D&D Players, What do DMs do that you hate? 🅿️2

[@Tabledar]

When the GM is a glorified page turner. I had a DM who would describe a scene, and proceed to be silent other than giving extremely curt, flat answers to questions when we tried to interact with anything. Never any buildup. Never any description beyond the necessities. We could spend 20 minutes in a puzzle room, and finally solve it after struggling to extract feedback, and the culmination of the entire travail would be "The door opens.", "You solve the puzzle." or nothing at all until a player prompted him by asking if we solved it, whereupon we'd get a "Yeah." Never once described an attack, or explained why certain things didn't work. Like for a sci fi game. "There's a forcefield." "Can I analyze it?" "It's a forcefield." "Can I EMP it? I have the ability to disable electronics." "No." "Can i damage it?" "It's invulnerable." "Can I see what's projecting it?" "No." "Is it a power? Can i dispel it?" "It is not a power." "Is there a console I can see that I could remote into to disable it?" "You can't see any console." "Can I teleport through it to find a way to disable it from the other side?" "You try and teleport through. It doesn't work." "Can I cast blink and cross it through the ethereal plane?" "The forcefield blocks dimensional travel." "I'd like to detect electrical sources to see if we can cut power to the room and disable the field." "You do that. There's nothing. You can't turn it off." "Then why did you let me ask all of those questions?" "I'm letting you play your characters." That game did not last very long.

[@GenericVillain]

@@Tabledar A regular Stonewall Jackson, that guy is.

[@mrblooper1994]

That is not a forcefield, that is just a video game invisible wall...

[@Oliverf-ej8kl]

@@mrblooper1994it’s the edge of the map, he’s trying to save you from glitching out through the floor

[@alexwaddington9808]

As a forever DM, I'm just going to lurk

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

Speak up! There are fewer of us, and WotC is jonesing to replace us with AI. My group is lucky to have a 3 DM rotation, plus me filling in to give the guys a break (semi-retired forever DM). We bust our humps to create material, and sometimes people forget how much effort is involved. Sure there are DMs who aren't great, but the same goes for players. If groups don't communicate, it doesn't get any better.

[@alexwaddington9808]

@@strawberryhellcat4738 hahaha I talk plenty. today's video is just for players to air grievances and for DMs to listen and improve. I do agree with you though. Between campaigns a different player in my group will run a few sessions while I prep for the next big adventure.

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

@@alexwaddington9808 Yeah, it's nice to have a break when you're running an intense game. I had to give up my 3.5e/D20 Call of Cthulhu Far Realms game to one of the guys because it got too exhausting to run. I still help him with it, playing NPCs, doing spooky atmosphere and foley work, and making corn starch slime - lol.

[@dumbchannel1430]

Same here! My only experience with DnD is DMing (Including my first time with the entire RPG). And I usually watch these videos in case I'm making mistakes that my players either didn't wanna mention or overlooked.

[@fateric007]

Combat isn't the only way to gain xp.

[@jonathancarlson6127]

Yes it is- and if you don't believe me, I'LL FIGHT YOU! j/k

[@OfHollowMasks]

Dragonbane supports this 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@MayHugger]

@@OfHollowMasksThe player’s handbook supports this. Seriously, more people should actually read it.

[@TempDevil]

This is true. I don't do XP in my campaign, I level up based off of milestones. During the second session my players managed to save the king of the country they lived in from (what I thought was) certain death thanks to quick thinking and good rolls. Context: in the world i created for the campaign, something has altered the ley lines beneath the surface, causing all sorts of disastrous effects. (One player character has a sister who is in a coma because of this.) They were in a meeting with the king, trying to ascertain whether he was evil or just inept, as the country was under heavy trade sanctions from most other nations. During this meeting, the king suddenly clutched his chest and keeled over, as if suffering a heart attack. My players, through good rolls, managed to find out that the ley lines were affecting him, and that if they wanted him to survive, they would need to get him out of there. the king survived. Comatose, but he survived. I was impressed enough with this that I awarded each of them the first level up of the campaign. It was an awesome moment.

[@OfHollowMasks]

@@MayHugger what is safe to assume that root comment is saying, is that dm's usually just base gaining exp on combat and forget exploration, despite using "milestone". as I mentioned, in Dragonbane theres a checklist of items you go through to see of you gain "exp points", such as "did you resolve a conflict without combat"/"did you discover a new location".

[@InsanoRider777]

I'm in a 2E game where the DM is an old family friend. In the game, our party was sent to investigate why a mining town had stopped sending goods out. We get there to find everyone alive, albeit with a few empty houses from residents who'd left the struggling town. The river is all but dry, the mine is closed, people and pets have disappeared, and nobody has seen the mayor or his family in months. So... we get to work and start investigating by asking around. Nobody. Knows. A. Damn. Thing. The DM has no rumors, no information, nothing. Okay, talking is a waste of time, so we head out to see what's blocked the river. It's blocked by boulders that had fallen from an earthquake, but we could get people out to fix it. We head back to town to give some good news and... the town was attacked and completely destroyed in our absence. Dismayed and irritated, we said "fuck it" and went into the mine to finish the adventure. The kicker is that our DM went to the effort of making a physical journal full of what we would come to find was *utterly useless information.* Actually so nettled by this.

[@ericb3157]

this reminds me of a video by "Puffin Forest": he was DMing a module picked FOR him the "the adventurer's league". if forced the party to wander around talking to everyone in town, THEN when they left the town, "this GUY just SHOWS UP" and tells them where they need to go... which was actually the WRONG place, the module actually SAID, "make them wander randomly around ANOTHER town"!

[@elhoteldeloserrantes5056]

​@@ericb3157 i remember, do You know the module name i need to SEE it.

[@MorinehtarTheBlue]

That reminds me of the horror story "What do you do now?" where a Adventures Leagie DM keeps repeating that phrase as a party spends an entire session walking down a dark tunnel prodding along by the DM only using that particular phrase.

[@whitehawk4099]

Investigation is a difficult thing to do properly, which means that if there's something you want people to discover, you need at least three potential clues people can pick up on. You also need to sometimes move clues around to ensure they get picked up ok. Like, say that someone is secretly a werewolf and players are investigating his home. The DM could have things like tufts of weird hair spread throughout the house (If they're struggling, you move it around into a reasonable location for it to be that they happen to look.), a broken window with footprints becoming increasingly wolf-like, seeming to protrude nails from the tips of the feet as they go on should the players track them, having the event they are investigating occur on the night of the full moon (this can be inserted in a variety of ways, depending on their previous situation and whether they are investigating for multiple days, how long they take to investigate, etc. If they are investigating the day after and end up running until later in the day you can describe the gibbous moon lighting the night for them. If they make it clear they plan to leave before then, and this is something you really want them to get, you could describe the moon visible in the sky during the day when setting another scene. This does occur on days with clear enough weather.). As you can see, there are many ways to adjust the situation so that players should be able to find something, at least enough to get started off. Now if your case, as you were exclusively talking to people instead of, presumably, examining some scene I had set up,I would shift some of the clues that you could find there and use them as inspiration for rumours you could hear, which would set you on the path to, hopefully, finding the scene. If not you would still have some investigation and be rewarded for talking to people, which is basically the entire point of a mystery plot like this.

[@ericb3157]

@@whitehawk4099 that reminds me of a video where the players were investigating a kids who had disappeared, and the DM said there was a mouse in the room. one of the players insisted on TALKING to the mouse. she figured out that the mouse WAS the kid they were looking for, transformed! the DM had expected it to take an hour for them to figure that out!

[@SáreOfAlaska]

Gonna be honest here, it sounds like the DM from the necromancer bit was trying continually and unsuccessfully to get his player to stop abusing a certain play style.

