| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think every bad DM is bad for the same reasons. However, there are some who are bad because of the reasons in the OP: they are bullies who use the medium of RPGs to bully, stroke their own ego at the expense of the players, and want total control of the story to facilitate this so ignore rules on a whim/kill or injure by fiat, etc.
Right. There are SOME who are like that. Just like there are people in every vocation, hobby, whatever, who are bullies, who use the medium they inhabit to bully, stroke their own ego at the expense of others, and want control of whatever situation to facilitate this, and will therefore abuse whatever position they find themselves in.
Thus, disproving the OP's flame bait post. Because there simply are douchebags everywhere and for all occasions, just as there are people who don't mean to be, but come off as same, and people who weren't at all, but some other jerk just thought they were. In short (too late), all sorts of complicated people who are what they are and do what they do for all sorts of complicated reasons.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Although the world tries to frequently convince me otherwise (I find myself frequently thinking "you are a bad person" just reading posts on this message board), my religious belief that the seed of god exists in every person makes it hard for me to say with any real conviction that a given person, GMs included, may be, inherently, bad. There are some bad people, and there are a lot of potentially good people who disregard the best part of themselves and who, therefore, make some very poor, and often hurtful, decisions. This can of course include GMs. They can always improve--if they decide they want to.
"Bad GM" is too broad a trait, and I don't think, inherently, someone who has poor GMing skills is a bad person. We are in many cases talking about talent versus a capacity for ethics or morals. I have seen bad GMs become good GMs.... or at least better GMs than when they started. I'm fairly certain my first attempts at GMing were disastrous, and I still make a lot of mistakes (oh dear, looks like I'm human, dammit).
For the particular issues the OP brings up:
1)Have super DNPC save the day, and they are usually Mary Sue-Gary Stu
I've been guilty of the GMPC thing (long ago, thankfully), and most GMPCs stem not out of any cruelty or heartlessness, and more out of two things...
a) The GM is often a new GM, and misses being a player, so they want to still bring in their cool character concept and play it (and get overzealous about it)
b) The INTENT that the GMPC is there to fill in party role gaps and/or help carry the plot along.
The GM in his overenthusiasm makes the story about his character rather than about the players. A poor GM who is a good PERSON who gets the problems of the GMPC pointed out to him in a reasonable manner will figure out how to tone things back and make more productive use of his NPCs.
A GM who repeatedly just makes the campaign about his GMPCs is clearly just about telling the epic story they want to tell... they aren't a BAD person per se, either (that is, they are not intentionally trying to hurt other people emotionally or physically)... but they're being selfish, certainly. Saying, "Well, clearly you're here to just tell a story, not do something interactive, so you can go tell the story to yourself while we all go out to the movies," is called for then.
2)Who play favorites who party members, Holy Avenger for you, leather armor that is cursed for YOU!
GMs who truly are playing favorites do need to be called out on their BS. The biggest issue I've observed is the issue of a GM playing in a mixed group of good personal friends of his as well as relative strangers, and the GM naturally, perhaps without realizing it, gravitates toward being more fair and inclusive with his friends than with the newbies to the group, perhaps sometimes consulting with his buddies on campaign plans but leaving the newbs in the dark, for example. This can be an issue of awareness though -- making the GM realize that's what he's doing could help him realize he's being unfair. Sometimes you just think to ask your friends their advice and don't think to check in with the new person. A selfish GM may be caught out in this case, and then of course that's a sign to move on.
For the specific example of giving out treasure, that's SO circumstantial... if it's a matter that one party member seems to get all the good stuff and everyone else gets crap consistently for months of the campaign, then that's a favoritism issue. If it's simply that this storyline was a good opportunity to introduce the holy avenger, and the rogue will get his super backstabbing sword later, that's another matter. Issues of giving out treasure may also be dependent on what people have got... if the light armor wearer has got amazing stuff and then foolishly puts on the armor without id'ing it, that's kind of his fault, not the GMs, and likewise, if the paladin has been running around in the same suit of scale mail since level 1 and has little for gear, maybe the holy avenger is a nice boost. I've also seen GMs be tricky with treasure to teach the player a lesson... I don't know if it's the most mature way to handle things, but for example, I was in a game where the paladin player was in fact begging for a holy avenger nonstop, which was getting annoying to everyone.... so the GM gave him one... which was intelligent... and which had an EGO that could beat the paladin's fairly easily. It was a "be careful what you wish for" sort of thing. Again, I'm not sure there was a best solution there (that particular GM I think was a bit vindictive) but the issue was initially triggered by player behavior.
