Worst DM Experiences IE "mistakes" or what to always avoid

[Efrate]

Haven't seen something like this in a bit so I figured why not see what depths we have all experienced.

Playing a whisper gnome rogue/swashbuckler/nightsword enforcer/swordsage focusing on always being able to get a reasonable amount of sneak attack off. Campaign starts at level 6, DM says magic item availability going to be a bit scarce, plan well. I start with shadow hand disciple weapon with dm permission (since its over half WBL), a mith chain shirt, a dagger, some mundane gear, haversack and a bit of leftover gold.

Lose my shadow hand weapon in first adventure somehow, super hard treasure to find I get gloves of dex +1. Somehow I manage to buy a + 1 short sword at level 8 in our one trip in the entire campaign to a town. Shortly thereafter, pick up the mcguffin that makes me into an "honorable warrior", eliminating my ability to sneak attack, hide, move silently, ToB manuevers, or do anything but be a biggest BSF replacement, as an 8 strength gnome. This continues for three levels. Get rid of the sword after the quest, get my stuff back, and hit lvl 11. My items are as follows A Mith Chain Shirt, a +1 shortsword, and gloves of dex +1, haversack, and maybe 100 gp. WBL is 66k. I am a melee with around 6500gp in gear total, at level 11. WBL is 66k. And I got more because of the gloves and sword than rest of the party. 10% is beyond harsh, especially for a melee.

To all DMs, you don't have to hit WBL 100%, but at least make an effort to be somewhat near to it, especially for melees. We already gimping ourselves not being a caster, throw us a bone.

[Droopy McCool]

So this thread is about the times the DM screws the players? OK then...

Level 6, custom underground campaign, playing my Jedi build, fighting a giant crab with a pyramid on its back. We're in the pyramid and it's trying to shake us out, so I try to kill it by attacking its heart thing. Anyway I roll a 1, here's what happens.

DM: "You miss because of the violent shaking, and your sword gets caught between bricks and shatters."
Me: "It's Adamantine."
DM: "It still gets stuck."
Me: "I activate Hideaway to retract it from the ground."
DM: "..."
DM: "You are thrown off balance and fall out of the pyramid before you can get your sword out."
Me: "I use Lesser Retrieve* to get it while I'm on the ground."
DM: "mmmm...Fine."

*Homebrew level 1 Psionic power he made!

Don't know why he didn't want me to have my only weapon! Later while I attacked the legs to bring it down, he had me roll reflex and had the crab fall right on my feet, even though I specifically said I was cutting out its legs like you do trees, to make it fall the other way. I spent the rest of the session crawling around because our Cleric was out of Band-aids.

Earlier (different character) he wouldn't let me use a shield of faith potion because my Wis wasn't high enough.

This guy is a big video-gamer, and we don't let him DM anymore.

McCool

[Troacctid]

Don't run a game with ten players in the party. Just don't. It's terrible. Split it into two games. Or better yet, three games. But for the love of Guthix, don't try and put them all at the same table at the same time.

[Gallowglass]

So this thread is about the times the DM screws the players? OK then...

I don't know. My take away from the OP was that this is a thread about starting a game where the DM gives you very specific qualifications about what to expect out of the game, which you ignore, then get upset when they are actually true....

I think the number one mistake I see (and am guilty of) is when the DM gets so wrapped up in the story, or a specific idealized scene that want to paint, they can't compensate when the players throw a curve ball.

I think the number two is overpreperation. Being prepared is great. Being prepared to the point that you end up railroading so you can use the stuff you prepared is problematic.

[Droopy McCool]

I don't know. My take away from the OP was that this is a thread about starting a game where the DM gives you very specific qualifications about what to expect out of the game, which you ignore, then get upset when they are actually true....

OP just wanted, understandably, to get his appropriate WBL. Lack of magic items is different.
Oh yeah, guilty of number 2. But it was my first time!

McCool

[Buufreak]

Don't run a game with ten players in the party. Just don't. It's terrible. Split it into two games. Or better yet, three games. But for the love of Guthix, don't try and put them all at the same table at the same time.

And this is where I admit my own faults, as my first time dming I had a "the more the merrier" mentality and had a group of 12+. I was a nervous wreck after 3 sessions.

On the flipside, my worst NOT ME dming experience would be a toss up between two guys who ran dm pcs. They very much worked with the idea of we were background characters to their superstar. It only made worse that one was essentially drizzt with infinite resources. It quickly led to my general hatred of the drow.

[Gallowglass]

my worst NOT ME dming experience would be a toss up between two guys who ran dm pcs. They very much worked with the idea of we were background characters to their superstar.

Oh! Oh! THIS^^^^^. I retract my first two, this is top of the list of worst DM mistakes.

[SimonMoon6]

DM says magic item availability going to be a bit scarce, plan well.

This here translates into "don't be a mundane; be a spellcaster or you are screwed." Some DMs (and apparently some players) don't realize this.

In one campaign, I went out of my way to try out a combination that wasn't well-supported in 3.0 at the time: a cleric/rogue. I felt that maybe some of my characters were more powerful than DMs could handle, so I was restraining myself by trying out a combo that didn't synergize well, though it wasn't absolutely terrible. I chose to specialize in using magical devices, by having the Magic Domain and maxing out UMD. So, naturally, the DM decided (after we had made our characters) that this would be a "low magic" game. So, I was screwed.

But at least, I still had sneak attack. So, the DM decided we would only fight undead (with the occasional construct thrown in).\

But then I found a weird prestige class in some new (at the time) sourcebook, one that didn't advance spellcasting (which was OK since I didn't have much) but instead gave a spell-like ability of an appropriate spell level. And the other abilities seemed to not be too far off from working with a cleric/rogue, so I went into that prestige class.

Here's the problem. The spell-like abilities that the class would give upon advancing a level were chosen by the PC's deity, meaning that they were chosen by the DM. My first one could be, I think, any cleric spell (or maybe any domain spell?) in the 1st - 3rd level range. So... the DM chose a super-weak 1st level one (when I was expecting a 3rd level ability of some kind). I complained, so he relented, and chose a slightly more useful 1st level ability.

Yeah, hell, no. The only way my character had any hope was if he got appropriately leveled abilities. So, I tore up that character sheet and made a new character, an uber-powerful cleric archer who didn't need equipment.

Some DM's never learn.

[Bobby Baratheon]

My very first campaign as a player ended because the number of players reached 20+, and most of them didn't know what they were doing and didn't care to learn. To this day I'm not sure what the DM was thinking - the campaign was a lot of fun when there were only six or seven of us.

As a DM, I'll fess up to a recent one. The players in my last campaign regularly steamrolled even overpowered encounters (they beat a purple worm at level six. . . in three rounds They also beat three frost giants in three rounds). I did give them optimization help, so I suppose it was partly on me. In the last battle, which was supposed to be a climactic showdown with an enemy army, they led off fighting a duel with the strongest members of the enemy army, who were bugbears which I had upgraded to absurd levels. The bugbears wiped the floor with the PCs, and one of them literally spanked the bard with his greataxe. None of the PCs died, but they ran away thoroughly whipped. Two of the players had to leave early, and the session (and the campaign) ended there. I later examined the bugbears more closely, and they're effective ECL (after all the templates) was 22, going against a part of an average level of eight :smalleek: I did apologize though!

[SangoProduction]

As a DM, if you don't like a class or race or something, (especially if they ask if they can use it) tell them that you don't want it to be played. Don't spend the entire session after they introduce it crippling them. It just makes you look like an ass.


