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View Full Version : How many bad and good DMs have you had?



Mr. Friendly
2007-10-31, 08:11 AM
This is related to a discussion in another thread, I am curious as to peoples experiences though.

Let me note what I am defining as bad and good.

Bad: Makes arbitrary and unfair decisions, not necessarily aginst you in particular, but in general. Examples would include singling out one player and giving them special perks, possibly including corruption (bribery, payoffs and the like), singling out one player and punishing them for their defiance (a specific example I have of this was a DM forcing me into being a Drizzt clone, when I wanted to try and be a more unique and interesting Drow; after I refused there stopped being any magic items available for me... whatever we did find was cursed to be anti-Drow.... but there were no other Drow around... the main enemy was some alien species from space...) and other grossly and obviously BS things. Bad is things above and beyond simple arbitration of the rules and enters into the realm of the DM telling you how you must play your character, to the point where you are not playing your character, you are playing the DMs character. This does not (necessarily) include the DM banning some classes or spells for game balance reasons.

Good: Really has DMing down to an art. Is able to ban classes and abilities while maintaining game balance and impartiality. Works with the players to allow them to have the character they want to have and still have a challenging and rewarding game. Doesn't favor any players more than others, with the exception of rewarding those who do extra work and put in extra effort, without punishing those who don't do the extra work. (Example: Write a character background, get 100xp) Knows the rules very well and doesn't uaually have to ad lib/hoc anything on the spot. When rules changes are called for and needed, informs the PCs of said rule changes and allows changes to characters in light of those rules. (Example: DM has decided that that Shivering Touch is an obviously broken spell. Works with the player to either change the spell to make it less broken, or allow the PC to pick a new spell. The bad DM would just outright ban it but not let the PC replace the spell or not tell him he decided to ban it until he was rolling to hit against a dragon)

I have had in my 20ish years of playing D&D at least 15 different DMs. Of those, I would say three of them were truly good DMs. The rest were basically just sadists who enjoyed torturing PCs. Most DMs I have known have been corrupt to one degree or another, exchanging either cash, sex or other 'trade goods' for in-game rewards for the bribing player; in other cases the DM used extortion to exact what they wanted from the player.

What about you? How many DMs have you had and of those how many were good or bad? Obviously many will be average, but if average did they tend more toward one extreme or the other?

KIDS
2007-10-31, 08:16 AM
I've had positive experiences with most GMs, maybe because I play mostly online so I have more chances to see how someone acts before getting into a game. Only one or two I knew were plain jerks, so overall I'm fairly satisfied.

Winterwind
2007-10-31, 08:20 AM
GMs I played with more or less regularly... let's see... that would be 5. All of them were good, and two of them were outstandingly excellent (these two played freeform only, and I'm telling you, freeform with a good gamemaster wipes the floor with any game with mechanics from here to Orion and back). Except one, all of these are also personal friends (the fifth one I got to know only over one of the other four and didn't have much contact with aside from the games, but he was likeable as well).

I only met a poor gamemaster at a convention - amongst four gamemasters I played with there, one insisted on elves being homosexual (it was ShadowRun, btw) and kept pestering my elven character with some other elf who kept trying to hug him, kiss him and what not (which was really annoying, and besides I found this misrepresentation of homosexuals deeply offensive). The other three, however, were fine, one was very good even (my first Call of Cthulhu game... incredible atmosphere :smalleek: ).

So, alltogether, that would make 9 gamemasters, one poor, 5 very good, 3 excellent.

Saph
2007-10-31, 08:22 AM
Um . . . This is sounding less like "good vs. bad" and more like "decent human being vs. nutjob". Honestly, cash and sex for in-game rewards? Who the hell are you playing with, your local drug dealers? If you wouldn't be happy hanging out with someone, you should NOT be playing D&D with them.

Most of the bad DMs I've had were bad due to lack of experience, lack of knowledge of the rules, and lack of knowledge of how to manage a group. They weren't bad because they were sadists or extortionists, they were bad because they'd run the party through a session of encounters and plot developments which was just flat-out boring. They wanted to run a game well, they just didn't know how.

Anyway, as for numbers - I'd say I've had 5 good DMs, about twice as many average DMs, and maybe a couple dozen bad ones. I see lots more bad DMs than good ones because the bad DMs I only play with once. Most of my sessions have been with good DMs because when I find a good DM I hang on to him like a limpet. :)

- Saph

Tormsskull
2007-10-31, 08:23 AM
I've had several different DMs, most of them were good. One of them was shaky on the rules, and basically gave players whatever they wanted when they threatened to quit playing his campaign, but he was brand new so I didn't fault him too much.



