What are some annoying things you've had to go through as a player because of your GM?


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Ok bad GM story... I'd like to point out that the guy is a good guy just inexperienced perhaps.

Wall of text... Sorry:

The pcs, working for Robin hood, we're headed to a town to pay gold to one of her (yes her) contacts. We were maybe lvl 2. I played a dwarf barbarian... We get to the town after a random encounter and it's late so we look for an inn and hire some rooms. In the middle of the night some thieves break into our rooms and steal the gold we were going to use to pay this guy... Damn now we need to figure out a way to earn the gold to pay the guy. (at this point it's not to bad yet.)

The next day we are looking for work and we hear about these death matches that are run in a nearby arena... The prize money is more than enough. So we head to the meeting with the guy to explain our plan to get his gold. We sit down in the tavern with him and begin to explain, volunteering to enter the death match. Little do we know he has somehow drugged our drinks, we all fall unconscious and he enters us into the match. (annoying cause we had already planned to do this anyhow...) we wake up stripped of armour and weapons (now finding out that you are not allowed armour in the matches and that there is a pile of weapons in the ring that you have to grab from once you get in.

Ok I'd better explain the matches. Four teams of four are entered. They are split up, each individual being placed in a separate trapped maze with 3 other members from the three other competing teams. You have to get through the maze to reach the arena, run to the middle grab a weapon and kill everyone that's not on your team.

Problem 1: there were 5 players. (one guy got to sit in the crowd! Woot!

Problem 2: the maze was revealed one corridor at a time taking turns in initiative. It took about two and a half hours of moving square by square till each of us found te exit to the arena.

Problem 3: the weapon grabbing was 'random'. No one got a weapon they specialized in. I got a glaive. Another Pc got a dagger. The bard failed to find a weapon he was proficient with. After three attempts he decided to fist fight.

Problem 4: one of the groups we were up against was made up of monks. They had no disadvantage of armour or weapon.

Everyone died except me... and so we won but hey oh it's magic. When you 'die' you actually get teleported out of the arena!

We meet Robin hoods contact in the crowd outside and he's got his prize money. Mission accomplished. Except one of the PCs has had enough of this NPC and punches him in the face. We all got fireballed by a random npc wizard in the crowd... ... Dead

But wait the Dm says. You wake up outside the town they must have dragged you out. At this point I got up and said I had to leave.

Liberty's Edge

I wanna start this off by saying that this DM/GM is a pretty good guy overall and that this isn't typical. The point being that I still play with this guy. Anyways...

Long story. You've been warned.:
So I'm playing a game with our normal DM, right? And I'm using this avenger that I rolled to be a religious zealot. He HAS to kill anyone he meets who worships the god of the undead. (DM approved) Everyone that he meets that he'll have to trust, he asked "what god do you worship?" (Also DM approved) Everyone got a real kick out of this and one night, well... the DM decided to damn me for it.

So we do this super hard quest, the big battle involving a black dragon with 2 trolls. This was "just" before a final battle with just another black dragon (the first one's mate). So far, so good. We live by the skin of our teeth and we run back to our quest giver only to find out that he's dead and his gold/stuff has all been stolen. So we go all CSI and try to find his killer. Nothing but fun thus far... neat even.

That's when it happens. We find the NPC and he turns out to openly worship the god of the undead. There was treasure (our quest giver's loot) all around him and as soon as we walk in he starts talking to us. One thing lead to another and my guy asked "What god do you worship?" and he told us.
So after we kill him, the treasure and such all vanishes. POOF! What happened, we ask. He tells us that it (the loot) was all an illusion that he'd cast and now that he was dead, it was gone.

After an HOUR of skill checks and what-not to figure out where the loot was, (even trying to resurect the dead guy into telling us) he told us simply "It's just gone."

In this campaign we bought our levels (training, 2000 x level wanted) and we'd just completed our hardest quest yet... only to walk away with 50 gold... total. 25 per troll. We had 5 players.

To say that we were pissed is an understatement.


Dragonamedrake wrote:
I have had several DM's have 1's do horrible things from hitting allies to broken weapons, and yes weapons that go flying.

Yep, I had a DM do this, too. The stuff he would come up with for the 1s was always hilarious -- unless it was happening to me, and even then I appreciated the creativity. A particularly memorable moment was in a party with a minotaur who fumbled ... the DM essentially had him fall on an adjacent PC. Cue the "cow tipping" jokes.

Even though the icrit/ifumble decks are available now, I still think I prefer homebrew flavor in this arena, because DMs/GMs (aka your friends) also can come up with material they know everyone will react to best.