Anecdote time:
I had a campaign DMed by some chinese guy. I played basically a walking suit of armor - a proud dragon knight until his "death" when "The Witch" corrupted his patron dragon. In his "death" his patron dragon left a tooth embedded in his body, which he then made a scythe out of to hunt The Witch. Also, he hopped across multiple worlds in his search.
Well, that DM suddenly went dark just as the game was getting good. A year of waiting later, we finally disbanded the game but I still wanted to play him.

A friend's friend was DMing 3.5. Awesome. I talk up the new DM about this idea. After some discussion about what would fit the concept best, I came up with a scythe-specialized paladin, who was a warforged. With an Ancestral Weapon feat, or whatever it's called.
Great. Awesome. We start the session. It's been around an hour and I'm still not introduced. I wait patiently. Half an hour more, the DM finally cuts to me. I'm trapped, unarmed, in a cage. "OK, I try and open the cage", I say. "Your arm rusts off". WHAT? OK. I cast Lay on Hands. "Doesn't work."

Well, so much for being scythe-focused. I am a warforged, so I should be allowed to simply repair the damage later. It's probably for the story.

And then he cuts away for another hour, wherein they finally find me. After half an hour of them just talking, they finally get me out, where I find my equipment in a bag nearby. We make it out of the cave or whatever, and finally rest. I use that time to heal with a craft check, as is standard. "You don't have materials", he says. "You don't need materials to heal... Well, ok."

Then we somehow find ourselves jailed. I don't know how, but fine. There are fleas in this cell. Fine, I'm not affected, yay for non-biology. "Your speed is reduced by half". Why is my speed reduced by half, especially when theirs isn't? Bugger if I know.

The guards haven't given food nor water to the party in 3+ days now, despite pleading. So, we break out. The guards are blood-thirsty, suicidal monsters who, even when watching a whole squad get murdered before them as I grappled them, spring a flag of peace, and simply ask for food and water, would not accept a call to...well...non-violence.

So, since he's still trying to bite on my arms, it's rather likely he's not going to give up, and if I let him go, he'll attack. So I snap his neck and move on. I fall. Because of course I would. I just stopped giving a ****. I played out the rest of the session, asked him why he was targeting me, and get no answer.

So I'm a level 0 commoner with one arm, most of my build invested in a two-handed weapon, and have 10 movement speed. **** off. I left the game. Coincidentally, I never played Paladin again.

[AnimeTheCat]

I recently wrapped up a game in which I played a Bard 3/Fighter 2/War Chanter 4 because I hopped in late. The DM said "hey we need a support character that can buff the party but still hold their own in combat" so my initial reaction was "Oh, I get to play a cleric! Nice, I never get to do that." but DM vetoed that because the party already had a cleric. Second iteration was, "Ok, I'll play a Psion with the telepathy discipline and serve as a communications hub while still getting to buff myself and others and get nice versatility". DM said "No Psionics, I don't like them." Ok that's fair, psionics aren't everyone's cup of tea. SO, Third times the charm right? I rolled up a Healer 5/Combat Medic 5 and said "Here, I can heal, I can buff, I can do all sorts of things, but I'm not a cleric and I'm not a squishy mage". Again, answer came back, "No, just play a bard, that's perfect." and I decided, ok, that's fine. I'll mostly be using bardic music to buff and I'll throw some fighter in for survivability. awesome. that's when Bowen, the seer of the north, was born. Think Icelandic seer kind of guy that is scary in combat and sings the songs of his people.

(that's all just the start)

NOW, we're in game and I find out its kinda similar to the dragonlance saga. That's cool, those are great stories. Awesome. We go in to combat aaaaaaaaaand the DM's husband turns out to be a big badass monstrosity that she is hellbent on killing... to the determent of the party. "that's fine I think. I'll just do what a party member would do and try to keep him alive since he's my bro." Well... that was a mistake because she let him PrC into Vassal of Bahamut. No big deal right, except he's a Fighter 2/Barbarian 3/Frenzied Berserker 5/now Vassal of Bahamut 1... How in the world does he have the feats for that?! (p.s. he didn't... she just gave it to him.) so now he's got badass armor and weapons and whatnot and, in character, I gave up two items of my share from a dragon hoard to him for his armor with the promise from him that he would give me two items of my choosing from the dragon hoard in return. Awesome, a 100% fair trade. I got boots of the winterlands and an ebony steed in return for giving him a handy haversack and ring of prot+2. My AC is nothing special, I have mundane leather armor and I'm a two weapon fighter (High Sword Low Axe), so I kinda needed that ring. I was hoping I would get a similar AC boosting item (natural armor, gloves of dex, etc) but nope... I come to find out that that's what the DM told him to give me (I had to miss a week because of illness). Well, now I'm an 11th level character with 20g, and mundane EVERYTHING. He (and everyone in the party) are level 11 characters with only 1 or 2 magic item slots open. "that's cool, I've had worse. I'll make up for this with badass roleplay and hopefully the DM will reward that." So I proceed to play how my character would act. nothing for 4 more sessions. in fact, everyone else leveled up because they were killing things in the combat and I wasn't. The reason I didn't level up was "You're not helping the combat at all". I talked to the DM calmly and asked for a chance to prove that my character could do plenty, when faced with a level appropriate challenge. So she throws 5 Kobolds of varying levels at me. I proceed to step in to the center of them and systematically dissect them with trips and follow-up attacks. Combat only lasts 4 rounds. Now the DM says "See you can help in combat just fine. There's no need to give you magic items." I eventually got so fed up that whenever we entered battle I told her that my readied action was always to sit down and start singing at which point I got up and took a smoke break. At the end of the campaign everyone else leveled up to 18 and I was still level 11 with (eventually) 3 magic items, Boots of the winterlands, Ebony Steed, and a bag of holding filled with magic sand that wouldn't dump out so I could only fit 20 lbs of gear in it. Needless to say, I'm not playing for that DM ever again.

Oh, and her husband, yeah, he was able to take vow of poverty, get all of the bonus feats associated with (against RAW), AND keep EVERY SINGLE magic item he owned as well as his vassal of bahamut wealth. He could also freely end his frenzy ability, no will check required "because of vow of obedience". He also got to take the full half dragon template without a level adjustment. The cleric got the half celestial template with a higher level adjustment and the urban ranger had a bow that would instantly kill a dragon if it was shot with it (something like a DC 50 Fort save to just get reduced to 0 HP).

Bar none, worst experience ever.

[Coidzor]

Don't run a game with ten players in the party. Just don't. It's terrible. Split it into two games. Or better yet, three games. But for the love of Guthix, don't try and put them all at the same table at the same time.

Just trying to schedule such a game is a great lesson on logistics and splitting large groups into smaller teams.

[MisterKaws]

DM: Prepared casters get spontaneous casting.

Me: So...what do I get? Being a Hideous Blow-Lock and all...

DM: Nothing, you're already too OP.

The party was entirely made of T1 prepared casters while I played the most ridiculously underpowered build I could think of(didn't know about Samurai back then).

[Alex12]

The relevant player in our group has tried GMing a few times. We don't let him do that anymore.

