Well, I read a laundry list of players that annoy DM's but I can assure you (as a 25+ year DM and player) that they do not have the market cornered when it comes to annoying habits. Here are some DM habits I've seen from others and one of my own from all those years of gaming.
1) If you checked for traps, this DM rolled a d20 for the number of traps present. If you didn't check for traps, there were no traps.
2) Escape from Stone Troll. Our group was started in this village called Stone Troll. We met the locals and then decided to go out and explore. An ogre showed up to deter us. We killed the ogre and another showed up instantly. Perplexed, we complained to the DM and he said he wasn't ready for us to leave the village yet. *chuckles* So, as a group we were annoyed and one of the players as a joke tried take a pee at a tree outside the village and the battle was on. The DM started throwing ogres at us by the tons and the players rebelled. We tried to burn down the village tavern by climbing on the roof and lighting it on fire. A giant troll bashed our heads in and we were all dead. We fell out laughing and never played for this guy again.
3) Stat Sucker Door Guy - His doors and portals liked to suck your stats away from your characters with no save. We dreaded doors of all kinds. We found better things to do and soon left this guy.
4) My annoying habit: My dungeons used to be spotlessly clean. No small rocks, sticks, or other useful things were available. I got hammered by my players and they made up a group of orcs called ACME Orc Buffers who cleaned all my dungeons of useful debris. They would tell me they heard the hum of the buffers as the orcs worked feverishly to get things cleaned up before they arrived in that part of the dungeon.
We still have a good laugh about all of these to this day. :-)
DM/GMs who don't let me at least try a tactically sound plan, because it messes up what they've planned. Sure, I may fail spectacularly, but at least give me a chance.
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The guy that has EVERY npc hit on/fondle/attempt to coerce your wife's character into lewd behaviours. And then rationalizes it as "that's what they'd do....haven't you seen Braveheart?" Then wonders why my wife doesn't want to play anymore.
I mean, yes, that is what they'd probably do. BUT....unicorns probably didn't exist, and if every powerful npc didn't hit on my wife's character it wouldn't interfere with my ability to suspend disbelief that much.
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3) Stat Sucker Door Guy - His doors and portals liked to suck your stats away from your characters with no save. We dreaded doors of all kinds. We found better things to do and soon left this guy.
I once heard of Stat Sucker Door Guy's evil twin - Stat Booster Rock Guy. He was a DM in high school that suffered from chronically annoying players. After the umpteenth time of hearing "well what do you expect, my character's Int/Wis is 5" he started littering his games with magic rocks that increased the stats of these brain damaged characters. The hope was that the newly intellegent/wise character would then behave rationally.
Needles to say, the plan never worked...
DM/GMs who don't let me at least try a tactically sound plan, because it messes up what they've planned. Sure, I may fail spectacularly, but at least give me a chance.
Succede or fail as long as it's spectacular, That is the mark of a great plan in any D&D game.
DM/GMs who don't let me at least try a tactically sound plan, because it messes up what they've planned. Sure, I may fail spectacularly, but at least give me a chance.Succede or fail as long as it's spectacular, That is the mark of a great plan in any D&D game.
Certainly ain't limited to D&D - I've had some downright legendary failures in Rifts and GURPS. :-D
But I tried, dagnabbit!
DMs with taverns named Generic with a bartender named Joe.
DMs with towns named "Oh it doesn't matter".
Dms who randomly advance a character 5 level, "uh huh wasn't that cool."
Then get mad at you and suck 6 levels. "That's what you get"
Dms with out thier own DMs guide (that was me for a while)
The master NPC who can and always outshines the PCs (don't attack or leave or betray this character or face a mad DM. (face level sucking consequences)
Any Dm who would dare tell me NO! (And yet I say NO! so often to a number of my players. Always the same ones.)
DMs who say impossible. I shoot litghting bolts and throw fireballs what do you mean it's impossible. I just want a chance even if it is to fail.
A very drunk or stoned DM.
DMs with scripts. Some DM have a script in thier heads when they play. They try to force things to follow that script. A good DM sets up the situation and lets the game play write it out.
