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Greetings to all...

We've got a thread about bad players conduct, but what about bad GM conduct? -- I think I can safely speak for everyone when I say that there are some people out there who are simply not qualified to run a RPG.

I've had the honor of learning from some really excellent GM's over the past 25 years, but I've also had the misfortune of being in the games of some real classless dickheads.

So what sorts of bad GM experiences have you had?

Here are some of mine:

- The Direction Enforcer

This GM is the guy that gives you multiple ways to go, but will only let you go the direction he/she wants. This is usually because he/she hasn't created the rest of the map or hasn't given any thought to anything but their version of their preconcieved story.

For example:

GM: "The hallway branches to the left and right. Directly in front of you is an open elevator."

PCs: "We go to the left."

GM: "A huge fire suddenly springs up, blocking your way. You can't put it out."

PCs: "We go to the right corridor."

GM: "A bunch of 3' thick metal doors drop out of the ceiling and seal off the hallways."

PCs: "Fine. We get in the fucking elevator...."

- The Player Controler

A variation on the first example, this is the GM who tells you what you choose to do (or what you think) as a coercive means of advancing the plot. Again, this is usually because the GM hasn't thought ahead and/or simlpy lacks sufficient creativity to run the game beyond a very bare-bones level.

Example: The party has encountered a mysterious old man in the ruins of a dead city. The person suggests that the PCs follow them. The GM suddenly breaks in: "You all decide that he's trustworthy and you follow him."

Or: The party is walking through the woods when they hear a strange noise off to the east. Before they can react, the GM breaks in: "You all think you should investigate the noise."

Personally, I think taking control of the players like this is one of the worst crimes a GM can commit. It defeats the point of everything.

- Princess of Power

Only had this happen to me once, but I've heard other people bitch about it: the GM requests some sort of special treatment and/or the granting of favors out of game because they are the GM.

The GM asks players to bring him stuff from the fridge because "I'm GM and I don't want to get up" or some BS like that.

Here's what happened to me personally:

I'm playing in the game of some randoms I met at the RPG store.  During a break, we all took a short walk to a store to get snacks and such. The GM loudly asks, "Who wants to buy a Red Bull for the GM? Might make a difference when we start playing again...!" He tried to act like he was kidding about it, but I later found out he wasn't and did that all the time - getting the others to buy all his stuff. The other players hadn't played very much & got the idea that this was 'normal' and even a right of the GM.

The reaction I had upon learning this is perhaps better imagined that described.

- The Distracted Dipshit

Like everyone else, my life is pretty busy and it's not always easy to find a time to play when everyone can meet. So when we do get togather, I want to play; that is what I'm there for.

But you get one of these people and they want to show you a bunch of crap on their computer first, rant on about something irrelevent (eg. their neighbor), or show you newest book they got and tell you why it's better than sex.Thus, you spend anywhere from 20-60 minutes on non-game related stuff before anybody even pulls out their character.

Endlessly frustrating.

That's all for now, but I can think of many more examples, as I'm sure you can. Share 'em with us.

Gosh, there are so many ways a GM can screw up it's not even funny.

I think the main danger for a GM is to get too inward rather than outward looking. And by that I mean the GM getting so caught up in his own vision of his setting, his NPCs and his stories he forgets he is not the only person at the table.

That said I've come to suspect some GMs don't even care about the players/player characters; they seem them at best as a interchangeable resource or at worst as a necessary evil.

Green's got it. I'm almost tempted at times to go back to referring to the role as "referee" just to keep it front of mind (it's how I explain it to non-gamers anyhow). Most DM sins derive from a belief that they are the most important person at the table, that they "own" the game and that without their tyrannical behaviour the game would collapse or "fail".

Quote from: Soylent Green;491482That said I've come to suspect some GMs don't even care about the players/player characters; they seem them at best as a interchangeable resource or at worst as a necessary evil.

This was indeed the case in various games I've played in the past, which had a huge revolving door.  Back in the day, there were enough rpg players in the various places I lived that there were no problems with finding new or replacement players, after previous players left or were kicked out.

As a specific example, I am very leery of GMPCs, especially if they are omniscient loner badasses. While loner badasses have a place in games, and omniscient characters can be interesting if used sparingly, stand-ins for the GM's character are always unforgivable.

