D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

Nagol said:

It may be a single sentence, but the structure and content requires a fair amount of processing from the DM. Let's take a look:

"Drawing upon my previous life as an acolyte in service to the church on the Street of a Thousand Gods, I try to recall lore about the significance of this figure."

DM's Brain: "Drawing" -- what's he drawing, what's he drawing with? what's he drawing on?
DM's Brain: "upon my previous life as an acolyte" -- OK not drawing. What do I remember about the character's backstory? Was he an acolyte, and if he was, what is the relevance?

DM's Brain: "in service to the church on the Street of a Thousand Gods" -- Which church? Where was that again? This city? That city? What is the relevance?
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DM's Brain: "I try to recall lore about the significance of this figure." -- finally an action! Why didn't he start with that! Oh, sure roll Religion check.

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Such is the issue with examples lacking the additional context available at the table. The example under discussion implies there is enough context for the player to believe the the statue is religious in nature, hence the mention of having the Religion skill proficiency. (Perhaps they are in a ruined temple.) Presumably the DM would be aware of the same context, having read or designed the adventure. The DM's brain won't be so taxed as a result.

Celebrim said:

And this brings us to my biggest objection to being hidebound about this, and that is that you are "pixel bitching". (I don't know if I can use that term here, but it is the technical one.) By that I mean that you are waiting for your players to say the magical words or phrases that unlock the content, and until they say the right things you aren't going to let them use their abilities.

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I don't care to speak for anyone, but having read enough posts from [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION], I feel I can refute this assertion.

Asking for an approach is not an exercise in pixel bitching. Quite the opposite. Pixel potpourri might be a more appropriate term. If a player describes any course of action that would inevitably facilitate success, there's no need to roll or say the magic words, the action simply succeeds. Simple adjudication. When the action has a questionable degree of success and there are consequences for failure, the dice come into play.

Without a stated approach, the DM has to take a best guess at the form of the action, perhaps even guess the true goal. If negative consequences occur as a result of that action, the player may object to the DM interpretation and cry foul. Any subsequent arguments or discussion that follow would have easily been avoided if the player simply provided a clear approach with an intended goal. If there's any confusion about the approach or the goal, it can be resolved before the dice are cast (if necessary).

In addition to curtailing disputes at the table, stating a clear approach and goal facilitates dynamic engagement with the game world. The players can often succeed without having to roll the dice by utilizing creative solutions and their knowledge of the shared fiction. When challenges and obstacles are reduced to mere die rolls with minimal context (i.e. no stated approach or goal), the game's conversation and feedback loop is largely reduced to the tabletop version of pushing a button or clicking a toolbar.

In regard to the application of passive checks, the approach and goal of a "passive" task is likely to vary a great deal from table to table. I'm not going to speculate how they are utilized by [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION], though I'd be willing to bet he clearly informs his players of their circumstantial usage before any negative or unintended consequences unexpectedly befall the PCs.

Sadras said:

That is fair. We do use the optional flanking rules in the DMG.

Just to be clear, your objection is house rules being made on the spot? Generally our house rules usually originate in-game and get carried forward to future sessions and campaigns.

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I have a few house rules, but they were all made prior to the beginning of a game. I might houserule something that no player has actually taken yet, once I poll the group on their opinions of it, but once a player takes it, even if its OP as , they get to keep it for the campaign (I'm looking at you, Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master).

iserith said:

Such is the issue with examples lacking the additional context available at the table. The example under discussion implies there is enough context for the player to believe the the statue is religious in nature, hence the mention of having the Religion skill proficiency. (Perhaps they are in a ruined temple.) Presumably the DM would be aware of the same context, having read or designed the adventure. The DM's brain won't be so taxed as a result.

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Right I got that. The group has a similar context at the table when the player begins to talk. Although the DM understands the group context, the DM doesn't know the context of the player's thoughts. Perhaps the player plans on drawing the statue and seeking outside expertise. Perhaps the player plans on defacing the statue. Perhaps the player plans on leaving marks to ease navigation. Perhaps the players wants to add graffiti. Perhaps the player wants to add the symbol of his worship. When the acolyte background is mentioned it may possibly -- even probably -- be relevant to whatever the declaration/question is once it gets stated so it must be kept in mind. The specific church is less likely to be relevant, but since it might be, it has to kept in mind with its position in context of the world/dungeon/situation as well as the DM waits for the declaration/question. Once the question is asked, the two open positions can be evaluated (the specific church is irrelevant, closed), (acolyte background provides training in Religion) in order to determine the DM response.

