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This is what the Gamemaster "Should not do" to avoid having a lame campaign.
1. Rail-Roading: Otherwise known as ‘forcing you into the adventure’. Rail-roading can occur whenever the GM has a plan for something to happen, you try to avoid it, and he shows you who’s boss. Classically, this begins at the start of the adventure when the players can’t decide how they all met, continues on to why they have to go in some random dungeon, and ends with an arbitrarily forced ‘hook’ for next adventure.
2. Disregard of ‘Unimportant’ Rules: Sometimes the GM will get so wrapped up in the ‘story’ that some ‘rules’ may seem trivial in comparison. Often, the GM won’t realize he’s being slightly unfair by letting a bartender auto-hit a 17th level fighter and knock him out without rolling for initiative.
3. A Sense of Balance: Well-meaning GMs sometimes try to enforce their own version of ‘balance’ on a game. This often includes detailed lists of which books are allowed, where your character can live with his 20 page background, and the fact that a 35 intimidation roll will only make peasants ‘slightly concerned’ because of ‘realism’.
4. Taking Things too Seriously: Often, and quite logically, GMs will think they’re making The-Best-Ever-Game-in-the-Universe. They will believe that they’re basically John Grisham and anything they invent is pure brilliance and can’t be messed with. If anyone dares to imply that their game world might not be perfect, or *gasp* comes up with their own cool ideas; these GMs will not hesitate to squash out their ideas like so many bugs on a trucking highway.
This kind of game will usually generate a very self-satisfied GM with very quiet players. The successful players will soon learn that flattery and ‘getting into’ the world will yield them the best results. The GM will be encouraged by this into the deluded belief that his players actually think he’s John Grisham.
5. Lack of Rules: At the opposite end of the spectrum, some GMs believe rules are for sissies. They will often come up with convoluted or downright insane random tables and bizarre creations of their own design. If it were up to them, the extent of the rules would consist of 250 pages of GM Advice which ranks somewhere below ‘optional’. Success in such games often depends on convincing the GM your ‘rule’ is a good idea. Once the GM figures something makes sense, he’ll likely make it into a new house-rule and you can do whatever you like until you run into some whacky 50 HD blob thing which wants to kill you for unknown reasons.
6. Poorly Thought-Out Adventures: There are few things more annoying to a player than a GM who doesn’t really know his stuff. Maybe he wrote some notes, but forgot them; maybe he wrote his notes last week, and can’t understand them anymore; or maybe he didn’t write any notes whatsoever, and is just making stuff up. These are the kinds of adventures that make the bravest players groan in frustration.
For example: when the GM creates an impenetrable wall of fire just to buy time to think up the adventure, and then throws a 60th level orc archer at the party to ‘keep them busy’.
7. GMs as Players: Once in a blue moon, a long-time GM will get the hankering to be a player for a while. A great player will, no doubt, jump at the chance to GM for a while…and soon regret it. Some GMs have just been at it too long to know when to stop. When they game as a player they tend to control the adventure, make up NPC appearances, offer helpful plot advice, and arbitrarily rewrite character creation rules without telling you. Since the primary GM is often the one with the real power, telling them ‘no’ can be catastrophic for your future characters.
GMs are also used to prattling on at all times. If they aren’t describing what their characters are doing for at least 50% of the game session, they end up feeling deprived and stifled.
8. Forgetting to say ‘Yes’: Often, one of the best things a GM can do is to say ‘yes’ to the players’ ideas. Some GMs forget this concept completely and figure they’re in charge of the game. Whenever a player comes up with a cool idea, action, or plan the GM will just say, “No, you can’t do that.”
10. Never Admitting they’re Wrong: Some GMs must always be right. It’s in the rules. If there’s a problem, it’s obviously the result of the players’ poor reasoning abilities or lack of character powers. Obviously, the system or the GM is never at fault for anything.
