Who was the worst DM you've ever had?

[Jay R]

Note that I'm all in favor of players adding elements to the world.

That said, how is the GM incapable of denying if you state it like this? Can't something like the following exchange just happen?

"I go outside and pick up the wood axe outside"
"You find no axe outside."

What's wrong with asking the GM if there's an axe?

Most people find it easier to answer a question with "No" than to deny what the player just said by saying, "You can't. There's no axe there."

So it will increase the odds of getting the axe.

How much? That depends on the DM. For my recent DMs:

I'd never try it with Dirk, because he'd make the decision the same way in any case.
It would increase the odds with Mike, because he probably wouldn't even think to question it.
Nolen would agree to the axe being there anyway, so it would make no difference.
I don't know Brian enough to guess about his reaction to this gambit.

If I'm the DM, well, I've lived in the woods, and know better. "The owner of the cottage is competent, and doesn't leave an axe out where it can rust from rain or dew. There's only an axe there if he was interrupted while chopping wood."

Then I'd roll a very easy Spot check, and if it was high enough, I'd say, "But before you opened the door you saw the axe hanging on the wall."

[Quertus]

I have had very little in the way of bad GMs, but I think it is because I never play pick-up games. I have always known the GM and most of the players going into a game. Plus I will just sit out of a game if I think there is a good chance I will not like it. Not that they have all been great, but the worst have been merely passable.

Even just looking at my four single examples that got called out as, "were they the same person?", one was a pickup game, three were friends. In fact, most of my bad GM examples were playing with friends. But that's probably only because I can't remember the one shot pickup games as well as the ones I stuck with longer.


Most people find it easier to answer a question with "No" than to deny what the player just said by saying, "You can't. There's no axe there."

So it will increase the odds of getting the axe.

How much? That depends on the DM. For my recent DMs:

I'd never try it with Dirk, because he'd make the decision the same way in any case.
It would increase the odds with Mike, because he probably wouldn't even think to question it.
Nolen would agree to the axe being there anyway, so it would make no difference.
I don't know Brian enough to guess about his reaction to this gambit.

If I'm the DM, well, I've lived in the woods, and know better. "The owner of the cottage is competent, and doesn't leave an axe out where it can rust from rain or dew. There's only an axe there if he was interrupted while chopping wood."

Then I'd roll a very easy Spot check, and if it was high enough, I'd say, "But before you opened the door you saw the axe hanging on the wall."

Huh, I lost the other quotes...

Yes, that is why it often is a more successful technique. However, your "competent woodsman" brings up a really good point: how successful the technique is can depend on many factors, including GM favoritism, and how in sync your understanding of the world is with the GM's.

I've had people in games who would try to assert the dumbest "facts" be shot down more often than those who asked questions, and I've been in games where some people could just assert things that made no sense to me, but I couldn't get anywhere with questions or assertions.

Your ready spot check, and explanation of why things are the way they are, help build trust, and make for great a gaming experience, rather than a "worst GM" story. Kudos!

[Anonymouswizard]

As for the Original Topic....I'm the worst GM I've known...28 years ago I was a horrible, bratty 10 year old that started running games for my friends. Given that I didn't have the most mature players I still sucked. I was drunk on power, angry if they didn't do what I wanted them to do....like going into that dungeon. I routinely slaughtered the party, usually when they didn't do what I wanted them to do. I fudged the dice in their disfavor, I didn't know the rules. I made them do things in real life for XP in the game. But I got better and that is what matters. By the time I was 14 I was running a game in a local gaming store and the owner became one of my regular sit ins and loved my game and to this day we are still friends :) But I have him much to thank for widening my horizon during those pre internet years* and for giving me lots of tips.

*Got my first 2400 baud modem when I was 16

Honestly, we were all rubbish the first time we tried, glad to see you stuck at it though. I think that's more 'being 10', I was lucky to not start GMing until I was about 14, but I've grown massively since then (I can now plan my own adventures and everything! Oh, and reliably adjudicate in favour of fun).

I have to say, I've met some people who would be awesome GMs if they could just get over what I'll call their 'favourite trope'. This can be as simple as allowing challenges that aren't solved by combat, to a bizarre case where every single NPC important to the story was royalty (really, the story was quite engaging, it was just bizarre because the party included three commoners and at least one foreigner, out of four characters). There was also the one who would have been awesome for anybody with an old school mindset, the game was still really fun but I wanted a bit more investigation and a bit less exploration.

[Feddlefew]

Not my worst DM, but I'm still a little mad at one of my previous DMs for going out of his way to nerf my characters (or get them nerfed if he wasn't DMing) in every game I played with him. He really didn't like that I usually played control casters, I think because I made a lot of the "epic" set piece battles he liked to run less lethal. I wasn't even trivializing battles, just making them manageable for a party composed almost entirely of martial characters that usually needed new equipment, which we couldn't afford because we kept having to spend all our money on healing potions.

The battles weren't even really fun, just grueling slogs through 10+ mixed ranged and melee fighters sometimes backed up by a cleric or two, all carefully balanced against the party so that we would be completely out of resources at the end.

If he or anyone else had asked me to tone it down, I would have. Instead, here is a brief list of things I have been banned from using in various games by or because of him:

-Luck, water, plant, travel, sun, earth, fire, and death domains.
-Wizards
-Cleric prestige classes
-Clerics
-Sorcerers
-Bard prestige classes
-Bards
-Monks (I never tried playing a monk, just to be clear)
-Too many feats to list
-Craft: Alchemy

That group stopped playing with him after awhile, and now the only thing I'm banned from using in that group is divine metamagic.

[Inevitability]

-Monks (I never tried playing a monk, just to be clear)

To be honest, I'd be more surprised if someone got banned from monks after playing one. :smalltongue:

[Anonymouswizard]

To be honest, I'd be more surprised if someone got banned from monks after playing one. :smalltongue:

Honestly, a lot of GMs are so poor at optimisation that I can see it happening, either through ignorance (you managed to avoid fall damage without an expendable resource! That's broken!) or through the case of a high-op player choosing monk to tone their shenanigans down or to have a decent challenge and accidentally still being more powerful than the entire party.

Or in 5e, the monk is actually competitive there! (I dislike 5e for other reasons, but thought I'd bring it up)

[Knaight]

What's wrong with asking the GM if there's an axe?

It does involve adding a bit of time. There's a point where the reasonable assumption is just faster for everyone involved ("Is there a stick in this forest" is a question nobody needs to be asking), and while that point can vary having a wood chopping axe in the general vicinity of a cottage that uses a wood fire is often a pretty safe assumption.

[Cluedrew]

Even just looking at my four single examples that got called out as, "were they the same person?", one was a pickup game, three were friends. In fact, most of my bad GM examples were playing with friends. But that's probably only because I can't remember the one shot pickup games as well as the ones I stuck with longer.I say I play with friends not because playing with friends makes a good game, but because knowing someone well enough to call them a friend gives me enough information to decide if it will be a good game or not.

It isn't a perfect method, I have... a half dozen bad gaming stories behind me, but they are pretty well outnumbered.

[Quertus]

I say I play with friends not because playing with friends makes a good game, but because knowing someone well enough to call them a friend gives me enough information to decide if it will be a good game or not.

It isn't a perfect method, I have... a half dozen bad gaming stories behind me, but they are pretty well outnumbered.

What's your method for divining their GMing style from your knowledge of them as a friend?

For me, a lot of my examples caught me completely by surprise, because I'd gamed with or even under them before the events described.

Oh, thanks for reminding me: I've had a lot of GMs who relied too heavily on the power of the McGuffin. One in particular made one of my characters depressed about the pointless of their existence, thoroughly convinced that absolutely nothing could be accomplished under their own power. Because everything they tried to do was impossible without a McGuffin; with said McGuffin, even a 5-year-old could accomplish the goal. In all of their games, it was always the McGuffin that accomplished something, never the character.