First time, taking over after one of our other group members got tired of GMing. Running a published Adventure Path. He starts changing things. Okay, that's reasonable. Except that the things he's changing are violations of common sense, game mechanics, previously established aspects of the setting, and things that he just can't be arsed to look up even when the things he is saying are directly contradicted by other important parts of the AP. We're talking about having a character who should know the situation and be telling us the truth telling us that the Pathfinder Lodge burned down as she gives us the mission to get access to said Lodge, and even finding this out was like playing 20 questions. Also that nobody knows where it is. Despite the fact that it's a building under constant guard. We're talking about 20 Hellknights per order from five different orders guarding a mansion protected by a 100-foot-radius spherical Wall of Force that we're expected to infiltrate- when we're in single-digit levels. We're talking about getting angry and declaring "You're runecursed! You're runecursed! You're runecursed!" when we try to be sneaky instead of going for straight combat, when the party consists of an alchemist, a cryptic, and a nearly-pacifist sorcerer. He ran one session before the campaign withered.

Second try was a dungeon-crawl. Level 10, full gestalt, "optimize as much as you want." Okay. All the plot stuff was dumb, but okay. Dungeon crawl part? 5 and 10 foot corridors, 5 foot doorways. The rooms? Nothing but Glabrezus and Nalfeshnees (aka far too large to have gotten in or out without teleportation or similar abilities). They died instantly to massively overpowered metamagic-boosted fireballs.

Third try was We Be Goblins Too. Part of the module was a contest where we're thrown into a vat of boiling stuff and made to fight eagles and/or try and escape- the first to escape gets the most points, and you also get points for how many eagles you kill. I was trailing in points, my party members had escaped already, so I decided to stay and try to kill the eagles for points. My party members decided they wanted to kill eagles from outside the vat to try and prevent me from getting the points. "A god comes down and smites you, because that's not allowed." Note: we were level 3 goblins. No god in Golarion cares about a trio of level 3 goblins competing to become chief of a tribe.

[Crake]

My DM's biggest mistake? Letting a player actually play a frenzied berserker. Wasn't sure if the horror stories were just that, but turns out it's actually true, the only people who play frenzied berserkers are the ones who just want to mess around and don't really care about the game itself and ruining the experience for other players.

I lied, it wasn't my DM that did this, it was me, I was the DM. I am the bad.

[Jowgen]

This one is from a game I played in and goes in the opposite direction of the OP.

The quest was a pretty straight forward "save missing king from lair of Evil Dragons". On the whole it went pretty well, we beat about 8 dragons of young-adult to mature adult levels. The mistake came afterwards. We already had WBL-appropriate quest reward loot lined up, but then one of my fellow players remembered the value dead dragon parts have. We looked at Draconomicon first, the someone dug up the Carving up the Dragon article from Dragon mag, and lastly I recalled the power components dragon mag article. We had all the Survival and Alchemist skills required in the party and started harvesting dragon skin, bones, blood, organs... everything.

The DM let it play out (no supply-demand limits), and we ended up leaving our WBL completely in the dust. Personally, I went full charity mode, renovating almost the entire city the King was from for the Good of the people for RP; but that's just me. After some talking, everyone else retired their characters into cushy local lord positions and stuff.

[Krazzman]

My DM's biggest mistake? Letting a player actually play a frenzied berserker. Wasn't sure if the horror stories were just that, but turns out it's actually true, the only people who play frenzied berserkers are the ones who just want to mess around and don't really care about the game itself and ruining the experience for other players.

I lied, it wasn't my DM that did this, it was me, I was the DM. I am the bad.

Funnily enough I once DMed a campaign with 2 Frenzied Berserkers (at different points of the story). And it went well.

I was dming the introduction adventures for eberron until we came to the vampire and blade one as such we did a timeskip.
The first mistake I made was allow traits and flaws as well as giving a fixed array and 1 free LA. No one used it except one player... and he brought forth the monstrosity known as: Bloud. A Goliath Barbarian that was... loud. With the plan to go Frenzy later.

Cue the first 2 books and he retires his character due to being a tad bit overpowered and wanting to try an Artificer.
So he comes with that char, in the second part another player joined playing a Warforged Paladin and for the last part a Human Frenzied Berserker joined them (again another player). After two bigger fights (one against a Dread Necromancer//Fighter aka Deathknight and a WereWolfDruid the campaign dissolved.

After that the campaign dissolved... mainly due to the timeskip wreaking havoc on a big scale as the investment was destroyed...

[Gnaeus]

Never assume that CR is a useful predictor of how challenging an encounter is. I had a party that was used to annihilating encounters of a certain CR before the monsters could even attack. The fiendish Dire Tiger that TPKed them was the same CR. It ate one character per round, and only the flying wizard lived.

It might not even have been over CRed. If the flying wizard had Ray of Stupidity, it would have been another speedbump. But against that party, it was certain death.

[Nettlekid]

I had a bad experience with a DM who got really into making his bad guys strong and mysterious when they weren't, and nerfing PCs (specifically me) to make his guy stronger. It was a level 15 game but none of us were planning to play super high OP. The party was a Crusader/Deepstone Sentinel, a Dragon Shaman, and me, a Conjurer Malconvoker. I know that sounds OP but I wasn't pulling out all the stops, I wasn't even using Abrupt Jaunt, I was really solely playing up being a liar who did a lot of scouting with the Summon Elemental reserve feat, teleporting the party the few miles back and forth to the dungeon we were exploring, and summoning a pair of Bone Devils to help the Deepstone Sentinel in combat. I did have Polymorph too, which I used for movement speeds more than anything else.

Now, completely unbeknownst to me, the DM's planned BBEG was also a Conjurer of I suppose Epic level. He didn't mention this to me when I was running my character by him, describing my build and ACFs (the Rapid Summoning from UA was a big one for me and he was fine with it) and when I was banning pretty much all my other spell schools to focus on Conjuration. The DM did not know how to build a character. In a game I DMed that he was in he complained about his Cleric being grossly underpowered compared to the Rogue and the Duskblade. So I think that pretty immediately he was annoyed that his BBEG was so much weaker than my character with the same focus. I had no idea that was the case because I didn't know the BBEG's specialty, but what it boiled down to was the DM arbitrarily removing my ability to cast any Conjuration spells whenever some trap room was sprung (and no, sending summoned Elementals to spring the traps would never come up with a result, the party was always taken totally unaware when something happened) and so while I could Polymorph into a BSF or buff my allies, I couldn't warp around or summon the creatures that my 15 levels were specifically tailored to. All the while the BBEG's summoned bad guys were pounding on us. There was no clever rule in place, no Selective AMF or anything, it was just "Your magic doesn't work, his identical but stronger magic does."

The game didn't continue very long, but I've had a sore spot about that guy ever since.

[Bronk]

DM mistakes...

So, first of all, don't get me wrong, this was an awesome game, and the DM was a great guy. I have a lot of fond memories of this game! It was an older game, about 20 years ago or so at this point, but although we were all just level 7, it felt super epic. However, while I had fun, most of the standout memories from this campaign involve other people having a terrible time, and here's why.

1: We had 13 people in the game. That's a whole lot of people to keep track of! Luckily, we were in a huge room with a lot of giant tables that we put into a circle, so space wasn't an issue, but noise due to side chatter was. But related to the size of the game...

2: Not everyone was on the same level of maturity. Some people wanted to explore and progress, but others were the silly types who couldn't calm down, and didn't want to contribute to the world saving plot.

3: One character, the best paladin ever, had to be mind controlled by the DM into helping, since he could tell that the quest giver was evil.

4: Two people had ideas for characters that were too similar for the DM, but he allowed them anyway. They were both alternate race fighter types who had strength not normally attainable in the game. However, one guy was the DMs best friend, and the other had their exceptional strength reduced in game in the first session.