This was recently (the start of this year) hardened for me due to the social dysfunction in one of my pickup game groups that resulted in the GM telling one of the PCs that he couldn't do something and was frozen in place for 10 minutes while he narrated his GMPC taking out the big bad, breaking genre by killing the guy, and then counter-complaining about how the PC had tried to ruin his big scene by interfering.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491494As a specific example, I am very leery of GMPCs, especially if they are omniscient loner badasses. While loner badasses have a place in games, and omniscient characters can be interesting if used sparingly, stand-ins for the GM's character are always unforgivable.

This was recently (the start of this year) hardened for me due to the social dysfunction in one of my pickup game groups that resulted in the GM telling one of the PCs that he couldn't do something and was frozen in place for 10 minutes while he narrated his GMPC taking out the big bad, breaking genre by killing the guy, and then counter-complaining about how the PC had tried to ruin his big scene by interfering.

The GMPC can really disrupt things. I don't normally get too irked by poor GMing, but I get annoyed when our pcs become mere spectators to tge GM's spectacular GMPC (especially if GM altered rules to make his character particularly badass).

Another sin, from the same guy as above, as part of the Last Game I Will Ever Play With Him Willingly, which took place on his birthday this summer.

We're playing D&D 3.5, even though I specifically asked if we could avoid it because I am compelled due to long familiarity with the system to power-game the fuck out it, which will be exacerbated because I know the system about ten times as well as anyone else at the table. I'm a focused conjurer specialist focusing on battlefield control and break & entry since the premise we were given was that we were a bunch of dudes who were going to break into a bank in a flooded city to recover a sword of office sent there for safe keeping. A usurper has produced a fake copy and is using it to try to become tyrant of a city (which was actually kind of a cool premise for a one-shot).

So, we're heading to the flooded city and we're wandering along the side of this river in a river valley called the Vale of Bones, and this hydra appears. We win initiative and I ask how far the hydra is (it's on the other side of a big river). The DM points to a floating dock in the lake about 75 ft. out from shore (we're maybe 30-50ft. on the deck of a cottage) and says that it's that far away. So I go "That's what, 100 ft.? It's 100 ft. away?" which is within the distance of my web spell.

The DM point blank refuses to answer that question. He says "I don't know how far 200 ft. is." OK. He comes from a British background, but I'm a Canuck so we normally use sensible systems of measurement when we're not playing this game anyhow. So I say "Is it about 30 metres?" "I don't know how far 30m is." OK. So I start trying to explain the problem, how I'm trying to figure out whether the hydra is within the range of my spell, which is 140 ft. or about 45m, and he keeps on drifting off in the middle of me explaining this, or refusing to define exactly how far the hydra is except by pointing to the dock and saying "It's that far away. Would your spell reach out to there?" and then when I finally say "Yes, it would reach the dock," he asks me if I'm sure of that or not, to which I just say "My spell reaches the dock".

This was not the only measurement-related problem in that fight. At least one of the PCs was trying to shoot it with a crossbow, which created the same problem all over again because he was 30 ft. behind me and to my left.

One of only many stories from that game, which rates as the absolute worst I have ever played in.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;491497The GMPC can really disrupt things. I don't normally get too irked by poor GMing, but I get annoyed when our pcs become mere spectators to tge GM's spectacular GMPC (especially if GM altered rules to make his character particularly badass).

I was super-guilty of this when I was younger, but it was something that I realised was foolish and immature without requiring anyone to tell me so when I turned about 16, and I kind of hold it against folks who haven't had the same realisation despite being much older than I was when I did.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491477- The Distracted Dipshit

Like everyone else, my life is pretty busy and it's not always easy to find a time to play when everyone can meet. So when we do get togather, I want to play; that is what I'm there for.

But you get one of these people and they want to show you a bunch of crap on their computer first, rant on about something irrelevent (eg. their neighbor), or show you newest book they got and tell you why it's better than sex.Thus, you spend anywhere from 20-60 minutes on non-game related stuff before anybody even pulls out their character.

Endlessly frustrating.