The Exchange

Sissyl wrote:

A cave we needed to get through. Squares on the floor, tons of them. Every square would tell us how many of the adjacent squares were trapped if stepped on. If you stepped on a trap square, you got paralyzed for a round and lost 1 hp due to an electric jolt...

Yeah. Minesweeper.

Oh my gog, I'm not the only one who suffered this monstrosity!


I recall the three-20s-equals-instadeath rule from being in the 3.0 rulebooks somewhere. In eight years of playing 3E (several times a week for most of that period), with us joking about seeing it one day on a fairly regular basis, it happened in our group just once. It was massively anticlimactic. The fighter got it on a lowly goblin he'd probably have killed in a single hit anyway :-)

In our 2E days our DM always let fighters who rolled an 18 for strength top it up to 18/00 for free (as his campaigns were combat-heavy and veered towards the difficult, so he liked giving us a break with that). However, at the start of one session he declared he was doing it by the book and we'd have to roll our percentiles. So - naturally and predictably - I immediately rolled a natural 18/00, the only one I've ever seen.

Sczarni

The only real GMs that annoy me are the ones that Cut the money you get to start by 50-90% to make the characters "struggle" to adapt to their idea of what a person should "really" have, then in the middle of the first adventure give them 4x the normal starting money from the first monster they defeat.

I have literally told GMS - "My character leaves the dungeon to go back to town to re-supply, and if there is a time limit involved he does not give a flying damn. He'll buy boots of speed or a teleport spell to return faster."

One particularly memorable occasion involved Shadow Run (supposed to be a campaign, spent 4 hours learning the game and making up a character). Our GM limited my CyberSword (whatever they were called, a long time ago now) to something like 10% of the starting money he was supposed to get(after putting most of the design points into money) at first level to get cyber enhancements. This meant instead of being a cyber enhanced killing machine with a sword (1st level) I was a normal person with a pair of cyber glasses (or some such nonsense) and couldn't even afford a sword, much less a nueral hookup to it or enhanced reflexes. Ten minutes into the campaign the GM "gave" us all 2 x what my toon was supposed to have gotten upon starting in a random briefcase we found (yes, even the player who put no design points in cash). I crumpled up my character sheet and left. I never played under that GM again.

The only other thing I don't like are GM fiat GMs. "It just happens to you." (presumably because they are too dumb to use the rules). I don't mind it happening once in a campaign. But every adventure gets way old fast.

Other than these typically annoying things some GMs do, I have no real problem playing with any GMs. If they don't want tons of cash in the campaign that is fine (just don't then give us tons five minutes in). If they have house rules or read sentences with commas where there aren't any, ok. Not a problem as long as I (we) know about it before beginning.

(as a GM, I use 1s to randomly target someone... I roll a die based on the number of players and monsters nearby, letting the characters know their number before I roll. The result is who you hit. The damage is applied to them AND your weapon. Breakage anyone?)


Ah, players who can't roll with the punches or have fun and play along. If I ever run a game on these boards I'm going to keep all my notes up on google documents so that the players can see what monsters they will be fighting and treasure they will get so they can plan ahead and mentally prepare themselves for it.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

And I'll be sure to PM you offline to ask for my stage direction and what my motivation is.


Lex Starwalker wrote:
Personally, I don't find complaining on a public messageboard about someone who has taken the time and effort to come up with a campaign and run it for me a valuable use for my time.

Except when he or she does a sloppy work on it, acts like an immature little baby when someone points out something wrong in the way said DM plays, among other behaviour that makes you regret giving the person all the power that a DM has.


maouse wrote:
(as a GM, I use 1s to randomly target someone... I roll a die based on the number of players and monsters nearby, letting the characters know their number before I roll. The result is who you hit. The damage is applied to them AND your weapon. Breakage anyone?)

As a player and GM, I really dislike rules like this for a couple of reasons:

1)Why should player B be punished for player A rolling poorly? If you feel you need to punish a player, than punish the one that did the bad roll (impales themselves on their own weapon, breaks their own weapon on the ground, disarms themselves, etc).

2)The roll a 1 and bad things happens, punishes martial types. Spellcasters can only cast once a round so at most they only have a 5% chance of this happening, and they can avoid this by just casting spells that don't require an attack roll (fireball, lightning bolt, greater slumber, etc). On the other hand, martial characters get more attacks per round as they level. So they go from a 5% chance of this happening (when they only get 1 attack) to an 18.5% chance of this happening in a round (when they get 4 attacks).

Sovereign Court

My advice--quit camp building. Never rally other players to force a GM to change a rule. Just talk privately with your GM, and abide by final rulings.

That said, here's my table rule:
Fumble = roll of "1" (does not count for skills, only attacks)
>>CONFIRM by rolling a d20. 1-5 confirms the fumble.