Wow. Hee-hee. Here goes the wayback machine:
1) I had a couple that were GM and co-GM of the game they ran. They also had characters. Not suprizingly their PC-NPCs were the stars of the show. Whatever they wanted to do, they did and looked good doing it. If you tried to do your own thing, you'd usually fail, end up looking really stupid, and almost be killed by one of their smooth sexy villains before their PC-NPCs would show up and miraculously save you--then ride and ridicule you in character about how worthless you are. Pleasant memories. About every other character in the party had secret plans to kill their characters, of course no one acted on them because it would have never worked.
2) The guy with the diceless homebrew system that was like a freaking calculus book. He later admitted he had a disorder where he couldn't mentally picture things. "Well what are you doing running a game then??" I asked, "I love the beauty of the numbers." Ooookay.
3) Guy who was a really good guy, clever, funny, very intelligent, but populated his setting with every manner of cute cheesy thing he could come up with (and, I think, didn't realize it). He had favorite NPCs who--not exaggerating--were able to beat up black dragons in single combat. Also had these over the top, nigh unattainable missions that had us trying to kill ubermages and god-level creatures with no real stepping stones to accomplish them--and if you veered off the path to pursue individual goals he would either throw anything he could at you to push you back onto the railroad tracks or else everything would go dead an you wouldn't be able to find another interesting thing going on anywhere.
4) Surly GM who would run a game everyone loved for about a session or two and then get mad or bored and kill it. Did this repeatedly. Am a bit guilty here sometimes myself though so I guess I can't be too harsh on him.
5) Goofy weirdo whose settings were full of all sorts of nonsensical game-mechanicky weirdness. Rivers the width of California that ran into volcanic pits the size of North America with islands of sexy babes who were actually big tenticle monsters that made wulla-wulla sounds. A skyscraper height green glass pyramid temple in the middle of a bunch of greek ruins, the only interesting thing being an altar in front of it with a magical greatclub (which shows up amazingly just as I lose mine! Wow!). When a party member grabs it, a bunch of indestructable cultists come out and start to mob us. When my large size character tries to jump to the second story of one of the ruins the DM makes me do a climb check. I apparently do TOO good, and after a round with my rear end sticking out of the second story the entire ruin falls on top of me and over the course of the next half hour I bleed out.
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2) The guy with the diceless homebrew system that was like a freaking calculus book. He later admitted he had a disorder where he couldn't mentally picture things. "Well what are you doing running a game then??" I asked, "I love the beauty of the numbers." Ooookay.
That is just about the funniest thing I've read in a very long time.
A DM who institutes critical fumble rolls on a roll of 1.
"Your 30 year old 20th level fighter drops his sword in the face of an enemy." What sense does that make. Also, a DM who makes you role play that you take time to release your feces in the morning.
I usually DM, but try to get in as a player whenever possible. As a result I spend more time than I should at tables I should probably light on fire. I've been victim to some of the other DM traits, so I'll just list the different ones.
1) I write my adventures out. DM's that can run off the cuff get my kudos. Unless they are actually sitting at the table flipping through the Monster Manual muttering "What can I throw at you?" Or after every fight spend 10+ minutes rolling on the random treasure tables.
2) My elf barbarian on guard at night rolls a 29 on his Spot check. He notices 4 trolls... 10 feet away! The sleeping party was mauled. We were only 6th level.
3) While searching through some ancient library the party wizard cast see invisibility. There just happened to be 16 ghosts hanging around, all with horrific appearance.
4) The DM who kept track of initiative in his head.
5) The DM that used overpowering EL's for every fight, then just luckily rolled Divine Intervention every time someone was killed.
6) My flaw - almost every fight the monsters gain surprise.
Almost forgot.
The DM that instituted critical successes on skill checks. "Nat 20 on my Knowledge check. I know everything!"
The guy that has EVERY npc hit on/fondle/attempt to coerce your wife's character into lewd behaviours. And then rationalizes it as "that's what they'd do....haven't you seen Braveheart?" Then wonders why my wife doesn't want to play anymore.
I mean, yes, that is what they'd probably do. BUT....unicorns probably didn't exist, and if every powerful npc didn't hit on my wife's character it wouldn't interfere with my ability to suspend disbelief that much.
