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I think my players hate me. I spend dozens of hours a week creating monsters and NPCs only for the players to come along and brutally and remorselessly destroy them. Then, they go and teabag my carefully laid out, now-monsterless dungeon by disabling all of the elaborate traps I've designed and stealing all the treasure! Why!? Why do they keep taking away everything I love?!
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Gaming with other GMs is the only way to go.
This! I had one of my best games at a convention (as a player) at a table of other GMs. It was a great experience.
Ahmen brother. In my group, we play at my house, use my books, my models, I bring pizza EVERY TIME, and the only thing they bother to bring is dice. At one point, one of them wanted me to drive all the way into Toronto (roughly an hour and a half long trip) and buy him a new model with my money because he was unhappy with the model that was available. Then they have the gaul to get mad at ME when I want to switch things up a bit. When I brought up the aforementioned things I had one of them say to me with a completely straight face 'those are all unimportant'.
By the way, I also live in Toronto, so please bring me some miniatures you bought with your own money. And also some free pizza. Otherwise I might get mad at you.
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Kazarath wrote:
Ahmen brother. In my group, we play at my house, use my books, my models, I bring pizza EVERY TIME, and the only thing they bother to bring is dice. At one point, one of them wanted me to drive all the way into Toronto (roughly an hour and a half long trip) and buy him a new model with my money because he was unhappy with the model that was available. Then they have the gaul to get mad at ME when I want to switch things up a bit. When I brought up the aforementioned things I had one of them say to me with a completely straight face 'those are all unimportant'.
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Kazarath: Shoot your gaming group. Or barring that, spend the same amount on pizza, but have it be a small personal pizza with all the rest of the money parleyed into toppings. When they are all starving in your house, discover the fridge is empty (or better, padlocked) and the pizza FINALLY arrives, only for them to see the little box practically exploding from the tower of toppings exclusively for you... hear their whines and cries. Then, with a completely straight face, tell them their concerns are all unimportant.
Seriously though, There are tough GMs, and there are Fair GMs, and there are Monty Haul GMs, and Doormat GMs. Crack that whip, brother. Because I read this and felt ill.
The thing that tends to bug me the most is when I as GM get blamed for players behaving like idiots.
Recently: Half the group showed up an hour late. I had 3 out of 5 players spend in total over an hour arguing about what they considered to be honorable behavior. They also split up into 3 different groups wandering around the city. I kept trying to end the day and move on since nothing was going to happen. They were trying to force something to happen. In two 4 hour sessions, they haven't made it as far as I expected them to get the first session. Then I heard complaints that they didn't make any progress, it was too slow, we didn't get enough XP.
Previous campaign: The party went and told the constable they had attacked and killed half the people in a legal business (it was a slaving operation, but legal in that city) and that they were going back to kill the rest of them. They were upset with me for constable going to try to arrest them.
These are situations where the GMs out there have to show their players their buts...
"You want to do THAT? Ok, but..."
"You want to go into that building, or camp there, or look for a job here... you can do that, BUT there's very likely not a heck of a lot of gain in that..."
"I'm not stopping you BUT... Your splitting up the party at this juncture is not an efficient way of spending the party's time, and a more focused approach will likely yield better results..."
You really ought to be showing your but more often. Perhaps invest in more loose-fitting pants?
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No I never feel under appreciated, but then again i make my players wear shock collars and if they don't flatter me constantly and give me enough praise I hold down the shock button till they do.
Shock collars are also good for teaching players tricks.
...so very simple, yet elegantly effective. Pardon me while I take some notes.
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These are situations where the GMs out there have to show their players their buts..."You want to do THAT? Ok, but..."
"You want to go into that building, or camp there, or look for a job here... you can do that, BUT there's very likely not a heck of a lot of gain in that..."
"I'm not stopping you BUT... Your splitting up the party at this juncture is not an efficient way of spending the party's time, and a more focused approach will likely yield better results..."
...
I actually told them nothing was going to happen for the rest of the day and I was just trying to move the story along. "well we want to explore the island anyway."