I ask players to pull from PAIZOs Critical Fumble Deck.

The chance is 25% of 5%. With these odds--the fumble becomes truly funny and believable that such a fumble might occur once in a while.

Once a card is drawn, for that session, all monsters are subject to critical fumbles as well. Most sessions (90%+ of them) never see the critical fumble deck.

Conversely, this works well when the critical hits deck is in play.
Here is my table rule for critical hits:
1. Each session, players decide if the deck is in play, and choose whether to take a card on a crit.
2. Once the deck is put in play, all monsters/enemies may also draw from the deck (for that session).
Some nights, depending on the power reserves left in the party, or based on how fearsome the foe is, the players will put the deck in play, or leave it out of play.

The scarcity of the decks is what makes them highly appreciated (crits, and fumbles), at my table.

Hope this helps.
Pax


TriOmegaZero wrote:
And I'll be sure to PM you offline to ask for my stage direction and what my motivation is.

I literally had one problem player ask me that. We had been playing a game for about 5 months. The party is hunting supernatural evil and trying to stop London from being destroyed by an Inevitable. So one player who recently died said he wanted to be a gunslinger / cleric and he wanted to captain an airship. I said fine. So they get the air ship and they fly it somewhere to help someone. After that, they party stays in London to do something else. At this point, the airship captain gets pissed and says, "Why would my character even stay in the group?!" To which I replied, "I don't know, you made him. All I know is he better either develop a sense of adventure or you need a new character."


DM:
"So up ahead on the trail, you see a cottage.. maybe 200 yards away.. the forest around you seems to melt away , to be replaced by giant mushrooms."

us:
"we leave the trail to scout around, and get a better look at the cottage"

DM:
"You turn left and step off the trail, but all you see ahead of you is the trail and the cottage"

Us:
......
"we turn right and.."

Dm:
"You turn right and step off the trail, but all you see ahead of you is the trail and the cottage."

Now this would have ended it right there and then but we were all friends and he was a stand-in DM for the night so we continued.

Several (very long) hours later the group gets killed one by one by something in the dark while we slept.

We were none to happy, the DM says 'well I expected so and so to have the whatsit that would wake you up' and one guy was like "yeah but so and so wasn't here tonight".

So the whole night ended up being a pointless, boring, retcon that never actually happened because the DM didn't even pay attention to who was actually there.

face.
palm.

-S


Selgard wrote:


face.
palm.

-S

So the GM isn't allowed to have magical terrain because it damages your frail sense of player agency and you don't need to set a watch because if you don't have one, the GM should respect that and not kill you?

I don't get it. I feel like you want player agency and you want to be pampered. Pretend player agency maybe?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

That wasn't magical terrain, that was BS railroading.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
That wasn't magical terrain, that was BS railroading.

How is it railroading? The GM isn't making the players do anything special when they get to the house. My instinct is that the GM is totally against rail roading sense he killed them all. I think he writes something in his note book and has the players deal with it. Here are some sample notes.

The Ogre's Cottage

The ogre eats humans. Their was, at one time, a fairy mound here that men found irresistible. Realizing that the fairies didn't cause the effect, it being generated by the laylines, the ogre drove the fairies out and laid a trap for travelers.

The shear volume of humans he has been able to devour without work is massive and he has become very fat.

The party can't resist approaching the cottage, however when they arrive they will encounter one of two fairies, one from Oberon's court, the other from the Adversary's. The satyr from Oberon will show the party the rout to leave through the woods, however their are people inside the cottage being prepared for dinner. If the party refuses to help them, the satyr joins with the Adversary's man.

The Adversary's fairy hates humans beings, but hates ogres worse. He has set up an ambush on the road to kill all humans in order to deprive the ogre of his meal. He will try and kill the party in their sleep, however, being an adventuring group, someone will be on watch to stop him. They couldn't possible be stupid enough to all go to sleep at once. When the fairy sees a PC awake, he will talk to them, offering up a riddle that if they fail, he kills a baby. If the fairy figures out the the party will kill the ogre, he will leave them alone.

In the ogre's treasure is a cold iron mallet that is bane against fairies. If the party takes it, the fairies will not follow them anymore.

The satyr isn't suppose to help humans, however the party may try to talk him into helping kill the ogre, DC 20 Diplomacy check. If they are successful, the satyr will fight. The ogre will target the satyr first with his cold iron mallet, possibly killing him. If the satyr survives the fight, he will help the party further by giving them information on the baby killing Adversary's fairy. He will tell them where the Undine spirit is that it visits and relate the fact that their is a fairy hole (dungeon) where it lives near the water.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

They didn't do exactly what he wanted, so they all died. That's classic railroading right there.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
They didn't do exactly what he wanted, so they all died. That's classic railroading right there.