[@BurroughsProductions]

Yea seriously. Some of these complaints def sounds like they're the problem

[@OwlFish]

That thing about not thinking before roiling is some that's talked about in the DMG. You only call for a roll if the outcome is uncertain and there is a meaningful chance of failure, if its trivial don't roll if its impossible don't roll. From the DMG "When a player wants to do something, it’s often appropriate to let the attempt succeed without a roll or a reference to the character’s ability scores. For example, a character doesn’t normally need to make a Dexterity check to walk across an empty room or a Charisma check to order a mug of ale. Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure." Furthermore if a check can be repeated and there is no meaningful consequence of failure or time pressure it only take time 10x the normal amount automatically succeeds However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one. however something like trying to deceive a person with the same lie twice wont work for example. so a rogue trying to pick a simple lock in good conditions simply takes 1 minute. With traps as well the DMG give the exact example the poster described: "you shouldn’t allow die rolling to override clever play and good planning... You should allow a character to discover a trap without making an ability check if an action would clearly reveal the trap’s presence. For example, if a character lifts a rug that conceals a pressure plate, the character has found the trigger and no check is required."

[@dragonkun15]

I had a DM who tried to force a romance with an npc on my character, then get bored that I wasn't reciprocating, and just completely ignored my character during rollplay because I didn't want to be the Barbie to her Ken doll. You need to ask your players if this kind of stuff is okay ahead of time, and don't get pouty and sulk when it isn't. We're not here to fulfill your soap opera romance fantasy.

[@k.w.pillsbury4070]

The “murdering your family” stick just because you had a family in your backstory. The guy’s a good DM, but his willingness and joy describing that to me guarantees that every single one of my characters in his games are going to be orphans. That started my first character in his game along a depressive path and I eventually had to retire him because it just wouldn’t get better. now I play an orphaned rogue that’s actually trying to do good and surprisingly rewarded for it.

[@GenericVillain]

To be fair, any anime protagonist that isn't mostly an orphan is just begging for their family to be sacrificed. Even Batman, Spider-Man, and Harry Potter were all raised by surrogates. Kal-El, Magneto; the list goes on. Invincible is the only protagonist I can name raised in a proper family. And that storyline gets real dark before the sun finally rises.

[@k.w.pillsbury4070]

@@GenericVillain no you don’t understand. My character was literally in another country at the time. It would not change anything if they died or survived. If you’ve ever heard of the trope “Fridging” it’s that. He didn’t do that at the beginning of the game to give my character a motivation for adventuring he did that because it was “historically accurate.” Don’t get me wrong he’s a great DM, but I will never forget that.

[@GenericVillain]

I don't know what fridging is, but there was a time I was repeatedly targeted by a particular DM enough for other people in the group to mention he had an irrational hate boner towards, and it sucked. I'm guessing that's what you mean. Even so, nothing that I originally said is untrue.

[@k.w.pillsbury4070]

@@GenericVillain “Women in refrigerators is a literary trope coined by Gail Simone in 1999 describing a trend in fiction which involves female characters facing disproportionate harm, such as death, maiming, or assault, to serve as plot devices to motivate male characters, an event colloquially known as "fridging".”-Wikipedia.

[@GenericVillain]

@k.w.pillsbury4070 Oh. That makes all of the sense. Nothing in either of your statements, fridging aside, led me to believe that you were being singled out and targeted because you lack a penis. As a man, I didn't think you were particularly vulnerable on account of your description as when I am targeted, it doesn't happen on that level. 'Fridging' is new terminology to me, but most certainly applicable. You taught me something new, F'd up as it may be. I now get where you're coming from. F that misogynist!

[@billylebullyhunter7366]

I had a DM that would constantly sigh and explain things like he was really bored. Every NPC was bored sounding and the narration itself was delivered like he was exhausted. I think it was just a nervous tic bc the world itself was really interesting and he made it himself. It was just explained as if the DM thought it was the most boring thing.

[@oliverwilhelm6171]

When 90%+ of NPC's are rude and mean for no gosh-darn reason despite the party being the only ones able and willing to help. At some point, I've gotta wonder if they're just working some stuff out by abusing people's characters from a seat of power.

[@tennagon3822]

This one killed a game for me. I could count on one hand the npcs that weren't immediately rude, antagonistic, or outright hostile without cause.

[@DHTheAlaskan]

My first ever dnd game on my birthday DM: the guards cross their spears and refuse to let you pass into the city. Me: Why? DM: Elves aren't allowed within the walls of the city? Me: Okay I'll go and check out the outer city market then. DM: Nobody will sell ahything to you and they throw rocks at you. ME: Dude, what the fuck? DM: I hate elves. Me: Why didnt you say not to play elves then? Seriously dont punish players for picking a race you dont like. Sit them down and say "hey I know you got your heart set on this race, but I don't like them. If you want something that fits the character I can show you other options."

Nah, that's just when you go chaotic evil murder hobo'ing all the DM's favorite NPC's.

[@justindomer2966]

Agreed on that, in all my games no exception I ban tortles. I tell all my players well before any character creation tortles are banned. If one of them proceeds to make a tortle anyways, I tell them flatly no. Tortles are banned from my games.

[@justindomer2966]

I don't punish them for wanting to pick or play a tortle. I just tell them no

[@DHTheAlaskan]

@justindomer2966 See that's what a rational person does.

In related news, what do you have against Tortles? You're the only person I've heard of, ever, that disliked tortles, especially to the point of actively banning them.

[@epicsage16]

3:50 I can’t stress enough how bad this is. Building confidence is done by achievement, not being handed things. That creates a false sense of entitlement that can backfire by making someone’s confidence too high, too quickly. If the DM wanted to give the new player credit, he/she should have congratulated the whole party on whatever they accomplished. That way, the player who did most of the legwork doesn’t feel like the victory had been taken from him/her.

[@charlieb.6172]

I hate it when my DM chases me down the hallway for making too many deez nuts jokes.

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

Geez, I'd love to have you in my campaign. I had planned a serious game with an evil cult terrorizing the region but got screwed by a series of truly awful intent rolls, so I just went with it. The evil cult is now disguised as a cheesemaker's guild and the players run muscle/pest control for them. Plus the player stronghold includes succubus hookers and fantasy blow.

[@pcalix17]

Was this in or out of character?

[@GenericVillain]

@@pcalix17 It's ok if they're playing a druid or ranger. Both could gather and readily offer nuts. What nuts? These nuts.

[@drew-horst]

That's my favorite part tho

[@ThomasBD]

Man, this is crazy! Deez nuts!

[@BurroughsProductions]

"Oh no my dm wouldnt let me keep reanimating the dead and make an army

[@BlueTressym]

That is the fantasy most players have because it's the iconic Necromancer shtick. If it's causing balancing issues, TALK to the player; don't just shut their character down. Same with any other issues that come about because a player is playing a character in a way that involves the central fantasy of that character type.

[@BurroughsProductions]

@BlueTressym or u could play within ur dms world and rules and not try and run an army that throws off the balance and makes turns take way to long lol just cause it's their fantasy about necromancy doesn't mean it fits in the game. Play war games if u want to control large numbers of ppl

[@theprinceofawesomeness]

being inconstant with applying rules, not that they have a homebrew rule but the rule changes from time to time and during the same session

[@WitD2013]

Rebalancing mid session. I have no issues if my usual DM wants to adjust or tweak something... I'd just prefer to do it before or after a session, not mid session. Something exceeded the DM's expectation in terms of damage/crowd control/etc? Fair enough, but it feels like a punishment for a well built character if it happens mid session.

[@GrndAdmiralThrawn]

11:14 I’m running Curse Of Strahd, and the party attacked Strahd early on, not realizing how powerful he was. The barbarian missed by only a couple points, so I described how the strike would have hit. But as it fell, Strahd casually knocked the blade away with a single motion, guiding it to the ground with just a finger. It was a great way to demonstrate his character, and the players ate it up.

