So, many of us have had bad GMs or GMs make bad calls. Some of use more so than others.
So, I am curious to hear everyone else's stories. If you have a story of a nightmare GM, please share for all to laugh, squirm, and learn from the mistakes of our brethern GMs!
So for my horror story...
My GM was running a homebrew game with me and 4 of my buddies. We were all level 10 and I was playing a Zen Archer monk. Well we happen to see a fire a bit of distance away. When he head over there we run into a NPC we had run into earlier. All we knew was that he was a arcane caster of some sort. Well he was running towards it also. When we got there, the GM told us that we saw a Bearded Devil there. Well Mr. caster guy goes and Casts Form of the Dragon II. Well, we were all "Ok! We are just gonna step back and let the caster do his thing"
Well, apparently, the GM just laughed and was all "OK, well the "bearded devil" takes out the caster, then teleports infront of you. *attack* is your AC less than 40? Ok, hit. He deals.... 84 damage! Oh and this is just his first attack" Needless to say, I died...
When I was all WTF? He just laughed and went "well it is common sense to try and avoid the devil!" when OUR OWN FREAKING WIZARD can summon them...
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I had a GM who would make houserules on the fly. This was bad on its own, but even in campaigns where we'd agreed from the beginning that we'd keep it RAW and only lay down houserules and changes at the start of the campaign, he'd still suddenly house-rule on the fly.
I manned up and talked to him about it and he was pretty defensive about his way of running the game, but I think I reached him. Nevertheless, until recently I played in a campaign of his that had seen death-rattle effects from enemies, where they'd basically do combat maneuvers on us for the sake of 'narrative combat'. Nobody lost a character to it, but it rubbed 3 of the players the wrong way.
I was at a con once, where, after a very bad 6 hour gameblock, the gamemaster sat us down and told us how amazing and deep the plot was, and how it was an expression of story and the elements needed to tell a story. I almost threw up it felt -that- self absorbed.
Once I had the bad fortune of playing a high-end game where the story did not evolve from the low-level game, only the stakes got progressively higher and higher. We were playing Dark Heresy, and to start with the plot was okay, the missions were a bit...weird, but ultimately it felt like we were agents of an inquisitor, investigating nastiness in the name of the emperor. But as the campaign progressed and we got more and more powerful, more and more influential and had more and more strings to pull, the general setup of the plot never changed. The only thing that would change would be the stats of the enemies and what was on the line. We even made it to Dark Heresy: Ascension, where you play inquisitors or people of similar influence in the Imperium, and instead of playing The Shadow War, where we'd use the built-in influence system of Ascension to play a dangerous political game, we'd just default to the old cowboy-kick-in-the-door and dungeoncrawl for the emperor-style play. It was really boring, and really bland. The lesson being that unless you know what you're doing, the plot needs to evolve as the characters progress. Killing rats in the basement is not gonna cut it at level 16, unless you're making a playful homage to earlier levels.
Sometimes I read around on these boards and I see players talk about bad guys who magically get away, with no explanation or for any other reason than the GM denying you what appears to be a victory against this person. Had something similar happen with a GM of mine once, when I was playing Rogue Trader. My GM, who is a really talented and awesome GM, did this thing out of nowhere, and I could not understand why. Basically our gunner shot a Dark Eldar vessel to splinters, a hit that by all rights would have utterly crushed the vessel, several times over, but it just magically didn't get destroyed. Then, as if the fact that the vessel remained was not fiat enough, it magically retained enough structural integrity to escape us. It only happened that one time, ever since then it was just smooth sailing and awesome GM'ing, once again. But that one incident haunts me.
I once used Greater Planar Binding to try to call an Elder Water Elemental. I can only assume that my GM was pissing his pants scared of letting me start using calling magic, or had something against those types of spells, because instead of the water elemental, I somehow managed to call a Solar, who promtly broke my binding and threatened me of what would happen if I tried that again.
Same GM had a habit of always launching predictable and boring night-raid encounters on us, so when I got access to the magnificent mansion spell, I started using it EVERY day, to save us from the boring routine. Apparently attacking us at that moment during the day was so essential that eventually 'something' turned out wrong with my MM spell, and when we entered there were demons inside. I tried over and over to fix this issue in-character, but never again did I happen upon a scroll of that spell, that I could transcribe in place of my, obviously faulty, MM spell. It was pretty lame.
-Nearyn
So for my horror story...