If I decide someone finds your camp, and you have no watch and fail to detect them, I see nothing wrong with killing all the characters in their sleep. That's part of the game. It has just never happened because I've never heard of an adventuring party without a watch.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

It's entirely DM controlled, from if it happens to how it happens.

If he made no Stealth rolls and the players made no Perception rolls, then it was just the DM punishing them for not doing what he expected.


TriOmegaZero wrote:

It's entirely DM controlled, from if it happens to how it happens.

If he made no Stealth rolls and the players made no Perception rolls, then it was just the DM punishing them for not doing what he expected.

Sure, but to pull a Wraith Strike, we have to assume they were playing by the rules or conversation is meaningless. Because the poster didn't specify that the perception / stealth rules were ignored, we have to assume they were used.

With modifiers for darkness, size, and being asleep, I'm pretty sure I could make a first level goblin with a +12 stealth that no one in the party would likely detect before someone woke up gagging. Worse, a 3rd level goblin wizard with a silence spell would decimate any party of any level if they went to sleep in haunted woods with no watch or capacity to be alarmed.


The magical terrain was an obvious trap: "the forest melts away, to be replaced by giant mushrooms". The PCs crossed some sort of barrier, and couldn't leave without dealing with what was inside.

The GM stupidity is that he was expecting something the PCs didn't have, not an action on their part.

Not railroading. Just a moron running the game.


Jerry Wright 307 wrote:

The magical terrain was an obvious trap: "the forest melts away, to be replaced by giant mushrooms". The PCs crossed some sort of barrier, and couldn't leave without dealing with what was inside.

The GM stupidity is that he was expecting something the PCs didn't have, not an action on their part.

Not railroading. Just a moron running the game.

There is nothing wrong with the GM not changing his notes because someone didn't come. Personally, I hate it when GM's change things. It makes character decision making meaningless.

How hard is it for the players to say, "gee, we normally rely on X to wake us up so we don't need a watch. Sense we went into the woods today without it, maybe we should do something else, like keep someone awake."


Well I had a DM that kept telling me your chararter wont do that. His semi control over my character was due to him writing a book, and my actions didnt line up with his set story line. My half dragon female was attacked by dragons all the time. As punsihment for traveling to the local hamlet and helping the people with a large bag of gold. after we set up in a castle and battling the evil empire that had control. She was raped and robbed by a gang of ogres, then had her arm chopped off by an ememy that found her on the road naked. Bleeding and half dead she was rescued when a coach found her. Taken to the castle to be saved so she could have kids. After refusing a true resurrection after dying to save her twins.Later one child and a sword to be his were sent to another plane to die and be lost done by another PC. We both stopped playing in that game.


Jerry Wright 307wrote:
The magical terrain was an obvious trap: "the forest melts away, to be replaced by giant mushrooms". The PCs crossed some sort of barrier, and couldn't leave without dealing with what was inside.

The GM stupidity is that he was expecting something the PCs didn't have, not an action on their part.

Not railroading. Just a moron running the game.

cranewings wrote:

There is nothing wrong with the GM not changing his notes because someone didn't come. Personally, I hate it when GM's change things. It makes character decision making meaningless.

How hard is it for the players to say, "gee, we normally rely on X to wake us up so we don't need a watch. Sense we went into the woods today without it, maybe we should do something else, like keep someone awake."

I don't have a problem with TPKs, as long as the TPK is the fault of the players (note I wrote "players" and not "PCs"). In this case, it was not the GM having to change things that's the problem, it's that the PCs were in a situation that required them to have something they didn't have.

A good GM would adjust the situation based on the change. The PCs didn't have the necessary item, so something else needed to come into play. Otherwise, the trap is nothing more than a GM TPKing a party without letting them have any means at all to avoid it. Might as well have said, "You stepped across the invisible line. You're all dead. Thanks for playing."


Jerry Wright 307 wrote:


A good GM would adjust the situation based on the change. The PCs didn't have the necessary item, so something else needed to come into play. Otherwise, the trap is nothing more than a GM TPKing a party without letting them have any means at all to avoid it. Might as well have said, "You stepped across the invisible line. You're all dead. Thanks for playing."

I feel like I'm talking past you. The post about the encounter says they were killed in their sleep because they didn't have something to wake them up when attacked. That is stupid. They had each other.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Apparently there was a McGuffin that only one character had, and without it no one would wake up. And that character wasn't there.

The Exchange

amazing to think people that can't GM a story can write an epic novel

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