The rest were basically just sadists who enjoyed torturing PCs. Most DMs I have known have been corrupt to one degree or another, exchanging either cash, sex or other 'trade goods' for in-game rewards for the bribing player; in other cases the DM used extortion to exact what they wanted from the player.


OMG, were you playing these games in prison?

Matthew
2007-10-31, 08:36 AM
The only bad DMs I ever played with were just inexperienced or immature (as we all were during our early teens). Certainly nothing approaching what is being described above.

Name_Here
2007-10-31, 09:22 AM
I've only played with 2 GMs in my lifetime. Both were ridiculously underprepared in the one session that I had with each of them and then were so unorganized that they could never get a second session running.

So then I took up DMing and many would probaly put me in the bad DM catagory or at least close to it. The Druid who constantly ran off from the main group in her natural form to go toe to toe with ogres and dedicated soldiers was constantly yelling at me that I was picking on her, the knight who had a great deal more than his WBL guidelines always accused me of giving preferential treatment to the girl I liked (I allowed her to take the half celestial template at lvl 6). And at one point I lowered a weapon's crit range because I thought it was too powerful (I reconsidered and apologized if that makes it better). And overallhad to ad-hoc and handwave a bit more than I really should have.


Also couldn't make up names for my NPCs to save my life.

Charity
2007-10-31, 09:34 AM
I must confess I have encountered punitive DM's before, they are no fun, and I have always quit those games.
Ah well in my day Matthew,(edited out long diatribe about hardships in a faux Yorkshire accent) there wern't alot of folk interested in running games, so one would occasionally find oneself trying to 'tough it out' with a less than ideal DM, just to get your 'gaming hit'
Nowadays with your swanky new interwebdohickie I can see no reason for needing to adopt that approach.

Mr. Friendly
2007-10-31, 09:39 AM
I must confess I have encountered punitive DM's before, they are no fun, and I have always quit those games.
Ah well in my day Matt,(edited out long diatribe about hardships in a faux Yorkshire accent) there wern't alot of folk interested in running games, so one would occasionally find oneself trying to 'tough it out' with a less than ideal DM, just to get your 'gaming hit'
Nowadays with your swanky new interwebdohickie I can see no reason for needing to adopt that approach.

I agree with this. Before Message Boards, we had... message boards, at the local gaming store. You picks your numbers, you roll the dice and you take your chances.

To be fair some of the extreme examples I posted were few and far between, but one of the most egregious was one of my first regular D&D games, which no doubt helped permanently scar me.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-31, 09:43 AM
Uweheheeeeee....

Heh, this is pretty appropiate to ask: Has anyone done a multi GM session? I've ran and participated in a lot of them, and ironically my two co-DM's were effective antithesis of each other. One was mediocre to the last degree, and the other one is plain amazing. It was really useful to develop a perspective, seeing the best and the worst of Gm'ing.

Enguhl
2007-10-31, 09:50 AM
Hmm.. I've had 4 DM's of them:

1 Great: My brother had a way of keeping every NPC we meet interesting, with names and back stories. All the adventures were well planned and quite fun, and while it was (almost completely) combat based, I enjoyed it quite alot.

1 Good: My friend knows his stuff, keeps it fun and fair. The only reason he's not a 'great' is because his campaigns never last more than 3 or 4 sessions :smalleek: .

1 Poor: Good ideas, great initiative to DM, just new to it.

1 Terrible excuse for a DM and a human being: Ugh.. where to start? This person ran the first campaign I was ever in, and it was terrible. Obviously since I was just starting I wasn't exactly sure how certain feats/skills/spells/abilities would work out. One bad occurrence of this would be when I picked a feat since we leveled at the end of the session, then I go home and realize that I didn't want it. So we go back and I ask if I can change it because I didn't understand it beforehand (hadn't started playing again yet), DM says no, you have to stay with what you pick.

Then the session after that, one person has entirely different gear, one person changed race, one changed class, and one got a new char which was an ECL 10 over us (maybe 11 or 12 even). And I still couldn't change my feat.
Another time, we got passed one of her obstacles too easily, so she got mad and sent a level 20 fighter with crazy gear at my friend and I (we were scouting ahead of the party), but since she is bad at D&D we killed him in 1 round (I was level 6, friend was level 5). Then she gets even madder and we stumble upon the BBEG, and before we even do anything, she talks for like 6 minutes (while we were unable to do anything, because DM said so) then a dragon god comes down and kills us... she wasn't even a cleric...

