[D&D] Warning signs: how to tell your DM is problematic.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:20 am

Yeah well I had to scalp my DM and carve my own dice from his skull.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:31 am

Did his gamemanship improve?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:44 am

See Josh, that's why we make fun of you. You keep talking shit like that's super hard or something.

Believe it or not, lots of other people have worked 6-8 hours a day then walked somewhere with a backpack full of shit and gone up stairs.

You still make it sound like it's actually difficult for 4-5 people to manage to bring a computer with them somewhere, I've never been to a D&D game without my Computer and at least 3 books, but I don't actually set policies based on how much I can carry, because no one has ever asked me to carry anything.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:51 am

Didn't Josh include the caveat that the players who want to use a book can bring it themselves? Does he have a rule against the computer route?

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:06 am

I had to powerlift the entire 3e "Complete X" series to build up my throwing arm.

We use lead dice, you see.
They weigh 40 lbs apiece.
If they don't travel the length of a basketball court, it doesn't count.

The DM makes up LARP for our criticals; if we can hit him with a bat from a starting point of 10 feet away before he shoots us with a taser, the crit is confirmed.

And this is after running a mile in 10 minutes before each session.
Uphill.
Both ways.
In the snow.

Sure is Baki The Grappler in here...

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:23 am

running a mile in 10 min is hard. you pretty much have to walk for that speed.

take your satire elsewhere sir!

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:40 am

Damn you Sigma for reminding me of that damn anime.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:27 am

Koumei wrote:I just think "I'm lazy" is a bad answer for "Why can't I play X?" Hell, if they said "Because you're a bastard and I hate you" I'd say "Fair enough" but "Because I'm lazy" is just particularly dumb.

I think "I can't be rooted reading Magic of Incarnum" is a perfectly valid reason for banning it.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:42 am

All I know of that animu is an AMV (music: King of Kings, by Motorhead. Baki seems very Triple H).

Anyway, I think the reason so much flak was fired was because first there was "'Core Only' suggests a bad DM - they don't know balance from a hole in the ground and think core is balanced, everything else is crazy town. Beware." and Josh then said "Actually, I have a good reason for saying that."

So whatever he said afterwards, he implied that his games were Core only and you could not carry your local town library on your shoulders with you.

Also, true story this time (as opposed to the scalping thing), when I lived in Sydney, I would, once per month, go to Melbourne to game. I would catch a plane, then cart my luggage (a week's worth of clothing and my books and stuff all in a backpack, and my lappy in its bag. ONBOARD LUGGAGE ONLY, BITCHES!), in my suit (I went directly from work), to the bus terminal, and then bus+train to Clayton, at which point I would walk the rest of the way.

So I woke up early, worked, then had an interstate flight, then carried my luggage about for a decent walk, to immediately start gaming.

This is, of course, why I introduced bribe points: bonus XP (or feats or ability upgrades or whatever) for saying "Here, Koumei, have a snack/drink". And then one player realised she could get bribe points for showing me her knickers.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:44 am

Draco_Argentum wrote:
Koumei wrote:I just think "I'm lazy" is a bad answer for "Why can't I play X?" Hell, if they said "Because you're a bastard and I hate you" I'd say "Fair enough" but "Because I'm lazy" is just particularly dumb.
I think "I can't be rooted reading Magic of Incarnum" is a perfectly valid reason for banning it.

Pfft, "that book is shit" is a better reason. But if I had a player who wanted to use it? As long as they didn't expect me to learn their rules for them, or include their own special brand of monsters, NPCs and treasure (like Psion fanbois do), they could use it and I wouldn't care. Like, I'd trust them to uphold any Gentleman's Agreement standards and to be no more powerful than a Wizard.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:04 pm

Koumei wrote:That's not a bad idea.

I've already got a better one. Change it so that you get 1 Counter Attack; and you can make a 5' step. Sort of like giving Sidestep, to this Karmic Strike-like feat.

Yeah, I've got no real problem nerfing stuff. Even if I use it.

I make lists of what a character does, because honestly, I can't be bothered to memorize the 80-100 or so non-spell abilities that the character has. It's really just too many. The lists save me the mental effort. Even when I do make the lists, I omit about 10-20% of the total amount of already written down options.

That's sort of why I decided to go for 3 abilities to start in the 4uccess thread. With one more per level; and mundane items only adding new options to existing abilities you already have; not giving you new abilities. To prevent that sort of problem.

Kaelik, sorry, didn't see your post. You must have posted when I was writing mine.

Techincally, 100% of the feats are "home brew".

Of the 17 feats, 9 are from Races of War. That's more than half.

Of the remaining 8 feats; 2 were written by the GM (and coincidently one of them is the 'most' broken of them all) herself; 2 I wrote myself (and I've never heard a single complaint about them after their last version, so you're just bitching to bitch, or something); the remaining 4 were written by other TGD people and were also considered "fine" for a Tome game.