I was invited to join an ongoing game by the DM. DM questioned practically every thing on my character sheet that wasn't from the PHB (Complete Adventures had just come out and I had use content from that and the DMG)... and every PHB item that was that wasn't directly useful in combat, exploration or trap-finding, like the iron pot for cooking or sewing needle for clothing maintenance. Before I sit down for my first session, DM tells me I just need to wait for the party to make it to the town of ??? to introduce my traveling minstrel. About an hour into the session, the group finally kills the local cultist leader where upon the DM provides the group 3 separate plot hooks, with only the most boring sounding one (to me) set in the town I'm suppose to be introduced at. And you won't have to guess which hook they dismissed immediately as the least important. So after roughly another 4 hours of game play, the group arrives at a small village. By that point I'm rather board, since there's been virtually zero storytelling up to then and I can't really get invested in combat that I'm not participating in. But they're finally at a location I could be found at, sure it's not where the DM intended to introduce me at, but surely it won't be a problem. Another 15 minuets pass, the group has gone through the village square and stops in the only tavern (the two most likely places for you to find a bard killing time before joining a party). I finally ask the DM where am I, and he tell me I'm back at the town of ???, and that is where the session ends. He says he has no control over where his player go and tells me he'll let me know when they head back towards that town. Needless to say, I declined his second invitation. Heard later on he's a DM who (1) likes to destroy player's magic items and (2) houseruled that this causes the stored magic to be released... such as a scroll of fireball getting snipped by a fleeing foe, which nearly wiped the party.

I would say that one of the biggest flaws is the "GM as Author." Often there is an almost literal sense to this as these are the sort of GMs you can tell envision this campaign as the novel they are writing and players are just along for the ride. And this results in a number of commonly raised red flags mentioned already.

It's the GM who wants to railroad you along their story. You have no agency or even the illusion of agency. (And then they get upset when you try deviating from that.)

It's the GM who treats the players as vacationing sightseers meant to marvel at their homebrewed world. (And then get upset when you don't or won't.)

It's the GM who wants to show off their "pet" NPCs or cultures. (And then get upset when you don't or won't.)

It's the GM who tells you exactly how your character should be played. (And then get upset when you deviate from that.)

And as you play, you notice how the GM shifts their role from Author to Authoritarian. The world and the players exist to aggrandize the GM and their brilliance.

Thankfully, I did not have to leave these games. They died on their own. But this was a common thread in GMs (and their games) that I disliked as well as GMs (and their games) that my friends disliked.

When he said it would take 3 hours to walk down the beach to our destination... and it did.

Urgh, I get that DMs want to maintain the narrative and some semblance of the laws of reality, but players show up to play. I think most of us are willing to suspend some disbelief to get the new player into the game quickly. I hate using the “poof, a new PC appears” approach, and try to come up with something that gets them integrated within 5-10 minutes, but what players hate more is just sitting around for hours, not getting to play.

BlackSeed_Vash said:

So after roughly another 4 hours of game play, the group arrives at a small village.

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Sadras said:

That is fair. We do use the optional flanking rules in the DMG.

Just to be clear, your objection is house rules being made on the spot? Generally our house rules usually originate in-game and get carried forward to future sessions and campaigns.

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I don't like house rules in general, but if a DM announces his house rules ahead of time I immediately know it's not for me and don't apply, so that's definitely better than wasting time and effort only to realize you're not having fun.

Optional rules that are in the DMG are not really house rules for me but I'd definitely would like to know which apply before creating my character.

The biggest problem is really just the DM overruling something in the ruleset (that was agreed on to play). I gave two examples earlier: A DM deciding that Life Domain does not work with Goodberry and a DM deciding that hiding ends if you come out of cover but are not seen clearly. Both these things are things even on this forum lead to heated discussions nobody can ever agree on, but Jeremy Crawford gave a clear answer to both and I'd really like to see the DM (or everyone, really) accepting these because that allows me to trust in the ruleset and create my PC accordingly.

If I can't trust the rules and always need to be on watchout for the DM changing some rules, I just couldn't enjoy playing.

Nagol said:

It may be a single sentence, but the structure and content requires a fair amount of processing from the DM. Let's take a look:

"Drawing upon my previous life as an acolyte in service to the church on the Street of a Thousand Gods, I try to recall lore about the significance of this figure."

DM's Brain: "Drawing" -- what's he drawing, what's he drawing with? what's he drawing on?
DM's Brain: "upon my previous life as an acolyte" -- OK not drawing. What do I remember about the character's backstory? Was he an acolyte, and if he was, what is the relevance?

DM's Brain: "in service to the church on the Street of a Thousand Gods" -- Which church? Where was that again? This city? That city? What is the relevance?
​

DM's Brain: "I try to recall lore about the significance of this figure." -- finally an action! Why didn't he start with that! Oh, sure roll Religion check.

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If the DM is so stymied by a simple phrase that it takes his brain that many steps to interpret a sentence then the DM has some medical issues that should probably be poked into. Looked into. Poking the brain is probably bad.