[Pex]

It does involve adding a bit of time. There's a point where the reasonable assumption is just faster for everyone involved ("Is there a stick in this forest" is a question nobody needs to be asking), and while that point can vary having a wood chopping axe in the general vicinity of a cottage that uses a wood fire is often a pretty safe assumption.

I suspect for some DMs the question needs to be asked so they can say no because they don't want a PC to get a free weapon. Totally cynical on my part but based on experience.

[Cluedrew]

What's your method for divining their GMing style from your knowledge of them as a friend?I just talk about RPGs, if you are someone who I will game with it is rather likely to come up. "My best GM" held conversations with me about rule structure and design philosophy that go beyond what shows up on this forum most of the time before I ever played a game with them. Of course that is still not a guaranty of anything, but it gives a lot of information to work with.

[Quertus]

I just talk about RPGs, if you are someone who I will game with it is rather likely to come up. "My best GM" held conversations with me about rule structure and design philosophy that go beyond what shows up on this forum most of the time before I ever played a game with them. Of course that is still not a guaranty of anything, but it gives a lot of information to work with.

You know people who actually will talk about game theory? And you have intelligent, productive conversations with them on these topics? I'm jealous. Most of my gaming buddies have been of the "less talk, more play" variety.

[Cluedrew]

It is pretty cool, although considering the group largely formed through the local game development community, not so surprising. Although most are more into video games, but I like video games too.

[Stealth Marmot]

It is pretty cool, although considering the group largely formed through the local game development community, not so surprising. Although most are more into video games, but I like video games too.

Ohhh cool. Maybe I should look into whether the people from Firaxis ever hang out and play D&D around my area.

[Ravian]

I suspect for some DMs the question needs to be asked so they can say no because they don't want a PC to get a free weapon. Totally cynical on my part but based on experience.

Strikes me that players without a weapon will try to scavenge for one wherever they are. That's the reason why improvised weapons are a thing.

If a game's being broken by the existence of a mundane non-magical hatchet in a location where such an item would otherwise be reasonable, the game's probably already having some difficulties.

If the absence of a hatchet is a significant element that aids the plot or otherwise heightens enjoyment of the scene, go ahead and make that hatchet completely non-existent, otherwise you're just shutting down creative interaction.

[Pex]

Strikes me that players without a weapon will try to scavenge for one wherever they are. That's the reason why improvised weapons are a thing.

If a game's being broken by the existence of a mundane non-magical hatchet in a location where such an item would otherwise be reasonable, the game's probably already having some difficulties.

If the absence of a hatchet is a significant element that aids the plot or otherwise heightens enjoyment of the scene, go ahead and make that hatchet completely non-existent, otherwise you're just shutting down creative interaction.

Improvised weapons are fine. It usually means the PC will have a penalty of some kind or spent a game resource (like a feat) to avoid that penalty and the need for an improvised weapon happens from rarely to once a campaign anyway. Not wanting to allow a free weapon is the DM fear of a player getting away with something, a sensation of loss of control. Sometimes the DM had wanted the player to feel powerless and vulnerable because he doesn't have a weapon and getting the axe ruins the DM's plan to put the fear of DM in the player.

Like I said, it is totally cynical on my part but having to put up with such DMing in my 2E years when I was learning the game forever imprinted such cynicism upon me. Not all my 2E DMs were like that, but the 2E DMG rules encouraged it. Part of why I like 3E so much is the complete denunciation of such DMing, the beginning of "Say Yes", giving players meaningful choices to shape their own character's progress, etc. I mentioned it about two years ago how I was disappointed 5E facilitates a return of such DMing. Not cause it. Not teach it. Just facilitate it because of its vagueness in some rules and on purpose decision to have the DM finish designing the rules for his own ends (skills for example). I don't find it coincidental that in all my years of playing 3E/Pathfinder I never met a tyrannical DM, but the first time I try 5E the DM is a tyrant and I quit the game.

[RazorChain]

Improvised weapons are fine. It usually means the PC will have a penalty of some kind or spent a game resource (like a feat) to avoid that penalty and the need for an improvised weapon happens from rarely to once a campaign anyway. Not wanting to allow a free weapon is the DM fear of a player getting away with something, a sensation of loss of control. Sometimes the DM had wanted the player to feel powerless and vulnerable because he doesn't have a weapon and getting the axe ruins the DM's plan to put the fear of DM in the player.

Like I said, it is totally cynical on my part but having to put up with such DMing in my 2E years when I was learning the game forever imprinted such cynicism upon me. Not all my 2E DMs were like that, but the 2E DMG rules encouraged it. Part of why I like 3E so much is the complete denunciation of such DMing, the beginning of "Say Yes", giving players meaningful choices to shape their own character's progress, etc. I mentioned it about two years ago how I was disappointed 5E facilitates a return of such DMing. Not cause it. Not teach it. Just facilitate it because of its vagueness in some rules and on purpose decision to have the DM finish designing the rules for his own ends (skills for example). I don't find it coincidental that in all my years of playing 3E/Pathfinder I never met a tyrannical DM, but the first time I try 5E the DM is a tyrant and I quit the game.

The say yes is a big part in improv theater, saying no is blocking the action. But making a reasonable statement adds to the scene and is less likely to be blocked. If the GM is running a horror where the PC's are not supposed to have weapons the GM will simply state "you run outside the cottage to grab the hatchet but it is curiously missing......"

[Stealth Marmot]

Part of why I like 3E so much is the complete denunciation of such DMing, the beginning of "Say Yes", giving players meaningful choices to shape their own character's progress, etc.

D&D is a lot like improv theatre, and improv has the concept of not saying no, but instead "Yes, BUT..."

For example if someone in an improv points and says they are holding a gun you don't say "No you aren't" but instead say "Yes but..." and make something up that works for you. For example if you don't want them armed, they say they have a gun and you say "Yes but that is a staple gun and I'm not a sheet of paper." Or you can say "That just LOOKS like a gun. I carved it out of cheese."

"Yes, but..." works great for DMs who want to make sure players dont get everything they want, but have enough to finish what they were trying.

"I run outside and try to find a hatchet near the wood chopping stump."

"You find the hatchet sticking out of the stump, but the blade is rusty and the handle is broken in half."

"Will it cut a rope?"

"Yes but it might take a couple hits."

"That'll do."

[Jay R]

The say yes is a big part in improv theater, saying no is blocking the action.

In improvisational theater, where both are actors on stage equally, that makes sense. But when a DM is saying "no", she's acting more like a stage manager or a director, helping define the available actions.

Consider a player who says, "I spontaneously sprout wings and fly to the moon, which I throw down on the ogres." If the DM isn't supposed to ever say "No", then that's what happens.

Once you accept that the DM can and must say "No" in that situation, then you've accepted that the DM must make a judgment call before deciding between "Yes" and "No".

A bad DM (that's the topic, remember?) is one who makes poor judgment calls.

[JNAProductions]

In improvisational theater, where both are actors on stage equally, that makes sense. But when a DM is saying "no", she's acting more like a stage manager or a director, helping define the available actions.a

Consider a player who says, "I spontaneously sprout wings and fly to the moon, which I throw down on the ogres." If the DM isn't supposed to ever say "No", then that's what happens.

Once you accept that the DM can and must say "No" in that situation, then you've accepted that the DM must make a judgment call before deciding between "Yes" and "No".

A bad DM (that's the topic, remember?) is one who makes poor judgment calls.

I'd say, in general, the DM should try to say yes. There are some situations where you should absolutely say no, but if you're not sure whether or not to say no, err on the side of yes.