5: We all started at level 7, but many of the players were new to the game, and many people had trouble figuring out what their character could even do, let alone how.

6: As epic as the game was, we never did raise past level 7 during the campaign!

7: The DM allowed inter party fighting on a huge scale... about 5 people had their characters killed, and they were out of the game for good. There was shouting, crying, and a lot of anger involved.

I'd say:
1: Avoid games with more going on than you can handle.
2: Make sure everyone is ready to play the same kind of game.
3: Sometimes character concepts don't fit a game, so warn people ahead of time.
4: Avoid favoritism.
5: If you need to, help your players learn enough of the rules to play their character.
6: Try not to make your player's characters progression feel stagnant.
And 7: Although player characters aren't 'real', real feelings can be hurt during the game if you're not careful.

[ComaVision]

I find that if you need to make a ruling either because of a vague rule or not wanting to spend the time to look it up, you're better off ruling in favour of the PCs.

My current DM is running a Pathfinder AP but he doesn't understand the material well and if he doesn't understand something or read it wrong he will interpret against the PCs. Once that starts killing PCs, it sours the game pretty quickly. Oh, he also encourages off-topic discussion as he hasn't read ahead and doesn't want to run out of "prepared" material.

[inuyasha]

Don't run a game with ten players in the party. Just don't. It's terrible. Split it into two games. Or better yet, three games. But for the love of Guthix, don't try and put them all at the same table at the same time.

I don't honestly agree with this, I'm a young member of a longtime gaming group with my family which is most of the time 10 people, never less than 8. It runs great, honestly it just depends on who your players are.

That being said, I also run an after-school Dungeons & Dragons (now Pathfinder) club, which has 8 people on a bad day, and one time I think we got up to 12, and yes, it can get a little chaotic. The game is still a blast though, and everyone has a good time.

10 people games are all I'm really used to, both as a player and a DM. It just depends on what you're used to and what you're comfortable running as well as how experienced your players are (or how well they're taught... I managed to teach that Pathfinder club, and they still don't know everything but we've been playing for almost 2 years now and all seems to be going well.

[martixy]

I don't honestly agree with this, I'm a young member of a longtime gaming group with my family which is most of the time 10 people, never less than 8. It runs great, honestly it just depends on who your players are.

That being said, I also run an after-school Dungeons & Dragons (now Pathfinder) club, which has 8 people on a bad day, and one time I think we got up to 12, and yes, it can get a little chaotic. The game is still a blast though, and everyone has a good time.

10 people games are all I'm really used to, both as a player and a DM. It just depends on what you're used to and what you're comfortable running as well as how experienced your players are (or how well they're taught... I managed to teach that Pathfinder club, and they still don't know everything but we've been playing for almost 2 years now and all seems to be going well.

I can't imagine being able to tell any amount of coherent story like that, I just can't.
Straight up dungeon-crawls, sure... story. No.

As far as my bad DM experiences....
I guess one sad one I could point out is this not very assertive guy. He didn't know the game well and he seemed to lack the will to exercise his authority as a DM. So much so that when a player demanded a DC2000 save from him he just said "Um... okay."
This was sort of a boss battle. We were actually meant to be delivered a message and not fight these guys, or at least not survive a fight, but I think he just gave up. Mercifully for the rest of us, the campaign ended after a short wrap up afterwards.

To be fair it wasn't all him, he just had the misfortune of being meek and permissive in the face of highly abusive players. I mean that guy with the stratospheric save switched something like 3 characters in the span of 6 sessions. His last one being some ungodly abomination with his LAST character as a cohort. He had zero RP. His primary response was "Can we kill it?".

[Crake]

10 people games are all I'm really used to

To be fair, if you've never actually experienced playing in a smaller group, then you can't really understand the difference between playing in a huge group or a small group. You've normalized playing in a big group, so it seems fine to you, but that's because you don't have the experience of playing in a smaller group to compare it to. Trust me, and a lot of the playground, when we say running a smaller group is much smoother and, generally (not always) more fun because each person gets a larger share of the spotlight, matters more to the story, and has a greater share of personal investment in what's going on.

[DarthSpader]

Haven't really had any horrible DMs. But did have one expirrence that pissed me off. - and made me leave the group for a while.

Playing prefab campaign group consists of a paladin, a fighter (who was totally psychotic and epitome of chaotic violent) my summoner and a gunslinger. Now, never mind that despite my "wait what?!?" Earlier as the paladin just overlooked and "didn't see" the fighter toss a tied up prisoner into a raging furnace "cause it was fun and I hate those *****rs" without so much as a second look from Dm to either the paladin or the fighter... Anyway, a while later and we come to a haunted house. My character is built as a support Mage with a serpent eidolon specced for rogue sub duty. Good dex and decent attacks and really my only straight up combat. We get in the house and eidolon vanishes. I try to resummon, nothing. Detect magic = lots. Try to determine type got 30+ on check told "nope" other character able to summon monster and pally has his mount. Spend a few min trying to figure out why 50% of my character is "just gone" - not told a thing. Finished off the session basically making holes and hoping bad guys would fall into them. Didn't play that campaign again. (Mostly because of job issues, but that session also left bad taste)

Ended up getting the same prefab book year or so later - and reading that part, nothing about blocking eidolons or summons or anything. Asked the Dm - said he wanted to scare me. Lol. At the time was totally pissed off, but looking back is kinda funny. Good intent but just, fail for execution. Otherwise this Dm is top notch and runs some of the best games I've played in, and I'm not holding a grudge.

That's only story I have for this type.

[Theobod]

As a DM I think the one thing to remember, and in my first game not doing exactly this was my major mistake, is to make sure the players, especially the less mature ones, know that just because something worked once due to being ruled as such at session for the purposes of maintaining flow, doesn't mean it will ever work that way again in the future when you look up all the relevant rules and put them in context between sessions. More of a problem for new DMs (as I was at the time).

One I have been on the receiving end of: don't think that DPS is king and that the party is somehow better than everything else and by virtue of that are allowed overpowered everything, because eventually the party will face a similar threat and WILL wipe. DPS in that game was enormous because the DM refused to learn the magic item rules and threw out the box monsters at us that died instantly. Then one fateful day we fought a man with a magic sword who won initiative. TPK in one round.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Relevant link. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?363545-What-was-your-worst-DM-ever-This-thread-is-impervious-roll-to-disbelieve!)

[mastermisha1]

About 10 years ago I had was in a pretty good group, we met regularly, played hard, and generally had fun. However, one member had a crush on the only girl in the group that led to all sort of shenanigans when he DMed. Pretty much the girl got to be the start, with the whole campaign revolving around her. That meant advance knowledge of the whole campaign, knowledge of most encounters in advance, and preferential loot treatment. What made it worse was that quite often it would lead to situations where she would be in conflict with the rest of the group, OoC and Story wise. (For example, waste 5 levels to boost bluff mod through roof to be able to blufficial against the party knowing that soon the story arc was over and she would get to retrain all those levels.) Since the DM had love goggles for her he always sided with her.
Alternatively, when she DMed it would lead to her using that as an opportunity to flirt non stop with whomever she had a crush on (or was dating) at the time.
Overall the group was fun as hell and everything but constant favoritism and unsatisfied libidos ended up forcing me, as well as a few others, to leave.

[Draconium]

A friend of mine, one I play with, has recently had an experience that fits in here nicely.