My GM was running a homebrew game with me and 4 of my buddies. We were all level 10 and I was playing a Zen Archer monk. Well we happen to see a fire a bit of distance away. When he head over there we run into a NPC we had run into earlier. All we knew was that he was a arcane caster of some sort. Well he was running towards it also. When we got there, the GM told us that we saw a Bearded Devil there. Well Mr. caster guy goes and Casts Form of the Dragon II. Well, we were all "Ok! We are just gonna step back and let the caster do his thing"
Well, apparently, the GM just laughed and was all "OK, well the "bearded devil" takes out the caster, then teleports infront of you. *attack* is your AC less than 40? Ok, hit. He deals.... 84 damage! Oh and this is just his first attack" Needless to say, I died...
When I was all WTF? He just laughed and went "well it is common sense to try and avoid the devil!" when OUR OWN FREAKING WIZARD can summon them...
I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this one.
1. The DM randomly decided your party could spot something in the distance that you should have intuitively known to avoid? What was the point?2. The DM told you it was a bearded devil, something you, at this level, should have a good chance of identifying, only it wasn't a bearded devil it was some high power something or other?
3. The devil thing got to kill the high level wizard who was in the form of a dragon as, what, a free action?
As for my DM story...
Part of his plot required one of us to acquire a cursed ring that was linked to the spirit of a dead King. It's special effect was that the wearer would have horrible nightmares and would be fatigued pretty much indefinitely. The first time we played the campaign he basically had an old crone jewelry seller NPC jam it onto one of our tiefling's horns in the most egregious railroading fashion ever. We had to restart with new characters for one reason or another, and this time it made its way into our rogue's possession among a bundle of other rings.
Unfortunately this meant our rogue was constantly fatigued and could basically do nothing in combat or out for the first three levels. She did not enjoy the experience one bit, and almost quit when she got jumped by a couple zombies she couldn't hit or appreciably damage and got knocked unconscious only to be rescued by a random elf patrol.
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Stories of my bad GM and others are on this thread.
This thread got kinda derailed by talking about critical fumble rules (that's what my second post is about) but there are still some awful ones in there.
So this thread is redundant to another recent thread. Can we ask a mod to merge them?
Well technically the difference between the threads would be that this one is in a Pathfinder section and the other is in the Gamer Talk section and can therefore be about any game. In fact, one of the most commented on stories was about power armor in one the Warhammer games I think.
Also that was specifically about a ruling. Many, including myself, preferred to tell it as a story to provide context.
I didn't see the other one when making this thread because I am kinda underway, so internet is spotty at best :P
You're a cat. Shouldn't you be used to spots?
True xD
Hey! I found Zeref!!! OH GOD!! WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
Tell your GM that you will not make new characters if this one dies, any of you. Tell him you give it a month.
Then start mistreating his setting.
Burn villages, slaughter NPCs, force people to go along with financial schemes that give you a massive income. Use this income to build each PC a massive castle. Declare war against everyone else. Start riding dragons. Dig out overpowered spell combos. Read creatively to maximize your advantage. Cheat outright. Polymorph the immortal giants to toads and put them in jars where they get no food and would starve if they hadn't been immortal. Every DM call you hear him make, discuss for at least an hour about obscure rules in the books, making it personal. Ask others if his rulings were okay, then come back to him and tell him he is wrong. Whine if he hits you with anything you just don't like. Start intraparty backstabbing and conflict about it an entire session. Make sure to make a determined effort to make the GM let you get various uber templates. And so on. Just don't let the GM hurt your character too badly. If it happens, either have the others rescue you or commit suicide. And do not make another character.
Then, one month later, a few sessions into Players Wreck The Setting, ask him if this is what he really wants. Of course, you could tell him what he is doing is no fun without wrecking things too...
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Tell your GM that you will not make new characters if this one dies, any of you. Tell him you give it a month.
Then start mistreating his setting.
Burn villages, slaughter NPCs, force people to go along with financial schemes that give you a massive income. Use this income to build each PC a massive castle. Declare war against everyone else. Start riding dragons. Dig out overpowered spell combos. Read creatively to maximize your advantage. Cheat outright. Polymorph the immortal giants to toads and put them in jars where they get no food and would starve if they hadn't been immortal. Every DM call you hear him make, discuss for at least an hour about obscure rules in the books, making it personal. Ask others if his rulings were okay, then come back to him and tell him he is wrong. Whine if he hits you with anything you just don't like. Start intraparty backstabbing and conflict about it an entire session. Make sure to make a determined effort to make the GM let you get various uber templates. And so on. Just don't let the GM hurt your character too badly. If it happens, either have the others rescue you or commit suicide. And do not make another character.