[ArcanaGuy]

As far as the woodaxe question, I prefer it when players are invested enough in the scene and the world to just say "I grab the woodaxe" because it maintains immersion. But I am also a GM who prefers players willing to make NPCs and create facts about the world. A world made by a group has more to it than a world made by one person.

I am really thrilled by Exalted 3rd Edition which actually has rules for Lore Checks and charms which not only allow but encourage the players to make up facts for the game.

[Feddlefew]

I'd say, in general, the DM should try to say yes. There are some situations where you should absolutely say no, but if you're not sure whether or not to say no, err on the side of yes.

I've always preferred "I don't know. Can you? :smallamused:" and then told my players what check to make.

[Scripten]

I really enjoy the "You can try" method. That usually makes players second-guess their actions, especially if they have to put in effort to explain. It's not foolproof, though. For example:

Player 1: "I sprout wings and fly to the moon!"
Player 2: "You can't do that!"
DM: "Nah, it's alright. But we're going to say that you 'try' to sprout wings and fly to the moon. Give me a quick breakdown of your attempt."

Sometimes, like in the above situation, it's an exercise in ridiculousness and can run down the pacing of the night, but you usually don't end up with more than one of these per group. (And if the player decides that they want to jump off of the shed roof, it can give way to a bit of character development when they hit the ground.) I guess it all comes down to who you are gaming with, though.

[Traab]

In improvisational theater, where both are actors on stage equally, that makes sense. But when a DM is saying "no", she's acting more like a stage manager or a director, helping define the available actions.

Consider a player who says, "I spontaneously sprout wings and fly to the moon, which I throw down on the ogres." If the DM isn't supposed to ever say "No", then that's what happens.

Once you accept that the DM can and must say "No" in that situation, then you've accepted that the DM must make a judgment call before deciding between "Yes" and "No".

A bad DM (that's the topic, remember?) is one who makes poor judgment calls.

"Ok sure, unfortunately you suffocate in the upper atmosphere, passing out and falling back to earth. You hit at terminal velocity and now your internal organs are external, and spread across the clearing. On the plus side you landed on an ogre, killing it instantly, so there is that."

[Pex]

In Pathfinder you can sprout wings (cast Polymorph) and fly to the moon (cast Interplanetary Teleport).

:smallbiggrin:

[RazorChain]

In improvisational theater, where both are actors on stage equally, that makes sense. But when a DM is saying "no", she's acting more like a stage manager or a director, helping define the available actions.

Consider a player who says, "I spontaneously sprout wings and fly to the moon, which I throw down on the ogres." If the DM isn't supposed to ever say "No", then that's what happens.

Once you accept that the DM can and must say "No" in that situation, then you've accepted that the DM must make a judgment call before deciding between "Yes" and "No".

A bad DM (that's the topic, remember?) is one who makes poor judgment calls.

I would tell the player "ok you do that!" Then I would tell the other players that John's character was behaving strangely, running around flapping his arms.

Which is why I mentioned a reasonable statement in an earlier post :)

[Anonymouswizard]

I think the idea is a GM should say 'yes, but...' as long as the suggestion is within the limits agreed upon at the start of the game.

So if this is a gritty low fantasy game where magic is hard and most people don't see a goblin, let alone a dragon, then saying 'I sprout wings and fly to the moon' should be shot down.

If this is a superhero game and I've been established as a Shapeshifter able to add functional limbs saying 'I grow wings and fly to the moon' makes sense. I hope you took Ranged Attack: Thrown so you can hit those Ogres.

If this is a science fiction game of the 'Culture with the serial numbers filed off' tech level then saying 'I sprout wings and fly to the moon' will just get people wondering why you waited a month instead of just grabbing an antigravity belt*.

* Or in my games using your a-grav (artificial gravity) implants, which are of course used for personal flight.

[Jay R]

I would tell the player "ok you do that!" Then I would tell the other players that John's character was behaving strangely, running around flapping his arms.

Which is why I mentioned a reasonable statement in an earlier post :)

That's equivalent to saying, that John's character is behaving strangely, pretending he's carrying an axe.


I think the idea is a GM should say 'yes, but...' as long ...

Once you've added "as long as", you've admitted that a judgment call should be made before deciding to say "Yes."

[Anonymouswizard]

Once you've added "as long as", you've admitted that a judgment call should be made before deciding to say "Yes."

True, but my point is that at some point everyone in the group had agreed to act in the genre conventions decided for this game (even if just sitting down at the table, although ideally more than that).

Part of the problem is we're discussing a hypothetical example that will rarely appear in reality. Almost every player I've met would only act within the established genre conventions, if it's been established that people don't spontaneously grow wings then they don't say they do.

So I suppose my view is, as long as it's possible in the game world the answer should be either 'yes' or 'yes, but...' However, the 'what level of stuff is possible' should be discussed with the group before the campaign.

Unless we're playing Exalted.

[kraftcheese]

If you read into the thread a bit, she explains that her family and first boyfriend treated her like crap so 'Jake' was an improvement by comparison.

After reading her answers to questions, I do believe that the events as a whole happened, but there has to be some narrative embellishments. Anyone that's been around a bad break-up or divorce knows that some things tend to get exaggerated.
What I really wanna know is which relatively popular online tables are "Jake's"...

[ArcanaGuy]

So here come story number three.

Once again, only the parts I tell here, this DM is going to sound horrible. But he kept things fun, and one of my all-time favorite gaming stories comes from one of his games. All credit to him for when things worked.

But hoooo boy, when it didn't.

This was in the early times of D&D 3rd edition. In fact, we'd only just gotten our 3rd ed books from Gencon the previous month, at the time the game started. Brand new DM and brand new players I'd never met before, all just responding to a flyer on the wall of our local gaming shop.

DM was one of the crusty old DMs who'd been playing since the red box, and he was firmly set in the AD&D mindset. I went ahead with my old standby, the Wizard. And knowing how they tend to draw fire, I made certain that I wasn't wearing the old robes-and-hat combo, just making sure I looked like any old adventuring type with a lot of pouches on his belt. We even had an 'in character' halloween game, and they all saw my costume. This comes up later.

I had the right mindset for the wizard. I made good choices between spell slots for the day and scrolls for 'every so often'. Usually focused on utlity spells after taking Precise Shot so I wouldn't keep shooting my allies in the back of the head. (oops)

Things went a bit awkwardly. We originally put it down to just learning the rules - early on we ran into a trapped room. There seemed to be absolutely no safe way through the room, and it wasn't until reaching the far side (and taking lots of damage) that we found the lever to deactivate the traps. On the wall, like a lightswitch. Which we couldn't see from the other side of the room becuase "it was too far away and you didn't look." And it turned out all the traps were illusions, which is why we couldn't find them ahead of time, or disarm them safely. But we kept our damage.

When we pointed out in the rule book that illusions get an automatic will save if you interact with them. "No, you don't get a save versus illusion unless you call it," he said decisively. Also, we pointed out, illusions can't deal damage. "Well, this is a leftover illusion from before magic changed," he said.

OK, whatever.

Then came AOOs. And I know the challenges of AOO rules, but we used them pretty effectively, making sure to position ourselves properly to take advantage of the shape of the battlefield and all that. One day, we opened a door, and skeletons started marching out - not attacking anyone in front, but just marching past us to go after those in back. "Take your AOOs," the DM said.

"No, don't think we will," we said. He was confused, but after all the skeletons, out came the necromancer who controlled them. THEN we wanted our AOOs.

"Nono," he said, "If you don't take your AOOs, you lose them!"

"SINCE WHEN?!"

He was adamant. Still, whatever. Still learning the rules, we guess.

Eventually, I reached level 3. And in eager readiness, I took craft wonderous item. And my first item I wanted to make was a simple 1000 gp slotted item for at-will mage hand. Just like it says right in the PHB.

