ranger whose back story had it where he didn't like barbarians and didn't trust humans. He'd work them if he had to but he really didn't like them. Our party at the time was a human cleric, human swordsage, human barbarian and gnome bard.

The concept I had with the character was that it would be sort of like a gimli, legolas thing. He'd start out not liking the barbarian but over time (and via roleplay) would come to begrudgingly respect and maybe even like the guy. He was never hostile to the other players, helped them out in combat and was a good teammate. The issue I had with the DM's rule is that the other players upon hearing my concept could have just said "No we don't like that make something different".

I have no problem if a PC is being a **** and messing with the adventure, or is an evil character in a good campaign asking them to reroll. But this DM's rules were 0 tolerance.

Hmm. While I can see your point, what about this one: What if the rest of the party wasn't interested in playing the Gimli to your Legolas, or had had a bad experience with someone playing the character archetype?


I wrote about it here several times, but I'll summarize the worst DM I had.

Flanking is cheating.
Aid another is cheating.
Improved Init is cheating.
Scrolls are cheating.
Casting any spell is cheating.
Horses before level 5 is cheating.
Flight is cheating.
Max ranks in skills is cheating.
Power attack on a non fighter/Barb is cheating.

Unless you where the DMGF/DMBFF, then go ahead, take several turns in a row and free loot too.

And that isn't even half of it. Things got so bad, I gave away all my books and quit all table top games for a few years. I didn't touch the hobby again until I was invited to sit in on a 3.5 game for optimized players. Man that was fun. Best group I ever played with :)

... And that's why I'm not exactly keen on the "Optimization is Rudisplorking" style of DM.

[Inevitability]

I wrote about it here several times, but I'll summarize the worst DM I had.

Flanking is cheating.
Aid another is cheating.
Improved Init is cheating.
Scrolls are cheating.
Casting any spell is cheating.
Horses before level 5 is cheating.
Flight is cheating.
Max ranks in skills is cheating.
Power attack on a non fighter/Barb is cheating.


Did he also have a morbid (no pun intended) fascination with Orcus?

[jjcrpntr]

Yeah, I could see how that could sour you on the idea of voting.
But hey, on the plus side you... uh... didn't have to endure a game session with people who hated you for no reason?



Hmm. While I can see your point, what about this one: What if the rest of the party wasn't interested in playing the Gimli to your Legolas, or had had a bad experience with someone playing the character archetype?


Then I would have talked to them out of game, just like I did the barbarian. Like I said luckily it didn't come into play as I only got to play the ranger for 2 games. But I think if it had gone much longer the dm would have made them vote (I would have won as 3 of the players loved the concept). The barbarian hated my character simply because he is one of those guys that thinks our characters have spent 2 days together and I said "hi" when we met therefore BEST FRIENDS!

My whole thing is I don't like an arbitrary "if we don't like it you have to do something else". If I'm running the game and this situation happens I'm telling the players to deal with it for a few games and see how it plays out. If after a couple sessions it's just too much of a distraction/pain in the ass then we'll talk to the player about redoing it.

[ObnoxiousKender]

Remember kids. Friends don't let friends play Kender.

Did someone say Kender?

[Solaris]

Did someone say Kender?

Yeah, they're obnoxious.

[Blackhawk748]

Did someone say Kender?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHH! *reflexively casts disintegrate*

[Myrddin0001]

I decided to break out of my group for the first time in 8 years. After carefully selecting my class based on what was already in the group; which consisted of an alcoholic (IRL and in game) and gropey sorcerer, a newbie barbarian, a clueless druid, and a THW fighter, I chose a LN necromancer cleric. The DM was thrilled! apparently the whole campaign hinged on an evil cleric, previously an NPC, turning LG (i.e. a lawful stupid healbot). After telling him I wasnt keen on making a character only to completely scrub it after 10 levels of play into something trite and sub-optimal he decided the best way to punish me was to make the campaign void of all undead baddies and every NPC was some kind of holy undead hater. On top of all of this he was trying to jerry-rig 4e and 3.5 together into some kind of hideous deformed game mechanic. Needless to say I only played a couple sessions.