11. Being a Pushover: Some GMs kill off their players’ characters like no tomorrow (and occasionally for no good reason). Far more likely these days are the GMs who will pander to the might of the players and the game designers. If there’s an argument, this GM loses. If there’s a rules interpretation, the players’ votes always stand. If any player’s character happens to die *shudder*, he’ll be resurrected with no drawbacks in about 12 seconds.
These GMs will hand out magic items for the asking, treasure for the taking, and allow their players to pretty much control them in every way.
12. Ignoring the Action: GMs love to create cool stories and role-play. They’ll sometimes create elaborate and highly annoying NPCs. Some of these NPCs seem to have a hidden spell called ‘immune to everything’ which never allows them to die or suffer any ill-effect.
Sometimes, the GM will ignore the action of the adventure in exchange for mucking around and wandering about the city for the best version of iron rations. Trying to find a fight in these games would not only take forever, it would be nearly impossible.
13. Non-Combat, What’s That?: On the flip side of things, some GMs seem to be under the impression that RPGs are simply a glorified version of tabletop miniatures warfare with less pieces. The game starts with the first battle and ends with…well, it doesn’t really end; there are just more battles.
14. Weird, Cheating Dice: The rules actually encourage GMs to cheat the dice.
Also highly annoying are the times when you roll a 1 and receive obviously false information, or roll a 20 and still fail for some reason.
15. Overdeveloped sense of Fairness: Sometimes a good GM will feel it’s his duty to make his players equal. This will often result in magic items being taken away because they’re unbalanced, or other well-meaning but highly irritating feats of GM improvisation.
16. Lack of Rewards: After fighting for 15 hours, you get no treasure.
17. Outlawing Dice Towers: The GM outlaws dice towers as ‘not helpful’ to the game.
18. In-game Chat: For some reason, the GM comes up with a crazy rule to enforce whether you said something in-game or out of game.
19. Disappearing Treasure Hoard Trick: After defeating an ancient red dragon it often turns out his ‘hoard’ is 100 gp. Other times, whenever the group comes to a large, seemingly unguarded pile of treasure they just ignore it. It’ll obviously disappear or be trapped in some diabolical way.
20. Goblins Only Carry Copper: Apparently, this is quite annoying to one of my players. Edit: *consulted with player in question* "Because goblins are really tough to kill, usually. Then they only have little bits of copper and not loads of gold."
21. Thieves steal all of your Treasure: ‘Nuff said.
22. Cursed Magic Items: Hey, I thought all magic items were beneficial?
23. Poor Descriptions: You can’t really fault them for this. Player: “I know there’s a trap here, can you describe the area?” GM: “You see a door.” Player: “I check it for traps.” GM: “Where?” Player: “On the Handle.” GM: “You fall in the obvious pit trap before the door.”
23 1/2. GM's Pet NPC: You know the guy. That random fighter the GM created he thinks is so cool that he gives him 'role-playing' bonuses to attack. The wizard who solves all the party's problems and hogs the show in battles. The NPC Thief who says, "Hey, guys, I think there's a trap over here..." etc.
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I have to admit the few dice towers I have come across have been annoying as all hell. CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK
Thankfully nobody in my home games use them. Only time I come across them is PFS and I dont make many of those sessions anymore. If they make them so they are not nails on chalk board noisy I wont have a problem. However, if its one of those cheap plastic numbers than count me super lame.
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22. Cursed Magic Items: Hey, I thought all magic items were beneficial?
What's wrong with this one? =P
Letting a player have a free cursed item - the power of the curse based on the power of the item, and often as much for laughs as for balance's sake - is one of my favorite house rules.
My response would be "You thought wrong =)" Cursed items are a tradition in the game, and there's perfectly legitimate reasons for them to be there.
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Why do players get to be so demanding of the GM? Several of your flaws are pretty nit picky given that the GM already has vastly more responsibility and work to do than you as a player. Where is your manifesto for players? Is it as long and demanding for them? I doubt it.