Some shorter things are when she started using a d30 for any enemy rolls.
Giving certain players (ECL 6) the wealth of a 16th level character.
Having NPC's that steal all the glory and apparently have crazy levels because they are a Halfling Sorc/Barb that can cast spells our wizard couldn't yet, and had a bunch of levels in Barb, then have it do everything for us because she thought it was "clever and original to have".

Umm... theres a lot more but this post is already really long. :smallsigh: feels good to get that off my back.

Quietus
2007-10-31, 09:53 AM
I've had limited experience with GMs, having run under only three in my lifetime; Two for D&D, who are excellent storytellers, though one had their quirks that I didn't really care for - he has a habit of houseruling things on the fly to what he feels is "more realistic", generally to the detriment of the players. But really, that's a minor thing, as he's also an excellent storyteller... he just has a habit of trying to be a bit too "real", in that he populates his worlds with things that the PCs shouldn't really be fighting, and if we happen to encounter them randomly, well, too bad. Like a highly unoptimized half-elf ranger (FE : Undead) and a blind human monk, both level 1, we randomly found a carrion crawler. Had there not been the bodies of the five zombies we had to fight off the night before, it would have eaten us for breakfast, no problem. As I said, however, his ability to tell a story more than balances this.

The third GM ran EarthDawn, and while he isn't too bad, his game is a bit... flat. Character death is meaningless because he just raises us as undead and tells us to keep going, and there appears to be no change in how we're treated. And his storytelling abilities... well... they require a little polishing, because there's nothing about this story that's particularly compelling.

PnP Fan
2007-10-31, 09:57 AM
Hmm. . . I'm not sure I can really recall every GM I've had over the years, so I'm just going to hit the highlights, and some of the more controversial ones.

I've had one excellent MnM GM that has excellent grasp of story, rules, drama, and game balance. Very happy with him.

I've had one pretty good supers/fantasy GM who knew how to run a fun game, even if his grasp of the rules was somewhat tenuous (he also tended to rely on a couple of the players to help with rules adjudication).

I've had one guy who couldn't run a game without two weeks of planning. No spontenaiety. Good guy, just not a particularly good GM.

I've gamed with one couple (both GMs in different games) that would excessively reward their spouse with "in game coolness". Sometimes to the point that other characters were completely overshadowed. You may call this trading sex for game stuff, I think others would just say they they are insanely in love, and it sometimes affects the game. All a matter of perspective I guess.

I've gamed with one guy who would abuse one of the players (almost always his brother in law, who was also a twit). He was bad, and we don't even use his name in conversations anymore.

I've gamed with one guy who would run an "open game", then decide who he liked, and repeatedly kill everyone else's characters until they stopped showing up to the game. Was he a jerk? yes. Did he help the rest of us have a really good time once he had his core group? yes. Probably one of the best campaigns I've ever been a part of. Good? Bad? mmm not sure.

Most of my high school buddies were fair GM's, and I'd put them in the good category. Of course, I'd probably think differently now (older, different grasp on story, different interests, etc. . )

There have been others, but mostly short lived relationships due to my lifestyle at the time (former military, moving around a lot).

Anyway, so I'd say most of my experiences have been good, though they may not meet your definition of good, with a handful of exceptions. I'd also say that you've probably either played with some real weird people, and should consider changing your gaming circles, or you are misinterpreting some of what is going on. I've never heard of "bootay" for booty in my life. (lots of inequality when significant others are on opposite sides of the screen, but that's a different situation).

Matthew
2007-10-31, 09:58 AM
I
must confess I have encountered punitive DM's before, they are no fun, and I have always quit those games.
Ah well in my day Matthew,(edited out long diatribe about hardships in a faux Yorkshire accent) there wern't alot of folk interested in running games, so one would occasionally find oneself trying to 'tough it out' with a less than ideal DM, just to get your 'gaming hit'
Nowadays with your swanky new interwebdohickie I can see no reason for needing to adopt that approach.

Heh. Well, I suppose this is what comes of preferring to be the DM, I have never had to go looking for one... all my stories are about bad players...

The Great Skenardo
2007-10-31, 10:00 AM
Never done much gaming outside of my own circle of friends, really.
Thus, I'm most often saddled with being a DM myself.

So:

1 average. Rules-savvy, but not very good at keeping encounters interesting, and prone to railroading.
"See, you have crazy evasion so you avoided the first trap, but then you Reflex Saved into another trap! Clever, huh?"
Although admittedly, this was the mechanism by which he made sure that all of us got hit with the teleport trap that took us to an entirely different world.