So, we're playing a modified version of the, I believe, Temple of Elemental Evil. My friend was playing a Paladin, but unfortunately, he and I were unable to make it to a recent session. We end up attending the next session, though, and prior to the game, we start chatting with our DM. My friend mentions playing his Paladin again, only fir the DM to drop a bombshell: apparently, in the session we both missed, a group of enemies ambushed us in our sleep and took the Paladin (and only the Paladin) as a sacrifice to the temple.

As I'm sure you've guessed, this does not go over well, especially since no one who was there even attempted to stop this from happening (I guess they don't like playing with a Paladin), and the only two characters who would've tried to stop it no matter what (myself included) were apparently restrained or something. Now, I'm sure why you can see why this is so bad - this happened without my friend's permission while he couldn't do anything and try to stop it, due to being absent.

This campaign has also recently devolved to the point where the NPCs are actively better at the players' jobs than the PCs, which kind of makes us feel like we're just along for the ride. My friend (same one as before) is actually considering "accidentally" offing these NPCs so that we can get the focus back on the players themselves.

[Quertus]

Don't run a game with ten players in the party. Just don't. It's terrible. Split it into two games. Or better yet, three games. But for the love of Guthix, don't try and put them all at the same table at the same time.



I don't honestly agree with this, I'm a young member of a longtime gaming group with my family which is most of the time 10 people, never less than 8. It runs great, honestly it just depends on who your players are.

That being said, I also run an after-school Dungeons & Dragons (now Pathfinder) club, which has 8 people on a bad day, and one time I think we got up to 12, and yes, it can get a little chaotic. The game is still a blast though, and everyone has a good time.

10 people games are all I'm really used to, both as a player and a DM. It just depends on what you're used to and what you're comfortable running as well as how experienced your players are (or how well they're taught... I managed to teach that Pathfinder club, and they still don't know everything but we've been playing for almost 2 years now and all seems to be going well.

Of course you don't want 10 players - you don't want the party deadlocked with a split vote. You clearly need to add in an 11th player! :smalltongue:

One of my groups usually ran around 10-11 people, but could surge to upwards of 15. And each player was allowed to run up to 3 characters. And good times were had by all.

Now, I wouldn't want a party of 10 noobs - heck, I don't want a party of 5 or more with one noob. I've learned to solo play with new players until they get the hang of the basics.



So this thread is about the times the DM screws the players? OK then...

Level 6, custom underground campaign, playing my Jedi build, fighting a giant crab with a pyramid on its back. We're in the pyramid and it's trying to shake us out, so I try to kill it by attacking its heart thing. Anyway I roll a 1, here's what happens.

DM: "You miss because of the violent shaking, and your sword gets caught between bricks and shatters."
Me: "It's Adamantine."
DM: "It still gets stuck."
Me: "I activate Hideaway to retract it from the ground."
DM: "..."
DM: "You are thrown off balance and fall out of the pyramid before you can get your sword out."
Me: "I use Lesser Retrieve* to get it while I'm on the ground."
DM: "mmmm...Fine."

*Homebrew level 1 Psionic power he made!

Don't know why he didn't want me to have my only weapon! Later while I attacked the legs to bring it down, he had me roll reflex and had the crab fall right on my feet, even though I specifically said I was cutting out its legs like you do trees, to make it fall the other way. I spent the rest of the session crawling around because our Cleric was out of Band-aids.

Earlier (different character) he wouldn't let me use a shield of faith potion because my Wis wasn't high enough.

This guy is a big video-gamer, and we don't let him DM anymore.

McCool

Some DMs get hung up on wanting random rolls to matter, and forget to make character abilities and choices matter. It's sad.

What's worse is when the game endorses such behavior. In the old Spelljammer rules, the crit table included a "ship catches fire" result. This crit specified that, if the players were smart, and had fire-proofed their ship, that the DM should... what? Ignore this result? No, the book has the DM use the next highest result - which just happened to be one of the most devastating results in the game. Which basically read, punish smart players by having their ship disabled/destroyed twice as fast.

It's no wonder there are so many **** DMs.

[Chronikoce]

The worst mistake I ever made was not saying no.

I was running a campaign that started out normal and slowly grew until at the last session I hosted we had 12 players.

We had scrapped individual turns and initiative at that point and still managed to have combats where almost everyone was paying attention.

The real trouble came from non combat encounters. 12 people can't really hold a conversation with 1 npc and that means everyone splintered off and it took forever to convey anything in a meaningful way.

I finally called the campaign and actually quit playing d&d for about a year because the burn out I'd experienced from trying to manage that was intense.

[DarthSpader]

Was reminded of this reading other thread (gestalt fun yay!)

Was asked to join a game with people I've played with before. Normal 3.5. Usually my character ended up being under optimized and a bit player. (Usually being out shone by the groups veteran players, usually being a scout/ranged ranger or cleric.) this time - it was gestalt. Having never played this before I was excited about the possibility and did much reading on the possible combinations, settling on a paladin/rogue. I geared up with Mithral full plate, good weapons and mobility skills. First fight, wich just happened to be against the BBEG of this particular adventure I detected evil on it and got a positive result. My turn came up so I moved into flank, activated smite and got a lucky confirmed crit. Smite + critical holy bastard sword +2 + sneak attack = dead BBEG. The Dm protested and said my sneak attack couldn't work because I was a paladin and "sneak attacks are dishonorable" I responded that no, it's not "back stabbing, it's "hitting a vital spot", and nothing to do with code of honor." The Dm allowed it but complained very loudly about my character being over powered and broken, and decided that my paladin had fallen anyway - because the BBEG was not actually evil but being kind controlled by the REAL BBEG... And by one shoting an "innocent" victim in a "vital spot" "from behind" was a violation of the code.

I have not gamed with that group since.

The lesson here? Don't make a gestalt game and invite people if you can't deal with the sick combos.

[SangoProduction]

Was reminded of this reading other thread (gestalt fun yay!)

Was asked to join a game with people I've played with before. Normal 3.5. Usually my character ended up being under optimized and a bit player. (Usually being out shone by the groups veteran players, usually being a scout/ranged ranger or cleric.) this time - it was gestalt. Having never played this before I was excited about the possibility and did much reading on the possible combinations, settling on a paladin/rogue. I geared up with Mithral full plate, good weapons and mobility skills. First fight, wich just happened to be against the BBEG of this particular adventure I detected evil on it and got a positive result. My turn came up so I moved into flank, activated smite and got a lucky confirmed crit. Smite + critical holy bastard sword +2 + sneak attack = dead BBEG. The Dm protested and said my sneak attack couldn't work because I was a paladin and "sneak attacks are dishonorable" I responded that no, it's not "back stabbing, it's "hitting a vital spot", and nothing to do with code of honor." The Dm allowed it but complained very loudly about my character being over powered and broken, and decided that my paladin had fallen anyway - because the BBEG was not actually evil but being kind controlled by the REAL BBEG... And by one shoting an "innocent" victim in a "vital spot" "from behind" was a violation of the code.

I have not gamed with that group since.

The lesson here? Don't make a gestalt game and invite people if you can't deal with the sick combos.

That isn't even much of a combo. It's probably not even that much damage compared to what a barbarian could do.

The real lesson here for players: Don't play paladins, because the DM will make you fall.
For DMs: Study up on the general power level of what you're allowing, and how you should prepare for that.

