What's the most obnoxious thing a DM can do?

[ondonaflash]

I mean specifically. What are annoying things that DMs have done in the past that you hated? Tell the story, share your pain. I want to see what works and what doesn't. And it doesn't have to be the most obnoxious thing either, it could just be little things (about the campaign) that annoyed you and ticked you off. This is a chance for you to share your horror stories.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Mordekain's Disjunction. TPK in a spell slot, and it renders any characters that survive or are rez'd completely worthless. Beyond that, it's a mess of confusing bookkeeping, every player rolling 30+ saves at different bonuses, and everyone looking up that obscure sourcbook they found their sneakers in. Fortunately, I've never had a DM try it on me.

[Yukitsu]

"That monster totally only had 65 hit points."
"But it's only supposed to have 40. And I tallied the damage the entire combat. We dealt 246. Even with DR 10, it should have been 146 dealt to it. Also, it's a random encounter. We don't need a CR 9 random encounter when we're level 7, and you don't use EXP for levels."

[valadil]

Here are some things GMs have done in the past to seriously irritate me:

Yell at the players for fighting a bunch of vampires who broke into their hotel room and threatened the PCs. Apparently because the GM is a pacifist, all characters should be too.

Roleplay everything. Talking our way past the guards is great. Chatting up the lunch lady is not. I roleplay to experience things that I can't in real life. I'm more than happy to fast forward past the mundane and irrelevant passages of game.

Push combat over everything else. I was in a game where we didn't even go over each other's names for the first 4 hours. We didn't find out the cleric was female until the second session. And this was that particular DM's idea of a heavy roleplaying game.

Ignore player/characters. I was once a cult leader in a Mage game. The GM had no clue what to do with me. Instead of telling me to make another character, he put my character in jail for 3/4 of every session. I just didn't get to play. I'd have been much happier rolling another character and actually getting to play the damned game.

No disclosure. Another GM bragged about how he ran things by the book and all his NPCs were balanced against us, but he did make up some new rules. After we got whooped in combat, we asked to see an NPC of his. The enemy had 4 different instances of weapon specialization, 3 of them doing more than 3 damage. The GM told us we were noobs for not taking feats we didn't know existed. That's the only game I intentionally got myself kicked out of.

[Badgercloak]

My friends and I were playing Eberon for the first time and in that campaign the following happened.

1. Randomly decided, in game, certain rules no longer work. He made us stand in 5' wide tunnel going one at a time past some over powered moster that was immune to all our attacks.

2. After the first game the DM said you're not playing your Dwarven Monk because you're going to play a Human Cleric because the party lacks a Cleric.

3. Not pay attention to what we say. We spent half an hour, real world time mind you, trying to figure out this one fraking clue and in the end the first thing said was the correct answer.

4. Shoe horned us into basically doing scenes he wanted to do. Once the Soulknife was using pair of spider climb boots. He was scouting from the ceiling when suddenly spike trap. Then he strong armed us into doing a dramatic roof top fight scene even though we had the foe indoors and well handled.

5. Made us go through hell then have all the treasure disapear. Needless to say we stopped playing after that.

[Marillion]

My very first DM, who was also new to DMing, was actually very good. He mixed puzzles, roleplay, and combat in a very lovely portion, was always fair, and admitted when we caught him offguard. He only had one very tragic flaw: He COULD NOT say no. Because of this, the group was half super-optimized and half...well, not. And because of this, as a group of 2nd level PCs, we were able to completely slaughter an entire orcish army that had like 200 warriors in it with some very careful planning. He was getting better with that, though, before we both had to leave college. But at first, he was so weak-willed that things that shouldn't have happened, happened, to the detriment of the game.

[Guancyto]

The enemy had 4 different instances of weapon specialization, 3 of them doing more than 3 damage. The GM told us we were noobs for not taking feats we didn't know existed. That's the only game I intentionally got myself kicked out of.

This is hilarious to me, because no matter how much homebrewed Super Superior Greater Weapon Specialization you stack on, it's still an awful feat.

I don't really have any great stories, but there was the one time the GM pulled a "rocks fall, everybody dies" on our group when we didn't want to fight his troll. At level 1. With an actual cave collapse. When we weren't underground.

"Throw tantrums when things don't go his way" is probably on the list, though.

[Kroy]

[Thread]A badly run DMPC.
[/Thread]

[ondonaflash]

Yeah, I tend to run my DMPCs like final fantasy 4. I play one as long as he's convenient storywise then I kill him, turn him to stone, or drown him to make way for the new character!

[Korivan]

1. Immediatly sending us against rust monsters once the fighter got his nonmagical speed reducing plate-mail.

2. Allowing no room for error, if we didnt go to one room in the dungeon first, we were overwhelmed by things twice our difficulty rating.