... You really ought to be showing your but more often. Perhaps invest in more loose-fitting pants?
If I start showing very many people my big hairy ash, I don't think i'll have a group anymore.
I don't often have appreciation problems, but when I do they tend to involve dice. I have a love for dice, my players just see them as tools to play the game. That itself is already a problem, sometimes.
I've explained various points of gamer etiquette such as "don't grab and roll my dice without permission", and "come to the game prepared with the dice you need to do actions common to you" to my players. The most common response I get is "that's stupid, I'll just keep using your dice".
Now combine the above with one particular player of mine who uses no table or other solid surface to roll dice on. Imagine a player's dice whipping across the room at high speed, inevitably striking someone or something, and bouncing in all directions. Such dice inevitably get lost once in a while when you avert your eyes to shield them from flying dice. And so you can see why you'd be particularly loathe to let this player roll your dice, or rather fling your dice across the room.
And when you give up asking them to stop grabbing your dice and throwing them around the room, and you eventually buy them enough d4s and d6s for all their spells, so that they don't have to use yours, you receive no thanks. Instead the player grumbles and snaps at you, because you're being childish by not wanting them to use your dice.
Sigh... Sometimes GM life is hard, but the game makes it worth it.
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Gluttony, your players are jerks, sorry to say but that's that. Anyone who says "me getting my own supplies is stupid, I'll just keep using yours" is a jackass.
I gotta say, hearing some of these stories makes me really really appreciate my old group. Events like some of the horror tales here were rare, if they ever came up at all, and usually thoroughly apologized for.
No I never feel under appreciated, but then again i make my players wear shock collars and if they don't flatter me constantly and give me enough praise I hold down the shock button till they do.
Shock collars are also good for teaching players tricks.
Actually, sometimes you should try to place these collars someplace else, instead of around the players' necks, Mistress...
They're only jerks in that one regard, mostly... (And I actually have two groups that I run games for. If I wanted to I could pretty easily cut one out.)
But for the most part, I like running games for that group. I like that they're fairly new players, and that anything I run for them is a new experience. It's neat teaching, slowly watching their game get better, seeing one beginning to develop her own GM skills, stuff like that.
I take the bad with the good I guess. No big deal.
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They're only jerks in that one regard, mostly... (And I actually have two groups that I run games for. If I wanted to I could pretty easily cut one out.)
But for the most part, I like running games for that group. I like that they're fairly new players, and that anything I run for them is a new experience. It's neat teaching, slowly watching their game get better, seeing one beginning to develop her own GM skills, stuff like that.
I take the bad with the good I guess. No big deal.
Then I recommend shock collars, they do wonder for manners at the table.
Off topic:
I get confused when 2 or more common posters have the same icon. =(
Back on topic:
I once was part of a group that really appreciated and took care of our GM. Everyone else brought the snacks and pop. On those rare occasions when he decided to use a published module we all split the cost so he didn't have to buy them. Every so often we would buy him some additional monster figurines. Things like that. He put a bunch of time into to, so we helped out where we could.
I haven't been in any other group that treated it's GM's that well. But I at least try and remember to say thanks, that was fun, surprised me, etc...
I've explained various points of gamer etiquette such as "don't grab and roll my dice without permission", and "come to the game prepared with the dice you need to do actions common to you" to my players. The most common response I get is "that's stupid, I'll just keep using your dice".
I don't even allow my 5-year old daughter to play with my dice, that's why we bought her a set of dice of her own. If she wants to roll dice she can roll hers dangit! *grin*
Don't touch my dice. See that look in my eyes? I'll hurt you. I mean it.
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I am at work dreaming of playing D&D. I have read every single post and agree with a majority of whats been written here.
Our group has just finished a campaign that lasted over a year, and has many many rememberable moments. (revenge, amputees, wars, multiple betrayls, etc)
After we finished that campaign we started another one immediately after it under a new GM/DM's regime. Lets just say we've been giving him a hard time because we were used to our old GM/DM who is playing in this new campaign as well.
You guys/girls have made me feel completely guilty now, and I'm going to get off of his balls now.