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22. Cursed Magic Items: Hey, I thought all magic items were beneficial?
I once dropped a +1 frost short sword on a fighter that used short swords. He treated the poor thing as cursed because I provided phrases for the frost activation and de-activation. ("Feel the sting of bitter cold!" and "A warm wind blows and winter passes.") I think I heard him say the activation phrase once, and I never heard the de-activation phrase.
I ran an adventure once with a suicidal NPC that joined the party. He was written to run into battle and die. He was written that way. They kept saving him, then complaining that he was suicidal. (He eventually ran into battle and died.)
You should post more of these. I like to read them and think "am I that guy?"
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Too many laws with too wishy washy a message.
Rather than argue against a story GM in one law and the combat GM in the next? Just combine the pairs and that would lower the law count by close to half while building a stronger message if only because it would force you to take a stand on what you really want.
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Just want to talk about these 3 real quick
2. Disregard of ‘Unimportant’ Rules: Sometimes the GM will get so wrapped up in the ‘story’ that some ‘rules’ may seem trivial in comparison. Often, the GM won’t realize he’s being slightly unfair by letting a bartender auto-hit a 17th level fighter and knock him out without rolling for initiative.
I think this is really the most dangerous rule and really the core problem that creates the other 3 as not only are you getting rid of these rules but quite often not informing your players of such until it's too late to make changes. On it's own though removing or adding rules isn't a bad thing so long as you inform your players ahead of time so everyone can discuss it and plan accordingly. The only other way that can work is that it is for a very short amount of time and for a very good reason i.e. that bartender is the malicious fiend dragon running the show and is doing it to test you. To use the latter here the perspective needs to stay in place that this guy is special just like the party who is full of daring adventurers willing to do crazy things for profit and what not and it has made them powerful.
3. A Sense of Balance: Well-meaning GMs sometimes try to enforce their own version of ‘balance’ on a game. This often includes detailed lists of which books are allowed, where your character can live with his 20 page background, and the fact that a 35 intimidation roll will only make peasants ‘slightly concerned’ because of ‘realism’.
This again can be something that's ok but only in a few circumstances both of which involve an incredibly well informed group of players and gm's on the world. This works if you are playing in some long running or very well written out world like golarion so that all players have access to whatever information you would need to create those players. The other option is that all players and the GM have had a hand in building that world allowing them to know what's what because they helped mold it.
5. Lack of Rules: At the opposite end of the spectrum, some GMs believe rules are for sissies. They will often come up with convoluted or downright insane random tables and bizarre creations of their own design. If it were up to them, the extent of the rules would consist of 250 pages of GM Advice which ranks somewhere below ‘optional’. Success in such games often depends on convincing the GM your ‘rule’ is a good idea. Once the GM figures something makes sense, he’ll likely make it into a new house-rule and you can do whatever you like until you run into some whacky 50 HD blob thing which wants to kill you for unknown reasons.
This one I usually don't mind as much but then again it's because of the group of people I play with, how I GM, informing my players, and everyone getting behind it. A good example from my own is rp vs. skill rolls, in my game I will usually ask a player to at least summarize what their character is doing to try to convince the guy they are talking to do what they want. Thing is though if they actually go in depth and really play this out and I'm in the proper mind to inhabit that character they can easily win the check without ever actually rolling a die for it. This works with my group though because a lot of my players love to rp and play out those conversations and I know (and have gm'd) plenty of gamers who are would much rather make the check and move on and if I have one I should know to accommodate that.
I think the real moral of all of this is to know who your players are as players, what they want to do as characters, you inform them of what you want to do as a gm with this particular game, and they get to know you and how you take in and process things.
Oh hey, I get to pick my past DM's offenses from this list.
That guy's refused to talk to me after the group broke up, so he might be holding some twisted grudge on me.