[goto124]

My whole thing is I don't like an arbitrary "if we don't like it you have to do something else". If I'm running the game and this situation happens I'm telling the players to deal with it for a few games and see how it plays out. If after a couple sessions it's just too much of a distraction/pain in the ass then we'll talk to the player about redoing it.

I personally would've gone straight to the redoing bit. Because the player already didn't like it, he will mess it up/become a distraction/pain in the buttocks anyway.

[Ermanti]

The worst? Where do I start? It's sad when most of them have been awful.

I'll start with the most recent. J was a good guy, just had some....issues. He liked making custom classes (that no one else could play) and making custom monsters. The game was mostly core-only, the only other books he had were complete divine and complete arcane. One such monster had three attacks, did 13-20 damage a hit, had 24 ac, and had 50 or so hit points. We fought this thing at lvl 2. Sure we had 10 people in the party, but they were all fighter types, a wizard who thought fireball was the best spell ever, a cleric who healed between rounds of some online tank game, and a bard (me). Needless to say a fight with one of those things lasted a game session and a half. And gave xp as a cr 3.

Game goes on, and we figure out where the tribe of goblins that had been ravaging the country-side were located. We start attacking an outpost, overwhelm it, and figure out that they all had far-seeing magic in the watchtowers. About 100 goblins are coming our way. We book it, only to be flanked by their leader. A lvl 8 spellcaster with a custom class named, Dic Doc.... He had a unique form of magic that involved 2 goblin children, and an oversized "third leg"

1/2the party didn't show up again. I at that moment decided that I was going to wreck his game. We ended up enlisting some mages from the local magocracy to help us. Things were burned (even attended objects, and he really hated my cart for some reason) and we make it to their trap enfested hole. It...didn't go well, though that wasn't his fault. We rest about a mile away and get attacked in the middle of the night by this shaman and his 8 elite guardsmen. You would figure with 5 lvl 5 wizards, this would be cake. But he was also of the opinion that fireball was the best spell ever, and the shaman gave all his minions resist fire 20...and +4 to hit, damage, ac, saves and when they got down to 1/2 health or less half their damage was life draining negative energy. We found all those numbers out after we "won" by taking out his minions. Turns out he was being coerced by a greater bargest to do all that. Turns out that said greater bargest was a 3.0 version (with 15 DR) and 18 hit dice. It broke all our magic weapons in the first round of combat and acted as literal meatshields as the wizards blasted poorly (it also having a fire resistance 20 ring) and the dic doc smacking it with his magical... Oh, and we finally made it to level 4 after that.

I could go more into that trainwreck of a campaign. We kept losing players due to the fact that we would fight encounters 4+ CRs over our level literally every fight, and then only leveling after 8 or so fights; and the subject matter, and the fact that he couldn't plan for us going off the tracks at all. We once sat there for an hour because we went off his tracks, and he had to come up with something to get us back on them. It eventually just petered out. After people stopped showing up, I spent a few of what would have been sessions explaining to him all the flaws his game had, about how to balance the difficulty and the rewards (level 5 with level 3 gear kind of sucks), about appropriateness, about balancing his custom stuff, and some personal things that I won't get into.

I hope he is a better dm for it, wherever he is.

[LoyalPaladin]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHH! *reflexively casts disintegrate*
It would seem you and I feel similarly (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18622444&postcount=25) about those... creatures.

[Doctor Awkward]

Heh. All funny stories. I have a pretty good one.

A good friend of mine, M, who has a couple of friends that have all been playing D&D since it first came out invited me to play a 2nd edition game his buddy was going to run (far as he was concerned that's where D&D stopped).
They're good people but they have some silly interpretations of some things. for instance the time it came up that someone cast Detect Magic and suddenly everyone in the party was glowing in the dark. This is because that spell makes "magic items glow".

Me: "Yeah but only to the caster."
DM: "No the spell says everyone."
Me: "...Can I take a look at that?"
DM: "Not during play."

Ok, sure. Remember I was the Johnny - come - lately noob that didn't know older editions (also wrong, I started with 2E in high school).
So I go to this game and he says everyone is some sort of bad guy. Cool, I'd like to give anti-paladin a shot. He warns me that it might cause conflicts but I say nah I'll handle it. Ok. We start the game.