[@scribblerstudios9895]

That does sound awesome x3 if I may add a small thing? I could imagine strahd perhaps having a mild expression of amused respect since the comparatively weak mortal actually *almost* managed to hit him. Just sorta spitballing thoughts

[@WayOfTheHawk219]

My DM believes in "Everyone shows up or no session today." Sometimes we'll go weeks or months with nothing whatsoever. We all play via Discord. So sometimes we all have conflicting schedules and never truly have a set day or time to come together. It's always "whenever everyone is available." Most of all, he waits for all of us to be ready instead of checking up on us himself. It almost feels like he doesn't want to do anything extra or would do anything else if given the opportunity. Hell, he begs us to take over more times than not. Doesn't help that our campaign is linear for the most part. So not much room for open decisions or open world exploration.

[@BorisderBankwarmer]

Not having time on Saturday. I hate it when DMs have time outside of their hobbies.

[@Badartist888]

Honestly, we need to teach having difficult conversations and assertiveness in school. Would help both players and DMs. Also last game with randoms I played the DM, instead of just saying 'the module doesn't allow you to start beef with these people' just kept throwing obstacles in our way. Like sometimes just show behind the curtain, most players respect it. Some systems do it far more regularly.

[@SageTigerStar]

I only ever participated in a single campaign. Everyone was a "you don't want this player at your table" archetype, even myself (the shy/quiet noob who had no idea what they were doing), but the big red flag I got even as a new player was that my DM had a DM vs Player mentality. He was allowing a Min-maxing/metagaming Rogue and a die-roll fudging Druid to run rampant getting everything they ever wanted, bonus feats, magic weapons, companions, pets, the list goes on (while me and the 2 other players got scraps). The DM said the most fun part of the campaign was trying to see if he could unalive the Rogue specifically, whilst simultaneously giving the Rogue basically any tool he would need to get out of it. It was a mess and needless to say, only those 3 had a great time.

[@SomeRandomKydd]

I had a really considerate GM once in a homebrew where when I found an exploit with an unironically powerful weapon he gave me, he had to ask his GM buddy what it should do. I still got to use the exploit, though I effectively two shot the final boss.

[@graveyardshift2100]

Tell you they nerfed the monster. Thanks for taking the fun out of my kill....

[@stevenh8975]

This! Had a shitty DM a few years ago who told us as we were finishing a module that there was an optional dragon we could fight and encouraged us to go for it. One total party wipe later he laughed at us, insulted us for thinking we could take down a dragon without extreme preparation. He then retconned it, said the dragon was actually having a bad day and had forgotten to memorise spells for the day and told us other ways he had nerfed it. We killed it the second time but that gaming group dissolved a few weeks later and reformed without the DM. We're still playing together 15 yesrs later, minus that shitty DM...

[@stargateproductions]

I do this from time to time because I make mistakes and I'm human. I usually do it after session because I like to share. My players don't mind it and it usually starts a conversation.

[@Thurmanation2011s]

​@@stevenh8975i think you guys were the aholes here. DM let your characters live and your childish response was to kick him out ofbthe group. Boo ho, he "nerfed" a dragon.

[@stevenh8975]

@@Thurmanation2011s I know you are, but what am I? Neenerneenerneener. Lol, think what you like but he was a grade A asshole. Took money off us to buy modules and stuff rather than writing his own stuff. Ignored our nearly unanimous vote to use homebrew rules (his was only vote agains). Always brought up how hard it was being a DM and all the prep he had to do every session just so that we had to bust out the praise. We have 3 DMs now and not one of them does the stuff he used to do. He wasn't kicked out for nerfing a dragon - that was just the last straw. But if that makes us children.... *blows raspberry at you*

[@juicyg4516]

​@@Thurmanation2011s It saddens me that your vote counts the same as mine

[@Quadraxis]

My biggest pet peeve is DMs that have a clear idea of how they wanna run a scene/session/campaign and doesn't allow anything to alter it. No creative solutions, no backstory implementation, no interest in exploring PC development. They just want a group of people to play with them to validate their own "creative" superiority. Dude, that's called writing a book.

[@jettblade]

One story was about rolling skill checks I do want to talk about it. I do feel that sometimes you need to roll even if you can easily make the roll just to build tension or if you're doing fumbles. One thing that can be used to streamline things a little bit easier is to use passive skill for every single skill check. Its the same formula for passive perception. This can also be used as a minimum for checks to get around poor rolling because you'd never be rolling lower than your passive and you'd only roll checks to gain better results if that matter.

[@christurner5791]

I actually kinda understand not allowing normal shackles on an elder vampire to buy one or two rounds in a single skill check. I also understand for some tables that's fun! Although I too would have said no but wouldn't have been rude or had them waste their turn trying or anything like that.

[@salem-salem4426]

yeah it's a missed opportunity for a quick cutscene moment like "as you look at the shackles and consider using them, you also see the vampire getting closer and closer, pure magic emanating from his body and anger in bursts of lights. Some of them blasting walls and floor, turning stone and metal into dust. YOU SURE YOU WANNA TRY THIS?"

[@Saxton_Hoovy]

​@@salem-salem4426I dont know, even without magic radiant off their body. Their supernatural strength would likely let them move as if they shackles werent even there. This is a throwing a fireball at red dragon level of are you an idiot.

[@pixelgaming8800]

When a dm fails to properly explain something and calls the person that trying to help/understand why the dm actually called for the roll a rules lawyer. Happened to me I just left that campaign then and there because i could definitely see that miss understanding happening again. Last I thing ik about that campaign from a friend that was still part of it is it just randomly stopped.

[@Kirholm12]

1. Forcing an outcome, then trying to guilttrip the players/PCs to feel bad for the consequences, even OOC. Seen it happen surprisingly many times, never worked, just annoyed people. 2. Choosing a main character, then compeletely stonewalling the "secondary" characters from achieving anything of value. 3. Making a high fantasy campaign, but the "high" part is only for the DMPCs, making PCs pretty much useless other than trying to survive even on high tiers of play (lvl 13+). 4. Making the "bad guys" know and anticipate everything at all times/get bailed out by some unknown magic or even divine interventions. Makes any planning worthless. 5. Killing off any friendly NPCs, including some very powerful ones, just for cheap plot-twist drama. That one DM, after killing pretty much ALL of our allies one by one, proceeded to make an NPC advise us to "make more allies". I could write a whole essay about this, but that's all off the top of my head, excluding the ones in the vid.

[@Tonypony-db5lu]

Ok, what annoys me the most about my dm needs context. One of our players is a half dragon who ran away from her dad. When the dm feels like bullshittery is afoot he pulls out a ancient dragon that is that characters dad and sits it on the table next to him. If we push it too far he says that he will throw the dragon at us. Ps our group is level 8. He started this at level 6.

[@basaltlibra84]

Fights where you get the mysterious savior especially like your first big boss fight. Just had this happen in a campaign where the place the DM led us too (borderline railroaded) was way above some small level 5 party stuff with an essentially unwinnable boss battle (four level 5 guards and a level 15 barbarian with 20 AC for no reason) and then after we exhausted basically all our resources to do a decent chunk of damage a specter showed up and killed all the guard and knocked out the boss. The most frustrating part is we were railroaded into fighting the boss because we still had to fight him after 5 or 6 "successful" persuasion checks that did absolutely nothing. Same DM but they also did something really annoying and introduced the parties character from the mini campaign right before this one, but all of our characters are not acting like our characters and some of them are put into humiliating positions. When another player confronted him about this he basically said "cope they are my characters now"

[@GenericVillain]

Hate them if you must, for they are harsh and unreasonable. But please toss a coin to your DM. O' Valley of Plenty.