I understand a lot of what is being said because I deal with it in a lesser forms, but holy cow, some of you have some pretty crappy players. Are a lot of these players picked up a game stores or community postings? I feel for you. I am very glad that I play with some of my best friends and do not have to deal with the "players are vampires" thing. Especially being somewhat older we are way more respectful of each other and most of us have GM’d at one time or another so the shoe has been on the other foot.
I say kick them to the curb if they do not appreciate what you do and continually make your experience miserable, or make them GM. Maybe I am turning into an old man, but is it a generational thing? Make the player responsible for their own things. Hand holding should only be reserved for the new comers to the game. Respect of other people and their time is important. Kids these days! /shakes fist!
I wish you the best, good luck.
I am at work dreaming of playing D&D. I have read every single post and agree with a majority of whats been written here.
Our group has just finished a campaign that lasted over a year, and has many many rememberable moments. (revenge, amputees, wars, multiple betrayls, etc)
After we finished that campaign we started another one immediately after it under a new GM/DM's regime. Lets just say we've been giving him a hard time because we were used to our old GM/DM who is playing in this new campaign as well.
You guys/girls have made me feel completely guilty now, and I'm going to get off of his balls now.
Good on you man.
Wow, so many issues with so many players.
I've been playing since 1987, and DMing since 1990 (started late in life), and in all that time there have been three players that caused problems. One was just a loud mouth idiot, and thankfully his job transferred him to another state (1993), one just quit coming after suffering the consequences of his actions * (1996), and one I asked to not come back (2012).
For the good things, my guys a) bought my wife! a gift certificate to our favorite restaurant, good for six free dinners with one paying dinner, b) bought me a bottle of 25 year old single malt scotch, c) almost always say, good session and thanks when they leave, other than the TPK, but they did admit it was their own really dumb mistakes that caused it.
-- david
Papa.DRB
* After the mage said the statute was magical, his barbarian went to knock it over and failed his will save and was polymorphed into a duck. The saying at our table is "if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is probably a ploymorphed babarian
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About 20 years ago, I read an article on how to make cool player handouts such as maps, etc. Well, I decided to fashion an old map and after hand-drawing it, I aged it using tea/coffee and slightly charring portions of it over a hot electric burner.
Come game day, the PCs found the map so I put it out on the table to several oohs and aahs. So far, so good.
Then one of my best friends (we were in high school) asked how I did it, and as soon as I mentioned tea/coffee, he grabbed the thing and ate it. Yeeeaaah... >.>
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Hmm. I generally don't like in-game punishment for out-of-game actions, but in this case I'd be extremely tempted to have the in-game map eaten by the nastiest, smelliest, flea-ridden goat imaginable (owned, of course, by an obnoxious NPC several levels higher than the party).
heyyyyy.....
I sometimes feel underappreciated, especially when I only hear complaints. However, those feelings quickly disappear when these same fickle people praise the amount of fun they had playing in said game session.
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Nope! We usually play at one of our players houses and they get the beers/wine in and either one of their housemates or husband cooks food or we get takeaway and I'm exempt because they know how much work I have to do compared to them to actually make the game run. (They see the handouts, the maps, the playlists, the in game knowledge wiki)
The only *sigh* moments I get are when brand new players ask me to make their character for them. Mainly because I think making a character helps you learn the rules and also because it *is* more work. When they make their own though they usually realise and apologise for the extra work I did and say thanks, so, no, not unappreciated.
Glut and I seem to be the only regular posters that use this icon, least she is the only other one I remember seeing much.
Mmhm. Dark Mistress was here with this icon before I joined the forums, and when I chose mine, I chose it because it was the only one I could find (that I liked) that wasn't being used by multiple other active posters.
She's got the big crosshairs icon thing beside her name anyways, so I find it pretty easy to tell our posts apart at a glance.
One player (of three) didn't turn up last night. Said she was "too lazy".
The char has been rocking, advancing, but sometimes people just refuse to give a sh*t.