I even had the time to make it. We had several days in town. But for some unknown reason... I couldn't. The DM kept coming up with reasons why I couldn't make it. When I solved those reasons, he came up with more reasons. The rest of the group was willing to wait in town until I was able to make it, but the DM insisted that if they didn't return to the dungeon crawl as soon as possible, it'd get repopulated by more powerful monsters. So we returned.

In-game, weeks passed. Out-of-game, months passed. We were reaching level 5, and I still hadn't been able to use craft wondrous item. Finally he blew up at me. "Magic items are supposed to be rare and valuable! Things that only the most powerful wizards can make! Not just cranked out overnight by some 3rd level wizard! They're supposed to MEAN something!"

And he wouldn't let me swap it out for some other feat, either. It's what I picked. "But you won't let me use it!" I protested. "You don't stop the fighter from using his feat!"

"You will use it!" he insisted. "Just not yet!"

Now, these were all bad enough, but then came the part where his rules only applied to us - not him. We ran into a trio of oversized ogres with spears. In a tiny little cellar. With no way they could get in. Fine, whatever. We recognized an AOO trap when we saw one by this point. I stayed outside at first and created an illusion of a fellow fighter for our dwarvish fighter. Once the dwarf charged in all clanging, the illusion charged in right behind, so the echoing crashes of the full plate would hide the fact that the illusion made no sound. And once inside, my better initiative allowed me to puppet the illusion dwarf around to try to soak up AOOs.

They declined to use their AOOs to attack my dwarf illusion. "They're more worried about the heavily armored dwarf."

"My illusion IS that of a heavily armored dwarf." I pointed out, "And they lose their AOOs if they don't use them."

"WHAT?! No they don't!"

"Remember the necromancer and the skeletons? You INSISTED that if someone doesn't use their AOOs at first opportunity, they lose them and don't get to use them later!"

"They're NOT wasting their AOOs on some first level illusion!"

"They don't KNOW it's an illusion! They haven't declared a save against illusion!"

"They saw you casting and then it appeared! How would they not know?"

"I cast it outside, and made it appear outside! They just saw two dwarves run in! And the rules state you have to interact with the illusion to get a save!"

He steamed a moment, picked up the d20, and snarled at me, "Here. If I roll a 1 or a 2, they'll attack the illusion."

"What kind of will save do they have?!"

So after realizing he was steadfastly going to refuse using the same rules as us, I went ahead and came into the room to start firing crossbow bolts at the ogres. And dealt virtually no damage. Yet, suddenly, the ogres are using all of their attacks on me.

"Why are they all attacking me, all of a sudden? I thought they were more concerned with the heavily armored dwarf?"

"You always attack the wizard first. Everyone knows that."

"How do they know I'm a wizard?!"

"The only one wearing a pointy hat and robes."

"I'm not WEARING a pointy hat and robes! You know that! You saw my halloween costume. I specifically don't want to advertise I'm a wizard!"

"Whatever, I'm attacking you."

And, by the end of the campaign ... I never did get to craft a single wondrous item.

[Zulwarn]

Stuff.

Wow you must have had some really good times with him for him to keep you as a player after this.

[ComaVision]

Wow you must have had some really good times with him for him to keep you as a player after this.

What? You think arbitrarily changing the rules on your players to makes things harder is good DMing?

[Quertus]

Wow you must have had some really good times with him for him to keep you as a player after this.


What? You think arbitrarily changing the rules on your players to makes things harder is good DMing?

I think this was just an obfuscated way of saying, "he's lucky you didn't bail".

[thamolas]

Probably me. I'm a terrible GM.

I like to run freewheeling sandbox-y campaigns, but I'm bad at inspiring player agency and laziness is one of my worst pet peeves, so, invariably, I get annoyed during sessions and start making dumb mistakes. This annoys the players and the game usually grinds to a halt.

[overlordseamus]

Worst? I had one a while back who i struggled through three sessions with before i gave up. Three sessions that taught me the easiest guide for how not to DM. Used to show up hours late for his own sessions, then proceed to spend the next hour reading the next part of the adventure because he hadn't already, then spend another half an hour checking facebook. When he was finally ready to play, he would hand wave the diplomatic encounters and force the group to roll instead of actually talking so he could get passed the 'boring bits', making it abundantly clear if the party pushed for talking that he didn't have any clue who his NPC's were. Then steamroll us in combat. I'm talking 3 TPK's in 3 sessions.

[ATHATH]

Worst? I had one a while back who i struggled through three sessions with before i gave up. Three sessions that taught me the easiest guide for how not to DM. Used to show up hours late for his own sessions, then proceed to spend the next hour reading the next part of the adventure because he hadn't already, then spend another half an hour checking facebook. When he was finally ready to play, he would hand wave the diplomatic encounters and force the group to roll instead of actually talking so he could get passed the 'boring bits', making it abundantly clear if the party pushed for talking that he didn't have any clue who his NPC's were. Then steamroll us in combat. I'm talking 3 TPK's in 3 sessions.
You let him do this to your group three times?!

[thamolas]

Worst? I had one a while back who i struggled through three sessions with before i gave up. Three sessions that taught me the easiest guide for how not to DM. Used to show up hours late for his own sessions, then proceed to spend the next hour reading the next part of the adventure because he hadn't already, then spend another half an hour checking facebook. When he was finally ready to play, he would hand wave the diplomatic encounters and force the group to roll instead of actually talking so he could get passed the 'boring bits', making it abundantly clear if the party pushed for talking that he didn't have any clue who his NPC's were. Then steamroll us in combat. I'm talking 3 TPK's in 3 sessions.

You let him do this to your group three times?!

overlordseamus has the patience of a saint. I would've bailed on that group in about 10 minutes. Mopping the bathroom sounds more fun than that.

[Velaryon]

Something overlordseamus said in his post reminded me of another bad DM experience I've had. He's a dear friend (I was in his wedding party and we're still in contact nearly every day even though he lives half a country away), but he does not have the mind set to DM.

My friend, we'll call him C, is or at least was at the time a pretty big R.A. Salvatore fan. Fresh off the heels of reading one of them, he had a campaign idea (I haven't read the book but I know it's inspired by a Salvatore novel because another friend in a different group had had the same idea shortly before). Our characters had come to wherever it was in Faerun, and there was basically open bounty on monsters: collect ears as evidence of your kills, bring them back for rewards, and there was a leaderboard dominated by high-level NPC's.

There were only two PC's for this game, and the other one helped the DM brainstorm and create some NPC's and such because he likes to do that, and because they were probably hanging out at the time C decided he wanted to run this game. So the other player and I decided to play evil characters just as a change of pace. I was a drow mystic theurge (yeah I know, super unoptomized) and he was an assassin.

We didn't get up to any particular evil hijinks in the first session, just simple things like the assassin stealing one guy's bag of ears and planting it on someone else to instigate a fight (during which he picked both of their pockets), and me intimidating a pack of trolls into willingly cutting off their ears for us as tribute and becoming foot soldiers for us.

The session was simple and fun, but after that the DM couldn't be arsed to run his game anymore. He totally checked out and made excuses every time we got on him, to the point where eventually the other player just grabbed his notes and ran the game himself. It only went for about two more sessions, but he ended up running it for longer than C did.

So C's problem wasn't really that he did anything particularly bad, we just couldn't get him to run the darn game more than once.

[overlordseamus]

You let him do this to your group three times?!


overlordseamus has the patience of a saint. I would've bailed on that group in about 10 minutes. Mopping the bathroom sounds more fun than that.

he was the delightful younger brother of my girlfriend at the time. met her through him, had only ever played with him before, never played in one of his games.
long story, but as him and i parted ways, so to did she and i.
lesson; games and relationships rarely mix.