It should be noted that none of these abilities actually "end the game" or "win the game". They just make the character "very powerful". However, that was sort of the goal. To see how powerful the RoW fighter could be turned into. Yes, even if there is some multi-classing to make him less of a fighter and more of a sage and rogue, they don't actually detract from his ability to use a weapon.

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:32 pm

Additional items for the frontpage

XX: The DM tells you at character creation that usually his group uses "mostly homebrew stuff" and they use the "what could be in a sourcebook we just couldn't make up" excuse for why they don't ownthing but core.
This game is magical dragon tea party. It doesn't matter their age this game will play the same way you did when you were 10 and first starting out.

XX: Suppliment to the above: If they "use mostly homebrew stuff"
but they don't bother to write any of it up or type it down.

The game will be magical dragon tea party only the gm will have gotten his skills from the mad hatter. Basically expect this game to have one person who does everything because they have known the GM forever, one hanger on who wishes they were that guy, one person that constantly fails even when his ideas are good because the gm doesn't like him and you... the new guy. Only consolation is at least you usually get to be the cleric.....

XXX: Any game where the gamemaster tells you that you can join but "we do more (insert aspect of roleplaying) than you/usual"

This is almost univerally false and often means that they are more deluded than usual on the mechanics of how the point the claim to emphasis works. If they say they like to roleplay they probably don't, will lambast you if you bring a combat centric character, and then will pull out crazy gamebreakers for combat themselves.

If they say they do combat it probably means they like mostly blasters, get killed alot, and don't have a cleric.

XXXX: The game master express to you his love of the maxtix and shadowrun in the same conversation (worse if the same sentence) the first time you meet.

Just prepare for the suxors.

XXXXXX: The game master wants to play riddle of steel.
This game master either loves card games or has an enclopedic knowledge of fencing. Either way, he likes to make his players look foolish to prove how smart he is.

XXXXXXX: The game master is admits being strongly influenced by Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlien, Karl Marx, etc.

Left or Right it doesn't matter. If they sit down with a young dem/repubs shirt on its going to be all about their poltics and the npcs are going to be crazy and unable to work with.

XXXXXXXXX: Game masters who give time or expect the party to plan things out in advance and then ask what that plan is.

Basically, if your gamemaster lets your party plan like they are doing military missions but then wants a summary before you begin it means that their only way of making tension is to make everything go wrong no matter how solid your plan is. I recommend not dropping out but deciding to instead "just wing it" and see the GM's eyes come bulging out.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:45 pm

The DM refuses to shake your hand.

Shortest meeting ever in my life. Also, I feel like I've been shat upon. Fucker.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:01 pm

Just so you know, I stopped following this thread on the grounds there's too much random chatter, and not enough actual tips being posted. So if you want me to keep adding stuff, cut the randomness.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:07 pm

Thats just a little weird.
I'm perfectly comfortable with strangers not trying to touch me.

Of course, I'm also comfortable with a lot of things in this thread,
particularly not including psionics/ToB/Incarnum (for a wide variety of reasons: the subsystem being shit, it being yet another subsystem, it not fitting in the campaign, etc)

a DM being upfront with 'this campaign will be more <X> type of play (rather than hiding it and springing on the group later) seems to me a desirable thing. Its about the only reason I didn't go on a killing spree with the last werewolf game I was in: I was warned in advanced that it wasn't going to be mostly combat.

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:17 pm

My point about the upfront thing is its never true.

In 18 years of role playing all it has ever meant is that this group thinks its hot stuff and really probably is just the opposite of what they are claiming.

IF the gm doesn't say anything, just assumes his style is pretty normal and then is skewed its differnt. However, if they claim to be amazing role players chances are they are not.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:28 pm

Every DM who talked on and on about roleplaying in WW games turned every encounter that we initiated diplomacy in, into a combat encounter.

Then forced us to endure the shitty "in town" RP.

Holy fuck does that shit still piss me off.

1X: Never Trust a DM that says they're a great roleplayer, or that they like roleplaying. Chances are they're a moron that will railroad every encounter and not allow you to RP away encounters that you can obviously murder, or bribe or diplomacy your way past.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:35 pm

That seems more like a subjective/pessimistic view. I'd love to know what kind of style the game is going to be before I play it. I once played in a game where we were supposed to be "heroes" but I wasn't told that. So when my very neutral, aspiring crime boss, wanted to shoot the meat shield in the face in his sleep for nearly sending the team into a minefield for no better reason than "I think I can make it" I got cosmically fucked for no explained reason. So I am very biased about DMs who don't give a fucking warning.

This also extends to the "who they were influenced by" comment. If I know the GM's thinking pattern, or at least where they got their inspiration from I'd be much more prepared to deal with their wacko world of insane inventions or I could bypass it totally by knowing ahead of time that they only run wacko's world.