Right away we are stuck in Ravenloft and given a task by our M's old character who has become a sort of Gatekeeper for the whole realm. ...Yeah.
So M has his current PC tell the group to all go here to start. Now I've seen his sheet and I know he is higher level than me, but I still had to balk and say, "Who do you think you are giving orders?", looking for a chance to get some good role play put of it.

He pulls off some sort of Chakram - like disc and wings it at my head, rolls like a 19 and takes off about 35 hit points. Since it was over half my health the DM also ruled that it knocked me down.

M: "Now do you see who I am?"
Me: *rubs chin* "I believe I am starting to..."

So we continue on and get to this castle where we start getting pelted from the trees by arrows.

Me: "Which direction?"
DM: "it's too dark to tell."
Me: "Isn't it mid afternoon?"
DM: "...The canopy is very thick here."

Ok...
naturally I go last in initiative, and M spends his round casting Stoneskin and getting some sort of enlarge person from the DM's wife but still can't get big enough. So he starts to climb. It finally comes around to me, and he was ready to move on because I didn't have a ranged weapon.

Me: "No I'd like to cast a spell."
DM: "Oh OK, which one?"
Me: "Detect Magic."
DM: "Huh?"
Me: "Well you said it makes magic items glow, right? So if any of them have magic items we'll be able to see where they are."
DM: "..."

So now that he can see them, M starts climbing for the closest one, but fails any blend falls prone from the tree. No damage though, thanks Stoneskin.

I see an opportunity to pay him back for earlier.

Me: "I got solid strength. Can I use my 2 - handed sword to knock that tree down so it falls on M?"
DM: *laughs* "...Sure, I guess. Roll an attack."
Me: "You want me to roll to hit the inanimate object?"
DM: "Yeah to get it to fall the right way.

Fair enough. So I roll a 20. I should also mention they have a house rule that if you roll a critical when using a magic weapon it explodes. I go flying, tree collapses completely. I'm laughing my ass off.

Later in the game various paladin powers stop working, and I get told it was because I took a shot to the face and didn't do get up and fight back.

Me: "No, that would have been dumb. He took half my health in a single shot. Fighting him would have gotten me killed. How would I serve my deity then?"
DM: "Well you were lawful evil and didn't try to take command."
Me: "that's not lawful evil. As long as there was a strucutred heirarchy i don't care about being in charge of it."

It descended into some pretty petty stuff from there, and I refused to play in a 2E game he ran after that. But it was a valuable lesson all the same.

[DarkEternal]

I wouldn't call him the worst DM, not by a long shot, since he's actually pretty damn good. But the situation for my character irks me and this seems like a good thread to vent.

Basically, I play a Factotum that went into Chameleon. Master of skills, okay in combat, I really try to play him as much of a jack of all trades as possible. I even went out of my way to memorise equal number of spells that are buffs, debuffs, control and damage. In any case, the DM was annoyed that I pass pretty much all skill checks(due to Brains over Brawn, good stats and a high intelligence and good dexterity, in use with a fair few of Inspiration points to use them for skills), so he redid the skill system which he said follows fifth edition or something I didn't really check.

Basically, every five ranks in your chosen skill gives you one point. If you have 2/3 of a skill maxed, you can roll two dice instead of one. Now...that screwed me over something fierce. Of course, the DM said he lowered all of the DC's as well, but the fact remains that from being a guy that's good in every situation, I now can't be good for any situation, since I'm pretty much the support of the party (consisting of a Warblade, Monk with vow of poverty, a homebrew ranger class and another blackguard kind of class from a different system). So, I'm basically the healer, the rogue, the guy who identifies the monsters and the face of the party out of necessity more than out of want. Now, at level 13, I have to roll Use Magic device to use a damn wand and it's annoying.

Not even to mention that it rubbed him the wrong way that Chameleon can go into divine focus and get ALL divine spells from all spell lists, so he storylined it that I lost access to my Divine focus. And now I spend combat more or less identifying stuff, and shooting my repeating crossbow from time to time, as well as casting a few offensive spells. It's still fun...just a lot less so.

Otherwise, the story is great, the DM style is good, and I like to play it with said party which is why I still continue to play this character the way he is gutted. Doesn't mean I can't complain.