And you /didn't/ punch this guy in the mouth? That's your /wife/ he's harassing. Yeesh.
Anyway, annoying DMs:
The "Monty Haul" DM that can't handle the increased power of the characters and promptly abandons the game.
The "No Follow-through" guy. Dreams big but quickly runs out of enthusiasm and lets the campaign die. This is my own trend, and it annoys the crap out of me. I'm doing better.
Any DM that screws his players with cheesy or lame methods. Like cohorts that arrive without any equipment. Or utterly ruin your character's secret origin immediately on introduction to the party. "The bar patrons are gathering around a demon passed out on the floor." Bah.
DM that doesn't know the difference between H.P. and damage...and suddenly your elf gets owned after taking 76 points of damage of the ogre..."he threw a rock at you...yeah..76...you are dead..hahaha." (no wonder we "fired" him next day)...
5) The DM that used overpowering EL's for every fight, then just luckily rolled Divine Intervention every time someone was killed.
OMG! I had a DM that did exactly that! It was fun for that one campaign but afterward got old real fast. (you can only have one favored-of-the-gods group every so often without becoming rediculous) Although that campaign did allow me to 'pull a Gandalf' which was totally awesome!
My most annoying habit is that I lose my temper with some of my players sometimes, especially when they're too lazy to look things up in the books they have, and when they consistently refuse to print out and utilize the in-between game handouts I e-mail them. I have to realize that most of them just want to play and don't give a flying rats ass about the extra feats I might allow them to take if they bothered reading them.
Okay, bad DM's from my past have:
1) Given the party no guidance whatsoever, we wandered around the wildernis for gaming session after gaming session, finding no clues or misinterpreting what we found as a clue for an adventure, only to find that it wasn't a real adventure after all. We called it the "how many deer do we have to shoot to make 6th level" campaign.
2) DM who would frustrate us with the unkillable bad guys, invulnerable enemies, missions we could never succeed at, and just when we were about to quit the game altogether, "Q" from Star Trek: The Next Generation showed up to "make it all better and get us back on track." Yep, "Q."
3) Magic items would all of a sudden change powers after the DM realized that he had given away too much power.
4) DM who gave my wife a cursed magic item that was a magically animated adult toy that she could not stop from "functioning." My wife simply refused to achknowledge that it was there and when the DM insisted on describing in detail what it was doing to her character, my wife just said "no it doesn't" and glared at him. "Okay, it doesn't sorry," was his response. Needless to say, last gaming session of THAT campaign.
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Not exactly annoying, but campaign-killing (as far as seriousness was concerned) was the one sentence of my DM who DMed the ELRIC OF MELIBONÉ rpg. There you can, as a last resort, try to call your god (or demon patron) for help.
When one of us did that, tellin the DM:"I try to call upon my god for help." the DM thought about it for approx. 30 sec (a long time at the table), than said:"Ok, he arrives!"...
Another 10 sec. silence, than we all started laughing really bad! We could never take it seriously afterwards.
Anyway, I once had a DM you never gave away a weapon with which to hurt a given enemy. We had to fight vampires, with no magic or silver weapons, and when you come up with an idea of Bullrushing, or Lassooing (sorry, don't know the right word) him, even as I managed that with a -6 penalty, I "just couldn't thrown him down the well"...
And if we got magic weapons, it has been "normally" that way, that we only got weapons whith which we weren't proficient (another -2 to -4 malus).
I have no problem fighting an enemy without the proper weapons, but when even good ideas are kind of "not welcome", than it starts to s*#+!
4) DM who gave my wife a cursed magic item that was a magically animated adult toy that she could not stop from "functioning." My wife simply refused to achknowledge that it was there and when the DM insisted on describing in detail what it was doing to her character, my wife just said "no it doesn't" and glared at him. "Okay, it doesn't sorry," was his response. Needless to say, last gaming session of THAT campaign.
Again, I'm amazed this guy didn't receive a pop in the jaw. I mean, sexual harassment against /any/ player is inexcuseable(sp?), but this is someone's WIFE. Are people like this just born stupid, or are they indoctrinated in some secret training camp? OY!