This one doesn't bother me, depending on the situation.  In our group we tend to only get together once a month or so.  So when we do usually the first 30-60 mins is just exactly that where we all catch up.  Then we get on with our game.

Now if it was only the GM doing that and everyone else was there to play, then yes that could get very anyoing if it's a chronic problem.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491491Green's got it. I'm almost tempted at times to go back to referring to the role as "referee" just to keep it front of mind (it's how I explain it to non-gamers anyhow). Most DM sins derive from a belief that they are the most important person at the table, that they "own" the game and that without their tyrannical behaviour the game would collapse or "fail".

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491500I was super-guilty of this when I was younger, but it was something that I realised was foolish and immature without requiring anyone to tell me so when I turned about 16, and I kind of hold it against folks who haven't had the same realisation despite being much older than I was when I did.

This and this. I did a lot of horrible GMPCing when I was younger, and these days I try to be a referee and nothing more. My games are better than ever.

I think a lousy GM is one who is oblivious to what his players like or dislike. Who doesn't listen when told and believes his knows best for the whole group.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491477I'm playing in the game of some randoms I met at the RPG store.  During a break, we all took a short walk to a store to get snacks and such. The GM loudly asks, "Who wants to buy a Red Bull for the GM? Might make a difference when we start playing again...!" He tried to act like he was kidding about it, but I later found out he wasn't and did that all the time - getting the others to buy all his stuff. The other players hadn't played very much & got the idea that this was 'normal' and even a right of the GM.

The reaction I had upon learning this is perhaps better imagined that described.

We always used to buy the DM pizza or something - not to buy favors, but just as a way of saying "thanks" for putting in the effort. But we always DID make it sound like this. :)

Quote from: kryyst;491502This one doesn't bother me, depending on the situation.  In our group we tend to only get together once a month or so.  So when we do usually the first 30-60 mins is just exactly that where we all catch up.  Then we get on with our game.

Now if it was only the GM doing that and everyone else was there to play, then yes that could get very anyoing if it's a chronic problem.

I pretty much expect this.

If I'm running the game, I set the "starting time" as 30 minutes before I actually intend to start play. Mostly because some people show up a couple minutes late, people bring food, etc. So we can sit around, bullshit, then get to the playing once everyone is settled it.

Ah the dreaded GMPC.

Many years ago there was a guy, much beloved of the local community, who GM'd White Wolf stuff, mostly Vampire. I actually worked with the guy when we weren't gaming, which made for interesting coincidence when we realized we were gaming in the same circles.  
As I said, he was much beloved as a GM locally.  His only flaw was the GMPC, and to some extent I hold him up as the Gold Standard of what a GMPC means.

He called the character 'his pc', first. Second the guy broke canon pretty severely (For the curious, I think he was a fourth gen Tremere via diablrie, and more powerful than the actual leading council of the clan... but they didn't even know he was, like, a playa... Lots of custom blood magic spells and so forth to do impossible things...).

It seems odd, yes, that such a guy would be so well liked as a GM, right? I credit the format of his games, where the GMPC would hire/force players to go somewhere and get involved with 'plot', and promptly dissappear until it was time to dispatch the bad guy. THis generally left several sessions at a time where there was no annoying GMPC to interfer in the backstabbing and general psychopathy of the players.  That, and he was a generally swell guy, swiping dental paste from a girlfriend to make fangs for people and so on and of course his actual mastery of the needs of the game.

Huh. I was going to detail a few GMPC stories, but I forgot the second one and remembered a third.
There is a reason I won't play WEG Starwars.  Something to do with a Rogue Squadron NPC waving 14+ dice at the players to mind control them to go to Yavin to meet Luke Skywalker who then hauled the starship to the surface with the power of his mind...


In that case I think any NPC with 'Jedi' in the description counted as a GMPC....  Of course, since the PC captain was 'Captain Haarlock' I'm not sure the game needed to survive anyway.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491498Another sin, from the same guy as above, as part of the Last Game I Will Ever Play With Him Willingly, which took place on his birthday this summer.