[@trueblade39]

I hate it when DMs admit that they allow one player to contribute to the behind the scenes management of their campaign and then deny that they grant that player's character special favors even though they admit that the player is the only one who seemingly gets to make those contributions, all the while making that player's character the MC of the campaign and taking away my fun for calling them out on their favoritism

[@garrettlaturski6703]

I hate it when we enter a room, see some NPCs, and have us roll for Initiative, but then act as if we aren't sure if those NPCs are enemies until their turns. Like, I'm sorry I rolled high for Initiative, and so I either have to do nothing on my turn or be treated like the aggressor

[@tennagon3822]

Had a gm do this. I asked about eight different variations of the question "is this guy a threat? Is he threatening us in any way?" and he repeatedly nudged us in the direction of a fight. When I attacked he got mad, "why did you attack him, he was just standing there?" Total nonsense

[@justindomer2966]

In some important conversations I do this, but I allow skill checks like... Does this guy seem hostile: roll insight It makes for roleplay or conversation heavy moments to not have one player dominate the entire thing. Never use it outside situations that would be kinda grey areas, like if your in a dungeon and come across something, you're rolling initiative to fight. If no initiative it's just roleplay. If you choose to not fight that's up to you. If you're in a city, or temple, etc. and talking to an important person of a group where combat is a grey area of it might become combat might not, or gathering important information from someone then roll initiative to keep track of things easier.

[@justindomer2966]

There is also held actions, "I hold my action. If they advance on the party as if to attack I strike them with XYZ"

[@garrettlaturski6703]

@justindomer2966 The thing is, if you do roll a skill check, like Insight, you're wasting your turn. And if you hold your action, you only get 1 attack if you would have more.

[@roguebarbarian9133]

@@garrettlaturski6703 Maybe this isn't how the official rules run it, but you hold your TURN not your ACTION. You are just willingly dropping yourself down in initiative order. You get your extra attacks, bonus actions, movement, etc. Again, maybe not the official rules, but then the official rules would be stupid and should be ignored.

[@johnscarborough9627]

I’ve played with a few different DM’s and the only bad experience i’ve had was a bit of extreme railroading. Met an NPC in a city who was plot relevant, turned out he had draconic powers or smthn, idk it was a while ago. Then, a pair of witches show up, who i immediately got a bad vibe about, and they pressured us into fighting against the NPC. Me/My Character didn’t want to, most of the other players didn’t want to, the damn NPC didn’t want to. I brought up at least 3 workarounds that we could do instead of fighting the NPC, but every single one was shot down by the DM, so i decided to sit out the fight. It’s what my character would do after all. I had him sit at the side of the arena and watch instead of fighting. That game ended not too long after, and thankfully i have never had an issue with a DM railroading an encounter like that since

[@Crocogator]

Ugh. That missing by 1 thing especially irks me. As long as you're rolling 10 or higher, you're missing either because of the enemy dodging or their armor. Missing by 1? That's a direct hit, or it would have been, if it wasn't blocked/parried at the last minute. Not oopsie I dropped my sword in the swamp :( :(

[@akurami2201]

As a DM I like to flavor such close calls (and nat 1s on skills the character is usually good at) as stuff outside their control, such as parrying mentioned by You, or in case of skill checks the lock is a bit old so the lockpicks have a hard time getting the mechanism to work if a rogue rolls low on their check to open doors. I never rub it in their face, so I agree it's awful.

[@P0oge]

A few of these sound like players who have never been responsible for DM'ing and don't understand the amount of cat herding going on.

[@XperimentorEES]

Got one from older groups I've long since left . . . DMs deliberately withholding situational information that'd influence the party's decision just because 'you didnt ask'. Now opening a door we thought was locked, sure that's funny when we forgot to check and assumed it was boobytrapped; but refusing to tell us about the glyph of warding plainly visible on the low ceiling before entering the room with the excuse 'nobody said they looked up', or an enemy going invisible but not showing up to detect magic because 'youre not close enough' despite being in combat with them, or the arcane rogue only being able to find physical traps until it was too late since 'he didnt specify'.

[@salem-salem4426]

To be fair detect magic has a range of 30ft and even if you "sense magic toward a direction" you can only use the active part on visible things, so I can see it happen -it's not supposed to be a better "see invisibility"-, but overall I agree, trapping player this way is cheap. It's way funnier to let them find a way to deal with the glyph!

[@XperimentorEES]

​@@salem-salem4426 This was back in a 3rd edition campaign, before 5th edition's oversimplification of everything. Detect magic had a range of 60 feet and you automatically noticed magical auras in range regardless if whatever caused them was visible, now it wouldn't outright reveal them like modern dnd as you'd be thinking, but there was a triple layered gradient based on: how many turns you studied something, how powerful the magic is, and how recently the magic happened. In this case it was 'greater invisibility' a 4th level illusion spell being cast in range before they ran around to flank us; so first round would've seen a moderate aura circling sideways before leaving range, second round of study would grant knowledge of spell level and type which was redundant because the dm told us, and third round of staring would be able to pinpoint where the enemy was since it was still an active spell. So for narration it should've gone like this, 'he cast greater invisibility and moved, then you cast detect magic and see his lingering aura leading somewhere to your left', but obviously that isn't what happened since I included it in my initial comment as the dm deliberately ignored multiple parts of how detect magic functions. If you're wondering 'why didnt you just counterspell him', back then spell preparation was individualized, if you wanted to cast counterspell three times the next day you'd have to prepare three slots for it, however wizards also got extra spell slots based on their intelligence to act as a counterbalance to the opportunity cost, and yes it made resting as tedious as it sounds. Spell preparation is one of the few things I'm glad modern dnd changed, though I miss armor & shields giving spells a chance of failure to discourage armored mages lol.

[@BlueTressym]

Ah, the 'Gotcha GM'. It's just so pointlessly adversarial, especially when they act as if everyone's blind and deaf. It's like, "HOW didn't we notice thing X; it's right there!" as if we had to ask before we were allowed to have sense. I don't mean things that would reasonably be hidden or otherwise need to be actively sought out but when it's something blatantly obvious, come on!

[@stygiansage2661]

Never letting you be powerful for a moment, get a new toy or ability and before you have the chance to have fun everyone of the enemies is immune to it. **** No let me have fun at least until the strategy gets noticed by gossips and town criers.

[@jesternario]

I think the worse thing a Game Master did to me was in a RIFTS campaign, when I was playing a robot that hated humanity. I couldn't make it to game one time, and so the GM played for me, during which time my character somehow gained a penis. As in my character, who was humanoid, but obviously a robot, suddenly grew a human penis. I didn't play with that GM again after that.

[@confuseddragonedits2294]

I was actually talking with someone a few years ago about DMs railroading problem solving, and as someone who also writes roleplay stories frequently, DMs: If the story can only progress once something is done in a certain way, the players need to have a way to obtain that information ahead of time. If you don't clear the limits to a viable solution, you'll get mad when things don't go your way, and your players will get angry because you're punishing them for being creative. (If you're curious about the story: A guy who was also in the call told us a story about how he had to open a safe with a keypad, but didn't originally know it REQUIRED a keypad code, so he just began listing random ways to force the safe open. All got shot down with sudden, new information that wasn't established prior to them going on this mission that made it feel like the DM was just BSing so they could risk failing a skill check. i.e: Acid won't work because suddenly its made fo adamantium, or lockpicking won't work because of XYZ, those kinda reasons.)

[@jasonrustmann7535]

The guy complaining about the DM taking too long on one players scene. Did you split the party? Is your character less social and/or off doing things irrelevant to the story? Cause that might be why you could be seeing less focus.

[@grandempress1947]

I try to be as fair as possible when this inevitably happens, but unfortunately if what you're doing is just significantly less important idk what you can expect

[@GenericVillain]

​@@grandempress1947 Translation: Git' gud.

[@jasonrustmann7535]

@@GenericVillain lol although not the most descriptive of the problems at hand. You're not wrong

[@GenericVillain]

@@jasonrustmann7535 ?