Anyway, I've got some other "Annoying DM" type stuff, but this applies to the wonderful online D&D worlds of Neverwinter Nights. Persistent worlds, to be precise.
* Mod builders that make a whole world that hails back to the days of novice dungeon delving. You know the type. Dungeons where you could run into anything from demons to orc paladins to elementals with no real rhyme or reason.
* A proliferation of monsters with magical auras, fear or otherwise. Y'know, Dragons I understand. But trolls? They're ugly, but not /that/ ugly.
* Mod builders that allow grossly overpowered weapons and other items. Sure, it's great to see magic weapons dishing out 100-200 points of damage per hit. But it causes significant problems, like...
* Monsters given massive hit dice, then artificially low CRs, which has the problem of marginalizing spell and special ability usefulness. Mostly because saving throws are so high that anything requiring a save is rendered pointless.
* Far too many critters with Class Levels. Some creatures I get: Giants, trolls, any sort of intelligent humanoid, especially at epic levels. But when I run into spiders and friggan DEER with crippling strike, you've done ruined my suspension of disbelief. And crossed into the realm of "Stat Sucker Door Guy" from this thread.
Again, these are annoying things. I still play on a game with all these problems and more, and left one that was vastly worse about it. But man, if NwN mod builders - including persistent worlds - would run the thing like a regular D&D campaign as much as they could, I think they'd be amazed at the results.
Ok, let me first start by saying that the following DM is one of my boys (in street language for you non-linguists out there)
However....
When you have a party that consists of 50% DM run NPCs it's annoying.
When the plot line of the campaign centers around said DM run NPCs its really annoying.
And finally, when the DM insists on rolling ALL attack and damage rolls for those NPCs, leaving the players of the game sitting around for five minutes at a pop until their 10 seconds of play time comes around,that is the worst.
That campaign took at least two months longer than it really needed to, he was that slow during combat.
-Rath
(P.S. I can be annoying to my players when I don't know a rule off the top of my head,which slows down the game as well)
Or after every fight spend 10+ minutes rolling on the random treasure tables.
I played one session where this happened, and never went back. We found four "magic bags made of pure fire" and in each of them was a slew of treasure. It took, I dunno. . . about a hour.
Ironically, he started fudging his rolls. I had made a 6th level Wizard, and by the end of that first session, my character "earned" a Staff of Power, not to mention a bunch of other stuff. He said I'd need it all if I wanted to survive his "plans."
Plus, we were using the wounds/vitality system and an alternative spell system. I asked for some details regarding how the it all worked, and he just shrugged and said, "Well, no one really understands it."
1. I've always been frustrated with the GM who creates the "omniverse" setting, you know, the one which somehow congeals every possible story setting together into some unrecognizable mass. Possibly to worst example thereof was a game in which the party was eventually joined by a pair light saber weilding wiazrds from midevial England, yah that was strange...
2. The GM who blatantly and shamelessy railroads people. In one such game our character party had a messenger who would arrive from nowhere and give us a goal (none of which appeared to have anything to do with each other) which we invarably ended up doing despite our best effort. Finally I had had enough, and when once again our messenger showed up I announced to the GM that I was stabbing him. He said the messenger dodged, ok, I then desperately tried to do everything in my power to kill him, ending with a failed attempt to crush him with piled up furniture from the room, but to no avail. Everything I did was either dodged or just bounced off some invisible sheild. Not even smothering his face with a pillow even slowed down the prepared rhetoric. He just calmly gave the message while I bounced arround like a maniac frantically trying to kill him. The game was a flop, though I do have some funny mental images left over from that scene.
Again, I'm amazed this guy didn't receive a pop in the jaw. I mean, sexual harassment against /any/ player is inexcuseable(sp?), but this is someone's WIFE. Are people like this just born stupid, or are they indoctrinated in some secret training camp? OY!
This guy is a long time friend and he had a habit of giving out sexually oriented magic items for as long as I've known him. To him the girdle of feminity/masculinity from 1e was like a +1 longsword and he also went to great lengths to describe sexual situations in the game and make people roll for "sex quality and prowess" stuff, so when he pulled that trick on my wife (her first time playing in one of his games), it wasn't like he was harassing her....that's just the way he runs his games.