We're playing D&D 3.5, even though I specifically asked if we could avoid it because I am compelled due to long familiarity with the system to power-game the fuck out it, which will be exacerbated because I know the system about ten times as well as anyone else at the table. I'm a focused conjurer specialist focusing on battlefield control and break & entry since the premise we were given was that we were a bunch of dudes who were going to break into a bank in a flooded city to recover a sword of office sent there for safe keeping. A usurper has produced a fake copy and is using it to try to become tyrant of a city (which was actually kind of a cool premise for a one-shot).

So, we're heading to the flooded city and we're wandering along the side of this river in a river valley called the Vale of Bones, and this hydra appears. We win initiative and I ask how far the hydra is (it's on the other side of a big river). The DM points to a floating dock in the lake about 75 ft. out from shore (we're maybe 30-50ft. on the deck of a cottage) and says that it's that far away. So I go "That's what, 100 ft.? It's 100 ft. away?" which is within the distance of my web spell.

The DM point blank refuses to answer that question. He says "I don't know how far 200 ft. is." OK. He comes from a British background, but I'm a Canuck so we normally use sensible systems of measurement when we're not playing this game anyhow. So I say "Is it about 30 metres?" "I don't know how far 30m is." OK. So I start trying to explain the problem, how I'm trying to figure out whether the hydra is within the range of my spell, which is 140 ft. or about 45m, and he keeps on drifting off in the middle of me explaining this, or refusing to define exactly how far the hydra is except by pointing to the dock and saying "It's that far away. Would your spell reach out to there?" and then when I finally say "Yes, it would reach the dock," he asks me if I'm sure of that or not, to which I just say "My spell reaches the dock".

This was not the only measurement-related problem in that fight. At least one of the PCs was trying to shoot it with a crossbow, which created the same problem all over again because he was 30 ft. behind me and to my left.

One of only many stories from that game, which rates as the absolute worst I have ever played in.

Why didn't you just ask him if your Web spell was in range of the Hydra to begin with?

Quote from: Imperator;491513This and this. I did a lot of horrible GMPCing when I was younger, and these days I try to be a referee and nothing more. My games are better than ever.

I was never a GMPC'er. In fact, if there's one place where I end up trying to constrain player choice it's whenever they want an NPC to accompany the party: I don't want to deal with it. I've already got nineteen balls in the air; trying to keep track of a GMPC never works out well. For the longest time, my NPCs would try to find every possible excuse to NOT accompany the PCs.

In recent years, I've gotten better about just pushing those stat blocks off onto the players: If they want NPCs along for the ride, they get to run them.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491477I'm playing in the game of some randoms I met at the RPG store.  During a break, we all took a short walk to a store to get snacks and such. The GM loudly asks, "Who wants to buy a Red Bull for the GM? Might make a difference when we start playing again...!" He tried to act like he was kidding about it, but I later found out he wasn't and did that all the time - getting the others to buy all his stuff. The other players hadn't played very much & got the idea that this was 'normal' and even a right of the GM.

In general, at our table, the GM provides the game and the players provide the snacks/drinks/pizza.

Given the hours of prep and the dozens or hundreds of dollars the GM spends on materials for the campaign, they still end up on the short-end of the stick 9 times out of 10, IMO.

Quote from: Spike;491608Ah the dreaded GMPC.

As a player, I always did my best to have my character kill any GMPCs. My fellow players usually did too -and called "BULLSHIT!" when the DM tried to pull from his ass why the GMPC couldn't be killed. We exacted this kind of frontier justice on characters with idiotic names, too.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;491618Why didn't you just ask him if your Web spell was in range of the Hydra to begin with?

Because when I did, he did not know how far away the hydra was or what the range of a web spell was and could not answer either question.

Pseudoephedrine: He sounds a little like one of the DMs from the "You have to guess at the range from the clues I've given" school of thought.

With an added dose of incompetent and crazy.

Quote from: Elfdart;491651As a player, I always did my best to have my character kill any GMPCs. My fellow players usually did too -and called "BULLSHIT!" when the DM tried to pull from his ass why the GMPC couldn't be killed.

We did the same thing in one of our games as well. We waited until the GMPC, a Kender Elf, was looking out a very high window of a tower on the edge of a cliff. The half-ork Barbarian then picked him up and threw him as far forward as he could. The GM said he landed on a Carpet of Flying which just happened to be floating around out there. We threatened to fire him at that point and that was the last time he used a GMPC.