[Blackhawk748]

It would seem you and I feel similarly (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18622444&postcount=25) about those... creatures.

Ya though i have actually played with a non-annoying Kender once. Ya i thought it was impossible too.

[fishyfishyfishy]

I wouldn't call him the worst DM, not by a long shot, since he's actually pretty damn good. But the situation for my character irks me and this seems like a good thread to vent.

Basically, I play a Factotum that went into Chameleon. Master of skills, okay in combat, I really try to play him as much of a jack of all trades as possible. I even went out of my way to memorise equal number of spells that are buffs, debuffs, control and damage. In any case, the DM was annoyed that I pass pretty much all skill checks(due to Brains over Brawn, good stats and a high intelligence and good dexterity, in use with a fair few of Inspiration points to use them for skills), so he redid the skill system which he said follows fifth edition or something I didn't really check.

Basically, every five ranks in your chosen skill gives you one point. If you have 2/3 of a skill maxed, you can roll two dice instead of one. Now...that screwed me over something fierce. Of course, the DM said he lowered all of the DC's as well, but the fact remains that from being a guy that's good in every situation, I now can't be good for any situation, since I'm pretty much the support of the party (consisting of a Warblade, Monk with vow of poverty, a homebrew ranger class and another blackguard kind of class from a different system). So, I'm basically the healer, the rogue, the guy who identifies the monsters and the face of the party out of necessity more than out of want. Now, at level 13, I have to roll Use Magic device to use a damn wand and it's annoying.

Not even to mention that it rubbed him the wrong way that Chameleon can go into divine focus and get ALL divine spells from all spell lists, so he storylined it that I lost access to my Divine focus. And now I spend combat more or less identifying stuff, and shooting my repeating crossbow from time to time, as well as casting a few offensive spells. It's still fun...just a lot less so.

Otherwise, the story is great, the DM style is good, and I like to play it with said party which is why I still continue to play this character the way he is gutted. Doesn't mean I can't complain.

...that's not even remotely similar to how skills work in 5e. It also sounds like your DM is handling what he perceives to be a problem with one player overshadowing the rest of the party in a bad way. He should have spoken to your about it and tried to work out a way you could turn it down instead of house ruling a bunch of nonsense nerfs. I would talk to the DM to solve this problem so that you cab can continue enjoying the game.

[ObnoxiousKender]

Ya though i have actually played with a non-annoying Kender once. Ya i thought it was impossible too.

I would have thought that I qualified as a non-annoying Kender.

[LoyalPaladin]

I would have thought that I qualified as a non-annoying Kender.
You're right. It wasn't the Kender part that made the gold muncher annoying. Haha.

But when you force a Silvanesti elf to sit on a pirate ship loaded entirely with kender... things die inside of you.

[ObnoxiousKender]

You're right. It wasn't the Kender part that made the gold muncher annoying. Haha.

But when you force a Silvanesti elf to sit on a pirate ship loaded entirely with kender... things die inside of you.

Hey man. We needed those Kender. Nobody knew how to sail a ship and walking around would have taken a week.

[MrMercury]

This thread made me really sad. There are some really nasty people in this world...

Anyway, the worst DM I have played with is myself. Especially since me and my friends havent played DnD before....in retrospect, I railroaded a lot to begin with.

[atemu1234]

This thread made me really sad. There are some really nasty people in this world...

Anyway, the worst DM I have played with is myself. Especially since me and my friends havent played DnD before....in retrospect, I railroaded a lot to begin with.

In retrospect, when I started I thought three lvl 1 PCs could handle a CR 4 encounter. They survived through a thinly-veiled deus ex machina.

[Propagandalf]

"Remember kids. Friends don't let friends play Kender." -Fallenreality
"Did someone say Kender?" -ObnoxiousKender
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHH! *reflexively casts disintegrate*" -Blackhawk748


Just had to make a comic for this. :smallbiggrin:
http://moreeni.deviantart.com/art/Kendercomic-513226813

[LoyalPaladin]

Just had to make a comic for this. :smallbiggrin:
http://moreeni.deviantart.com/art/Kendercomic-513226813
That made my morning! Haha.

[ObnoxiousKender]

Just had to make a comic for this. :smallbiggrin:
http://moreeni.deviantart.com/art/Kendercomic-513226813

This is wonderful.