I as a DM ask what the PC's plan is because it is very hard to run a game as an omnipetent being if you don't know everything. Sure I could toss a foil here and there but I could also make the success of their plan seem more epic. I've never penalized y player's for being constructively creative in how they approach a task. In fact I heavily reward those who do approach a task cleverly.

Edit: It seems a lot of people have had bad experiences with RP reliant DMs. I don't think its bad to tell someone you like to rp if you think its true. I like to RP. The biggest problem I've ever had with a player or two is my insistence on not personally pushing the story forward myself. I have had entire teams decide to go evil because of what was happening. I don't really care what you do as long as motivations for such activity were made during character creation or developed during the game. I'll just make sure that the world continues to let your story develop. I'll toss in a bad guy or two but unless the players make an enemy of him he'll think no more of them then he does anyone else. I just have a problem with people who expect to be railroaded or expect to be able to live through anything.

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:35 pm

Eagle:

No kidding. I first learned WW by borrowing the books from a guy who had just about all of them.

I read up on vamp, and ran it. He then said "wow this is way differnt than when I learned from the rep at the store"

me: "Oh, how so"
him: "well we never worried about this humanity stuff...."

Yeah for roleplaying especially when all you really want to do is pretend to be phsychoitc and act out juvaniel fantasies of what you would do if there were no cops or prisons.

On the post above me:

I guess maybe I am cynical but my best expreiences are with gms who don't think that their game is "alot this or alot that" even if I would say that they are.

If a person feels the need to tell you that some kind of poltics or worldview dominates there life it will make there world very stilted. Its playable but frustrating.

On the planning: its not unreaonable to plan or for the dm to you know, want to know what thep layers are doing. What is unreasonable is the players getting screwed for doing that planning. Its a hard one to tell at first but if EVERY plan ALWAYS goes wrong in the worst possible way at the worst possible moment then your planning is pointless.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:14 pm

That indeed is bad. Every plan definitely shouldn't be failing all the time and most certainly not in the worse way.

-Off Topic: But sometimes I've gotten people who have made plans based on false information (That was given to them as part of the plot) and some were just doomed to fail (some just didn't make sense in the first place). When they fail it might be hard to differentiate between the GM making it fail or abject failure on the players part. I know your experience though.

On Topic Again:The second time in my life someone ELSE actually GMed for me I had the bad luck of running over a player killing GM in a party where common sense and character development took third place behind meta-gaming and min-maxing. I was not told that this is the kind of game it would be and I could barely (if at all) actually derive any kind of enjoyment out of the game (which is probably why to this day I enjoy GMing far more tha actually playing). So our experiences (mine only being 9-10 years) were fundamentally different then. I've only had bad games where GMs didn't tell me what they wanted and I was shackled from having fun there-after. While it seems you've been told before games what should be happening only to find disappointment in what you actually got.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:45 pm

Pointless Planning is... bad.

It's bad for the game, and bad to even consider. I don't even know what the point of it is.

Souran,

The "no humanity stat" thing is.... wow, that's a pretty big deal.

I tend to not really have a heavy rp or heavy combat game. Most of the time I have monsters talk to the players, or ask them what's going on if they're intelligent creatures, and currently don't have a reason to attack the PCs.

Like a demon bound to guard a gate, he's not going to attack because he doesn't need to. Only if the PCs want to force their way in will it bother to fight them.

I guess I play my NPCs as lazy, but effective. Whether combat occurs or not is based on the situation, and the PC actions. When combat starts, I'll try to use the monsters as dangerously as possible. An Ooze is a dumb thing, but it knows to attack the creature that hurt it the most in one round, or is in melee range with it.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:49 pm

souran wrote:My point about the upfront thing is its never true.

Well, it was true for the last werewolf campaign I was in and several others over the years, so apparently you are just wrong. Or you are trying to apply anecdotal evidence to create a universal truth, and that shit never works out.

Actually no 'humanity' crap in vampire would be great. You don't need an arcane and convoluted system to simply not be an asshole. Not every character needs to battle against Rein * Hagen's rather arbitrary system of morality.

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:13 pm

Well, it was true for the last werewolf campaign I was in and several others over the years, so apparently you are just wrong. Or you are trying to apply anecdotal evidence to create a universal truth, and that shit never works out.

Every item on the list is an annecdote taken to its logical extreme. There are plenty of campaigns that work while doing every one of these stay away from things.

Anyway, my point is only to be cynical because in my expereince roleplayers tend to be more similar than they want to think.

Actually no 'humanity' crap in vampire would be great. You don't need an arcane and convoluted system to simply not be an asshole. Not every character needs to battle against Rein * Hagen's rather arbitrary system of morality.

Again, my expereince is without humanity people tend to be giant jerks. The whole point becomes look at how distrubed a thing I could do and because I am a creature of the night there is nothing to stop me!

Its ok for about 5 minutes but after that I am done playing fantasy therapist.

OWOD for some reason created a "were all crazy by nature" for vamps, for wolves, for mages for everything. I never saw them played well, and I saw ALOT of them.