[Rynjin]

A toss-up between two GMs.

One was my first GM ever. In hindsight there were some minor things that would today turn me off of ever starting to play with him (he thought critical fumbles were fun, for one, and had an active GMPC), but we had fun. We were going through the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path for Pathfinder with a huge group, and everything went fine, mostly. Alarm bells start ringing a bit after we get pretty deep in though (book 3 of the AP). He brings in his step-dad as a player. Both of them knowing my character's backstory is "Family killed by the Red Mantis Assassins, and he ****ing haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates them" with one of his primary long-term goals being to destroy the organization and slaughter them to the last member. The step-dad, logically...brings in a Red Mantis Assassin as his character. The GM makes no attempt to veto this, but does make sure to "subtly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVAhW4ToLFI)" remind everyone he doesn't allow PvP in the group. I'm left to bull**** a reason why my Monk doesn't rip his heart out of his chest at the first sight just to keep the game going. This after (a while back) we had captured a character and were interrogating him and I was forced by the GM to murder the captive "Because you're Evil" even though I had said I'd let him go (I guess the Lawful part doesn't count). Because Evil people murder everybody, I guess. Unless they're somebody they actually WANT to kill.

Anyway, I pushed on through. The Red Mantis guy gets an artifact weapon in the next session, though to be fair it WAS in the AP by default. Awful coincidence though, yeah.

Concurrently, I was running my first game after about 6 months of playing in that one , with most of the same people. I was running Carrion Crown, the GM of SS was playing a Summoner. Everything was cool until we got to book 2 and got high eough level to take Rend on his Eidolon. Okay, neat. That's a thing you can do.

He asks me if he can Rend multiple times per round with multiple sets of claws (one Rend per two claws). I, of course, say no. He asks me why, and I say because the rules don't let you, it's just two claws. He argues the point. I do some dumpster diving and pull up a quote from Jason Buhlman saying he can't. "That doesn't count, it's not rules text". Okay, but even if it did work I don't think that's the intent of the rule, and I think it's too strong to allow since you can get like 12 claw attacks, so still no. He continues arguing about how it was allowed in the game the step-dad was running (also Serpent's Skull) because they just go by what MAKES SENSE not by the rules or how strong anything is by god, so I should allow it to. Sorry bro, I'm new to this whole gig but I'm pretty sure that's not how I want to run things. He argues with me for a solid half hour on this over Steam and when I realize it's been that long I tell him (very rudely, I admit) that the answer's no, it's going to STAY no, and there's nothing he can do to change my mind on this.

So very logically he decides we have irreconcilable differences in playstyle, and he wants out of the game. All right, sorry to see you go, it's been fun. Not only that, though, he's going to stop GMing the SS game. Not kick me out (which would be petty, but at least make sense), just drop the game entirely, the other 5 players be damned. Everybody was kind of sour on the whole thing, so we kinda dropped our game too after another session. And that's my first experience with RPGs, basically.

Okay I lied, the next guy isn't nearly that bad, I'd forgotten how much the whole thing pissed me off.

----------------------------------
The second guy was guilty of a different sin: Secret campaign premise. This was about a year back, he shows up with your standard "gonzo game" set up (tristalt, Mythic, 12th level) for Play By Post and I decide to make a character for it even though I knew the GM for these usually disappeared before Recruitment even closed. He runs Recruitment for about three weeks, gets a pretty high turn out. I get picked as one of the 6 players (one for each Mythic path). And, wonder of wonders, he actually follows through on running the game. We get started, everything's fine. Until he drops a little tidbit about the setting he'd been withholding: Magic don't work. None of it. Spells, SLAs, Supernatural abilities, Psionics, whatever, it don't work. Sometimes it just doesn't function (like Teleportation), sometimes it's just twisted and ends up not working right, but magic doesn't work, at all. I try to find a way to put a good spin on this. Do we at least know what's going to go wrong and try to work around it? Nah, you'll need to figure that out in-game, and it won't always be the same. Is it a situational thing? Like occasional waves of magic-screwery that might be unexpected? Nah, it's ongoing and constant. Is there any chance we can stop the effect so magic works normally? Sure. At the ed of the campaign, since that's your goal (different from what he'd told us as well).

This left most of us up **** creek without a paddle. My own character was entirely based around supernatural effects, being a Shaman/Spiritualist/Fighter that constantly talked to his spirits and asked them for guidance or help accomplishing a task. His main method of attack was an ectoplasmic whip (Su), and the whole character concept was based around the character never actually doing anything (fluff-wise), his spirits would act as his hands and feet, and the character would never appear to move, things would just HAPPEN. Two other characters weren't much better.

We, naturally, dropped the game. Sorry, we signed on for something different, and kinda wanted to play the characters we spent 3 weeks making. Kthxbye. A 5th player dropped because his character was completely entwined with one of us who was leaving, and only submitted because he wanted to play with the other player and character. He was only able to find a single replacement with the knowledge of what the game was actually about, and the game withered on the vine.

I imagine the outcome would have been the same had he been up front about such a huge part of the premise, but at least it wouldn't have been such a frustrating time waster.

[Kanaric]

I wanted to post a couple of my "worst DM" experiences and saw a thread already existed for this so I hope nobody is mad I resurrect it.

Both of these games I quit pen and paper RPGs for quite a while after them. The first one was around 2003 when 3.5 was just getting released, I had attempted to play DND previously but we didn't know what we were doing so I found a group to play with that was DMed by a then friend of mine. It was by far the worst DND game i've ever played.

First off his world was bizarre, it was dragon rich so much so that dragons were the city guards. There was a war going on between two kingdoms basically and for some reason despite there being so many dragons the 2nd kingdom was mostly using orcs and creatures like that to fight and try to besiege cities guarded by dragons.

For some reason he decided to have no table size limit, he made a massive group of about 15 people to play this. None of the players started together at all, we had started in random places of his determination and had to find each other. This led to a ridiculous game where he was breaking off and DMing everyone individually. If there was too much of a race or a class he would ban new characters of that class so many people were refused to play what they wanted, I was one of them. Eventually the groups coalesced into two groups with 3 or so people still trying to find the others playing off on our own. I didn't want to play like this so I did my best finding the other players but he was making it ridiculous because he wanted to railroad me into the evil invading army.

I made an air genasi druid who had this feat called money grip so I could levitate up and have 15 foot reach with my ogre sized reach weapon I was using. I made this character intentionally because I was annoyed at his rules. He didn't know much about the game rules as well on top of all of this so I had thought, and so did he, that with my racial ability to levitate I could just basically fly around and hit people with spears. He didn't think to have characters with ranged attack me instead he would have higher and higher level creatures attack me that I ended up killed until he learned this lesson.

After this one of the groups was attacked by a BBEG dragon in a city to start off his war plot. My brother critted on it with a ray of enfeeblement reducing it's STR to around 1 or so, he ruled that it was killed instantly and he leveled up 3 of the people there by quite a few levels so they were ahead of much of the other players. This ends up causing serious problems.

One of the things I mentioned so far is he had kind of a poor grasp on the rules. However he let the power gamers use any book, despite him not knowing what they are using, including things like psionics. One of the people make some broken psionic character that I think he was bending the rules on, he is one of the people who is leveled by the above dragon slaying.

Eventually he has me join up with this bad guy army to attack the city that the "leveled up" players are who by now gained two more people. I joined this army because I thought it would lead me to the other players, I could sneak into the city, and I could finally join the group instead of having to do all these aside DMing sessions. So what happens is I get ordered by some monster to use my druid magic on the city, I summon swarms of rats to attack it. They then begin to fight the city. I try to sneak in to join the players but as soon as I climb the wall the Psionic PC instantly kills me.