[DarthSpader]

It turned out to be the strongest character in that group. Most of the other players averaged around 15-30 dmg per attack. (There had been a few encounters before the group "found" my character) the hit I gave the BBEG ... Well 3d10+ 2d6+29(str+5x3,+1x3 from wep, +8 lvl (smite), and 3 for feats) +4d6 wound up being around 70 damage. (BBEG had aparently about 60 hp left and fast healing plus some cure abilities not used yet - planned for later in the fight)

I never got a chance to clarify what the issue was ... But aparently my fairly high AC combined with "huge" damage and "insane" saves (our stat rolls were some of the most generous I've seen, ever, using d6+12 each) so I quite easily rocked a 20 str and cha, and had 16-17 dex. With the armor, shield, some jewelry and weapon .... Well i was something like 34 AC at 8th lvl with minimum +15 to saves. Didn't help that due to previous party members deaths our group was well ahead in WBL numbers (10th lvl gold for 8th lvl characters I think. I know that my sword (+1 holy bastard sword) and shield (+2 Mithral heavy shield) were loot items I got from the party. But yea. Paladin saves, full bab good weapon, and super high AC aparently made me the "auto win" button in the Fight. I never went back to that game. Maybe it was the fact I was "optimized" when the rest of group wasent. But I got the feeling not only the DM was less then impressed with my pally rogue. Especially since "traditional" dnd has those 2 classes often At odds. Pairing them with gestalt was probally heresey to those people.

[Crake]

It turned out to be the strongest character in that group. Most of the other players averaged around 15-30 dmg per attack. (There had been a few encounters before the group "found" my character) the hit I gave the BBEG ... Well 3d10+ 2d6+29(str+5x3,+1x3 from wep, +8 lvl (smite), and 3 for feats) +4d6 wound up being around 70 damage. (BBEG had aparently about 60 hp left and fast healing plus some cure abilities not used yet - planned for later in the fight)

I never got a chance to clarify what the issue was ... But aparently my fairly high AC combined with "huge" damage and "insane" saves (our stat rolls were some of the most generous I've seen, ever, using d6+12 each) so I quite easily rocked a 20 str and cha, and had 16-17 dex. With the armor, shield, some jewelry and weapon .... Well i was something like 34 AC at 8th lvl with minimum +15 to saves. Didn't help that due to previous party members deaths our group was well ahead in WBL numbers (10th lvl gold for 8th lvl characters I think. I know that my sword (+1 holy bastard sword) and shield (+2 Mithral heavy shield) were loot items I got from the party. But yea. Paladin saves, full bab good weapon, and super high AC aparently made me the "auto win" button in the Fight. I never went back to that game. Maybe it was the fact I was "optimized" when the rest of group wasent. But I got the feeling not only the DM was less then impressed with my pally rogue. Especially since "traditional" dnd has those 2 classes often At odds. Pairing them with gestalt was probally heresey to those people.

just wanna let you know that your smite should have been multiplied by the crit haha

[martixy]

I don't really think gestalt had much to do with it.

Everyone else(including DM), just seems to have been plainly unfamiliar with the concept of high-level play.
Which at L8 you were fast approaching, and gestalt/more WBL only mildly accelerated.
Or even any amount of "I actually put some thought into this" play.

I've been in a similar game which fell through for different reasons, but it seemed initially the DM might have the same problem.

[atemu1234]

Don't run a game with ten players in the party. Just don't. It's terrible. Split it into two games. Or better yet, three games. But for the love of Guthix, don't try and put them all at the same table at the same time.


Just trying to schedule such a game is a great lesson on logistics and splitting large groups into smaller teams.

Story time:

So when I started my first group, I was DM. And I was teaching everyone else how to play as we went along. It was an experience, to say the least.

The problem was, I needed to work around everyone's schedules. But then it got difficult - certain people would show up to about every third game, others would show up for one session then never again, others showed up to every game.

But I was in charge of setting up the game; I had to make sure everyone knew where it was, and usually (out of the 12+ people we had in the group) only about five, tops would show up.

But, that night, everyone (for some reason) was able to come. I had a near-nervous breakdown simply trying to get everyone to pay attention to the game.

From then on, I only invited the people who would show up to most, if not all, of the games.

[slade88green]

I had a recent one. I joined a game that had been in progress for a while (3 players) and made a paladin. Two other people joined at the same time. We were told it would be a light magic world. No problem. I just wanted to role play. Basic array for stats, ouch. ok, good role play opportunities. Was told we had basic starting gear and then would figure out what else. Ok, so I started with chain shirt, a great sword, rations, bed roll, torches and rope + 10 gp. Ok, we are 7th level, what else do we get to start. after a few dice roll I got 100 gp, wow, how generous, thanks. To make it worse, he did not allow people to have their racial modifiers and benefits. Ok, fine, lets just go. Our first evenr happens and we find out one existing player can shape change at will apparently as a free action. The two others start using magic items immediately. Here I am with a 7th lvl paladin with 1st level gear and 10 gold. I spent the 100 to have the sword silvered, woopee. Harsh. Even worse, the first event was a bit of in party strife where an existing player attacked the wizard I came in with because he wandered out of camp.....Whats a paladin to do. I cant take 3 people wielding magic gear and shape changing at will, sometimes several time a round. Intimidate...natural 20 on the die yay me! During that strife, our camp was attacked and burned...there goes my bed roll, rations, torches and rope. Conveniently the attackers ran off, even though we were obviously out numbered and overpowered judging by the damage they dealt on the surprise round. I let the two other new players, since we were told we knew each other, that we should break off and travel by ourselves since the people we met had attacked the wizard. DM let us know that if we split off and traveled by ourselves we would contend with the next encounter by ourselves. ok fine, force by meta gaming, cool move. spent 3 hours to get to that point (that I will never get back). The plot of the game seemed to be wandering around encountering monsters. good plot. I left when we took a break. I wont play in that game again.

[arkangel111]

Mastermisha1 reminded me of an experience I had several years ago.

I was stationed in japan for the military. For those that haven't experienced this, it really limits your friends and gaming opportunities.

I met a girl and started hanging out with her (Now my wife). Anyways, I had heard that a group was playing and wanted more players, this opportunity was rare so I jumped on it. Turns out the DM was my wifes ex (never really dated but no one told him that). Apparently she stopped hanging out with him once we became friends, and he felt I stole her from him (we weren't even dating at the time either).
Anyways my work forced me to only make every other session. I rolled up my character and began playing, the first session went decently well though there was too much sex for my liking but at least the 2 culprits were married so i let it slide (can't stand the awkward guys with girl characters). having missed the next session I come back and am told there was a huge accident on the session I missed and I'd have to make a new character and be introduced later that night, I wasn't happy but OK I could do that, accidents happen.
I am introduced after an hour (character 90% done so it was good timing). The session goes well but due to the way I was introduced I had no items, so I try to reclaim some of my old gear, most of it has been given to the rest of the party and they don't yet trust me, so I am given enough to contribute and ensured I'll get more as my character becomes a real member of the group, thats fair I guess, I wouldn't give a stranger an awesome weapon just cause he asks.
Again I miss the next week and come back and told to make a new character, WTF! I was pissed but the players tell me how it all happened and at least this time it was a heroic act that saved the party from TPK. Fine I'll roll another character, This time I make a shifter so I don't have to rely on the players giving me my items, the party had also leveled and since my "heroic sacrifice" was what did it I didn't have to make a character 1 level lower than the party, his standard house-rule. Ok Fine, but this time due to much sidetracking by the couple obsessed with sex, nearly 3 hours go by before I am introduced. Rest the session goes well and finally my character even gets to progress some of the story.
To shorten the story Lets just say that the best thing that happened to me on my off weeks was dieing. After making a total of 4 characters and finally learning that the DM considered himself my wife's ex I leave the group. Through all of this I had noticed I seemed to be targeted more than the others but hadn't minded too much as long as the dice were on my side.