3. No warnings or clues about number 2.

4. Not allowing our mage to find scrolls, or gain spells as they level up. I was this mage, and ended up being 7th level and still only had first level spells. All because he read on a forum that said mages were overpowered...fine, i get it, limit them, don't neuter them.

5. Not reading the Challenge Rating in the DM guide. He thought that our levels combined made the callenge rating. We were one 5th, four 3rd level characters against an elder elemental. Ya, a few level 3 characters are gonna plow through 10-15 DR and 400 hp with no magic items whatsoever?

6. Favoring some players over others. Four sessens and only 1 player finds all the magic gear, all things only they can use or have value beyond selling.

7. Letting things get out of hand. Team killing destroys the group and makes people mad, when it starts, the dm should to put their foot down.

[Deepblue706]

I'd have to say is 'be uncompromising'. The DM's whole job is about providing a good time for his or her players. While this should still be accomplished through the confines of the rules of the game, the DM ought to give everyone a chance to speak, and every idea a moment of consideration. If something is not covered by the rules, the DM ought to try to accomodate the player, within reason (use existing rules as guidelines to try something special). If a player has an idea that is absolutely stupid, the DM ought to try to accomodate the player, within reason (allow something to be attempted, but make the PCs sell the ideas to NPCs they request aid from. Never have automatic failures, but give a penalty, etc).

The DM must compromise his or her own desires regarding the campaign, in order to better suit the players; because it's all about them. Allowing super-villains automatic escape, putting PCs into No-Win scenarios, and otherwise railroading is no good. Complete denial of any request without hearing out the rationale behind it is likewise no good. The DM who is uncompromising effectively tells his or her players that the game is about him-or-herself first, them second.

[Thajocoth]

Show up an hour late.

That's the worst I've had... Though, I've only had 3 DMs.

[Quietus]

First not-me DM I had. I was playing an Exalted, Vow of Poverty Sorcerer. I used those metafeats that add the [good] descriptor to my spells, and made them do more damage against evil creatures, half against neutral, and none to good. He freaked out because I wanted to make my Good+Good meta'd fireball white in color rather than orange/red, and forced me to make a Spellcraft check I could only succeed at if I rolled a nat 20, and if I failed the roll, I lost the spell.

Same DM got upset when he had some crazy winged-demon-lion things leap out of some bushes, purposefully attack the two mages of the party (putting both of us at near death), and we responded with Teleport spells going straight up. Several hundred feet up, in fact. And then blasted with fireballs as we fell. And got even MORE upset when I was catching his Paladin+homebrew "win" PrC DMPC (advanced all Paladin abilities, then added basically rage and a "Become half celestial" template x/day) - in the area of my fireballs when I'd meta'ed the fireballs to do no damage to Good-aligned people.

Later, we get snuck up on by some bear-worshipping orcs. Not one of my Prying Eyes managed to see them, because somehow these guys destroyed every single one of them (and there was around 20), with no rolls involved. They jump on us, tie us up, take us to their camp, then demand we pass a "Test of manhood" if we wanted their help; This test involved melee fights, four of their best against us. And he got really pissed that my sorcerer and the wizard hung back for a good five rounds casting buff spells (offensive spells were disallowed, of course, despite me being built to blast, and him built for blast/necromancy), turning ourselves and our familiars into dragons that were actually *capable* of fighting in melee before we waded forward, and even more pissed that we out-meleed him and his brother after doing so.

This guy's just always seemed to have it out for me - us, really, after my friend playing the wizard managed to land the killing blow on a Deathbringer (big nasty undead tank monster) he'd been trying to Magic Missile to death in a game I was running. One of the last times I played with him, I made a Rogue/Shadowdancer whose entire thing was using Shadow Jump for mobility. First place he puts us is a dimensional-locked forest where I can't use the ability I based the character around. He wasn't very happy, however, when I started using my summoned shadows smartly.

[Knaight]

Run a railroad plot based on a book he was writing, that I had previously helped him edit. GMing based on books being written is now explicitly forbidden in our group.

[FMArthur]

I once had a DM who ate while talking. And he was almost always eating during our sessions.

[ondonaflash]

First not-me DM I had. I was playing an Exalted, Vow of Poverty Sorcerer. I used those metafeats that add the [good] descriptor to my spells, and made them do more damage against evil creatures, half against neutral, and none to good. He freaked out because I wanted to make my Good+Good meta'd fireball white in color rather than orange/red, and forced me to make a Spellcraft check I could only succeed at if I rolled a nat 20, and if I failed the roll, I lost the spell.

Dude's never heard of IMEs? They're like a staple of all of my campaigns. Plus that's completely irrelevant to the gameplay! Why even bother to disallow it?

[Fortinbras]

Well let's see. One DM as my character basicly playing enforcer to a shadowy guild run by a friggin hero deity. My character happens to be a LG Dwarven prince Samurai/Warblade from a city that's all the way over the mountains but this hero deity just materializes and tells me to go kill some people some place and that is the whole adventure. Sometimes it gets interesting after that but only sometimes.