1 pretty good. A short-lived adventure, but very decently-paced and RP'ed. He underestimated the Powergamer Timmy tendencies of one of our characters, however (as well as his unnatural luck at dice), so the BBEG was something of a pushover.

...Really, that's about it. I get roped into DMing most of the time.

The Linker
2007-10-31, 10:10 AM
Umm... theres a lot more but this post is already really long. :smallsigh: feels good to get that off my back.

Aw, but I wanted to hear more :smalltongue: I'm about to start DMing for the first time, this helps me know what not to do. Plus I just like stories of bad DMs :smallbiggrin:

Ralfarius
2007-10-31, 10:14 AM
I have been privy to, hmm.... I'd say about 4 bad DM's. It would be 5, but two of the bad ones were sort of in cahoots with each other, so they really count as a single person.
1. - One insisted on playing in Ravenloft and pitting players against each other. From the get go. For our first ever 3E experience. Also, did not like you going off track. For instance: We were supposed to be spending time in a spoooooky haunted mansion. We explored it top to bottom during the day, but didn't pick up on that as a hint to stay overnight.

Instead, my dwarf barbarian and our bard go exploring the nearby woods. We are immediately set upon by wolves, without even having a chance for spot/listen rolls. In the first round, my barbarian - who could have done some decent damage - is subject to some sort of magical critical hit for a maximum damage roll (which I wasn't allowed to see), having his throat effectively torn out. The bard is for some reason only eaten into unconsciousness and has a hand gnawed off. I get to hang around and do nothing while everyone else continues the session without me.

My next character in the next session is a human paladin. The DM encourages the wizard (necromancer) to cast a sleep spell while we're on a raft floating through some swamp, and push my unconscious body into the water to sink and drown. I was still shaky on the rules, so my save was inexplicably low, and I wasn't really given any recourse but to roll yet another character.

So, I create an elven rogue, true neutral, no extreme affiliations. I'm trying to find some sort of middle ground where I can at least start a character without being screwed one way or another. He doesn't do too badly, actually. However, I receive a phone call (I kid you not), where the DM politely suggests I'm put on hiatus for the foreseeable future because I wasn't really contributing, and hadn't developed my characters. Well, no duh! He kept killing them!

Also note: This DM spent a short amount of time as a player. His portion of the group always played the same thing; two of them are closely related or otherwise affiliated, and the third was their low-intelligence hireling. They always worked with each other, and screwed over anyone not in their trio. Almost turned me off 3E from the get-go.

2. - A fellow I played AD&D with. Not terrible with the mechanics of the game, but really, really liked to craft stories. He made some interesting looking worlds, with fleshed out histories and such, but his actual plots were kind of boring for the group, and you were more along for the ride so he could show you how cool his world was. He was also extremely arrogant as a person, and I have since developed a policy of not playing with someone I wouldn't hang out with outside of a gaming setting.

3. - Still a friend of mine to this day. He's really nice, and always means well. He's just kind of... Bumbling? Yes, bumbling is a good word for it. He still doesn't have a very firm grasp of the rules (whereas the rest of the group is pretty comfortable being rule nazis, it works for us). Because of this, he creates encounters that sort of boggle us and break verisimilitude in their nonsensical mechanics. He also has a problem of trying to show off a cool BBEG, only to have one of our characters very easily best them long before he was supposed to go out. He has a hard time dealing with players doing what he doesn't expect, and lacks the tools to efficiently story-tell us through it, or use the rules to thwart or re-direct our efforts. I still like him, just not as a DM.

I've had a number of good DMs. They work well with the group by having some combination of:
- Solid rules understanding
- Good storytelling ability
- Very good improvisation
Some of the best campaigns I've been involved with have varied from very sandbox to "escape the jungles of Chult through a very specific route". Not to toot my own horn, but I once ran a Ravenloft campaign in 3E that was described as 'one of the best' for being exciting and fast paced but maintaining a level of horror and intrigue.

Sonofaspectre
2007-10-31, 10:17 AM
I've played under a few DMs, but in the end I always end up doing the job. Can't really rate myself, but the couple other ones I've played under ... man ...

1. Good: My neighbor, who started playing with me back in the 6th grade. He was DM because he had more books, but it was fun. We just ran modules, which are pretty hard to screw-up, and he had a DMPC who was a good 14 levels higher than us, but he didn't take away any of the fun for me or his brother who was also playing. I am sure if he still played now things would probably be different, but hey, memories.