TL;dr So a run down of why it's bad. DM didn't know rules too well, DM allowed a game with near 20 players, we had multiple parties all run by one DM with him taking people aside non stop and running all their games, he gave out ridiculous XP rewards and then let those people PVP other players, he let people run rules he didn't even read up on, he railroaded everyone into doing what he wanted by refusing them to play together or play the characters they wanted, and he put powerful ancient creatures as the commoner guards in every city. At the time this guy was my friend, we had a falling out much later, so I kept playing his game but after I was killed I decided to no longer play. I didn't play DND again until around the time 4E was out.

___________________

Now the 2nd story which is much shorter.

4e recently came out, I tried it and disliked it. I then decided to check out Pathfinder and found people playing Pathfinder Society games online. For the most part I had a good time but then I got into worse and more annoying games by increasingly terrible DMs. I played these games often with two friends of mine who lived far from me.

So we met this bizarre annoying guy in previous games, he had cringeworthy nerd humor and acted ridiculously goofy. He also was DMing games for pathfinder society online often, we played one game with him and my friends decided to never use him again because he played the game ridiculously. He also was annoying to be in a party with. I have a hard time remembering what he did and why we quit exactly but then the final game of pathfinder i've ever played happened.

I made a new character and decided to play a game, his was the only one I could sign up for and I decided to give him another chance. It was the Pathfinder module that took place in a tower that had multiple levels and the top level had a plot device where the floor was weak and half the building would collapse. For some reason he was describing everything in a bizarre way like he was trying to make the PCs afraid of everything. I knew this module and how it was supposed to be run, I should have quit when I saw that. In one part of it there is a person chained up in a room behind a door. He described it, in some like annoying giggly voice, that the players hear the rustling of chains behind a door and that it sounds like a chain monster. Annoyed but not wanting to metagame I was trying to convince the party it wasn't anything like that, but he went on to describe it further in a way where every readied actions to attack what was behind the door. He goads the players futher and then a player opens the door and kills the NPC inside who in the module is supposed to be rescued. At this point i'm like **** this ******* and decided to metagame the remaining of the module to get it over as quickly as possible.

So i'm basically bashing down doors ignoring his troll descriptions and then we hit the top floor and he does the most ridiculous **** i've ever seen a DM do.

He has the NPCs upstairs cast a smoke spell to blind half the room the NPC within goads a player to enter who dies to his crocodile pet who for some reason had no problem hitting them. The NPC then waits over in that area. In that area if more 4 or so creatures are in there it collapses and it can do so much damage it will instant kill everyone if you fail a dex save, the DM could optionally allow for a rerolled dex save to prevent PC death since it's supposed to be an intro game.

So he goes in there traps this player in there and tries to lure others in there to TPK the entire group.

Other players go in there and everyone in my group, who are all newer players or people who didn't play before, are constantly demanding to go in. Previously I was gung ho busting doors, why am I afraid now? I also didn't want to metagame and flat out tell them why even though in hindsight I should have knowing what this DM was doing. I try to go around, because there is a outside area where you can see him, but he just has the person hide in smoke. I attack into the fog and miss. At this point I gave up and said **** it and do what he wants me to do. I go in there, the last player to do so, and it collapses. He only gives us one roll each, despite the module to say to give the players a 2nd chance, and we all die. TPK.

That was the last game of Pathfinder I ever played.

After this I decided that then now on i'm going to DM my own games. It wasn't until 5e release that I played in someone elses game again this time in adventures league, where I found another terrible DM to rival these but that is enough for today.

[Ninja-Radish]

As a DM I love threads like this. I read them and think "Oh, I shouldn't do that. Or that either!". Keep 'em coming!

[Anonymouswizard]

As a DM I love threads like this. I read them and think "Oh, I shouldn't do that. Or that either!". Keep 'em coming!

I spend half my time laughing at idiotic GMs, and half my time worrying that the GM they're talking about is me.

[Fey]

I spend half my time laughing at idiotic GMs, and half my time worrying that the GM they're talking about is me.

As far as I know, no one I've ever DM'd for before even reads this forum, and I STILL worry about that.

[RazorChain]

I spend half my time laughing at idiotic GMs, and half my time worrying that the GM they're talking about is me.


As far as I know, no one I've ever DM'd for before even reads this forum, and I STILL worry about that.

Luckily for me when my GMing sucked it was pre internet, I'm not sure that anyone remembers. And if someone comes and complains about his pre teen GM I'm pretty sure the GM would get some slack for being an immature kid.


Luckily for me most of my bad GM's have been boring ones. I remember a Call of Chtulhu game where the Keeper forgot THE vital clue and we spent 8 hours virtually doing nothing. I only know this becuse I later checked in the module he was running at the local gaming store. I didn't show up next session because searching all the places for a 4th time and interrogating Miss Maples and Father Stevens for the umpteenth time didn't sound appealing to me.

I also had a GM once that wanted the players to share the costs for handouts after the fact. You see he had invested in a seal and wax to seal letters and on calligraphy pens to write beautiful handouts. The fact he bought all this and wanted us to pay for it did not make him popular with his players. Asking us first would have been better and even then we would have said no cause he was going to keep what was bought.

Then there was the dead serious occult GM. His game was more like being indoctrinated into some mystery cult. Gaming was something special, giggling, fooling around or having fun was forbidden. Now I've played with GM's that were of the serious kind and enforced strict roleplaying rules but this one cranked it up to hundred. Whern you are sitting around the gaming table with incence burning, holding hands with your fellow players and meditating to find your "inner character" before the seance....I mean session starts, then it enters a new level of weirdness. His obsession with the occult or the fact he really thought he could use magic and the idea that we should draw upon past life experiences in our character building had nothing to do with me leaving. Or his vampire fetishism...or the fact that he had a framed picture of Anton Szander La Vey in his apartment, or that he was a member of a witches coven (or so he claimed)

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Let's call my worse GM... Tim. That's not his real name, obviously.

I have so many stories it's actually kind of hard to pick. In general though, to understand the damaged mind of Tim, you must imagine the most obnoxiously hipster man to ever live. Got it? Good. You still aren't there yet, but we'll move on for now. He hated anything popular, and especially anything that I had ever seemed to like. I think he was honestly targeting me half the time, but I can never be sure since I've cut the guy entirely out of my life, and for good reason.

Across all the tales of woe I have about Tim, there are a few consistent things that make him the worst. First off, he had approximately one voice for all his NPCs, and it was arrogant p****. Every lord, lady, magician, shopkeep, or swineherd spoke like a posh gentleman, and each and every one of them KNEW they were better than us. This was particularly grating after saving the day/world and getting a mocking "congrats" for all our trouble. Secondly, said NPCs were obviously all at least 10 levels higher than us. That's usually expected of leaders and other adventurers in a setting, but when the local paperboy could rip the 22 Strength 22 Constitution high-level barbarian in half? That's ridiculous!

Worse than that though, is that these NPCs would ALWAYS barge into the boss battle of whatever dungeon we were delving, and finish off the big bad. I'm not exaggerating, he did this EVERY SINGLE TIME. It didn't matter if the fight was rough, or if we were seriously mopping the floor with the boss, after a certain point we knew the local Wizard/Cleric would burst in, kill the Lich in one hit (with abilities we've never heard about), and then tell us we were WELCOME for the save.

His worst offense was when I wanted to play a Paladin.

His world didn't have Paladins in it. They were the exact antithesis of all his setting stood for and all he wanted in it. So...of course he didn't tell me that. He let me play without comment, and simply made my life a living hell. He banned two-handed weapons. Yeah. Two Handed Weapons weren't allowed. But I was allowed to buy full plate armor, so his thing about "metal scarcity" was obviously bull. When called out (by his GF of all people, so you KNOW the whole party was beyond tired of this guy's antics by now), he changed his story to "well your cultural enemies use greatswords, so obviously it would be unacceptable for you to have one".

