Ever benched a GM?

The Grackle · Sep 29, 2004

My old group of gamers would rotate GMing every so often to deal w/burn-out, and to allow everyone a chance to run their own thing. It was alright until one of the players, let's call him Matt, decided to run a homebrewed super hero game. Great! Super! We made characters and were ready to play.

It was easily the worse game I've ever played. It wasn't even spectacularly bad- there's no good stories about how ridiculous it was. It just sucked. Apparently, he didn't actually want us to be super-heroes so much as mediocre-heroes whose attempts to do anything are always frustrated and surpassed by far more competent NPCs. We all hated it.

But here's the wierd part. I wanted to boot him out of the GM's throne, but my friend, let's call him Murph, said it was against the code to bench a GM; they had to voluntarily quit. No matter how bad they suck, you must suffer until someone comes up with a replacement campaign that lures the GM out from behind the screen.

What's that about? Code? In the end I went along w/Murph b/c he's much more diplomatic than me, and Matt's feelings really would've been hurt if we told him how terrible his game was. We weaseled out game night for a few months, then started it again on a different night with a new campaign. It might sound like a pain to go through all of that, but it was nothing compared to the pain of enduring that supers game.

So have you guys ever benched a GM?
and what was the offense?

Jeff Wilder · Sep 29, 2004

The Grackle said:
So have you guys ever benched a GM?

No, but I can dead-lift the back-end of a Volkswagen. (Ba-dump-chhh.)

But, seriously, folks ... no, I've never been in a group that's benched a GM, but I've quit groups because the GM was bad. I wouldn't have a problem telling a GM he sucked (albeit slightly more diplomatically ... probably), assuming I wanted to keep the GM as a friend and player. I've just never had the situation come up.

Actually, as I think about it, we have benched GMs, sorta by default. We just weren't enthused about the games, so we made no effort to return to them, and our playing schedule is full enough that without making the effort the games just faded away.

But it truly wasn't because either GM sucked. One of them is DMing Shackled City now, and doing a very good job with it, and the other was both very imaginative and the best at playing NPCs I've ever seen. We just disliked both games (Star Wars D20 and D20 Modern, respectively), and would have disliked them no matter who was running them.

Crothian · Sep 29, 2004

I've been benched. Basically I was running a game the others didn't like. My DMing style and their playing style was not really in sink.

hero4hire · Sep 29, 2004

Yep...In one long-running Forgotten Realms campaign where we rotated GMs the third GM who took over kinda ruined it for us...We look back at the campaign with fondness and basically say the whole tail-end of it just "Didn't Happen"

*sigh*

Sejs · Sep 29, 2004

Yup.

Not counting public, run-at-the-game-store type GMs, whose games you'd just choose not to partake in anymore but you can't actually stop from GMing... 'cause hey, public means everybody after all. Not counting them, but amongst my actual gaming group that's made up of friends, yes GMs have been benched. Its handled more civilly than just pointing at 'em and saying hey, you suck - no more GMing for you, mind. Generally, the GM in question will be taken aside after the game and we'll have a one on one and go over the game, what people liked, what they didn't like, why they didn't like it, process and method... things like that. Basically a point by point review of the game, what went wrong and ideas on how to avoid those pitfalls in the future. It's worked well so far.

your father is · Sep 29, 2004

We've never "benched" one per say. One fellow's DMing was so awful we never associated with him again, though

soulcat · Sep 29, 2004

We've benched games, but never DMs. Usually its obvious to us when the group is not enjoying a game, and we find a logical end point, and move on to a different game/dm. Then the dm takes his turn in the rotation with a different game.

On the flip side, when we enjoy a game enough, sometimes games don't get rotated out. I've been running a Forgotten Realms campaign non stop for nearly 2 years despite the fact that we have 4 games queued up. Every time I try to talk about what game we are playing next they all get VERY vague.

So I may bench myself soon!!!!!!!!!

was · Sep 29, 2004

We had to bench one. Kept coming up "sick" and cancelling sessions. Turns out it was the old "brown bag" variety of the flu bug he picked up every Friday night.

Bill Scott · Sep 29, 2004

We have never 'benched' a DM but we did boycot one at a certain point. Here is how it came about.

The group consisted of six players and the DM played two NPCs. The NPCs were a couple of high level wizards who hired the PCs as bodyguards and monster hunters for material components. This does'nt sound bad, does it? Now here is the problem. The DM played the wizard NPCs as greedy buzzards who took fifty percent of the treasure, magic items and coin, as well as all the material components we could gather. We could'nt even make our own decisions in game. My character voiced his disdain for the shoddy treatment of the wizards, in game, and tried to quit their service. The DM said that characters could'nt quit because that was their motivation. I was told by the DM that if I could'nt play as he wanted me to play, I could'nt play in his game any more. I told him I will not be railroaded by a poor DM, picked up my books and calmly walked away. Three of the other players followed me out and the other two players quit the game a week later when we got another campaign going

Keeper of Secrets · Sep 29, 2004

Bench 'em!

Like the NFL, gaming should be set to higher standards for their playmakers' ability to do the job. Now I am not suggesting that you bench the GM after a few bad games. I guess you have to look at their record. Have they provided you with 4 years + of good games, only to give you four bad ones in a row? Its a funk he'll get out of.

But if you are rotating someone in and out, then you have to get out of the bad GM's clutches or it will suck for everyone.

So bench the GM. Will you protect this house?!