Quote from: Kaldric;491680Pseudoephedrine: He sounds a little like one of the DMs from the "You have to guess at the range from the clues I've given" school of thought.

With an added dose of incompetent and crazy.

He's one of those guys who gets a scene in his head and wants to enact it, but is unable to describe it coherently to others, compounded by the fact that we were using a fairly crunchy rules-system that he didn't know well and various control issues.

The conclusion of that game ended with a lich appearing and killing us all while the DM gloated. He said "That's what you get when you try to hijack the game" to me after my wizard PC started using Lesser Orb of Sound to blow holes in the floor to traverse safely between levels of the dungeon (which was filled with deathtraps). I went outside for a smoke so that I wouldn't deck him for it. That story is for another time though.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491688He's one of those guys who gets a scene in his head and wants to enact it, but is unable to describe it coherently to others, compounded by the fact that we were using a fairly crunchy rules-system that he didn't know well and various control issues.

By and far, that's the biggest problem I've seen with bad GMs: control issues.

In a WoD Vampire game, we had a GM who had spent months contructing elaborate social links between various NPCs and expected the PCs to interact with all of them exactly as the GM had imagined. When a Tzimisce in our party killed some nosy members of the Arcanum (run by the GM), it apparently unraveled the entire elaborate plot-line that he had constructed. He got so mad that he quit right there and told us to "run your own damn game". - LOL.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491688...I went outside for a smoke so that I wouldn't deck him for it. That story is for another time though.

You should have pasted him one right in the cocksucker WHILE also sucking down a coffin nail... *POW*

The central error any GM can commit, of which all the various things listed in this thread are just symptoms of one sort or another, is to start thinking that the players are there for his sake, rather than vice versa; be it for the "sake" of his personal comfort or entertainment, or for the "sake" of seeing how wonderful his awesome "story" or crazy setting is (or yes, his "incredible" GMPCs).

If the GM remembers his job, which is to create the setting for the players to play in, then everything else is pretty much a question of developing that craft.

RPGPundit

When I was still gaming somewhat regularly, I was always the GM. I don't mind it really, since I [strike]am[/strike] try to be a writer; but sometimes I want to just play as a character.

One of the players in our group said that he wanted to try running a campaign. The other players and I were skeptical, this guy wasn't the brightest bulb on the tree; but we consented since it was clearly going to make him happy and I would get to take a break from running the game (and also have a chance to explore further possible story archs and what-not).

Anyway, he said his wife was helping him with the plot because "she reads a lot of books."

A month or so later he announced in one of my games that he was ready with his, so we played one more game in mine and I left them on a cliff hanger (some major NPC friend of theirs and high ranking official was just found murdered), prepared next week to play.

Everything was fine at first, making characters for the first hour like new campaigns always are; and then we launched into his story. At first it was okay but it all seemed vaguely familiar. At the end of the second gaming session I was talking to another of the players (we'll call him joe) and he echoed my thoughts, there was something familiar about the plot.

When the third gaming session was in play, Joe and I kept exchanging glances when notes of familiarity hit us. In the fourth gaming session it became clear: We were playing a more epic-fantasyesque version of The People of the Mist (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605979430?ie=UTF8&tag=stucosuccess-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1605979430), a novel that Joe had leant me and then had leant the game master... Who apparently didn't read it and had his wife read it.

Naturally, Joe and I knew where the plot was taking us. This made it INCREDIBLY HARD to roleplay (so incredibly hard that I used capital letters) our characters, since we knew what was going to happen anyway. Eventually we got sick of it and completed the plot in the fifth gaming session. According to the temporary GMs plans, this was going to be at least 10 sessions long. lol.

We went back to my campaign after that. I'm still kind of bummed that I didn't get to play more as a PC.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491477Greetings to all...

We've got a thread about bad players conduct, but what about bad GM conduct? -- I think I can safely speak for everyone when I say that there are some people out there who are simply not qualified to run a RPG.

I've had the honor of learning from some really excellent GM's over the past 25 years, but I've also had the misfortune of being in the games of some real classless dickheads.

So what sorts of bad GM experiences have you had?