The moral: If your the player, don't play in a game with someone that resents you. If your the DM, get over it and keep your personal feelings out of the game or just say you don't want someone playing instead of messing with them every chance you get.

[Conradine]

My first DM was quite an unpleasant person.

He was obsessed with his own concept of "playing right". He had no qualms allowing the presence of a player able to dish 400+ damage with a single charge BEFORE getting epic ( a Paladin / Knight with feats and equipment that allowed him to hit like a nuke bomb ) or a multiclass Psion able to kill the Simbul ( CR 25 around ) in a single round.
But he didn't allowed me to buy a + 6 Strenght / Constitution belt. At epic levels. After meeting enemies that weared similar or more powerful equipement.

Well, I don't know. Either he had strange ideas on what is power playing and what is not, or he was simply trying to get on my nerves. Probably both.

I was kicked out from the group by him ( the others said nothing ), and I threatened to beat him if I met him alone.
Not a good way to end a partnership in play.


Anyway, I found a better group time later, and we get along for many years untill our roads finally departed.

I can say I played D&D untill I got tired of it.

[DarkEternal]

Can't really say if it is the worst experience I've ever had, since I've read horror stories about others, but they were bad for me at the time. The DM's in questions are friends though, despite how they led at parts.

Putting it in spoiler tags since it's a wall of text.

The worst experience is probably from a guy that's a really good friend and it was my first time playing 3.5. I always liked the heroic characters, so I made a paladin. You can already guess where this is going,e specially when we are all in early twenties and some are edgy as hell, trying to make good fall. In any case, my paladin couldn't do anything good. Try to influence the barkeep of a local hamlet that the way of Helm is good and just, and that he looks out for those that stand their ground and defend the land? With charisma through the roof and a good diplomacy roll? DM puts his persona into the barkeep not caring about the roll and starts to argue philosophically about me about how any deity worshipping is horrible and that I suck. Same with any other person I have chatted about.

Okay.
Game goes on, we meet some woman that failed her bluff check more or less against me and she registered as evil on my sense evil ability. When I think of pursuing this, he says that there are many people in the world that are evil and that is not enough of a case. Fair enough, even if she is clearly the culprit and like I said, failed her checks, I can see his reasoning. Still, I think it's enough of a case that the woman should be investigated. Enter party rogue who says he'd go snooping in her house to see if there is any evidence. I said okay, but I won't be involved since you know, paladin and all that, but I think it's good to lay my consciousness to rest and hell, I'd apologise to the woman if necessary.
Anyway, rogue goes in, and things go south as he's found out by the woman and her guards. They restrain him, she slits his throat on the spot, bam-dead character. Okay. That's the hazard of adventure work, I guess. We decide we should investigate the woman more. As I go to sleep, DM informs me that Helm is not pleased that I allowed a rogue to infiltrate a woman's hideout and bam, you fell.

Okay.
After this, even for a rookie I knew where this was going, so I played through the motions. Campaign dissipated a few sessions later since nobody liked how he led the game.

-
Fast forward a few years. More experienced, I made a crusader from Tome of bgattle. The DM is also a new guy, and a very good DM, but he made some questionable choices for the sake of balance, more often than not those choices breaking on my back.. Once more, bright eyed kid that wants to become a hero. WE do okay, but then due to story shenanigans end in Ravenloft which is hell in itself, and paladins(or crusaders in this example) have a really, really bad time there. We got to the mansion of one of the Dark lords there, did things, end up captured. My character ends up on the operating table. By the time the rest of the group found me, most of my organs were taken out and I was turned into some kind of a construct.
Okay.
My con was now zero, which was my second best stat in the game, my max hp took a drastic fall. I got some nifty things like not tiring, not having to breathe or eat, and thre was even a minor fortificationt hing in effect against crits, but the worst part was not mechanical. It was that I was now a bloody abomination. Some player characters would have liked that due to mechanical stuff. I was not one of them. We all got butchered a few sessions later.

Same DM, different setting. I m now a factotum that went into chameleon. For the most part, all goes well. But then we start getting up there in strength. I go into chameleon, get some really nice stuff, have inspiration points to spare. And that's when the balancing starts. We went through some dungeon which ended up exploding with my character being the only one still alive in it when it happened (technically I managed to „win“ the dungeon).
When I woke up and was found, DM says people recoiled at the sight of my form.
herewego
Clerics wanted to destroy me, paladins wanted to kill me and such. Reason? I became some kind of a half undead abomination. There was a very distinct feeling of deja vu. Mechanically, again no eating-no breathing thing. However, I also only got half hp from healing sources that were not mine which was pretty bad. Worse, however was that nobody with a divine spark could touch me. No clerics, no paladins, no healers, no characters with weapons blessed by the gods. If they did, they had to make an absurd save that they always failed and their powers would go into remission until they leveled up or went through a very expensive ritual, and I got some of those abilities for myself to use as super natural abilities until they were expended. As you can guess, this made me less than popular in the party. Insult to injury was that we played with my character at that time being the main healer with Factotum healing and wands. That nobody wanted since they were afraid I'd lock up their powers. Worse than that, I could not go into the Divine form as chameleon since I could not cast any divine spells. So, class feature pretty much locked.

Anyway, I was kind of pissed, but again, STORY!. So let's do it. Being such a class, I had skills wherever I wanted to have them, really, and was passing most skill checks without a problem. This was apparently a problem so the DM changed the entire skill system, making it that every five points in a skill counted as one and he said he lowered the DC's as well so it would not be much of a change.

It was.
I couldn't pass most of them, my Iaijutusu became trivial now, my Knowledge devotion was stupid and so on. So basically, I was inept. That campaign died a few sessions later as well.
Now on my third campaign, same DM. I made a paladin again because clearly I don't learn so well. God help me.

[DirePorkChop]

I played in a group of 13 one time. TOO MANY PEOPLE! I played for all of two sessions, and I dropped out. There were entirely too many people to do anything other than combat, and even that was slow as S*** running uphill in January. The worst part being that I didn't know there would be that many people, and I built a Bluff/diplomancer beguiler. It ended when the DM snapped at me for trying to role-play my characters fear of the undead (as almost all of his spells didn't work on them) and he told me that I was detracting from their combat. I walked out and never went back.

The first time I ran a game, I was not used to fudging die rolls, and had very little grasp on 3.5 as a team game. I thought my job was to kill the PC's, and I managed to do that quite a bit. Great risk meant great reward though. Ah, the days of Monte Hall campaigns.

[ZeroiaSD]

Play by post mistake, and not a rare one-


Just because you can spend awhile between posts, doesn't mean it's at all a good idea to, especially for the DM. The game loses momentum, people stop paying attention for updates, and then even when updates happen you don't get everyone and woosh.


If the hold-up is a player, the DM shouldn't just wait for them quietly, but rather they should (1) make it clear who's being waited for, and (2) put a time-limit before they skip whoever's turn, so everyone else knows things are still moving. If you need to or decide to take a break for someone, be sure everyone knows when everyone returns. You don't want to have a game lose steam because someone forgot to mention they'd be out of town for two weeks.