2. Poor: The next DM ... He had a habit of railroading ... or even worse "un-railroading." His mantra for DMing was "I don't need the players to play the game, cause the world is gonna happen anyway." Which made us when we played all just float along. He had a habit of randomly changing things if things were to easy, like when the Half-Giant was fighting four Treants, he wanted to pick one up and throw it. The original description was 20' tall, and easily enough for the STR 24 Half-Giant. Then the Tree magically grew an extra 20' and a ton in mass. Or our first game, where we played along and it was really great ... until he said "pass in your sheets." Apparently, this was just a prologue and we were no longer in control of our level 7 characters, which he leveled for us to 20th+ and then used as massive DMPCs throughout the rest of the game. All his NPCs were better than us players, too. That was severely annoying. I had good games with him (out of 5 games, two were great ... until one got cut short with the "pass in your sheets" and the other just ended ... with no BBEG fight ...) but mostly, I just remember that we were optional in his game ... and that blows.

Worst: The Worst DM was the other guys roommate. He was excited to be our DM, so we added an extra game so that we could play in his world. Well, needless to say, we started at level 4, had one session with him playing the characters for us and all homebrewed monsters, and that was enough for me. Come on, it is cool that you know martial arts, but that doesn't mean that the Duskblade is using them when he fights. And an huge sized (also shrank and grew as needed for "story telling" or more like the original size he was was too easy for us to hit ...) ettin gestalt sorcerer//barbarian who got three standard actions a round and a move action?!? What is up with that?

Now I'm trying to convince a few other people to start DMing. It'll be nice to sit in the player's chair again.

Enguhl
2007-10-31, 10:26 AM
Aw, but I wanted to hear more :smalltongue: I'm about to start DMing for the first time, this helps me know what not to do. Plus I just like stories of bad DMs :smallbiggrin:

Haha, alright I'll try to remember some more.
Ah yes, one campaign started with us in an academy of sorts. Then it gets attacked, everyone dies, some teachers get captured, etc. So were on our way to this island to rescue the last surviving teacher, we don't know exactly where it is, but we think were pretty close (within a day or two, tops) and it took us weeks to get there. So then we get word that theres this dungeon that some random adventuring party got attacked in, and we should go see if they are alright. This place was two weeks away from where we left to get to the island... in the other direction.

So, I think, "Oh no? People got attacked in a dungeon? Of all the places, who'da thunk it?"
And my character says, "Oh no? Random people might be in trouble... maybe. Or we could rescue the person we know is in danger, then turn around, only wasting 3 days, versus 2 months for something we don't really care about" (I was neutral, only wanted to save teacher because they were my teacher). So then the DM tells us, "You really, really want to go there"
Me: "Not really, I have no reason to want to go there... at all."
DM: "Yes you do, your character feels the need to be there."
Me: "Why? Is it a spell or something?"
DM: "No, he just does, because I said so."
Me: "..."
DM: "So are you going?"
Me: "No."
DM: "But you feel a strong need to be there."
(At this point all but one person, who was in on it with the DM, were going "OMGWTF LOL!?")
Me: "Since I feel a sudden, strange need to do something and I'm familiar with magic, it makes me uncomfortable and I don't want to go."

*Skip to when the DM literally forced us there*

We get there, and surprise, everyones dead, because it took us freaking 5 weeks to get there! Then we go down, get loot and kill stuff, blah blah, go into a room with a magic floating staff. Find out its a relic. Unfortunately (and I had it written on my char sheet) it was from a god my character loathed. So I broke it. :smallbiggrin:
Thats what DM's get for trying to appease the very railroaded characters and misreading the info on their char sheets.

valadil
2007-10-31, 12:19 PM
I've probably had somewhere between 10 and 15 GMs. Aside from one or two who were truly horrendous, they've all had their own strengths and weaknesses.

Weaknesses include railroady plot, railroady plot disguised as freeform but really just a railroad with a fork, dm is a pacifist and you have to be too, flakey, pays too much attention to single players, inexperienced, inconsistent rules with no communication to players, misconception of character and planned around misconception instead of actual character, leaving players bored for hours while GF called, writing generic plots that don't take pcs into account as anything beyond generic adventure party, and DMPCs. I think that covers it. With a few exceptions each of these problems came with a rewarding and worthwhile game experience.

Swooper
2007-10-31, 01:08 PM
I've really only played with two DMs.