Here are some of mine:

- The Direction Enforcer

This GM is the guy that gives you multiple ways to go, but will only let you go the direction he/she wants. This is usually because he/she hasn't created the rest of the map or hasn't given any thought to anything but their version of their preconcieved story.

For example:

GM: "The hallway branches to the left and right. Directly in front of you is an open elevator."

PCs: "We go to the left."

GM: "A huge fire suddenly springs up, blocking your way. You can't put it out."

PCs: "We go to the right corridor."

GM: "A bunch of 3' thick metal doors drop out of the ceiling and seal off the hallways."

PCs: "Fine. We get in the fucking elevator...."

- The Player Controler

A variation on the first example, this is the GM who tells you what you choose to do (or what you think) as a coercive means of advancing the plot. Again, this is usually because the GM hasn't thought ahead and/or simlpy lacks sufficient creativity to run the game beyond a very bare-bones level.

Example: The party has encountered a mysterious old man in the ruins of a dead city. The person suggests that the PCs follow them. The GM suddenly breaks in: "You all decide that he's trustworthy and you follow him."

Or: The party is walking through the woods when they hear a strange noise off to the east. Before they can react, the GM breaks in: "You all think you should investigate the noise."

Personally, I think taking control of the players like this is one of the worst crimes a GM can commit. It defeats the point of everything.

- Princess of Power

Only had this happen to me once, but I've heard other people bitch about it: the GM requests some sort of special treatment and/or the granting of favors out of game because they are the GM.

The GM asks players to bring him stuff from the fridge because "I'm GM and I don't want to get up" or some BS like that.

Here's what happened to me personally:

I'm playing in the game of some randoms I met at the RPG store.  During a break, we all took a short walk to a store to get snacks and such. The GM loudly asks, "Who wants to buy a Red Bull for the GM? Might make a difference when we start playing again...!" He tried to act like he was kidding about it, but I later found out he wasn't and did that all the time - getting the others to buy all his stuff. The other players hadn't played very much & got the idea that this was 'normal' and even a right of the GM.

The reaction I had upon learning this is perhaps better imagined that described.

- The Distracted Dipshit

Like everyone else, my life is pretty busy and it's not always easy to find a time to play when everyone can meet. So when we do get togather, I want to play; that is what I'm there for.

But you get one of these people and they want to show you a bunch of crap on their computer first, rant on about something irrelevent (eg. their neighbor), or show you newest book they got and tell you why it's better than sex.Thus, you spend anywhere from 20-60 minutes on non-game related stuff before anybody even pulls out their character.

Endlessly frustrating.

That's all for now, but I can think of many more examples, as I'm sure you can. Share 'em with us.

The above examples of DM's you mentioned are just stunning.  What a bunch of friggin tools.

Quote from: RPGPundit;491921The central error any GM can commit, of which all the various things listed in this thread are just symptoms of one sort or another, is to start thinking that the players are there for his sake, rather than vice versa; be it for the "sake" of his personal comfort or entertainment, or for the "sake" of seeing how wonderful his awesome "story" or crazy setting is (or yes, his "incredible" GMPCs).

If the GM remembers his job, which is to create the setting for the players to play in, then everything else is pretty much a question of developing that craft.

This.

Quote from: Werekoala;491533We always used to buy the DM pizza or something - not to buy favors, but just as a way of saying "thanks" for putting in the effort. But we always DID make it sound like this. :)

This is how things work in our games. Everybody brings drinks/food, the DM brings the game. It is a way of recognizing that the players just show up, but the DM has to work with their fun in mind.

Another archetype:

The fustigator

This DM let's the player do what they want, and then flogs them endlessly for all the stupid things they did.

"I guess that two rangers in the party do not reach, together, the intelligence level needed to say 'Let's follow these tracks!"

"Someone read on the manual what 'Protection from Evil' actually does? Anyone?"

"Casting 'Light' on your banner, at night, while facing 10,000 dark elves armed with bows was cool for a whole round, I agree".

"For what happened you have to thank your Genasi and her unique sense for Lost Causes..."

"NPCs aren't there to tell you what to do. Your mind should do that. OTOH, lacking the latter..."

"The Paladin didn't read the fine print. Not that I'm surprised".