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I personally have never had these kinds of problems (I suppose part of it is because my roleplaying group is composed of people I've known since kindergarten, so we've known each other for 25 years), but three years ago a new player joined our group at the request of one of my traditional group members (I always have my main group, and sometimes start secondary groups when the demand gets too strong. I have many roleplaying friends, but few of them are DMs, so I'm usually the target of many requests for either start a new campaign or invite someone for a few sessions).
This guy, who's a fantastic player and ended becoming permanent member of our group, was also a DM, mostly D&D 3e and Star Wars d6/Saga. He's a very nice, calm person, who puts a lot of work into his stories, but his previous group was on par with some of the horrible stories here told.
Basically, he had 3 players, all long-time "friends" of his, but that sort of transformed into Jackass Elementals when playing. They would do things such as fall asleep during games, leave their character sheets out in the rain, open the DM's books all the way around (taking both covers and pulling them together, often spilling the pages out. Being an old book collector myself, it makes me cringe just from the thought), invite random people to the games (who of course had no interest at all in playing, most of the times not even knowing what a roleplaying game even was), and that would often get a call, pick up, and then leave for a party or something else.
While an excellent person, he is also very passive and gets nervous quickly, so he put up with that infernal treatment for more than 6 years, saying that if not for those guys, he would have had no way to play.
It literally broke my heart when my friend told me the story, so while I already had 5 people in the group (which is my optimal number. Once the group grew to 12 people during a 2-year campaign, being quite an ordeal, and even though I have fond memories of it I would never do it again), all of them being the "traditional" members (that's it, the guys I started roleplaying with back in 1996), I had to bring him in.
It was like when you addopt a stray dog; he had so, so many things he wanted to try, accumulated over six years of hitting a wall with his head, that he couldn't even decide what to play. He literally made eight different characters, each with a fully fleshed-out background, and had a hard time choosing one (I eventually used some of them as NPCs myself. Waste none, I say!), and it took him a while to open up. But once he did, he instantly became an integral part of the group, and in many ways he drove the story to new, amazing places.
His story and others I've heard, both here and among DMs I know in person, make me thankful to no end of the fantastic group I have. About his former group, they have tried to get him to DM for them again several times; he almost did the first time, but I literally told him "If you do, you are an imbecile. Stay here, roll your dice, enjoy the game, and eat the damn pizza before it gets cold".
About 20 years ago, I read an article on how to make cool player handouts such as maps, etc. Well, I decided to fashion an old map and after hand-drawing it, I aged it using tea/coffee and slightly charring portions of it over a hot electric burner.
Come game day, the PCs found the map so I put it out on the table to several oohs and aahs. So far, so good.
Then one of my best friends (we were in high school) asked how I did it, and as soon as I mentioned tea/coffee, he grabbed the thing and ate it. Yeeeaaah... >.>
Did you smack him? I don't normally advocate physical violence as a way to deal with difficult social situations, but this guy needed to be hit. Repeatedly. Then chased from the building while being pelted with dice.
As GM's we have to be ready game wise for anything our players might possibly even think of. But out of game or in relation to attendance and behavior, make some ground rules. For my games I'm told, I'm very lenient as a GM cause I'll allow the players to pretty much play what they want. Yes I do, but there is a price.
First of all we all started this to have fun, if any of your(individual players) actions impact on another players or my fun as the GM, you may be asked to leave.
Secondly, attendance, we all agreed to said place and time. You are expected to be there game ready and on time. I don't update you all on-line so that you can waste every one else's time while you level up or whatever. If your going to be late, Call Me. If your going to miss game, Call Me. An not 5 minutes before gametime. We us a 3 strike rule, if you don't show for game on any 3 occasions, with no notification you may be asked to leave the game. If your late so many times that it becomes an issue, you may be asked to leave.
Thirdly, YOU, you are responsible for you and only you. If you come to game you need to have all of your necessary items with you. I'm not your nursemaid, cook, or servant. I am the GM to our gaming session an as such a little respect for the time and effort but in to your entertainment would be appreciated by following the HouseRules that apply.
Or something like that, I'm not saying, be an ass. But that you have to be stern. Or they(the players) will walk all over you.