[@dmsviola1]

On the topic of a party member being less social, I still think there are ways to bring them into the story as a dm. Just because the character isn't talking doesn't mean the character isn't doing anything at all, so let that player have a chance to explain what they're doing or where they're going. But yeah, if the party is split that's tricky to balance when things of significance occur. Even so, an entire hour spent on one person is too much. When a party or story gets split in a TV show, for example, some of the episode will be on location a while the other is on location b.

[@nabra97]

My general issue (not with one specific person) is undisclosed house rules or "rulings over rules" (not because it makes sense in a particular situation - no issues with that, - but just because vibes). A lot of people I know are OK with it, and there's an opinion in my local community that it's the right way to play, but I just feel like I have no control over how my character works when situations like that come

[@mineflameblade8788]

Mess with a warlock's patron without their consent. Seriously. Don't force warlock patron drama for no reason, I had a dm do that and I wasn't a happy camper. Especially since it ment risking losing powers. (Tbf. Said server has crappy multiclass rules and builled me since the beginning. So. Nothing of value was lost)

[@blakenelson4158]

that one need some explaining. did the gm change your patron? or roleplay stuff. because if its the latter the gm is in his full rights to have your patron jerk your character around. just most don't. just remember your patron is an Npc as in not yours to controol,

[@mineflameblade8788]

@@blakenelson4158 More like. Tried some nonsense to have said patron be angry at my warlock despite honoring the pact. And he used the fickleness of fey as a crappy justification which doesn't work due to Eberron fey being all about promises, and said patron would be breaking said promise by taking said powers away.

[@defiledsoul1658]

​@@mineflameblade8788 yeah thats stupid, i mean dont get ms wring having a patron have cool sotry beats where it can be problematic of beneficial for your pc is cool. But it should always be a agreed thing.

[@dominykasradavicius8827]

Darkest dungeon ost in backround nice

[@tabithachastain6999]

Any DM who allows bigotry and sexism at their table

[@frankfrankerson782]

No matter how intelligent I behave or how well I pull off a plan, the enemy some how pulls of a partial victory or foils it somehow. This isn't even a power move, more just that they feel to need to have every situation be "hard" for some reason. It feels like being a protagonist in a telltale games story. No natter what you do, somehow someway you were being watched or the enemy pulls one over.

[@LongRest]

Some of them maybe controversial but it's my list so: 1) Fudges rolls in players favor. We may not notice it one or two times but one day we will notice and after that any possible thrill of the game is gone. Instead try to find a way to spin a story after a failure. It's often becomes even cooler and more dramatic. 2) If you can't find a rule that you forgot in two minutes, just create a house rule for this time, don't make us wait 10 minutes while you ruleslawyering yourself. Exception! You can do it only if this rule has crucial effect on a story and players decisions. 3) I hate long ass scenery, setting lore dumps and long background descriptions. You don't have to take 5 minutes to explain how beautiful was fire show our characters just observe while we walking down the street. Describe in details only what have meaning for our story and what can we actively interact with. Paint other stuff with fast and ruff brushes. 4) I hate when GMs are hiding for any conflict and problems of their table and then act offended when game becomes unplayable. You are an Organizer of the event. You are in charge. So take the charge and try to solve the issue. If you can't do it yourself, ask one of the players to help you. But don't hide behind your screen and then complain on Reddit how bad you group are. If you get conflicted answers from two characters about what their group will do, present this issue to them. Talk with player who annoys everyone else. Try to lead the discussion if it goes out of hand. Or find a player who helps you with that. Be an Organizer because this is your main role! 5) Trying to solve out of game issues inside a game. If you don't like me personally, you have a grudge on someone or if you think that my character doesn't belong in your setting, just talk! We can solve this issue as adults. Worst case scenario, I just leave the game (no big deal, we can still be friends). But don't throw insults via every NPC we've met, don't treat our characters with contempt, don't humiliate our characters so we can "learn a lesson". We don't learn anything if we don't even know why you treating us like that. 6) If my character wasn't mind-controlled DON'T say what he feels, thinks or does. He is my character. Only I decide how he will interact with the world. You have entire world to control - this is mine. I have a DM who said that our group has literally pissed themselves out of fear during teleportation. Nobody came next game. P.S. I'm mostly DM so when I talk about this issues be sure that I'm aware of how difficult is to solve some of them, and I did most (!) of this stuff when I was a beginner DM. So I know how bad some of that can get and appreciate the effort of everyone who tries to be better.

[@salem-salem4426]

about (1) I've been rolling everything completely open since forever and, in my open world homebrew, it worked wonder since forever. My player are more than happy to feel REAL stakes and REAL possibility for failure. The trick is to balance it : if they fail, don't make them fail entirely. Recently, they were trying to remove a cursed sword from a NPC hands because it was manipulating him into terrible things. The NPC was a friend, nobody wanted to kill eachother, they also both needed eachother, it was a pretty epic "boss" fight right near a river of lava at the edge of a volcano. Very cool showdown moment. And they failed. The characters were exhausted due to traveling in a searing hot volcano, the rolls weren't in their favor. They straight up failed, but earlier and during another session, they also managed to save other NPCs. This one was the last, and the hardest to save. Since they were kicked out after the fight, they also managed to keep a ring of heat protection the NPCs gave them earlier before conflict, so they can come back later if they want and can. One of my player said they missed being able to lose in a TTRPG, and the compliment stayed with me since then. Roll everything open. Don't plot shield any NPC. Make them useful instead. If your player are good, they will use it, they will love it, interesting and intricate stories will come out of it, along with a feeling of actually deserving their wins for the PCs. And if they're bad PC, if they're murderhoboing (and you don't want that), good, you noticed way earlier. You can try to talk... Or find better PCs. In my opinion, unless it's a strong railroad campaign, PCs have almost as much responsibilities to push the game toward interesting conflicts, goals, and situations. Just less power to do so. Oh, and, never think defeat means dying. If dying is the only possible consequence of failure, you probably want to shake things a little. They can be prisonners, enslaved (an evil aligned PC actually got a redemption arc and saved her now adopted child after being enslaved.), power drained, put in a coliseum, robbed, their souls can be stolen, they can be turned into undeads and that's just generic consequences. Anything related to the current PC goals can be used. Dying should be a last resort, even savage orcs and gnolls will take captives. Hungry animals and monsters will try to eat you, BBEG might try to kill you if you're too much of a pain AND they have no use for you. That's all I can think about. have fun!

[@axinhedgelion8417]

Would you make the exception if the DM just started as a DM?

[@LongRest]

@@axinhedgelion8417 Of course! DMing for a beginner is hard enough and people will make a lots of mistakes. I'll be happy that they tried. This is more for experienced DMs who know better.

[@SirKolaris]

I love how he says "EXTREME RAILROADING!" like the "GENGAVITICE!" frome one of those old PSAs! 🤣

[@kevinthomas4064]

Roll for perception for the hell of it

[@Arcana_zero_studios]

Reasons why party spliting sucks: Valid - the party has less firepower and tools. (Reasonable concern and increases the difficulty of the adventure.) Invalid - it takes so long for me to take a turn. (Sounds selfish and whiny af.)

[@kathrineici9811]

The first time I killed a player it was because they split up and hit an encounter I had designed for everyone to hit together D:

[@satansbarman]

This sounded like more of a "what's your bad DM's shïttý decisions?" Than "what DMs do that you hate"

[@journeyrivenburgh1052]

When the DM doesn't stop the party murderhobo...from murderhoboing...even though they were the only murderhobo.

[@cryman42]

I don’t mind that my DM has canon events he wants to push for. But I have a problem with us, the PCs, having no way to alter it. If we can’t do anything about something that’s going to happen what’s the point in playing.

[@pcalix17]

Being too rigid in their campaign. There are moments when flexibility is bad, I will admit that. But if your entire campaign has no interpretations, no variables, and no variety in it, it becomes too much of a linear story that is less interesting. Then again, some people prefer that in their DND.