So, now then. He definitely fits the bill on 3, 8, 10, 14, 16 and 18. He also showed signs of 23, but the biggest offense of his was (and probably still is) number 10, since it was never his fault things went haywire apparently. Either someone else was to blame for it, or then a rule was crap and needed changing, though one of the main rule changes was done without the party's consent and was actually worse than the rules in the CRB.
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17. So utterly pathetic, a GM that is absolutely stunningly perfect in all other areas, who gets it into his head to outlaw dice towers. Yeah, I know. Nothing for it but to break it up and never play with the guy again...
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On the subject of 18.
GM: You enter the Royal throne room to meet with King Bumble VIII
Player: S'up you fat idiot?
GM (as king): WHAT!?! Guards arrest that man!
Player: Whoa there Tex. That was out of character.
GM: *Grumble* OK fine. "Hail and well met heroes, tidings of your great deeds have gladdened my heart!"
Player: If you're worried about your heart maybe you should cut down on the snacks, fatty.
GM: WHAT!?! I...
Player: OOC dude, lol!
I've seen that happen. Sometimes a GM has to enforce OOC stuff.
Hey, wait a minute! Did number 9 roll a crit in stealth or is it disquised as number 23 1/2?
OT: I have seen one of my GMs do 3(rolling 20 on a skill roll wasn't an automatic success), 8, 10, 16(but it was publised adventure path, so I can't really say).
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Why do players get to be so demanding of the GM? Several of your flaws are pretty nit picky given that the GM already has vastly more responsibility and work to do than you as a player. Where is your manifesto for players? Is it as long and demanding for them? I doubt it.
Remember where you are posting BiggDawg. This is player entitlement la-la-land.
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Op may want to actually run the game for a few years next time before he drops these offal offerings as sound advice to (novice) DMs. While some of these points may be valid, the poor, disjointed and often contradictory presentation makes him just sound bitter and uninformed. Ex: 20) Complaining about goblin loot options which amounts to complaining about the color of the sky.
If you are wondering why goblins are only carrying crap loot then you do not understand:
-Encounter/Reward paradigm
-Overall Game Design and level appropriate challenge expectations
-Basics of RPGs
-that Goblins are garbage
not getting any of that is a red flag that we are dealing with a bad DM or player.
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3 is actually multiple things presented as one.
This often includes detailed lists of which books are allowed,
This is normal. The GM determines the scale and width of the world. He has absolutely no obligation to introduce every damn thing that was written for the system he is GMing.
where your character can live with his 20 page background,
You came to play at his setting. You don't like the setting? Ask for another game and try to find a setting you both would like but don't expect the GM to gm setting he dislikes. If you have the right to not play in setting you dislike, the GM has equal right to not gm the one he dislikes.
and the fact that a 35 intimidation roll will only make peasants ‘slightly concerned’ because of ‘realism’.
This has nothing to do with two first parts. It's just that GM in example does not the rules and does not know what difficulty of 35 means in case of skill checks.
18 is often requested by players themselves. I have asked for this as a player far more times than GM.
Some of the rest are perfectly valid points about obvious GM errors but I see a lot of whining here as well. Seriously, expecting goblins to have something more valuable than copper?
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2. Disregard of ‘Unimportant’ Rules: Sometimes the GM will get so wrapped up in the ‘story’ that some ‘rules’ may seem trivial in comparison. Often, the GM won’t realize he’s being slightly unfair by letting a bartender auto-hit a 17th level fighter and knock him out without rolling for initiative.
...
I'm down with this for the most part, but I also think I've been justifiably guilty of this on a case by case basis. If an elite, "badass", combat vet I know with black belts in Jujitsu and Aikido can get cold cocked by a fat guy in an Atlanta bar, then your 17th level fighter can get laid out. Granted alcohol was involved, but that could parallel in-game if said fighter is deep in his cups.
Dice towers? you mean those automatic electronic dice roller thingies?
I think they mean these things:
Dice Plinko, woo.