Bad prepared Dungeon Masters!!!

I like it and it really boosted my party morale and cohesiveness.
Try it and see.

DM Toad.

Click to expand...

I just might have to. That is a very clever way of getting players to actually role-play more. I have a few players that are just the bash em type people, but on the rare occasion they will actually role-play their characters while in town and it is a blast. Maybe by doing something like this it will give him more of a reason to entertain us with his role-playing.

Lavinia Teeblatt said:

From my side of view this is not much fun to play because things are not going on. I think this is much worser than make noise about 50 xp more or less.
But nobody said anything to him.
What´s your opinion on this?

Click to expand...

Without fully knowing your group dynamics, it's very difficult if not impossible to be able to fully form an opinion. (I do vaguely remember your original thread about the rewarding of XP argument.)

Of course, IMO, being unprepared as badly as you say when DMing is far worse than missing out on 50 XP or so. If he's DMing, why isn't he reasonably preparing? Is he too busy with real-life responsibilities/family/etc? Then DMing may not be for him. Is he just lazy? Are the players too demanding?

Why nobody said anything to him is anyones guess. That's where the whole "group dynamics" thing comes in, and nobody will be able to help much with that, since nobody knows exactly how your group works (personalities, current inter-personal relationships, etc.).

Well XP awards for RP are a touchy subject.
Some people play the game for role playing and some play it to blow off some steam by smacking some baddies (roll playing) because of this in a mixed group the people who are not into the role playing aspect of the game feel cheated when the role players get extra XP and they don't, in theory this should encourage role playing but some people don't take it well.
I have a mixed group like that and what I do which seems to work out well is that at the end of the module I give out extra XP not only for role playing your character well but also for combat related achievements; things like doing the most damage in one hit, killing the most baddies, making the most incredible shot, taking the most damage and even dying.
This way the folks who RP get rewarded for their RP skills and the folks who just want to apply the smack down get rewarded for doing exceptionally well in that department.
Everyone wins and no whining.
As for the DM you mentioned he sounds like a jerk. Not being prepared for the session is not cool, it wastes peoples time and kills the fun of the session.

Zontag said:

As for the DM you mentioned he sounds like a jerk. Not being prepared for the session is not cool, it wastes peoples time and kills the fun of the session.

Click to expand...

Argh, I hate when DM's aren't prepared. I've been playing RPGA games for a long time, and there's been several occasions where the DM came to the table and hadn't read the scenario. not only is it a waste of my time, it's cheapening the scenario. Dm's, even really good ones, can only make up so much material. You also end up missing vital clues because the DM forgot to give them to you and then just ends up handing the scenario over to you or just runs out of thought and throws random monsters at you just to pass the time...

As for your x.p. issue, a good rule to follow is that 10% of your total x.p. can be for 'role playing.' ALWAYS HAND IT OUT SECRETLY AND NEVER GIVE THE SAME AMOUNT TO ALL PLAYERS. That way players cant compare as well after a few sessions.

jh

I hate unprepared DMs, but I hate those that can't improvise even more, and those that think they can improvise only to do so very poorly are the worst.

XP is subjective, as I think someone said, so either do it in private (so not everyone else knows) or award everyone the same amount. If you want, have the players vote on who they think should receive an extra 5% XP per session or something similiar so that they think they have at least some power in the awards handed out.

Lavinia Teeblatt said:

For example when someone went to the next room he had to read what was in the room and had to look for enemies in the MM.

Click to expand...

Well, if He was DMing a WOTC module, or something from Dungeon, if the monster is in the MM, it tells you in the module to look up the stats in the monster manual. (IE; this room has 5 goblins in it, see MM pg 133). This saves room to put in more flavor, magic items, ect.. So that might be why He kept loooking in the MM. My DM looks stuff up in the MM all the time.
But He should have read the adventure had had a genreal idea of the layout of the dungeon. Where stuf was, ect.

Thank you all for your replies.

I also like what DM Toad does. Maybe I try to get this into our party.

I think some of you are right to say perhaps he had no time to prepare the adventure. But all of us know ( like Marimmar, also one player in our party, already mentioned ) that he plays Broodwar every night.
So I think it should be no problem to stop this for one or two evenings and start preparing an adventure.
But in the meantime I heard from some other players that they were also not very satisfied with him as a DM.
So next time he wants to DM a session I will try to stop him.

Lavinia