[Recaiden]

Changing something, anything after PCs have killed each other over it.
And DMPCs can be pretty bad.

[wykydtron]

Dude's never heard of IMEs? They're like a staple of all of my campaigns. Plus that's completely irrelevant to the gameplay! Why even bother to disallow it?

What are IMEs?

[The New Bruceski]

I got bored with a campaign (we were always doing this, one guy DMs for a month until he gets bored and another of us wants to try. We were 12 or so at the time.), so I flushed the party. Sudden wave sweeps down the tunnel washing them into a big toilet bowl.

[Curmudgeon]

Keep the PCs alive regardless of poor choices or bad dice rolls. It's no fun if there's no risk.

[Keld Denar]

DMs who violate the Treaty.

[Magicus]

DMs who violate the Treaty.

Hey, I think illusion spells like that are great. As long as the players aren't jerks about it, at least.

But back on topic, I find it annoying when a DM fails to provide adequate wrap-up after a campaign finishes. My group recently concluded a great, long-running set of games, but after we saved the day (by killing Lolth's avatar), the only conclusion we got was something along the lines of "Well, your character spends the rest of his 2000 remaining Dwarven years founding his own school of the martial arts. Oh, and you don't have any more trouble from the Underdark until very near your death." It was a tad disappointing.

[R. Shackleford]

We were playing Star Wars. It was my first time ever RP'ing, and I rolled and built a diplomatic class.

Which rendered me pretty useless when the setting was revealed to be a desert wasteland of a world with nothing but monsters. No other people. My character had a few crowning moments of awesome, like when my noisy crickets KO'd the boss monster out of the blue. But then the difficulty ramped up and I got killed.

Cue to the next session, when 4e comes out. ... and the same thing happens. No NPCs. No story. We rolled characters, then entered a cave and fought monsters. I played a Warlord, so it wasn't as bad. There were puzzles that were thought out, but it was straight combat. And treasure wank. And the week after that, the same thing.

I guess it is to be expected. Most of them play Magic, so I think its not a stretch to reason that Magic players that play DnD would all be munchkinish.

[BobVosh]

DMs who violate the Treaty.

Bah, AGC is almost a perfect example of "Most obnoxious thing a player can do."

From That Lanky Bastard on this site, we get this gem:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784

Return of worst DM ever:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95189

Hmm, anyway. DMPCs.
A lot of game tropes: Child Soldiers
Screw the rules, I have plot!
Obvious Cheating DM
Lots of trains
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...in.TabletopRPG
Go down the list, you will find some that are terrifically annoying.

[Gnaeus]

Inadequate descriptions. Especially combined with problems with only one solution.

We once had 3 PCs who spent an hour trying to get into the dungeon entry portal. Open locks... autofail. Knock...Fail. Complicated strength solution involving our BSF and a block and tackle...Fail.

Turns out it was a manhole cover. Only way in was to return to the nearby dwarf settlement to get the special wrench/key. I don't know how we were supposed to figure that out from the description we got. And of course, no xp for that hour of frustrating gaming because the manhole cover wasn't a threat.

grr..

[Eldariel]

Once we were assaulted by a Babau-assassin in Natur (a town in the Abyss) and rolled knowledge, our DM conveniently forgot to mention the Protective Slime-ability. He also forgot to mention it's coated in slime. He also forgot to mention my scimitars (I was a Dervish) started to hiss and smoke with acid when I hit the thing.

He finally remembered after 3 rounds of combat. The Babau was pretty much dead, as were my Scimitars. Luckily they were "only" with +3 worth of enhancements (yeah, I hit it quite a few times; the damage adds up).

[Tengu_temp]

Keep the PCs alive regardless of poor choices or bad dice rolls. It's no fun if there's no risk.

Not everyone has a gamist mindset and plays RPGs for the challenge, you know. Some people play them for the story and roleplaying.

[ondonaflash]

What are IMEs?

IMEs are "Individual Magic Effects". Basically its a roleplaying option where magic is stylized by caster. The player controls things like the spells appearance, its colors, and the specific shape it takes, so long as it doesn't contradict the crunch of the spell. Like how "Jim's Magic Missile" spells "Jim Dark Magic" in the smoke it leaves behind.

[Mastikator]

Run a railroad plot based on a book he was writing, that I had previously helped him edit. GMing based on books being written is now explicitly forbidden in our group.

On the other side of the coin, if you base the book on the game instead then it's not a bad idea since the characters wrote themselves and were more "unique" in context of the book, and the plot progressed more naturally.
..
Holy crap! Is OotS based on an actual game!? O_O
:P

-

Anyway, I would say (from the things I've experienced, of course) is a DM who stops a player from roleplaying the character he wants to roleplay for the sake of keeping to the plot or keeping party harmony or whatever.