He's in a 12 step program right now, as he has some very, very good DM qualities. We are all going to pitch in and buy him the Ptolus book from Monte Cook when it comes out and give him "one more chance" to redeem himself as a DM.
If he fixes his Monty Haul tendencies, his railroading, his intolerably unbalanced encounters, the mega NPCs and his fixation on everything sexual, he'll actually be a better DM than anyone else I know, including me....he's a superb narrator, excellent story teller, can make up believable places and people on the fly like a champ and is super intelligent with high charisma thrown in....his NPC personalities and interaction with the party is second to none--he just never bothered to write down stats or anything...the NPC's were either totally undefeatable, uncapturable and un-anything, or they were total pushovers.
The last few gaming sessions he ran for us ended up with the party struggling against impossible odds, undefeatable bad guys up until the point where we just all sat there, totally frustrated and sullen, when suddenly "poof" here comes the "magic jedi" to deliver us our salvation on a silver platter.
I told him that we don't play his game, we play "him." All we had to do is act pissed off and frustrated enough and the adventure would solve itself, as he would feel guilty and let us have our way. He was quite hurt by my comments, but he got over it, I think.
(Yeah, he had light sabers too...and the Jedi class, which he introduced to his first gaming group in 1978--somehow he could never figure out why no one he gamed with after that first group wanted to play one...so he just used them as ueberpowerful NPCs EVERYWHERE--there will be Jedis and light sabers godammnit!!)
Those that sacrifice the fun of the other players or those that kill a really great adventure/campaign to appease a whiny player.
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Again, I'm amazed this guy didn't receive a pop in the jaw. I mean, sexual harassment against /any/ player is inexcuseable(sp?), but this is someone's WIFE. Are people like this just born stupid, or are they indoctrinated in some secret training camp? OY!
I yearn for the simple days of youth, where every problem was mediated swiftly by popping somebody in the mouth. And f2k, I think we know the same guy (almost). Some people, if you pop them in the mouth at MY age, or late 30's early 40's, they could have a heart attack. Then you got a dead guy lieing in your living room. Boy, is that sheer genius.
DM/GMs who don't let me at least try a tactically sound plan, because it messes up what they've planned. Sure, I may fail spectacularly, but at least give me a chance.
As a DM, I find that the most important atmosphere to AVOID at the table is the "DM vs. the players" atmosphere. That's the last thing I want at my table.
You've all made some great points. I'm a teacher and a DM, and I want to improve on my DMing as much as my teaching (perhaps more... :-D). I make mistakes all the time at the table:
-I leave books or dice at home.
-I award more XP than I want to, and realize it well after it's been awarded.
-I hand out magical items and often don't anticipate the many ways it might create an imbalance at the table (like the original Magic of Faerun ring of spellbattle--it's been errated, but it was a nightmare for a time).
-I don't have the books memorized, so we often have to crack open a book during each combat round. It slows things down sometimes.
-I let consenting players run rare, evil "doppleganger" moles (a drow and a malaugrym to name two) for short periods and kill them off at opportune moments (which lead to a bad argument one time).
Hey now, /I'm/ in my 30s, so don't let's all go throwing me in with the teenagers. I still think there's absolutely nothing wrong with a poke in the nose or a pop in the mouth when someone earns one - like Heathansson's lewd DM. F2K's sounds like a different sitch.
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Hey now, /I'm/ in my 30s, so don't let's all go throwing me in with the teenagers. I still think there's absolutely nothing wrong with a poke in the nose or a pop in the mouth when someone earns one - like Heathansson's lewd DM. F2K's sounds like a different sitch.
/fine/you/are/right/I/am wrong/I/justdon't/care any/more.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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My most annoying habit is that I lose my temper with some of my players sometimes, especially when they're too lazy to look things up in the books they have, and when they consistently refuse to print out and utilize the in-between game handouts I e-mail them. I have to realize that most of them just want to play and don't give a flying rats ass about the extra feats I might allow them to take if they bothered reading them.
Your situation speaks to my condition, brother. We cannot always pick our players...