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We had a new guy show up this weekend at our house, didn't have a single thing with him. No books, paper, pens or pencils, no dice. NOTHING.....nothing but beer. He's more than welcome back.
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We had a guy do a similar thing. We invited him over, and he came not having anything to work with, and behaving like a jerk. He also ended up leaving early. So we all complained to a friend who asked us to invite him, and on the next session, he brought two pizzas, and a few six packs. Plus some dice and pen and paper. He was instantly forgiven. Pizza has miraculous emotional healing powers...
I just bought the Torn Asunder PDF.
I think all my angst as a DM will be relieved once I amputate one of my player's arms.
What i have gathered from this thread, is that players more or less are the spawn of darkness. And that gm's are benign and angelic beings, who constantly strive to make the game and the experience perfect, but players sre simply to dumb/lazy/selfish to understand that.
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What i have gathered from this thread, is that players more or less are the spawn of darkness. And that gm's are benign and angelic beings, who constantly strive to make the game and the experience perfect, but players sre simply to dumb/lazy/selfish to understand that.
Well, you can feel free to visit virtually any other threat on these forums, where it's automatically assumed that the GM is wrong.
I not sure if it fits here since you people have had far worse players than I have...
But there was this one guy I played with right after college. I will call him "Z" in case he is on here. To this day I wonder how he is going to make it through life. He had no sense of boundaries or timing. I mean he wasn't a bad guy, in fact he was VERY charismatic. I always saw him with a new girl on his arm each time. But he would show up to my game when he felt like showing up... anywhere from an hour early (He liked to watch me set up I guess) to an hour late (he was always busy with someone). He was lucky he was charming I guess or he would be pretty creepy. Sometimes he would show up at my place out of the blue and invite himself in... no game that day or anything. Just to talk.
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I not sure if it fits here since you people have had far worse players than I have...
But there was this one guy I played with right after college. I will call him "Z" in case he is on here. To this day I wonder how he is going to make it through life. He had no sense of boundaries or timing. I mean he wasn't a bad guy, in fact he was VERY charismatic. I always saw him with a new girl on his arm each time. But he would show up to my game when he felt like showing up... anywhere from an hour early (He liked to watch me set up I guess) to an hour late (he was always busy with someone). He was lucky he was charming I guess or he would be pretty creepy. Sometimes he would show up at my place out of the blue and invite himself in... no game that day or anything. Just to talk.
Ouch. That really sounds neither charming nor charismatic.
I'd completely forgotten about this thread for a while there. I feel kinda like I'm underappreciating your responses. So I'd like to say a great big hearty thanks to y'all. There's lots of great advice on here, and it emboldened me to continue this noble pursuit of dungeon mastery, when I was very much on the verge of packing it all in.
A quick update: The game is running very smoothly now! After I introduced three new players, two of which are former GMs, I found that the new players were actually encouraging the old ones to behave themselves. One of the new girls actually took me aside and told me that she was shocked at how rude some of them were. She used to play in Japan. I guess people are generally a little more polite over there and will, y'know, actually let you know if they're going to be more than two hours late.
Also. I've introduced a new rule at the game table.
NO PHONES.
I don't know why I never thought of cracking down on it before.
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Also. I've introduced a new rule at the game table.
NO PHONES.
I don't know why I never thought of cracking down on it before.
That's interesting....Let me share my story.
I play PFS at one or two local stores depending on when they are running and when I'm free, etc...
One player I had played with before GMed for us because there were 2 or 3 tables that night, big crowd.
I recieved a text message from my wife and my phone goes "beep beep" and the Player, now GM, snaps at me and tells me to turn it off. I ignored it and chuckled a bit as did everyone else.
15 minutes later I got a second text form my wife, and the GM does it again, to which I calmly explained that if his policy was that I divorce myself from my wife, family, job, elderly mother, brother and all the thousands of other reasons I might need to be contacted I would be happy to respect it by getting up and leaving the table and never playing a game he runs again to which he said fine, leave my phone on.