[@Leftists_are_Losers]

When a DM fails to provide any description of what my characters sees / hears at all. But expects me to know exactly what is in the PCs area because the DM has a pic of it behind his DM screen. The DM is the only way a player has of knowing what is around … and refusing to keep players informed is a sure way to make them feel out of control. Also me: things my players do that I hate when I DM… I start describing the area the PCs are in and before I complete a sentence, one of the players screams “I’m attacking everything !!! I roll a (number) for initiative!!”

[@salem-salem4426]

"if you aren't sure how to interpret something..." That's the neat part, they ARE sure-

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@clarkside4493]

I hate it when a DM makes an arbitrary change to a rule or mechanic because he doesn't "like it" or he thinks it's dumb, especially midgame. Sure, pal, you go ahead and yank whatever Jenga blocks you want. Things _definitely_ won't come crashing down.

[@beancandev7818]

If a DM wants to make changes to the game, they should at least ask the players.

[@Enclave_Sergeant]

Or tell them before hand it is the dms game and he has the right to change rules he just has to find players that like them​@beancandev7818

[@DracoStarcloud]

Letting one player dominate the role playing is my huge pet peeve, especially when that player tries to shove himself into everything the rest of the party is doing. This DM also lets this player build armies of NPCs to overthrow governments that we don't know in-character are evil. Dude metagames all the damn time to the point where one campaign fell apart because of it. It was based on an anime and had been billed as we would be members of an evil faction. One session was just metagamer and another guy because every other player was busy (DM usually ran small, casual games when this happened) a d when everyone else came back, these rwo had roped the entire party into joining a rebellion without even asking us, all based on metagaming, and the DM let it happen. The rest of us were not impressed, said we'd signed up for an evil game, and the game fell apart because the DM quietly said something about retconning the session...and then quietly planned a new campaign that ALSO ended prematurely because the same two guys wanted to metagame a rebellion again. Third time was the charm; they still metagamed but in a way we were either cool with or, probably more likely, we just wanted to try finishing a campaign for once despite dumb things like "My commandos took this rich villain's wallet after killing him. Now I have unlimited access to all of his assets and can fund my own personal fleet!" ... saying this is making me realize I should bail on that group.

[@danielhale1]

I actually had to say to a GM "Just tell me what character you want to play and I'll autopilot it through whatever damned story you want to tell!". That GM was obsessed with controlling his players. He wanted to restrict the classes we could play (fighters are OP), the types of items we could have (cold iron arrows were OP), the choices we made in-game, etc. He was obsessed with the game design idea of "illusion of choice", and the end result was a very obviously railroaded campaign with meaningless token choices. Wasn't even the worst stuff he did (he liked gross/upsetting stuff too). I was there to be with other friends, and eventually still had to stop playing. The game fell apart shortly after, and later I looked up 'narcissist' and figured out the problem.

[@blackhole5353.]

I have a story. It only happened to me once but as a first time player it just left me confused on what we could and couldn’t roll for. The party was walking through the woods and I get caught in a rope trap. I am hanging upside down and ask “can I pull out my bow to shoot the rope and try to land on my feet?” The DM say “yes roll an attack on the rope” I roll and it hits. The DM says “you fall on your back and take ___ damage”. All I said was ok and sat quietly wondering why did they even say yes to the action if they were only going to let me do half of it. That lost health of course bit me in the butt later.

[@darkprime6815]

If that ever happens again voice it to the dm that they forgot about the other half of the action. if things like this happen out of combat you are not restricted to just one action. The dm is allowed to employ their own rules but that does not mean they are allowed to throw in rules that kill creativity like what you wanted to do Edit: also the rolls are only restricted by what the dm thinks needs to be rolled

[@salem-salem4426]

In this situation the DM probably just tunnel visioned and didn't really listen to the second part, I see how it can be confusing for a newbie lmao

[@bensoncheung2801]

🩻

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

1 ) Long slow descriptions of things. 2 ) DMs discribing what the players character is doing. 3 ) The DM trying to create a specific moment and trying to invent ways to force the PCs into going down that path.

[@lmw11661]

You made a numbered list to say you dislike when dms actually dm a game. Have you ever dmed a campaign yourself?

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

@lmw11661 Yes multiple in multiple different systems.

[@lmw11661]

@@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec store bought campaigns?

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

@lmw11661 Premade & homemade

[@lmw11661]

@@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec pre-made, specific moments have to happen to progress the plot. Unless you rewrite the campaign between sessions, how do you handle that without falling into point 3?

[@hahaureadmyname]

Obnoxiously hard combats that are unwarranted. My group tends towards inherently underpowered, thematic characters with rolled 6(4d6-lowest) stats, no matter how abysmal they are. As an example, one of our group went Sorcerer, but was absolutely fucked with a 55 for base stats, and two stats at 7. He ended up roleplaying as a sickly old man, and did it quite well, however, this meant that he was stuck with 4 HP at level 1. His character died in our very first combat that happened in our second session which was admittedly a very formidable force of bandits. We were able to get him resurrected next session after about an hour due to one of our PCs from another campaign literally being in the same city with access to Raise Dead. There is no way the DM could've considered that, and if we didn't bring it up and argue in favor of it happening, we would've lost him. Sure we could have made a new character easily enough, but we already had several hours of RP put into that character.

[@Saxton_Hoovy]

I am not if you could call that obnoxiously difficult. That character is just made of tissue paper. A light crossbow hit from the basic dnd 5e bandit can instantly kill him 25% of the time and 62.5% of time down him in one hit. All damaging cantrips and all weapons can down that character in 1 hit. If you can handle that character has that low of health dont roll "thematic" charcters if you want to face the conquences of that.

[@nipahholiday9302]

When the DM doesn’t prep at all. Yes, it can work in a homebrew campaign where the DM is familiar with the world/storyline/npc‘s because it’s THEIR world. But not preparing for a module you run for the first time? Taking 5 minutes to read paragraphs before reading them word to word to the party? Even worse: Quoting the information you can get from npc’s. „So where would we find said dragon?“ „The npc tells you it’s in the mountains.“ „Oh great, we’ve been told that no one has seen the dragon for over a decade. How do you know the exact location?“ „She tells you it’s because …“ That’s stuff I can surely ignore with new DM‘s but if they have years of experience? Jeez Louis, I can’t stand that.

[@axinhedgelion8417]

This is why I don’t want to DM, because I never did it before. And would most likely break the rules (3.5 player btw)

[@nipahholiday9302]

@@axinhedgelion8417 the thing is: As I said: I don’t have an issue when you’re new to DM‘ing and do those things. I’m pretty sure no experienced DM would mind that with someone who has non or not that much experience. Do your prep, don’t panic when your players go off-road, it will definitely happen. Especially in the beginning don’t mind the things I mentioned in the second paragraph. As a new DM there is a lot to take care of and it can be overwhelming. RP‘ing as a DM will come naturally once you got the other stuff figured out. You‘ll start describing things in your own words instead of just reading the module (hopefully), yada yada yada. I started once too and will be the last person to criticize a new DM for those things. But if you’ve got years of experience under your belt, that’s not an excuse to not prep. You should roleplay, you should describe things in your own words and don’t read a 10-line paragraph from a book to me as a player. At least that’s what I expect from a DM who takes TTRPG‘s as serious as I do, otherwise that table is not for me.

[@arcticwolf2742]

*Not an actual story, but a scenario that I'm sure sounds familiar.* "Does a 32 hit you?" "Actually no....." deadpan stare. "Of course it hits, my AC is literally half that!" Evil grin from the DM. "You take 64 points of damage and are swallowed." Table goes silent, or screams with wild panic. Either one.