He actually insulted me too. We finally were getting reeeeeal sick of his crap (god I wish I could swear on this forum, I'm so furious right now) and the party started to call him out on the fact that he was throwing threats at us that were WAY higher than any fair reading of CR would allow, while granting us ABSOLUTELY NO GOLD OR ITEMS as reward, except for a couple of +1 armbands that let us swim better, which we never used because one of us had a serious Aquaphobia thing, so we avoided that. So then he finally granted my Paladin a greatsword. A VORPAL greatsword. And then laughed about how I rolled terribly so there wasn't a threat of it biting him.

I F******* exploded on him at that. I think I probably woke the neighborhood. The fact that the party (normally a very passive and conflict avoiding bunch) were on my side helped, but the SHEER ARROGANCE OF THAT*-----------------------------

I actually can't talk about it. Needless to say, he groveled and promised not to mess with us again. And until I lost the vorpal sword (he said it would lose that quality outside of the Fey realms) I basically just kept on rolling that sweet, sweet beheading critical.

So then, after a brutal heart-to-heart conversation between him, the party, and myself, in which he mea-culpa'd to his faults, we went back to the game with the understanding that he was on thin ice.

So then he killed us by omitting info from our Knowledge checks. SUCCESSFUL Knowledge checks. Because it was open-roll (nat 20 to the Rogue with high ranks) and we were 10th level with full ranks in the skills. He told us we were fighting a ground Dragon, specifically one without wings and the ability to fly. And then it flew. Without wings. Or any obvious spellcasting. Our plans were sort of done at that point. The Dragon killed everyone except me, and then denied my Paladin's wish to die in combat by burying him alive.

His GF actually dumped him for that. Still didn't make up for the year and a half of my life I'll never get back playing with him.

Screw Tim.

[Ninja-Radish]

Ugh I had a DM like Tim once. I wanted to play a Druid in a Pathfinder game many years ago. He said sure, no problem. Then, everything started going wrong: every creature I summoned attacked me. Every animal I spoke to attacked me. He took away my Wild Shape ability. Finally I had a talk with him and asked what the problem was. He said " You're not doing anything wrong, I just hate Druids so I've been screwing with you."

I quit the campaign right then and there, and now I've developed an irrational hatred of Druids lol.

[Anonymouswizard]

Luckily for me when my GMing sucked it was pre internet, I'm not sure that anyone remembers. And if someone comes and complains about his pre teen GM I'm pretty sure the GM would get some slack for being an immature kid.

Yeah, my terrible stuff comes from my first attempts at GMing, I've been better since I hit about 20. Still not great, but I can spin a fun game from the rulebooks and some NPCs.


Then there was the dead serious occult GM. His game was more like being indoctrinated into some mystery cult. Gaming was something special, giggling, fooling around or having fun was forbidden. Now I've played with GM's that were of the serious kind and enforced strict roleplaying rules but this one cranked it up to hundred. Whern you are sitting around the gaming table with incence burning, holding hands with your fellow players and meditating to find your "inner character" before the seance....I mean session starts, then it enters a new level of weirdness. His obsession with the occult or the fact he really thought he could use magic and the idea that we should draw upon past life experiences in our character building had nothing to do with me leaving. Or his vampire fetishism...or the fact that he had a framed picture of Anton Szander La Vey in his apartment, or that he was a member of a witches coven (or so he claimed)

Yesh. While I'll admit nothing here is bad if you're into that stuff, it just sounds weird. I want to make a crack about sacrificing goats, but that might be a bit insensitive.

I'm now wondering what cause you to leave. That at least would have got a polite exit from me in a 'have fun but it's not for me' kind of way.


Stuff.

Ah, one of those. Or, it appears one of everything, although about a third of it sounds like a style mismatch (some people like fighting over CRed with no reward, go figure). The rest is horrible though, while I've occasionally thrown a powerful NPC in (generally a wizard who's managed to get some high level spells or a skilled fighter) that's starting to sound like the SUE files.

[RazorChain]

Yeah, my terrible stuff comes from my first attempts at GMing, I've been better since I hit about 20. Still not great, but I can spin a fun game from the rulebooks and some NPCs.

You only get better with practice and some people are just natural. I don't know if I'm a natural or not but I've been a popular GM, I think it's just experience and lot of interest....special interest even :smallbiggrin:. I ran a game in the local game shop when I was 14 with far older people (20+) and did so for some years. During my teenage years I had 3 regular groups and took part in games with other groups as well. I have literally many thousands of hours of gaming and GMing behind me and hundreds of gaming supplements in my basement :smallredface:. What I'm saying is that people that are interested in improving can do so but a lot of background skill enhance my GMing skills like creative writing, being a sticky brain (helps with rules), my experience on a debate team (helps confidence) , experience from amateur acting group....and importantly I ran only improvised games for 2 years.




Yesh. While I'll admit nothing here is bad if you're into that stuff, it just sounds weird. I want to make a crack about sacrificing goats, but that might be a bit insensitive.

I'm now wondering what cause you to leave. That at least would have got a polite exit from me in a 'have fun but it's not for me' kind of way.


Well, you see I and a friend joined his Vampire the Masquerade group. He made us roll a 13th generation vampire while his 3 other players had been playing for years. Then his hate for the police came about when (he had gotten a lot of speeding tickets) me and my friends characters were pulled over by the cops. So my friend the Brujah tries to use presence but those are some kind of supercops that beat us up for being uppity. Then later we were being beaten up by some punks in the park when we wanted to find a quiet place to feed.

You see his vision of vampire was that we were meant to feel the angst and the despair. And he just loved that we were powerless while the other players (his friends and occult buddies) were like super vampires and a werewolf. So we play for some months and everything we the new players do gets thwarted by his super cool NPC's. This leads to that one of old PC takes a contract (he's an Assamite) on me and decides to take me on in my Sanctum. This was a mistake because I had rigged my place with a flamethrower trap and I subdue him and make him sign a bloodcontract so now he serves me.

This irked the Malkavian player so he bloodbonded my protégé against my will and was planning to use her against me. I found out, bought a motorcycle helmet just like his (his character always rode a motorcycle), lined it with plastic explosives and invite him over for a talk. He refuses to release my protégé and puts on his replaced motorcycle helmet and rides away. BOOM. I show up with a can of gasoline and matches and make sure that he never does anything stupid again. Then the Werewolf just kind of fell in line as he was more of a henchman to the Malkavian than anything else. This caused bad blood because the Malkavian was a good friend of the Storyteller. I had been very careful never to include the Storyteller in any of my plans as he was biased as hell. Then me and my friend left the group.

This and the occult stuff, those guys were actually performing sexual rituals in one of the guys garage with prostitutes and then I heard that the storyteller got arrested because they had stolen a lamb and sacrificed it in the garage. So yeah...the Storyteller actually believed he could perform magic rituals.

[Anonymouswizard]

You only get better with practice and some people are just natural. I don't know if I'm a natural or not but I've been a popular GM, I think it's just experience and lot of interest....special interest even :smallbiggrin:. I ran a game in the local game shop when I was 14 with far older people (20+) and did so for some years. During my teenage years I had 3 regular groups and took part in games with other groups as well. I have literally many thousands of hours of gaming and GMing behind me and hundreds of gaming supplements in my basement :smallredface:. What I'm saying is that people that are interested in improving can do so but a lot of background skill enhance my GMing skills like creative writing, being a sticky brain (helps with rules), my experience on a debate team (helps confidence) , experience from amateur acting group....and importantly I ran only improvised games for 2 years.

Oh totally, I just haven't had much experience running things for a while, I'm not bad, I'm just not going to appear on any greatest GM threads.