3) Railroad to hell (spells with no saves, prisons with no keys, diseases with no cure)
There ARE spells with no saves (such as magic missile). There ARE prisons with no keys (such as a maze spell). In fairness, there are fewer diseases with no cure, though some magical diseases are described as needing additional measures to cure than just the cure disease spell, and I could buy perhaps a hazard or curse which needs specific circumstances to overcome it. (Saying "you have an incurable disease and are going to die tomorrow" IS the GM being a bastard however, but it's not clear that's what's insinuated.)
Those things alone aren't necessarily signs of bad GMing. Nor are they really signs of railroading either (to me, railroading is "but you have to clear the dungeon, you can't go to the tavern!). If a GM chooses solely features of a game that are exceedingly frustrating to overcome, they could be designing their challenges unfairly. Or, perhaps they've got good reason to pick the problem that isn't easy to solve.
Nor is merely challenging the party a bad thing--that is, in fact, the GM's job. I'm not going to call BS because a GM used a spell that is listed as having no save or SR if they're using the spell as written and it makes sense for that spell to appear. I might call BS if the spell seems misplaced, overpowered, or is homebrewed without advance notice such things would be in the campaign.
-I'm going to go out on an extreme and suggest that these people aren't actually bad DM's, but rather they are, actually bad people. They are bullies, they are willfully ignorant, and they have no interest in being better, either as a DM or as human beings.
-Even more extreme I would argue this DM's are in fact playing the game for the sole reason to stroke their fragile ego, engage in dominating anti-social, and otherwise be "kick sand in people's faces".
-My solution is simple, to anybody who is playing with such a DM, No the problem isn't you. You are in an abusive relationship. Get out now, don't let the door hit you on the way out, just EXIT!
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you had a GM who behaved selfishly or cruelly, and I can only hope you took your own advice.
-Now my question is simple, do I go to far? Are Bad DM's simply incompetent, or is there a level of malevolence as I suggest? What do you think？
I think a lot of your specific examples don't necessarily indicate bad GMing. I think many of them can be used by GMs making mistakes who would be willing to correct those mistakes if someone talks to them about it civilly.
Certainly, there are GMs who are bullies and use GMing as a power trip, and yes, you should get away from those GMs, but not all bad GMing decisions are borne of willful sadism.
:(
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My DM is an awful person.
But is he or she a good GM? ;)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My friends Jibs is a great guy. Love him to death. Will probably never play in one of his games again. He's terrible at it.
Anthony is a very skilled GM. Experienced, been doing it for years. I despise him more than anyone I know because away from the table his behavior is atrocious.
So no.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Here is the thing about bad DMs. I too have wondered if killer DMs do it because they are mad at society. I would say that some DMs are that way. However, not all killer DMs are mad at society, some just like challenges. Some DMs penalize you if you get a 20, that is a horrible DM. Me and my friend watched a DM called Neil on youtube. Girl rolled a 20 and her magical returning dagger stuck far into the gelantious cube. The dagger returns to her and it melts off her glove. I call BS, my friend calls BS, it should be it chops a piece of the cube off and goes past it.
Some DMs are killer DMs not because they are mad at society, but because they want to rush through the game or in a hurry to power level the characters. Hmm, if I have a bunch of level 5 players go up against a mountain troll, that will be 38000 experience divided by number of players, I think I'll put a monster there and if I keep this up, they will be level 20 in 3 months, not realizing how dangerous he made the situation.
Some DMs are killer DMs just because they like a challenge, they don't penalize you for rolling a 20, but they have many monsters and tough monsters. Think of these DMs as people who always play video games on the hardest possible level at some point. Even then they say it isn't hard enough.