[Vertharrad]

Yes! That's exactly how you deal with Kender...those klepto's.

[Solaris]

You're right. It wasn't the Kender part that made the gold muncher annoying. Haha.

But when you force a Silvanesti elf to sit on a pirate ship loaded entirely with kender... things die inside of you.

I'm... I'm pretty sure that qualifies as an atrocity under the Geneva Conventions.

[Threadnaught]

... And that's why I'm not exactly keen on the "Optimization is Rudisplorking" style of DM.

But Optimizing is Rudisplorking, also Rudisplorking is Optimizing.

Neither is Cheating, that's something completely different.
Yes Optimizing/Movement is Rudisplorking/Motion. Understanding the slang used at the table is pretty much vital.


I'm guilty of failing as a DM, the first session of a new Campaign is usually the best and least derailed (from the game, not the plot), additionally I do maintain a DM vs Players mentality for some encounters.
Party actually went up against a bunch of no-name Gnomes played this way and the PCs steamrolled the encounter, of course the Gnomes weren't meant to be a serious threat, considering how each PC is built.

[Fallenreality]

I approve of the comic.

Permission to sig the link?

[Lorddenorstrus]

my worst DM.. ironically I think would be one of my best friends, albeit we've come to an understanding and I intentionally tone down my characters when we play together. He has.. a weird style where sometimes for 6 or more sessions one won't ever fight a really RP heavy campaign which I dont have a problem with.. but because he is soo roleplay heavy he often lacks a true understanding of combat I feel. (then again considering how new I am the same could be said for me I've had problems dealing with characters when I DM) He is one of the.. if you optimize that character to much im going to kill you because you're making this difficult for me kinda guys.

One of my most hated characters by him was my Human Warblade / Barbarian. With all dat movespeed I made a nasty charger or if I couldn't charge I handled fights tripping stuff. (2 fights of me crushing everything in sight with 2 ish hits with some charges he basically never let that character do it again *shrug*) He also banned the Tome of Battle after that calling it "a book that never should've been made, it makes melee OP." (he's never played with an optimized wizard, but i have described the effects to him. He also wrote that on his long list of 'you aren't allowed to do or play this')

Apparently optimization ruins the game in his state of world. All my characters after that have been more about RP or crafting in his campaigns. He doesn't like my current Artificer though.. apparently reading Gitp's forums to get an idea for a giant invisible flying undead whale fortress is being a munchkin *******.

[(Un)Inspired]

Apparently optimization ruins the game in his state of world. All my characters after that have been more about RP or crafting in his campaigns. He doesn't like my current Artificer though.. apparently reading Gitp's forums to get an idea for a giant invisible flying undead whale fortress is being a munchkin *******.

Well you know what they say, Munchkin is just Nikhcnum backwards.

[MrMercury]

Just had to make a comic for this. :smallbiggrin:
http://moreeni.deviantart.com/art/Kendercomic-513226813


In retrospect, when I started I thought three lvl 1 PCs could handle a CR 4 encounter. They survived through a thinly-veiled deus ex machina.



Can we turn this thread into a "what we did wrong when we first starting DMing" thread?


I'd have a ton of those stories haha

[Propagandalf]

I approve of the comic.

Permission to sig the link?

Sure, go ahead. :smallbiggrin:

[Propagandalf]

Can we turn this thread into a "what we did wrong when we first starting DMing" thread?


I'd have a ton of those stories haha

I got one of those stories myself.:smallredface:
If ya wanna start a new thread, go ahead. I'll contribute my story to it.:smallbiggrin:


But back to the topic: A "bad" DM story

The DM wasn't so much bad as inexperienced. This resulted in a kind a downward spiral when combined with one or two of the more *cough* distruptive players in the group.

In addition to the indiscriminate murderhoboing (with no consequenses at all) the DM simply didn't give relevant info or describe stuff enough. Which meant that in one occasion we got lost in a four identical rooms. It wasn't a maze, just four rooms with spiral staircases, albeit in an extradimensional space so they had no top or bottom. But we had been in an extradimensional maze before and were a bit careful when encountering another which looked similar.