Then, one month later, a few sessions into Players Wreck The Setting, ask him if this is what he really wants. Of course, you could tell him what he is doing is no fun without wrecking things too...
Or you could do the actual mature thing and either talk to the GM about your concerns, volunteer to GM the game yourself, or let him know that his style of GMing doesn't match yours, and politely bow out.
You're a cat. Shouldn't you be used to spots?Now that's just rude to all the striped cats.
Calm down, tiger. I said used to spots, not having them.
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Or you could do the actual mature thing and either talk to the GM about your concerns, volunteer to GM the game yourself, or let him know that his style of GMing doesn't match yours, and politely bow out.Tell your GM that you will not make new characters if this one dies, any of you. Tell him you give it a month.
Then start mistreating his setting.
Burn villages, slaughter NPCs, force people to go along with financial schemes that give you a massive income. Use this income to build each PC a massive castle. Declare war against everyone else. Start riding dragons. Dig out overpowered spell combos. Read creatively to maximize your advantage. Cheat outright. Polymorph the immortal giants to toads and put them in jars where they get no food and would starve if they hadn't been immortal. Every DM call you hear him make, discuss for at least an hour about obscure rules in the books, making it personal. Ask others if his rulings were okay, then come back to him and tell him he is wrong. Whine if he hits you with anything you just don't like. Start intraparty backstabbing and conflict about it an entire session. Make sure to make a determined effort to make the GM let you get various uber templates. And so on. Just don't let the GM hurt your character too badly. If it happens, either have the others rescue you or commit suicide. And do not make another character.
Then, one month later, a few sessions into Players Wreck The Setting, ask him if this is what he really wants. Of course, you could tell him what he is doing is no fun without wrecking things too...
I agree completely. If the players just escalate things everyone is going to be frustrated, and when this happens the group will fall apart.
I have a GM who chided one player for taking a minion he deemed too weak, he killed it offscreen. He then got angry that the paladin's steed was "ridiculously op" and announced that it "mysteriously disappeared". The towns are protected by immortal giants who can kill anything, so we can commit no crime or violence in town. And he asked us to write backstories, which he then complained "don't make sense for his plot" so he said our characters very personalities were unjustifiable.
Also, we're level 6, and the party has collected a total of 500 gold in about 10 sessions. He says he doesn't care how much gold we're supposed to have because he can "wing it". My favorite part, we are attacked by gnolls in a dungeon. They are barricaded behind dead bodies, and shooting crossbows at us. I cast vanish, sneak into the room, and hit them with fire breath. I roll some 6's, the gnolls are dead, all 4 of them. Good riddance I say, huzzah! Now he's laughing saying it was a quest to save the innocent (armed) gnoll children who attacked us, and we're chaotic evil for slaughtering innocent people.
We were 'supposed' to charge them, at which point they would drop their arms and announce that they simply thought we were monsters, and we should help them. We are punished for breaking the dm's disastrous quest hook. DM is literally laughing at how 'evil' and 'stupid' the party is. He tells us the next session will be us 'hiding the evidence' or else the big bad GM PC demigod will come and send us to the dungeon.
So, let me get this straight: You're evil because you killed a bunch of Gnolls, who're well known for being chaotic evil more often than not, who were shooting at you?
Isn't that metagaming? I mean, how would your characters know that you were supposed to save the people who were attacking you? You have no reason to suspect this.
Also, while stupid is definitely in this equation I'm not seeing it on the party's side.
Mysteriously disappearing a PC's class feature is not cool. Ever. If it is genuinely OP then take the player aside and talk to them about the issue.
Being undergeared sucks. Sucks badly. OTOH you're up 4 heavy crossbows which should help a bit...
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Or you could do the actual mature thing and either talk to the GM about your concerns, volunteer to GM the game yourself, or let him know that his style of GMing doesn't match yours, and politely bow out.Tell your GM that you will not make new characters if this one dies, any of you. Tell him you give it a month.
Then start mistreating his setting.
Burn villages, slaughter NPCs, force people to go along with financial schemes that give you a massive income. Use this income to build each PC a massive castle. Declare war against everyone else. Start riding dragons. Dig out overpowered spell combos. Read creatively to maximize your advantage. Cheat outright. Polymorph the immortal giants to toads and put them in jars where they get no food and would starve if they hadn't been immortal. Every DM call you hear him make, discuss for at least an hour about obscure rules in the books, making it personal. Ask others if his rulings were okay, then come back to him and tell him he is wrong. Whine if he hits you with anything you just don't like. Start intraparty backstabbing and conflict about it an entire session. Make sure to make a determined effort to make the GM let you get various uber templates. And so on. Just don't let the GM hurt your character too badly. If it happens, either have the others rescue you or commit suicide. And do not make another character.