[@defiledsoul1658]

Well I mean the whole "does this hit" even if its crazy is to give the player time to use any reactions like hexblades 1d6 dodge feature or to caste a spell. That whole kit and kaboodle

[@elnekosauce]

​@@defiledsoul1658 Exactly. I mean, if they don't want that, then that's fine.

[@aaronbig1]

Do you hear the background music from Darkest Dungeon.

[@XperimentorEES]

Why yes it is, the hamlet I think

[@themadvirus613]

I don't think it's too unreasonable to ask a 20 strength Barbarian to roll to bust down a door, even if I know they'll almost certainly do it. Let me tell you the story i've heard from a KZbinr who's also a SWAT Commander. he and his team was sent out to arrest some people (not sure what they did) and we're forced to bust the door down. Now this door wasn't abnormal by any means, it was just a standard door for a house... but no matter how hard they tried they just couldn't bust it down. They started taking turns ramming it to no avail, and by all accounts it should have worked. Eventually the suspects just gave themselves up and now the commander uses it as a funny story to tell. If you play your cards right you could do the same with the 20 strength Barbarian. "no Jimmy, i have no idea why you keep failing this DC 10 check. maybe the door is secretly magical, maybe it's not. Go get the wizard and find out."

[@LindsayHawkes]

Here's the list of things I hate about some of my previous GM's when I played dnd back in high school. (1): being in a game with that one GM who loves to make the common personality and behavior of a significant amount their npc's about being passive aggressive towards the players as if the GM want to kill your character or TPK and justifies it as It's how I perfer to run the game so either deal with it or find another group to play in. (2): When the GM allows one player to do their specific type of pure 100% idiot character and sometimes doesn't allow other players to do their genuine rp non min/max build even when it's quite simple and or not that far off of min/maxing. (3): When you want to do something that's a good/wise idea and makes sense to do in the situation but the GM does the following. Says no to your idea without providing any justification, Doesn't provide an opportunity in that moment to do something else in that situation, Punishes either you and or the party in some way to make you feel stupid and or antagonize you. (4): during the season 0 the GM doesn't give clear clarification to what, races, classes, subclasses, feats and official source materials/books we can/can't use during the campaign even when I or other players directly ask the question such as is it fine If I play as a variant human fighter with the eldritch knight subclass and the mobile feat. (5): when the GM doesn't allow players to have a starting feat or start the campaign at level 3.

[@Neutral_1zed]

This is something personal to my party, we picked up dnd together and our dm is perfectionistic to a fault. Like we’re out here trying to have fun and his sessions are completely fine imo but he keeps trying to write the next LOTR or something because he cancels the campaign after like 3 sessions, we’ve never made it past session 3 even though we’re playing LMOP for like the 5th time. We also tried to not derail the campaign but somehow, something is still wrong and it still gets cancelled anyways. Then the dm decides to homebrew, cool, no more complicated things with LMOP, nope, cancelled after 2 sessions. It’s gotten a bit better after one of our other friend dmed once to show how bad it could be and still have fun (We crashed onto tf2 engineers dock and went to go find the one piece in alberqueque), he’s learned to embrace the chaos a bit. So advice to new dms? Your players doesn’t judge you as much as you think they do, especially if they’re your friends.

[@jacobbrown9894]

NGL while I am on the side of the poster that was like ‘no my character wouldn’t be scared they be interested’ that’s really not a that DM problem because it’s so often that that’s just enforced by game design. Like there’ll just be canon monsters who have abilities like frightening aura so if you come close you will be scared regardless of like if you’d actually reasonably be scared of a ghost.

[@nickboon1235]

I hate how DM’s never invite me. Please, I have an amazing character concept I just need a group😭

[@mikeemmons1079]

I got invited to a game of Cthulhu, cuz a friend of a friend was really excited to play a scenario he created... Except he made a scene for scene copy of Resident Evil 1. On rails.

[@justindomer2966]

Currently have a dm that kind of does this. I rolled negative on everything except a 20in intelligence so i made a bookworm wizard. One session everyone is making a lot of noise things breaking absolute chaos in this house. (This is in downtime before heading on a quest) "My character calmly closes his book, walks to his rooms door poking his head out and yells, calm down people are trying to read!" Dm: "he thinks he yells it, but instead says quietly and sheepishly 'can you guys quite it down a little." Later that same session, he controls my familiar when i said i give him a sip of alcohol (flying monkey) to go ape and break everything. He got a sip, and only does exactly what i tell him to do. Figured fun roleplay moment, become my monkey causes me to nearly be kicked out of the bar and bites a waitress.

[@justindomer2966]

This theme repeats. He makes my character shy and quiet and my monkey absolutely chaotic. Despite me never having either act that way.

[@leeboyles4480]

I have a legitimate question. If my player wants to be a murder hobo am I wrong to try and punish him? Like i let the man burn, raid, and mostly kill a whole town (party wanted to play an evil campaign) but when I mentioned through an NPC that there was an order of paladins looking for the ones that destroyed the town I was told "that's not fair because we're playing an evil campaign so they shouldn't be looking for us. I'm punishing them for doing playing the game."

[@offnet6934]

They are stupid there. Like evil cults/gangs etc. don't try mess with good party, or rival business with neutral one.

[@Derginator]

Kind of annoying, just caving to that player. It makes it so the rest of the party end up being NPCs to the protagonist player

[@randus7053]

My main annoyance with combat comes down to unfair fights, now difficult fights that have a solution to beat either by a special player spell or a dynamic environment are extremely satisfying. For an example of an unfair fight- invisible enemies at low levels, especially if there are multiple. Now I did have a DM that gave a metagame out- use your reaction to attack back, but it still has resulted in very tense situations especially since crits are more likely.

[@wilsonsilva2918]

Disagree with this take. There are class abilities that counter invisibility as early as lvl 2, as well as fighting styles and feats that can counter it since lvl 1. If the DM didnt take into account advantage into their expected dmg output or smth else thats one thing. But not only is invisibility a good mechanic to use in early lvls... its kind of the *only* time its a legitimate threat. By the time anyone's lvl 5 they will prob have access to some invis counter or the see invisibility spell.

[@hahaureadmyname]

@@wilsonsilva2918 I think invisible creatures can create a very palpable sense of tension, and it is wholly possible to make them passive, like as a scout, or as a powerful but ultimately innocuous entity that only attacks if attacked, etc. they don't need to be inherently dangerous just because they are invisible.

[@derrickhaggard]

Two types of DMs I hate that I've dealt with personally are the DMs that allow other players to bully and punish one player they disagree with and the DM who pretty much pulls a bad ending/ending where the party fails to stop the BBEG to end the campaign out of nowhere just for shock value without any warning or foreshadowing whatso ever. Now for the 2nd type of DM I hate I get a bad ending aka the ending where the party fails to stop the BBEG can make for a more exciting sequel/continuation in the next campaign but if you are going to do that type of ending at least give us players a little warning or foreshadowing to that type of ending that way we can be prepared for it instead of just pulling that type of ending on us out of nowhere which will usually result in us players getting upset when all of a sudden there was a total or partial TPK and the reveal everything we did was for naught happening right out of nowhere.

[@blakenelson4158]

wait a sec did you guys auto lose? cause if you did lose fairly vs the BBEG what the heck did you expect sunshine and rainbows? of Corse that is the bad ending. and if the campaign was about beating the BBEG why would he have to ask you about that event ending the campain?

[@darioschottlender]

I don't like enemies escaping in a way that feels like a video game scene where you can't do a thing to stop them. I like the idea of enemies trying to escape and/or give up because it doesn't make sense that absolutely everything would fight to the death; but sometimes you want to interrogate them or gather some kind of information; or check on an artifact or something they have to figure out what's happening.