Well, you see I and a friend joined his Vampire the Masquerade group. He made us roll a 13th generation vampire while his 3 other players had been playing for years. Then his hate for the police came about when (he had gotten a lot of speeding tickets) me and my friends characters were pulled over by the cops. So my friend the Brujah tries to use presence but those are some kind of supercops that beat us up for being uppity. Then later we were being beaten up by some punks in the park when we wanted to find a quiet place to feed.

You see his vision of vampire was that we were meant to feel the angst and the despair. And he just loved that we were powerless while the other players (his friends and occult buddies) were like super vampires and a werewolf. So we play for some months and everything we the new players do gets thwarted by his super cool NPC's. This leads to that one of old PC takes a contract (he's an Assamite) on me and decides to take me on in my Sanctum. This was a mistake because I had rigged my place with a flamethrower trap and I subdue him and make him sign a bloodcontract so now he serves me.

This irked the Malkavian player so he bloodbonded my protégé against my will and was planning to use her against me. I found out, bought a motorcycle helmet just like his (his character always rode a motorcycle), lined it with plastic explosives and invite him over for a talk. He refuses to release my protégé and puts on his replaced motorcycle helmet and rides away. BOOM. I show up with a can of gasoline and matches and make sure that he never does anything stupid again. Then the Werewolf just kind of fell in line as he was more of a henchman to the Malkavian than anything else. This caused bad blood because the Malkavian was a good friend of the Storyteller. I had been very careful never to include the Storyteller in any of my plans as he was biased as hell. Then me and my friend left the group.

Yeah, sounds like a biased GM/ST. Good for you.


This and the occult stuff, those guys were actually performing sexual rituals in one of the guys garage with prostitutes and then I heard that the storyteller got arrested because they had stolen a lamb and sacrificed it in the garage. So yeah...the Storyteller actually believed he could perform magic rituals.
{scrubbed}

[Guizonde]

[QUOTE=RazorChain;22246784]You only get better with practice and some people are just natural. I don't know if I'm a natural or not but I've been a popular GM, I think it's just experience and lot of interest....special interest even :smallbiggrin:. I ran a game in the local game shop when I was 14 with far older people (20+) and did so for some years. During my teenage years I had 3 regular groups and took part in games with other groups as well. I have literally many thousands of hours of gaming and GMing behind me and hundreds of gaming supplements in my basement :smallredface:. What I'm saying is that people that are interested in improving can do so but a lot of background skill enhance my GMing skills like creative writing, being a sticky brain (helps with rules), my experience on a debate team (helps confidence) , experience from amateur acting group....and importantly I ran only improvised games for 2 years.[QUOTE]

Oh totally, I just haven't had much experience running things for a while, I'm not bad, I'm just not going to appear on any greatest GM threads.



Yeah, sounds like a biased GM/ST. Good for you.



Well the first one I'd consider none of my business as long as I could ignore, they are free to practice their religion however they want. The second one I'd be fine with if they'd purchased the lamb, as long as they aren't breaking the law they can sacrifice whatever they want. I know plenty of people who... I've just been warned not to complete this sentence, it offends a lot of Americans.

jumping in, there's no better way of finding out how you can improve yourself by having a post-session debrief. it helped me tremendously improve the quality of my games. you may be the dm, but never be afraid to ask the players what they want. during my first campaign at one point, my players threw me a real curve ball. i had a scenario, but as the old adage goes "no scenario survives first contact with the players". so i did just that: "alright guys, you just destroyed my scenario. what do we do? do we roll with it or do you give me 15 minutes to think up something else?" needless to say, i got good at improvising quickly. it became a campaign talked about to this day.

my other reason for asking my players was i had set up this campaign to get me and another player out of a very toxic dnd campaign with a psycho dm (i'll tell my story here later, i promise). he never allowed the players to do what they wanted, even if it was out of a sense of survival, and gods forbid if we derailed his plans. rather than doing that, i went the opposite route to his on how to play. you could say i learned to dm by an action-reaction sequence of events. makes my campaigns chaotic and full of mood whiplash, but so far, most players have enjoyed it (one told me he didn't because he's a stickler for rules and hates the rule of cool, and i advised him to play gurps. he's still looking for a group).

regarding the vampire thing and your quote in particular, never mix sex, religion, and rpgs. and don't you need to be an imam or rabbi in order to perform legal sacrifice? i've heard of a couple who broke up over an rpg because the guy couldn't believe his gf chose to play a half-orc. i can't verify the veracity of this, but seeing some things i've read here, it wouldn't rank too high on the "what the hell players are thinking" scale of silly.

[digiman619]

This and the occult stuff, those guys were actually performing sexual rituals in one of the guys' garage with prostitutes and then I heard that the storyteller got arrested because they had stolen a lamb and sacrificed it in the garage. So yeah...the Storyteller actually believed he could perform magic rituals.With respect, "Believes in the occult" is an insufficient reason to stop gaming with someone. I mean, he was a crap Storyteller, so leaving the game was no doubt the correct move, but believing in the occult is a valid belief system to have in and of itself.

{Scrubbed}

[RazorChain]

{Scrubbed}

But ultimately the game wasn't fun. He vastly favored his friends and enjoyed putting us down. I'm not playing a vampire just to be beaten up by some lowlife punks hanging out in the park, the Storyteller just invalidated our vampire powers so he could beat up our characters, somehow the cops and the punks were immune to presence and dominate. It's like playing D&D and being beat up by your sheep. Also every machination we came up with...then I'm talking about me and my Brujah friend, got invalidated by his "super cool" NPC's. The players that were there before had more fun in fullfilling their powerfantasies by slaughtering mortals to teach them a lesson and hunting down Sabbat vampires and mages and stuff and had very limited interest in getting higher in the Camarilla political pecking order.

Player: "I'll go and slaugther one sheep, we'll feast tonight"
GM: "You get beaten up by your sheep!"

[Lord8Ball]

In my freshman year of highschool I found a DM who I had become acquainted with over the year. I joined the group and made my character. I had a 16 year old rouge that I was introducing to the party. We were all grouped up at the behest of a king to help solve a problem and earn our freedom. It started out fine and dandy and we were traveling to the first town. Thats when everything took a dark turn. The supposedly good aligned characters were literally trying to kill me at every step of the way. Did the DM try to stop it? Nope he promoted it. The party ended up murder hoboing a guard and the entire party got put into jail me included for some reason. At this point there was a stupidly easy prison break where every player except for me escaped. What I did was try to stay innocent by staying there to wait for guards. When they were not coming he decided to up and leave seeing the devastation. I try to go to the main offices and plead for help only for there to be a group of 9 barbarians that aggro on sight and kill me. Then I try to salvage the character by trying to reach out for demonic assistance at the precipice of death to revive at the cost killing a virgin princess or whatever which I tried to do something else, but virgin princess it is. Then the party fighter or barbarian metagames comes over to find me and oneshot (DMhax). Next character eledrin sorcerer. The town is burning and the "good" aligned party were crucifying peasants. Did the DM intervene? Hell no. I see the party killing people and flee. What happens they all make perception checks to find me. In between sessions I tell the dm my plan for assassinating the party on a revenge quest it seemed fine. Then without me knowing he tells the party of this and they aggro on sight and kill me when I run. For some reason hitpoints don't matter so one hit with a spell and I am screaming on the ground dying without being able to move with near full health just because I got hit. Then they proceed to murder me. Thats when I quit the group. For some reason I decided to watch their sessions as I did not have a group of friends yet. The freshman Dm gets a senior girlfriend and everything turns perverted. Not kidding things literally went to Japanese p*rn rollplay. That was the final straw when I finally abandoned them. That was my worst DM to this date.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: This thread seems to have taken a real world religious turn. Don't do that here.