Then, one month later, a few sessions into Players Wreck The Setting, ask him if this is what he really wants. Of course, you could tell him what he is doing is no fun without wrecking things too...
I gather you did read the last sentence I wrote, right?
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I agree completely. If the players just escalate things everyone is going to be frustrated, and when this happens the group will fall apart.
You say this as if it is necessarily a bad thing.
I agree completely. If the players just escalate things everyone is going to be frustrated, and when this happens the group will fall apart.Or you could do the actual mature thing and either talk to the GM about your concerns, volunteer to GM the game yourself, or let him know that his style of GMing doesn't match yours, and politely bow out.Tell your GM that you will not make new characters if this one dies, any of you. Tell him you give it a month.
Then start mistreating his setting.
Burn villages, slaughter NPCs, force people to go along with financial schemes that give you a massive income. Use this income to build each PC a massive castle. Declare war against everyone else. Start riding dragons. Dig out overpowered spell combos. Read creatively to maximize your advantage. Cheat outright. Polymorph the immortal giants to toads and put them in jars where they get no food and would starve if they hadn't been immortal. Every DM call you hear him make, discuss for at least an hour about obscure rules in the books, making it personal. Ask others if his rulings were okay, then come back to him and tell him he is wrong. Whine if he hits you with anything you just don't like. Start intraparty backstabbing and conflict about it an entire session. Make sure to make a determined effort to make the GM let you get various uber templates. And so on. Just don't let the GM hurt your character too badly. If it happens, either have the others rescue you or commit suicide. And do not make another character.
Then, one month later, a few sessions into Players Wreck The Setting, ask him if this is what he really wants. Of course, you could tell him what he is doing is no fun without wrecking things too...
Sometimes, you have to escalate. One thing I've learned over the years is that there is a time to be a nice guy, and a time to be the worst troll ever imagined. I won't say I am a good person, but I will say no one has ever faulted me for those times I've decided to ruin a GM's campaign.
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Sometimes, you have to escalate. One thing I've learned over the years is that there is a time to be a nice guy, and a time to be the worst troll ever imagined. I won't say I am a good person, but I will say no one has ever...I agree completely. If the players just escalate things everyone is going to be frustrated, and when this happens the group will fall apart.Or you could do the actual mature thing and either talk to the GM about your concerns, volunteer to GM the game yourself, or let him know that his style of GMing doesn't match yours, and politely bow out.Tell your GM that you will not make new characters if this one dies, any of you. Tell him you give it a month.
Then start mistreating his setting.
Burn villages, slaughter NPCs, force people to go along with financial schemes that give you a massive income. Use this income to build each PC a massive castle. Declare war against everyone else. Start riding dragons. Dig out overpowered spell combos. Read creatively to maximize your advantage. Cheat outright. Polymorph the immortal giants to toads and put them in jars where they get no food and would starve if they hadn't been immortal. Every DM call you hear him make, discuss for at least an hour about obscure rules in the books, making it personal. Ask others if his rulings were okay, then come back to him and tell him he is wrong. Whine if he hits you with anything you just don't like. Start intraparty backstabbing and conflict about it an entire session. Make sure to make a determined effort to make the GM let you get various uber templates. And so on. Just don't let the GM hurt your character too badly. If it happens, either have the others rescue you or commit suicide. And do not make another character.
Then, one month later, a few sessions into Players Wreck The Setting, ask him if this is what he really wants. Of course, you could tell him what he is doing is no fun without wrecking things too...
Nope...If you are an adult playing a completely optional game for fun, There is no point to escalating. You are not required to be there, and there are plenty of other games out there. Trolling accomplishes nothing but pissing people off and causing extra stress to all involved.
I direct you to my post here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r60c&page=7?What-are-some-of-the-worst-rul ings-youve-had#327
I still rave about that guy...
And had a game last night with a newbie GM who wants to be a PFS GM.
His first comment upon seeing me? "Oh holy mother of god! What hideous torture happened to your face?!"
Free tip for GMs everywhere: Don't go into someone's house, insult them to their face, and then expect things to go smoothly. It's even less of a good idea when they have friends present who will stick up for them.