[@SteveMichael]

I am a GM. I know I am not great but I do try and make sure people have fun. I have only one major gripe. GMs who roll in private for open rolls. I built on character that made monsters make saving throws over and over. The GM rolled and of course NEVER failed. I think I said to him that he had rolled like 10 times and never one time below a 5. That is almost impossible. This was with friends so we razzed him. I have had far far far worse games at GenCon

[@GenericVillain]

Everything. The way they breathe. The way they talk. The way they ARBRITRATE. YOU AIN'T NO ZEUS!!! YOU'D BE LUCKY TO BE CONSIDERED A THIRD RATE VECNA! A FALSE GOD! HOW DARE YOU JUDGE MEEEEE!!!! "Yeah, I rolled a one. Why is everybody staring at me with stunned silence?"

[@darkphoenix539]

Making whole world Bards wet dream … I can understand putting sassy joke here and there but building WHOLE world as orgy domain especially with no prior explanation so player could easily NOPE from this. If seduction is easy way to Win anything what’s the point of any non-charisma based characters?

[@maxime8502]

Same anything I do is called "evil" by the DM, touch an npc shoulder to make sure there are no illusion = assault, kil a critter in the forest to prepare hex for the day = evil, watch teamate burn a man alive but when I cast mental prison on him = evil, have a rat npc we must protect so when the battle become difficult and I decide to fly away princess carrying her = kidnapping ... Time to quite aint it?

[@BurroughsProductions]

"Commination is free" okay but did you ask?

[@theblitzraider3563]

I hate when DMs don't let me use resources and instead have the NPCs sort everything out for us so we can spare our energies for combat. And you may think, how is that a problem? Try playing a support character with almost no offensive capabilities but a metric fuckton of buffs, setups, abjurations etc. And have the questgiver dispense those buffs before you even begin AND do better than you possibly could.

[@Whoo_Whoop]

What is that background music? It sounds like the title screen of darkest dungeon :)

[@Wargwolf91]

When the DM gives you an item but then nerfs it into the ground. For example: I started our campaign with an item called "Hands of Resonance" we had both agreed it didn't make sense for one of the features it has (interrogation technique), but the other effect it has lets me "sense any creature within a 60 ft radius (total of 120 feet) as long as it's on the same plane" I tried to use it the other night (we were heading into a meeting with a noble and his wife we had never met before) and he said "i'm not allowing you to have that information. I'll give you the first floor because it's connected to the ground you're on" which only gave me my party... and 6 peacocks... spoiler alert: the noble and his wife were working for the bad guy and we almost TPK'd... I'm starting to get really frustrated and might just sell the gloves as they are basically useless now

[@MorinehtarTheBlue]

1:29 - this can happen to differing extremes. Sometimes the DM describes a one size fits all style reaction that works for maybe 90% of PCs. I find this particularly annoying. I don't want to be contrarian or be in that sort of situation where the player needs to correct the DM. Better not to characterize PCs and leave room for the player to do that themselves.

[@chaozgaming8565]

GMs letting crappy players get away with constant crappy behavior.

[@Her_Imperious_Condescension]

Not allow any creative solutions.

[@Newnodrogbob]

Man…I must be the best DM ever. I don’t do any of this crap, lol. Seriously though, most of this is just “don’t deliberately be a jerk.”

[@camwyn256]

I focus on role playing in my games, not roll playing

[@kingofallpie]

Make up new house rules on the fly that only get used once

[@Flipercat]

I feel the last story is a bit on the player as well. I would guess the DM didn't even really consider downtime that important, so he didn't mention there will be little of it. As the player said, communication is important, so they should tell/have told the DM they would like more downtime. Granted, this may have been a situation where they kept on waiting/didn't realize there hadn't been any in a while, but if the DM didn't know I can't fully fault them.

[@douglasbaiense]

I hate when DM fudges dice. Let the game be a game! Whatever happens happens

[@Her_Imperious_Condescension]

I think you mean fudging, and there are certainly times where it's appropriate. The DM has the partition for a reason after all. But it should only be sometimes.

[@douglasbaiense]

@@Her_Imperious_Condescension yes, I meant fudges, thx. I disagree. DMs should never fudge dice and also should never roll behind the shield. Everyone rolls open and whatever happens, happens. That IS the beauty of RPG

[@JAY-gl5xd]

Choreographed and scripted battles. If certain events or the ending of a fight has been predetermined, then just make it a narrative. No need to roll initiative if our actions are meaningless.

[@fragarach97]

Nothing. I am the GM.

[@InsanoRider777]

7:58 So this needs to be called out. Climbing up a ladder in perfect shape is not a guaranteed thing even in real life, especially if you climb it in a hurry. Also, just because your character has stupid amounts of strength doesn't mean they just crush doors like beer cans because - SURPRISE - wood is actually pretty fucking strong, and a door worth the name is gonna be pretty fucking strong, too. There are times where it is stupid to have a roll, like physically moving a rug to look under it. However, having good stats does not negate the need for rolls; it just means that you're better at doing things involving those stats.

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

I thought the same thing. We use weather as an obstacle, so slippery ladder in a rainstorm or snow (also roofs) absolutely means a check, and medieval doors are hella thick with iron bands and hinges. They're made to keep out more than just a winter draft.

[@blakenelson4158]

@@strawberryhellcat4738 i disagree on the ladder if its in good condition and leand up aginst the wall you can just climb it. what you asking for next a rool to walk up stairs? or to get into a bathtub? people fall down stairs and sip in bathtubs to.

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

@@blakenelson4158 I'm not suggesting a character can't successfully climb a ladder at all, just that if they're trying to do it in a rainstorm or wintery weather, it's going to be more difficult, just like it would be irl. You have to take the situation into consideration. If they are trying to do it quickly, then yes - they're going to roll to see if they fall on their ass (not that they're going to "unalive"). Stairs and the bath could be turned into rolls if they are fighting on stairs (or drunk trying to navigate them) or if someone "accidentally" surprises them in the bath. Failed rolls don't have to be automatically terrible, they can result in entertaining roleplay.

[@spongemanhere]

Sometimes when i ask for rolls, its to see how quickly someone is able to do something, rather than to see if they are able to do it at all. It is inevitable that the 20 strength character will get through the door, but they rolled a 1 for a total of 6? It's gonna take a few minutes, and whatever was on the other side of the door is gonna know something is happening. The 20 dexterity character is trying to get up a ladder quickly and gets a total of 8? They miss a few rungs and it takes them a little longer than if they had been trying to go up carefully. The 20 intelligence researcher character is trying to figure out what culture an artifact comes from? That 9 on the check means they're going to have to check through all of their notes for a good 10-20 minutes.

[@gable3D]

When they ignore the rules to make the monster even more deadly than he already is.

[@wilsonsilva2918]

Wdym? Like changing statsheets/giving them extra spells and attacks? Saying their magic cant be counterspelled?

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

Right. There are honest ways to make encounters deadlier instead of cheating the numbers. Our 5e DM hits us with pack tactics.

[@axinhedgelion8417]

@@strawberryhellcat4738try having a DM that wanted to wipe the party with a dragon via 12 D6 POISON DAMAGE

[@strawberryhellcat4738]

@@axinhedgelion8417 Damn. Was there any chance of running away? Frustrating a DM who fudges the numbers by not engaging with their shenanigans can be an effective tool to make them aware that you won't play that way.

[@axinhedgelion8417]

@@strawberryhellcat4738boss fight. If it weren’t for my character having legendary gear (courtesy of my father’s character) and a TIGER CUB (also courtesy of my father’s character) no one would’ve lived. And keep in mind, my character was only LEVEL 5

[@tennagon3822]

2:03 Louder for the ones in the back, please!

[@piolewus]

not giving a single hint towards the plot. one time my DM said he's going to change the BBEG from a lich who wanted to raise an ancient army of zombies to something else. We have not seen a single undead nor heard about any lich in the entire campaign, and the supposed map area with the army wasn't even known to us as an actual place that we could go to. we did however get 8 sidequests that had 0 connection with anything (I still don't know who the second villain was)