"A +5 longsword, +10 vs. Red Dragons, and a Red Dragon were meant as a clue, you know? But don't worry: next time the goddess will wrap instruction around it".

"The intelligent thing to do was following the wizard, not attacking him... so, of course, you being you, I prepared the fight".

This kind of DM being me, BTW :D

In your defense, some of those do sound like the players were idiots. :D

How to be a lousy player: the Joker. I don't know what it is about gaming, perhaps people are just naturally insecure about 'let's pretend' or acting or whatever, but there's always a few players that piss about. Heaven forfend if you set, say an SF adventure, on the planet Uranus! A GM can easily be lured into the communal jokery lest they be seen as unfrioendly, uncool or a pariah.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;492015How to be a lousy player: the Joker. I don't know what it is about gaming, perhaps people are just naturally insecure about 'let's pretend' or acting or whatever, but there's always a few players that piss about. Heaven forfend if you set, say an SF adventure, on the planet Uranus! A GM can easily be lured into the communal jokery lest they be seen as unfrioendly, uncool or a pariah.

I think that's a great subject, for a different (new) thread: how to deal with jokers.  Someone go start it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;492015How to be a lousy player: the Joker. I don't know what it is about gaming, perhaps people are just naturally insecure about 'let's pretend' or acting or whatever, but there's always a few players that piss about. Heaven forfend if you set, say an SF adventure, on the planet Uranus! A GM can easily be lured into the communal jokery lest they be seen as unfrioendly, uncool or a pariah.

If making immature jokes about Uranus in a sci fi game involving Uranus is wrong I don't want to be right.

Quote from: Planet Algol;492273If making immature jokes about Uranus in a sci fi game involving Uranus is wrong I don't want to be right.

It is just too classic to pass up.

It'd have to be a pretty hard-sci-fi game to actually be set ON Uranus - after all, no human can survive the noxious gasses and crushing pressures that exist in the depths of Uranus.

Yep, Uranus is a shitty place.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;492015How to be a lousy player: the Joker. I don't know what it is about gaming, perhaps people are just naturally insecure about 'let's pretend' or acting or whatever, but there's always a few players that piss about. Heaven forfend if you set, say an SF adventure, on the planet Uranus! A GM can easily be lured into the communal jokery lest they be seen as unfrioendly, uncool or a pariah.

C'mon, playing in Uranus makes some people uncomfortable. You got to do a lot of prep to make it work.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;492334C'mon, playing in Uranus makes some people uncomfortable. You got to do a lot of prep to make it work.

You guys are too hilarious. :D

I'm sure if you're ready to stretch yourself, and put in some hard work, you'd easily find some players willing to conquer Uranus.

The mayfly

He always has the best idea for the most epic campaign. It's just that somehow they all seem to last only one session.

The CRPG

Your DM loves Diablo II so everything will be like Diablo II in all ways, he'll even do the voices. He runs things fast and know the rules backwards and forwards, but has systematically stripped out everything that makes a TT RPG different from a CRPG to the greatest extent possible. He'll even load up a CRPG in order to show you what your character's surroundings look like.

Quote from: Daztur;492441The mayfly

He always has the best idea for the most epic campaign. It's just that somehow they all seem to last only one session.

We have one guy who does this the most, but others, including myself, have been guilty of this in the past. I've overcome it mostly by toning down my often grandiose expectations and generally making campaigns less pretentious.

I kind of think of myself as an "enabler", when in GMing mode. But "referee" works too; I can see that.

Really hoping I'm not any kind of nightmare GM now. :confused: Food for thought, anyway. The players seem happy enough, I think.

Run Shadowrun 4e.

It seems as though it was designed to make good GMs bad and bad GMs even worse. :D

Quote from: David R;492334C'mon, playing in Uranus makes some people uncomfortable. You got to do a lot of prep to make it work.

Regards,
David R

I just white-wash it a little.

Quote from: PaladinCA;492913Run Shadowrun 4e.

It seems as though it was designed to make good GMs bad and bad GMs even worse. :D

How so?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;493072How so?

RPGPundit

I was kind of talking out of my ass, but it seems to be near impossible to accomplish anything in the game on a regular basis. You have to get fives and sixes to count as a success. Ones are pooled for potential glitches. A glitch happens when the entire roll fails and half or more of the dice are ones.