Hobbies are hobbies, real life is important. I will respect a policy of no phones by simply not playing with people who have that policy.
I do not sit at the table on my phone, I do not talk loudly on it at the table, nor do I play Angry Birds while others play PFS. In other words I behave like an adult, but because I am an adult the ARE reasons I need to be contacted and might actually have to leave a game, most of those reasons are unpleasant. On the few times I've had to actually take a call I stand up, excuse myself from the table and go to an area where my talking would not be disruptive.
ALSO a gaming table is not a lecture hall or a movie theatre. The GM is not holding court with words of wisdom. A minor beep beep is not destroying the game unless the GM or a player stops and makes a big deal out of it.
I understand why someone would create a blanket policy but personally I think I am a responsible cell phone user and and adult who doesn't like to be treated like a child so consider those types of policies carefully. I had to take someones dice once because they kept rapping them on the table. Should dice not be allowed at my table? Or should the person who was being annoying grow up?
Inanimate objects aren't the problem, the way they are used however can be.
Also. I've introduced a new rule at the game table.
NO PHONES.
I don't know why I never thought of cracking down on it before.
Pretty much what Lochmonster said above. I have several family members in very ill health, hospital bound, and that being the case, my phone stays ON and readily available.
But, I've had players who have used their handheld electronics irresponsibly, and the game suffered(ended, actually). I'd have one player who spent the entire session looking up cat meme pictures and texting people, while another player couldn't stop playing with his iPad. Seriously, right in front of me as I'm setting up encounters, giving npc dialogue and game info, sitting there(next to me) playing games.
I eventually ended the game, mostly due to obligations at home(new baby :) ). Recently my play time has opened up again, but I will not be returning to their table.
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Really, that should go without saying. There is a strict difference between someone occasionally glancing at his or her phone to check when he received a text, especially if he has reason to believe it might be important (--> relatives in hospital or something like this), and replying to every damn one of them. I never had this problem with RPGs, but with board- or cardgames. Really, if it's important, just excuse yourself and just CALL the person. 2 minutes of talking are usually cheaper than 20 Texts, and you can transfer much more information, too. There is absolutly no need to type under the table all the time saying "Well, it's not my turn anyway, so what!" - that's just rude.
It's not about phones at the table (although I tend to check my texts not at all while playing or just during pauses), it's about how the persons using them use them.
I agree with the No Phones policy. If somebody has a reason they need the phone, they can inform the GM, but for the most part, phones distract from the game for no good reason. If it rang more than once in fifteen minutes, I'd be annoyed, too. Kind of makes it hard to set the scene.
Luckily, my players aren't texters as they actually use their phone to access the PFSRD as we don't have any of the books.
Luckily, my players aren't texters as they actually use their phone to access the PFSRD as we don't have any of the books.
Yeah there's this too. Lots of players have their characters on their phones, iPads, PDAs etc or use a laptop/iPad/Kindle to run the adventure. Pass the laptop around to get your Faction quests happens quite a bit (toner costs $$).
I guess I'm lucky enough to play with people who actually want to play because none of the other issues with electronics have been a problem at the places I play which was another reason we all chuckled at the GM. One guy leaned in and asked me "Did he just ask you to turn off your phone?" sort of amazed the GM did it.
And BTW my phone goes "beep beep" ONCE when it gets a text, it doesn't ring. It's about as loud and long as if you just said BEEP BEEP at a conversational tone. More often than not no one even notices it over the table chatter, IMHO the Player/GM was power tripping that day.
Like I said. I "get it" why you would make a policy but I think it's never the phones fault if it's being used by a fool.
Similar situation.
I am technically always on call. I am pretty much required to have my phone on and with me if I'm not on vacation. However, i am rarely actually called by work. If I do get a call I step away from the table and take care of it as quickly as possible. This has happend a bout 3 times during games in the last year. Only once have I actually had to leave the game for work. I am reasonable and polite with respect to the phone.
On the other hand there is another guy at the table who has his ringer set load enough to hear at a hockey game. And constantly looks stuff up on the internet than has to be re-told the stuff he missed. Yes, that is annoying!