[Seppo87]

I was once accused of being a bad dm because I did not "allow minor, flavorful changes to the rules in the name of storytelling and creativity"

The requested changes were:

1) "I'm rolling a wizard and I want to know more than 2 spells per level without using wbl"
"You have to pay for spells known or you can take the collegiate wizard feat"
"No way! Spells must be free you're giving me unreasonable limitations"

2) "ok then I want to roll a cleric instead. Given my character is a worshipper of Olidammara I would like to prepare spells by indulging in sex and alcohol at any moment instead of praying at a fixed time..."
"Fine by me. Reskin is totally cool"
"...whenever I want to, multiple times per day!"
"You cannot recharge daily spells unless a day has passed"
"But my character does celebrate the deity so she will recieve spells"
"Yes, once per day"
"You know I don't think you're a good DM since you put rules before creativity"
She then started a rules argument and was soon proven wrong.

The cleric was made nonetheless. In the first session she acted like being a cleric gave her permanent detect evil and detect magic, 24/7, as AOE.
I said, that is not how it works.
She said I was wrong, so I showed her the rules. Cornered, she resorted to her well tested strategy: I was totally a bad DM who didn't let players express their ideas.

She left soon after, and I never saw her again.
Her ideas about good play were bizarre.

[Sliver]

Cornered, she resorted to her well tested strategy: I was totally a bad DM who didn't let players express their ideas.

I had a similar case, though not rules related. I started a campaign with the only limit on characters is that I don't want there to be PvP. A rather experienced player that never made any PvP characters suddenly wants to play a character with an anti-party agenda and I'm suddenly stifling his creativity. Because it's obvious that when you say "I don't want X in my game", someone will insist that he has to play X and nothing else.

My worst experience with a DM would be when I was rather new to the game. The DM was rather bland and put no effort into any NPC besides the godly DMPCs that would appear to save us from thousands of enemies that would suddenly appear out of nowhere. That DM decided that my character is too boring, so an NPC had my character charmed and raped, both physically and mentally, so that I'm forced to be an evil minion. My character is separated from the rest of the party and I have nothing to interact with. The only reason that any of the players were still in the game was because we enjoyed interacting with each other and there were no consistent DMs for us to play under besides this one, and he took that away from us.

No, talking to him never helped.

[Ahus]

First encounter TPK because the DM confused hit points vs hit Dice for calculating the BAB for the kobold horde that the party was supposed to save their hometown from. Also for th effect of the sleep spell cast by the level 1 Beguiler that caught all but a handful of kobolds in the AOE.

The whole party gave the DM a WTF and he retroactively fixed the kobolds and said we all stabilized and the town guard were triumphant in our absence.
After we heal up the party goes out to investigate the cause of the increased kobold activity. We find a cave with two kobold guards posted outside. The Beguiler sleeps them, they go down and we tie them to a tree away from the cave.The party gets jumped by some bugbears, out searching for the kobolds, and captured/imprisoned.
For those keeping track that's two encounters and two crushing defeats.
After resting up in cages for the evening, the party gets free, gets their weapons back, gets a map to the dungeon, and a new Ranger PC is added thanks to the Beguiler. A couple of well placed silent images (changing the apparent shape of the hallway and overflowing the dam causing the living quarters to appear to be rapidly flooding) also from the Beguiler and the remaining inhabitants of the dungeon are lined up single file, unarmed, face to face with the Barbarian and flanked on either by the Paladin and Cleric with the Ranger pin cushioning anything that moved away from the quickly growing pile of corpses.
Everyone in the party got two levels worth of XP from that encounter, except the Beguiler who didn't actually kill anyone.
The entire dungeon cleared out the party finds a group of Kobold young, which the Ranger wants to kill off so they don't grow up to be evil monsters, the Paladin disagrees on the grounds that killing innocents is wrong, and falls.Yup the Paladin fell because he wouldn't kill children. So he quits the game. The rest of us are still trying to give benefit of doubt. So we loot the dungeon and the barbarian finds a huge Ruby. Upon picking it up he becomes possessed by the BBEG and proceeded to TPK the rest of the party.

[Vyanie]

Was introduced to group and we are all level 4, ok so I made a brawler since the group had a 2 bards, rogue, ranger, sorc, fighter, barb and 2 clerics. First session went well, but the DM seemed to not like the fact that i grappled something to keep the party alive. Next session group gets into a large fight vs cultists and their caster screws up and becomes a big nasty mindless thing attacking us, well hell i thought lets keep it occupied while the party finishes off the easy things so I grapple, its turn instantly counters my grapple... again and again we go about this (its countering my grapple on a roll of 11) no problem at least im keeping it occupied. Group finishes off the small things it FINALLY fails to counter my grapple, group starts attacking it while im grappled... this should go great then right? NOPE GM rules that since im grappled with it there is a 50/50 chance the party hits me on every single attack no matter what.... barb rages, gets buffed and swings.... nat 20.... rolls max damage.... 50/50 I get hit and went from full hp to damn near dead. rogue sneak attacks... i get hit again bam 2 hp left. fighter swings... bam -8 hp.... nothing in the rules state 50/50 hit chance, they actually state it is EASIER to hit the target.

Do not make arbitrary rules that completely screw your players. As a grapple focused brawler I am now actively trying to have my character commit suicide there is no joy in playing the character since i feel i am unable to do what it was intended for. I am not even sure if I want to continue playing with the group

[Seppo87]

Was introduced to group and we are all level 4, ok so I made a brawler since the group had a 2 bards, rogue, ranger, sorc, fighter, barb and 2 clerics. First session went well, but the DM seemed to not like the fact that i grappled something to keep the party alive. Next session group gets into a large fight vs cultists and their caster screws up and becomes a big nasty mindless thing attacking us, well hell i thought lets keep it occupied while the party finishes off the easy things so I grapple, its turn instantly counters my grapple... again and again we go about this (its countering my grapple on a roll of 11) no problem at least im keeping it occupied. Group finishes off the small things it FINALLY fails to counter my grapple, group starts attacking it while im grappled... this should go great then right? NOPE GM rules that since im grappled with it there is a 50/50 chance the party hits me on every single attack no matter what.... barb rages, gets buffed and swings.... nat 20.... rolls max damage.... 50/50 I get hit and went from full hp to damn near dead. rogue sneak attacks... i get hit again bam 2 hp left. fighter swings... bam -8 hp.... nothing in the rules state 50/50 hit chance, they actually state it is EASIER to hit the target.

Do not make arbitrary rules that completely screw your players. As a grapple focused brawler I am now actively trying to have my character commit suicide there is no joy in playing the character since i feel i am unable to do what it was intended for. I am not even sure if I want to continue playing with the group
Grapple the gm and have a party member show that the hit chance is indeed not 50/50

[Barbarian Horde]

A DM that wants a PVP Arena Setting - This will be 2hours of players refusing to explore so that they can have a surprise round action.

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edited to add-



When DMs try to introduce homebrew content that hasn't been balanced bothers me. I put a lot of time into my sessions when building maps, coming up story, writing npc lines, and giving detailed descriptions of the scene. The point is I really do put a lot of effort into building encounters and so forth.

I forgot this one guy I played with on roll20 last year decided he would post a 3.5 game . He reworked the combat system so that when an enemy striked you, if you had dex bonus of any kind you were allowed to strike back. This could be done equal to your dexterity bonus each time the enemy struck you. It was a rogues heaven...
Now with this being said I was playing a clericzilla at the time. What upset me was the fact that trash mobs in this world had a will save of +32 and the bbeg had +44.... making playing any magic caster almost pointless. my heightened dominate person useless, absolutely useless.