One was my regular DM for many, many years. He makes awesome stories without too much railroading, very spontaneous and handles NPCs really well, but the rules kind of... get in his way. He has some grasp on the basics, but tends to do stuff like make NPC spellcasters use the spells the PCs have been using, just because those are the ones he remembers. He never, ever stats things out beforehand, or makes maps or anything. Another flaw is that he doesn't really give characters material rewards. The famous example is the 22nd level paladin of mine who only owned two magical items in his life: a +1 Longsword he got at level 8 or so, and one quite powerful (but viciously evil, intelligent-ish item) longsword that doubled the weilder's attacks. The other players had something like the smallest Bag of Holding, an Animated Rope, and I think the dwarven warrior had something like a suit of +1 Full Plate, and maybe a +1 Urgrosh. Was this a low-magic world? Nope, it was supposed to be very high magic.

His latest campaign has the PCs as kind of sidekicks to a group of epic-leveled adventurers on their final quest. Really, how fun is it to play someone's sidekick? :smallconfused: Huh, at least we get to have some gear this time (very badly distributed between players, I think my barbarian/fighter is around 2 levels above WBL, while most others are way below their WBL).

The second one had a very clear grasp of the rules (almost every single class was home-made by him) and runs very entertaining games with big focus on the characters, but I admit his overarching plots were lost on me. I only stopped playing with him because he switched to the L5R system when the newest edition came out (we had been playing a very modified D&D 3.5 in the L5R setting before that), and I wasn't interested in learning a new system.

Elanorea
2007-10-31, 02:09 PM
I've only had two DMs.

1. The first one was quite good. When we started playing with her, everybody (including the DM) was completely new to the game and we didn't have any rulebooks, so everything was completely homebrew and the game could barely be called D&D. The first campaign was really combat-oriented with barely any opportunities for roleplay, but we weren't really looking for any at that time. All in all, it was pretty fun. After the first campaign ended, we tried to start some more, but none of them lasted more than two sessions. Finally, she decided that she needed to take a break from DMing and another player from our group took up the "job".

2. Her campaign was a complete crackjob, which might not be a bad thing in itself, but sure is irritating when you're looking for some serious roleplaying opportunities. The games consisted mostly of crude jokes about sex and random wacky occurences, rules were completely ignored and the DM went along with whatever stupid ideas the players suggested. I guess I can only blame myself for having a stick up my ass and trying to take the game seriously while everyone else was just screwing around.

1 (cont). We're currently playing another campaign with our first DM and I can say that she's really improved a lot. As opposed to her previous campaign, there is barely any combat, but the atmosphere and roleplaying is really great. We've also started playing by the official rules, though still in a homebrew world. During her first campaign she would probably fall into the average category, but by now she's become a very good DM indeed.

The Linker
2007-10-31, 02:13 PM
Ah yes, one campaign started with us in an academy of sorts. Then it gets attacked, everyone dies, some teachers get captured, etc. So were on our way to this island to rescue the last surviving teacher, we don't know exactly where it is, but we think were pretty close (within a day or two, tops) and it took us weeks to get there. So then we get word that theres this dungeon that some random adventuring party got attacked in, and we should go see if they are alright. This place was two weeks away from where we left to get to the island... in the other direction.

So, I think, "Oh no? People got attacked in a dungeon? Of all the places, who'da thunk it?"
And my character says, "Oh no? Random people might be in trouble... maybe. Or we could rescue the person we know is in danger, then turn around, only wasting 3 days, versus 2 months for something we don't really care about" (I was neutral, only wanted to save teacher because they were my teacher). So then the DM tells us, "You really, really want to go there"
Me: "Not really, I have no reason to want to go there... at all."
DM: "Yes you do, your character feels the need to be there."
Me: "Why? Is it a spell or something?"
DM: "No, he just does, because I said so."
Me: "..."
DM: "So are you going?"
Me: "No."
DM: "But you feel a strong need to be there."
(At this point all but one person, who was in on it with the DM, were going "OMGWTF LOL!?")
Me: "Since I feel a sudden, strange need to do something and I'm familiar with magic, it makes me uncomfortable and I don't want to go."

*Skip to when the DM literally forced us there*

Heh, I'm surprised he didn't say "A party's been attacked in a dungeon 4 weeks back the way you came! Go see if they're alright! Actually, it's right at the far end of this railroad you find nearby."

Kvenulf
2007-10-31, 02:20 PM
One DM I had was a mixture of bad and mismatched. The group was very plot-oriented, loved character development, that sort of thing. He immediately began running a combat-laden adventure with virtually no plot and no opportunities for interaction. This wasn't so bad, it just wasn't what anyone other than him wanted. The real problem was his attitude towards DMing. He was very much of the "DM vs. Player" school of thought. Monsters would have unreasonable knowledge of how best to attack us and what our weaknesses were. He treated every victory for the party as a personal defeat (he got angry, once, and threw his dice), and clearly savored inflicting damage on us. After two months, we got together a conspiracy. The next big combat, we all made foolish decisions and the whole group was wiped out. He chided us for being so stupid and we moved on to a different DM.
He's a nice guy, and we're still friends, but I'll never play in one of his campaigns again.