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Nope...If you are an adult playing a completely optional game for fun, There is no point to escalating. You are not required to be there, and there are plenty of other games out there. Trolling accomplishes nothing but pissing people off and causing extra stress to all involved.
And if you're a real adult, you understand there are times when leaving is the wrong answer and escalation is the correct option. And that your answer is pure fantasy.
Take my previous post. Do you honestly think I should have left my own house? Do you honestly think I should have left my residence just because I was no longer willing to play nice with a GM who actually insulted me to my face?
In this case, yes, I was perfectly justified to be a jerk... because he came into my residence and insulted me to my face. At that moment, telling him to get out and calling the cops on him if he didn't leave was justified. It is still escalation, and still an act of the worst trolling you can pull on a member of the group... but there was no way I was going to simply allow that level of disrespect.
And there was no way any other member of the group was going to allow it either. So no matter what, this guy was not getting the nice, friendly game he came for.
You do realize that he was probably trying to be sympathetic, don't you?
It pretty much went horrified expression at appearance > Everyone glaring at him > Cheerful attempt at getting the group to start the campaign, with joke about me having a charisma penalty.
So I'm pretty certain sympathy wasn't in the cards.
That said, it's not polite to bring up anyway.
When is asking a person to leave considered trolling? I was referring to Sissyl's post, where I neglected to read the last sentence.
Trolling is spending an entire session purposely trying to piss of someone through game play and related behavior.
When is asking a person to leave considered trolling? I was referring to Sissyl's post, where I neglected to read the last sentence.
Trolling is spending an entire session purposely trying to piss of someone through game play and related behavior.
It's not just the asking them to leave; it's inviting them over to your house, telling them they're a welcome guest, making it clear the visit is friendly, and then telling them to get out and threatening them with imprisonment or potential injury/death after they arrive. That tends to be considered trolling because it often has the same effects.
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I don't know - maybe I'm getting older. When I read the title I thought I should share terrible things I'VE done as a GM.
Sure, I've had bad GMs. I had a guy who buried my PC alive since I couldn't make a session; the same character was supposed to have unique and flavorful homebrewed spells based on barriers and getting through them. Said spells never worked or enemies constantly knew how to avoid them/beat the saves. Finally I threw in the towel and quit. My PC became the BBEG's vampire henchman and suddenly BAM! All my spells worked.
I've also had GMs who
- committed an apocalypse because in the final fight I missed a 50/50 saving throw
- blatantly kept adding ever-increasingly stronger Draconians to a scene I wasn't supposed to "win"
- Made a single minotaur nearly unkillable by ruling in the old editions that "4d8 +12" HD meant roll 4d8, then roll an additional 12 for HP
But I've been a terrible GM too. I've connived, cheated and swindled my players and their PCs. Just recently I dropped a young wyvern on the PCs at level 2. It caused one PC death and one of the players thoght it was fun but one guy was completely cheesed off. They just beat a bunch of goblins, the wyvern heard the sounds of battle and it COULD'VE just gone after the weak goblin but instead I had it attack the party. Why? Ego.
That's right, I said it. Earlier in the session I had intended the guys to do a little research about where they were going. I actually asked them "are you sure you don't want to roll a Gather Info roll or anything?" I was incredulous when they just shrugged and kept going. They were supposed to find out about the wyvern and be warned; they were supposed to know how dangerous it was.
But when they didn't do it I have to admit I was hurt. Petty little man that I am I was vexed they didn't care enough about my awesome NPC scene I'd contrived to go along with their Gather Info roll that I sulked. Later when I rolled random encounters and GOT the wyvern I thought "this'll teach THEM!"
Like I said: ego. Pride. Pettiness.
No GM is immune. I've been doing this now for 30+ years and I STILL take some of it personally once in a while. As a GM you get so wrapped up in all that YOU know and see in the adventure you sometimes forget the players don't know hardly any of it, nor will they unless you tell them. You also have to reconcile with the fact that your players are simply NOT as interested in or committed to the game you've created. They're close if you're a good GM, but they can't like it like you do; you're the creator.
GM's are people. People are flawed and have emotional outbursts. Sometimes they're mad that you skipped something or don't care enough about the game as they want you to. Other times they're dealing with work stress, or finals, or family/neighbors who want them to stop these silly game nights.
Sometimes GMs are ruled by these emotions. The better ones can keep it in check most of the time. The greatest GMs actually use the game like a coping mechanism and turn their own negatives into their players' positives. That's what I'm shooting for. I don't know if I'll make it but if I figure out how I'll post a new thread!