inspired by the "Should a player own the rules to your game" thread.

The first time I played D&D back in like '79 (with the box pictured below). The DM would not let us pick our own characters; he pre-genned them all- but worse yet, he thought that naming characters was a really stupid idea and completely forbade it. So for about a year I was "the dwarf" every other afternoon. I met some other guys who played and  instantly joined their group when they told me I could generate my own character and even- gasp- give him a name. I remember how confused they were when I asked if that would be okay. My previous DM was furious that I left over such a petty detail and I don't think he spoke to me more another couple of times before we graduated from High School (five or six years later).


Tell me you're crazy GM stories! I command it!

I remember one GM who flatly refused to offer even the tiniest snippet of information via NPC's. Captives would never talk, townfolk warded us off with signs of the evil eye, even the innkeeper refused to tell how much a mug of ale was.

When confronted with the issue he claimed that we had to "work" for it, which we later found out was code for "torture the fuck out of everyone whilst I breathe heavily and indulge my latent masochistic tendencies."

That group lasted about a month.

Sounds familiar. When I first played AD&D in '87 the DM wouldn't lend us the rulebooks, generated and named the characters himself. We played in his homebrew setting for a year until a session went like this.

him: there's a blerk in a hooded clurk in the corner of the perb !
us: are there any bonny lasses aboot ?
him: nah !
us: well, that's us oot the perb, let's gan rob the chorch !
him: b-but !

a while later -

us: howay, where's that collection box ?
him: it's made of steel and rock, embedded in the wall
us: bugger!

as we go outside the GOD none of the PC's worship blasts us to death with lightning for defiling the church/wrecking the DM's 'hooded man knows a dungeon' encounter.

Oh yeah, I've been killed by lots of angry gods for going off mission, and once, in a V&V game, by the Gms superman analog- for the horrid crime of making fun of his costume.

The most horrific "game" (and I do use that word loosely here) I was involved with was hallmarked by: 1. Everyone but myself stepping out at the same time to partake of something illegal.  2. The GM was manic at best; think Jim Carrey but not funny and just plain goofy without any charm whatsoever.  3. Said GM winging the whole thing which was made all the more worse by points #1 and #2 above. And 4. It was Rifts.


Note: I'm not knocking Rifts, mind you, but the "wahooiness," didn't help in my case.

God, that is one night I'll never get back again.

Quote from: DangerGod, that is one night I'll never get back again.

Actually, I have it right here in a sack.  You can have it back for some naked pictures of your mother.

My crazy-ass GM stories are in the similar vein of him creating a very personal homebrew campaign that meant more to him than it did to us players.  Pre-gen characters steeped in the local politics that we were supposed to care about didn't help, either.  He meant well, but some of us just wanted to play bog-standard vanilla fantasy.

!i!

Quote from: Aos- for the horrid crime of making fun of his costume.

Swear down, I'd have pissed myself laughing.

Quote from: SeanSwear down, I'd have pissed myself laughing.

That was pretty much my response, that and shifting my ridicule from the npc to the GM.

I think I've told this story before, but here you go...

My crazy GM was anal retentive.  I mean, I was fine with him keeping our character sheets, but he also kept track of our hit points, and rolled all dice for us behind a screen except for damage.

He had his glorious campaign setting, and had gone so far as to - I shit you not - re-type the whole PHB and DMG, make the tweaks he wanted, and print it out on his dot-matrix printer.  He then stored that in a few big binders.

We had to rigorously account for everything (except, like I said, hit points - which he did).  XP was tracked down to the hundredth.  He used all the optional rules, including making my wizard buy crazy crap like dirt and paper cones.  I asked why I couldn't just pick up dirt or roll paper into cones myself - but apparently those would have been too low-quality to work for spell components.  He got the price list for all that crap from one TSR book or another, and boy did he love breaking that out.

Still, he wasn't so crazy that he drove me away from his table.  I played for a few months, at least, until he had to move away.  I can't remember any of the other players, though, except for one who I'd known from before.  IIRC, all the rest of them had gamed with him before so knew all his idiosyncracies.

-O

Quote from: obrynWe had to rigorously account for everything (except, like I said, hit points - which he did).  XP was tracked down to the hundredth.  He used all the optional rules, including making my wizard buy crazy crap like dirt and paper cones.  I asked why I couldn't just pick up dirt or roll paper into cones myself - but apparently those would have been too low-quality to work for spell components.  He got the price list for all that crap from one TSR book or another, and boy did he love breaking that out.

Except for hiding all of the dice rolls, I would like to play in this kind of game.  I've never had a game where I had to worry about all that detail but, if done right, I think it could go a long way towards giving a game and its world verisimilitude and gravitas.

Bloody hell, Obryn - that DM - what a spanner !

Our DM is probably still fleshing out his homebrew setting - the landmasses were huge (a bit like in Robert Silverberg's 'Lord Valentine's Castle') but we never got beyond going to a small town (our village had been burnt by shadows in the night -WOO!) which had a dungeon nearby. HE told us the nearest city was too far away to travel to - ugh!Total madness - an unusable waste of time.

I'm sure it was in response to his older brother (who got to edit 'Shite Dwarf' after it went crap) who was a player-centred freeformer - 'what type of character are you?'.

Aargh - the flashbacks !

The guy in Middle School who insisted we all roll for chest size on this homemade table of his. If you didn't want to roll, he'd roll for you. So, for no apparent reason, (besides early teenage pubescance I think), you could have a male fighter with a 17 strength and a 38DD chest in his game.

We played one session and near the end of it everyone in the party was playing their character as a flaming drag queen due to the fact that we were all guys with boobs as dictated by the DM's table. We were having a laughing good time out of the whole thing just being silly and riffing off Monty Python sketches. The DM got pissed and told us everyone was killed by the Gods at the end because he didn't like us mocking his game, chest size tables and all.

Ah, those early years of 0D&D.

One time my PC was raped by a troll, before I even entered play.

Ah, my favorite was the fellow who showed up to our games club, the now- defunct Catonsville Wargamers, a few times. He had been in the military, and spent most of his down time drawing up an enormous, multi- level dungeon.

On 18 x 24" graph paper.

At 10 squares to the inch.

At least a dozen levels.

Which he kept rolled up in a plastic Mortar shell tube. Oy.

It was one of those early dungeons, lots of long corridors, making random turns for no reason other than to waste your time, I guess so your torches burn out, or whatever. Long, loving descriptions of stonework: "This section is made of granite, finely wrought and cunningly fitted..." No encounters, no treasure, just an hour or so of wandering and looking at the walls. Yawn.

Eventually, we found a small sack with a few coppers. When we openly commented on how... underpopulated his dungeon was, he replied...

"The last party cleaned it out!"

We still refer to that as "The Copper Dungeon".

Quote from: Leo KnightIt was one of those early dungeons, lots of long corridors, making random turns for no reason other than to waste your time, I guess so your torches burn out, or whatever. Long, loving descriptions of stonework: "This section is made of granite, finely wrought and cunningly fitted..." No encounters, no treasure, just an hour or so of wandering and looking at the walls. Yawn.

You know, that's almost sublime.

!i!