Telonius
2007-10-31, 02:22 PM
1 - Very good/Excellent. Kept things interesting. Had some trouble in the initial sections, but that was mainly because the adventure pack wasn't particularly well-constructed. Was married to one of the players, and pulled no punches. (I think her character died most frequently of all of us).

1 - Good. Wasn't as assertive or quick, but still was able to give a decent game.

1 - Middling. Excellent guy, fun to be around; but lost control of the game. PCs were more experienced than he was, and he never amped up the difficulty of the encounters to match it. Turned into a game of "How badass can we look while we're killing the BBEG in one round?" Still, he somehow managed to keep the sessions entertaining and did a great job of tailoring treasure to the characters.

1 - Extremely poor. Stupid houserules, forced new players to start several levels below party level, took forever to run combat, made no effort to engage the players in any kind of dialogue, had a long and meandering plot that led nowhere.

Swooper
2007-10-31, 03:20 PM
One DM I had was a mixture of bad and mismatched. The group was very plot-oriented, loved character development, that sort of thing. He immediately began running a combat-laden adventure with virtually no plot and no opportunities for interaction. This wasn't so bad, it just wasn't what anyone other than him wanted. The real problem was his attitude towards DMing. He was very much of the "DM vs. Player" school of thought. Monsters would have unreasonable knowledge of how best to attack us and what our weaknesses were. He treated every victory for the party as a personal defeat (he got angry, once, and threw his dice), and clearly savored inflicting damage on us. After two months, we got together a conspiracy. The next big combat, we all made foolish decisions and the whole group was wiped out. He chided us for being so stupid and we moved on to a different DM.
He's a nice guy, and we're still friends, but I'll never play in one of his campaigns again.
That's awful. Also, your name means 'she-wolf' in my language. :smalltongue:

Kvenulf
2007-10-31, 03:49 PM
That's awful. Also, your name means 'she-wolf' in my language. :smalltongue:

The name is from Egil's Saga, where it meant "Evening Wolf". Or, at least, that's how I remember it. If I'm wrong:smallredface:
What is your language?

Anyway, we were able to get out of it without any feelings being hurt. Just a little creative "stupidity". Some of the stories above are pretty frightening, and it sounds like a lot of bad feelings afterwards. I do know one player who tried bribing the DM, but didn't realize that nobody took him seriously and that it never worked.

Enguhl
2007-10-31, 04:23 PM
Heh, I'm surprised he didn't say "A party's been attacked in a dungeon 4 weeks back the way you came! Go see if they're alright! Actually, it's right at the far end of this railroad you find nearby."

AHAHAH, if only there had been trains, she probably would have. Also the dungeon was poor, the "maze" was just something to make it take as long as possible, she thought if it took a while, it was good.
Basically it was just a bunch of hallways that doubled back on eachother, then I discovered there was an almost foot tall gap between the top of the walls and ceiling. So I wild-shaped and directed the part, it was awesome.

Ravyn
2007-10-31, 04:55 PM
Most of my GMs have ranged from middling effective to utterly, devastatingly good.

There were, however, two exceptions.

The first of these seemed to spend too much of his time trying to avoid letting anyone but the combat monkeys use their schticks.... though apparently there was plenty of time for the incompetents to try to work their social wiles. Pacify the wild creature coming in at you with a lucky die roll? No more animals. Try to reason with the foe? There's some reason why they Will Not Listen, No Matter What--particularly annoying when they're the only decent NPCs in the antagonist block. And don't get me started on his female NPCs--with one exception, they were all calculated, controlling, condescending tarts whom none of us wanted anything to do with, and the exception was completely insane in the worst way possible. Not to mention it couldn't possibly get any more railroaded, he played favorites to a massive degree, and the ending was more gimmicky than a cheap carnival show.

The second ran a rather ill-fated PBP that was billed as a sandbox but ended up being one of the worst railroads I'd ever played. Along with that, half of what he said (sometimes even out of character) was in purple prose that'd take an hour to poetically describe--we were never quite sure what he was saying, just that he was having fun doing so. Half of our abilities were rendered irrelevant, a lot of what he did left me wanting to go Morbo on him, and it all ended with us (rather understandably paranoid after the sheer number of things that'd gone screwy on us) not wanting to do something that was obviously a trap and him carping at us.