We just completed a series of this game. Combat drug on for hours, mostly because no one could hit anything. People rolling 10D6 or more and they can't get enough successes to dish out the hits or do enough damage. This is compounded by everything in the game having a second chance. You roll to hit and they roll to dodge. You roll for damage. They roll to resist damage. And you need fives and sixes to hit something and damage something. Odds are, you aren't going to roll high enough on both rolls to do much.

I'm a fan of systems that you roll to hit. If you hit you do damage. I don't mind having a dodge OR a resist damage factor in the mechanics, but having both..... BLAH!

The GM in question has always struggled to set appropriate difficulties in games, regardless of system. His creativity and enthusiasm usually make up for it. But Shadowrun just makes things worse. Even a moderate difficulty task can be a real bear to be successful at, due to the mechanics. So it makes GM arbitration harder for him, and thus worse for all the players.

Man, have I ever grown to loathe Shadowrun 4e.

You guys probably weren't optimising yourselves. We had the opposite problem - it was too easy to blow someone to shit. Combat became reduced to initiative, with whoever got the first shot off at least disabling, and normally killing, the enemy.

Quote from: PaladinCA;493111You have to get fives and sixes to count as a success. Ones are pooled for potential glitches. A glitch happens when the entire roll fails and half or more of the dice are ones.

I hate the Shadowrun mechanics. They are very cumbersome.

QuoteI'm a fan of systems that you roll to hit. If you hit you do damage. I don't mind having a dodge OR a resist damage factor in the mechanics, but having both..... BLAH!

In Rifts, you can roll to dodge or parry, but if you get hit you take damage.

That description of Shadowrun does sound like shitty mechanics, but I don't see how it makes GMs worse.

In fact, the mark of a GOOD GM is that he can run a game that's basically shitty and make it good.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;493302That description of Shadowrun does sound like shitty mechanics, but I don't see how it makes GMs worse.

In fact, the mark of a GOOD GM is that he can run a game that's basically shitty and make it good.

RPGPundit

Shadowrun 4e might be irredeemable. :D

I run 4e-and I agree with a lot of the criticism of it's system, and even some of the setting. But that doesn't mean all of us running SR4 are crappy GM's. :)

Quote from: RPGPundit;493302That description of Shadowrun does sound like shitty mechanics, but I don't see how it makes GMs worse.

In fact, the mark of a GOOD GM is that he can run a game that's basically shitty and make it good.

That's true, however, when I run Shadowrun, I keep the game setting as it is and import combat mechanics from a entirely different RPG.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491477But you get one of these people and they want to show you a bunch of crap on their computer first, rant on about something irrelevent (eg. their neighbor), or show you newest book they got and tell you why it's better than sex.Thus, you spend anywhere from 20-60 minutes on non-game related stuff before anybody even pulls out their character.

Endlessly frustrating.

20-30 minutes is pretty normal settling in time, IME.  15 minutes at a pinch.

I have seen Shadowrun 4e turn a normally good GM into a crappy GM.

I don't buy that. Games don't make already good GMs crappy.  Of course, certain games can fail to make newb GMs any good. 3e and 4e for example, create generations of GMs that are too dependent on rules and are incapable of understanding emulation.
Much as, to a much lesser extent, WoD games created a generation of GMs who believed their main job was to "craft a story" and that it was perfectly ok to force the players into the roles of passive witnesses of that story.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;493583I don't buy that. Games don't make already good GMs crappy.  Of course, certain games can fail to make newb GMs any good. 3e and 4e for example, create generations of GMs that are too dependent on rules and are incapable of understanding emulation.
Much as, to a much lesser extent, WoD games created a generation of GMs who believed their main job was to "craft a story" and that it was perfectly ok to force the players into the roles of passive witnesses of that story.

RPGPundit

And even in then a lot of that has more to do with the way the system is framed by the writers and the GM advice in the book than the actual mechanics of the game. When we played Vampire in the 90s the sessions were very free form (more non-linear and open than most of my D&D campaigns at the time). While I enjoyed 3E, I found the DMG had a lot of advice that ran counter to my preferences and experience.