So we marked them, we opened and closed the doors to see if the rooms switched places. "You see an identical room" was pretty much the only description we got every time. I think we spent an hour and a half OOC time there...

That campaign ended after the first Chapter by pretty much unanimous (both player and DM) consensus.

[Barstro]

"You see an identical room" was pretty much the only description we got every time. I think we spent an hour and a half OOC time there...

That's the one trait I'd love to remove from all DMs (I'm sure I'd be guilty if I DMed though); not providing important information that the PCs are certain to know or observe. That, and the similar "everyone roll perception". I think the game would go a lot faster and involve less metagaming if the DM were in charge of all perception checks. Bonus points if he has a list of random numbers and knows everyone's bonus so it can be done without being obvious. Then he could just say what everyone notices and move on.

[LoyalPaladin]

I'm... I'm pretty sure that qualifies as an atrocity under the Geneva Conventions.
I could be persuaded to agree with you.

[endur]

The possessing wizard said nothing of interest, exposited no information, and added nothing to the game. He did manage to force one of the new players to sit on his hands for an entire session of a dungeon crawl.

Magic Jar and Posession are awesome magical spells/effects .... but they really need a GM advice paragraph similar ot the above ... have a plan for the possessed player to participate if they lose control of their body. Also have a plan for what the possessor needs to do and make them interesting from a role playing perspective ... probably the best way to do this is to let the possessed player role play the invading spirit.


One of my worst DM stories ... from a Gen Con AD&D game ... I bring an elven archer ... party thieves pickpocket my bow and break it into small pieces ....

really? halfling thief is pick pocketing an elven long bow? pvp with a player they have never met before?

[TheCrowing1432]

At level 3, we found a legendary plot device item that we didn't understand; at his encouragement for failing our knowledge checks we sold it, used the money to buy a level appropriate magic sword we could actually use.

The magic sword had been a murder weapon. We were tried, weren't allowed to make any rolls for knowledge of law or to convince the judge etc. by DM fiat. And were sent to jail with locks beyond the rogue, anti-magic we couldn't bypass, and bars we couldn't bend.

2 real time hours later, an NPC reveals that he has tunneled far enough into the wall of his nearby cell to get outside the AMF, teleports us to him one by one, then teleports us all out of prison.

A note is given to the rogue (it's a long lost relative), and we never see him again.

So we've lost all our equipment from the first 3 levels. We go to a university to get a new spellbook for the Wizard. He's framed for murder again, and so we just leave the continent.

There's an island where the colour blue is apparently religiously important. The druid solos a dungeon. We can't work out what's going on on this island.

From this point onwards, only the druid has any fun. The whole plot revolves around her, and any time the rest of us question it, we get eaten by a dragon or sent to a plane full of evil outsiders.

3 years later, the druid and her boyfriend are the dm's flatmates, and the rest of us haven't spoken to either of them for at least 2 years.

Reading stories like this without any context makes it sound like some weird fever dream.

[endur]

So I had a wizard who could cast level 3 spells but only actually knew level 1 spells. Absolutely ridiculous.

I think it is ok to restrict wizards that way if you inform the wizard player ahead of time and if NPC wizards are similarly restricted. If the PC wizard is the only one affected, thats a bit unfair unless there is a role playing reason ... i.e. you visit a dimension without magic, etc..


One of my worst DM stories ...

AD&D Session 1: in a party, my fighter gets a magical item from a dungeon, hawk helm or something like that.
AD&D Session 2: Gm, me and another player... GM informs me that player #2's hawk helm was stolen and he thinks I'm the thief ... Player #2 (higher level pc) somehow confronts me in some place I can't flee from and kills my PC and takes my hawk helm. We actually do roll dice for this combat, but it is like a 5th level fighter versus a 10th level fighter.

Huh? What?

[endur]

Now that I think about it, most of my worst GM stories involve player versus player conflict.

I can deal with unimaginative GMs, rail roading, lack of story telling, etc.

Some more examples

1) the AD&D party that had a paladin and an assassin as long term party members

2) GM house rules you find out about only after your character is dead. AD&D adventure where we fought a creature that can only be harmed by magical weapons and nobody had a magical weapon. After TPK, GM informs us that he had a house rule that X can harm the creature, but nobody knew that X could harm the creature and we had no reason to try X.