Zincorium
2007-10-31, 04:57 PM
The only bad DM I had recently would have been just fine if he could have gotten over his ego and budged a little on issues that were actually causing player unhappiness. This guy caused 9 people to leave the group (me included) and all of those were specifically because of conflicts over his DMing style or decisions.

Examples include: lots of house rules, which would be fine, if he would just tell us the darn things or write them down so we could learn them. The phrase 'I don't think your character would do that', referring to things that the rest of us felt were quite reasonable. Removing XP from characters for things done outside the game that annoyed him as well as things in the game.


All in all, I'd say I've had 9 good DMs and two poor ones, with the other bad DM being almost cliche in his awfulness (monty haul loot and xp, overbearing GMPC that was a blatant violation of the rules, no clear direction and no freedom to step off the rails).

Artanis
2007-10-31, 06:03 PM
I've had four DMs: two good, one bad, and one downright godawful.

There isn't much to say about the good ones, since I'm sure everybody can imagine what a good DM does. The games were fun and imaginative and (more or less) balanced enough for everybody to get a chance to shine. Although it probably didn't hurt that I had lower standards due to the other two DMS...

The bad one wasn't evil like described in the OP, and he tried his best to be a good DM, he just lacked the skill and/or experience to pull it off. Primarily, he had trouble multitasking, leading to sessions bogging down just when things were getting interesting. He also had trouble dealing with the unexpected...it wasn't that he tried to railroad us, it was just that if we did jump off the tracks, he had a hard time ad-libbing what to do next. This led to, among other things, a great deal of arson and needless murder in what was supposed to be a "good" campaign.

The godawful one was the first DM I ever had, and the reason why I didn't play DnD for nearly five years after the campaign fell apart. It was some form of 2nd edition, and he said Fighter was a decently simple class for a beginner, so I made one and put all my points into Longbow, with the intention of being an archer-type. He then proceeded to start the campaign with the entire party being arena-slaves and armed me with a short sword. What followed was a month of me being totally, utterly, and literally unable to hurt ANYTHING as he repeatedly refused to let my character have a bow, all whilst the rest of the party were like goblin-slaying gods of death carving huge swathes out of the bad guys' ranks.

Proven_Paradox
2007-10-31, 06:22 PM
Lately, I DM a lot more than I play (not counting several ill-fatedly short PBPs here on the forums) but I do have a few to list.

My first DM was... Well, actually, he was rather bad. At the time, I didn't realize this, having no frame of reference, and being one of the players he showered with favors rather than one he singled out for punishments. But, he played favorites and was often in a "players versus DM" mindset.

My second was with the same group as the first, just switching one DM and one player. If this guy had more experience, he'd probably have been an EXCELLENT DM. He worked with us closely, had a pretty interesting plot in mind, and had some cool NPCs as well. He used a few plot-tricks that I'll be incorporating into my own games as I go, and set us up with reasonable but challenging battles.

His problem was that he couldn't say no. Also, we'd all been playing Neverwinter Nights recently, which has a considerably higher power level than normal DnD. Thus, at level seven, I had a +3 sword, +4 armor, and a very expensive ion stone (other players were similarly equipped). We would gain levels after single battles that, after adjusting for our massively overpowered gear, really weren't that threatening. In the end, the game fell apart due to school, and I've sense lost contact with him (and DM 1).

My third DM was actually really cool. Unfortunately, the game went out on a TPK on the first session due to retardedness from one of the players and some really, really poor rolls on my part (I've posted this story elsewhere). I reacted rather poorly to this and basically assured that I wouldn't be welcomed to further games, an immature thing that I now regret.

And actually, other than that, I think that's it. There've been a few PBP games here that never even made it to the first combat, but I generally don't count those. There aren't many people here willing to DM, so in the end I have to be the one who steps up there.

Mad Mask
2007-11-02, 07:53 AM
I don't have much to tell, as I am the Dungeons Master most of the time, but once, I had a very bad DM.
This guy thought that a Wand of Cure Light Wounds was overpowered at level 4, and asked me to reduce the number of charges. He also thought that my Archivist 2/Wizard 2 was too powerful in comparison to the other players (a Druidzilla, a two-weapon rogue and some others) and accused me of being a bad player was I casted Faerie Fire to see the friendly hooded dude before he disapears in the darkness, and killed my character with poison after I rolled a Natural 20 on my fortitude save.
An other time, after watching the movie A Night At the Museum, this DM thought it would be cool to make a game based on that film. We were level 11. And he accused me once again to be a bad player when I shattered the door of the Museum to flee and burn down the building.

That's all I remember of this DM, who is also an excellent player. As for good DM, there's me...