Bad prepared Dungeon Masters!!!

Lavinia Teeblatt · Nov 4, 2003

Hi all,

I´d like to hear your opinion to something happened last weekend.
As some of you know a few weeks ago I was DMing my first adventure. I spent a lot of time for preparing the sessions and it was of course a lot of fun. ( preparing and playing )
After finishing the adventure some players attacked my very hard because they couldn´t understand the way I was giving out roleplaying xp.
Now, a few weeks later one of the players attacking me DMed an adventure. He was nearly totally unprepared. 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.
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?

Lavinia

Bagpuss · Nov 4, 2003

If nobody said anything it's your own fault you have a voice use it.

hong · Nov 4, 2003

I'd say that he could hardly complain if you threw in a few choice words of your own.

Darklone · Nov 4, 2003

Uhm, looking up monsters... happens to me now and then. Pretty often actually.

Especially cause my players usually can go wherever they want and do whatever they want. Just two weeks ago they did a 180° turn without warning to the DM, returned to a city where they are outlawed and had a lot of fun. I had to improvise a lot since I didn't have prepared maps for all the houses and floors where they charged in...

Was fun.

With your "DM": ask the others perhaps...

Zappo · Nov 4, 2003

Roleplaying awards are highly subjective. In other words, there is just about no way to consistantly please everyone there.

Personally, I state out clearly that RP awards will be inaccurate, and that the players should expect to receive slightly unfair and inconsistant rewards. Statistically, they'll even out on the long term to more XP for better roleplaying, but the single session can easily have skewed RP awards. The alternative is eliminating RP rewards altogether.

The firm point is that I try not to be skewed in favor of particular players. Error is expected and minimized on the long run, but partiality is another matter altogether. No excuses for that.

As for being unprepared, that's annoying but not a mortal sin. It seems that this person is an unexperienced DM. Nothing bad there, but I think he should refrain from criticizing the DMing of another, especially in one of the toughest fields (RP awards) which, very likely, he can't handle any better.

Hand of Evil · Nov 4, 2003

You did nothing wrong! Players have expectations based on their gaming history, you as the DM plan and build your story, you control the flow. I know DM that keep EXP away from their players, placing it into a pool under their names and the player has to role-play learning a skill, when the EXP are there he gets the skill. I also know DM that only give out 100 points a game, no matter what happened in the game.

You as the DM control your game, just talk to the players, let them know your feelings and continue to play and have fun.

Marimmar · Nov 4, 2003

Considering that the adventure module was a pretty linear Dungeon (tm Magazine) crawl without a lot of options and maybe a total of 5 different monsters, he could have done far better by preparing the game beforehand. What really bugs me are statements like 'When should I have prepared the module?' when everyone knows that he plays Broodwar every night of the week.

It's kind of annoying to have him start reading the module everytime someone enters a new room. Just like in C-64 times when a monster group appeared and the game started loading for several minutes.

It's annoying to get obvious informations like entrances to a building only after wondering why there's no way to get into the building.

It's just plain frustrating when a monster appears and he starts reading the description without knowing what the monster does.

*Bleh* Bad DM!!!

~Marimmar

Flyspeck23 · Nov 4, 2003

Marimmar said:
Considering that the adventure module was a pretty linear Dungeon (tm Magazine) crawl without a lot of options and maybe a total of 5 different monsters, he could have done far better by preparing the game beforehand. What really bugs me are statements like 'When should I have prepared the module?' when everyone knows that he plays Broodwar every night of the week.

It's kind of annoying to have him start reading the module everytime someone enters a new room. Just like in C-64 times when a monster group appeared and the game started loading for several minutes.

It's annoying to get obvious informations like entrances to a building only after wondering why there's no way to get into the building.

It's just plain frustrating when a monster appears and he starts reading the description without knowing what the monster does.

*Bleh* Bad DM!!!

Sounds like this person was forced into the DM role. My advice: let someone DM who'll actually enjoy it.
This guy can play Brood War or whatever as much as he likes, and he can prepare an adventure as much as he likes - his decision. But it's your decision not to let him DM anymore (or at least not taking part in that particular adventure). If that means being a DM yourself, well... tough luck

Imperialus · Nov 4, 2003

Flyspeck23 said:
Sounds like this person was forced into the DM role. My advice: let someone DM who'll actually enjoy it.
This guy can play Brood War or whatever as much as he likes, and he can prepare an adventure as much as he likes - his decision. But it's your decision not to let him DM anymore (or at least not taking part in that particular adventure). If that means being a DM yourself, well... tough luck

The impression I got was this guy was the one complaining about Lavinia's DMing which is why he ended up DMing the next week.

DM Toad · Nov 4, 2003

A way to award roleplaying XP awards.

Good morning,

A new member here but a long time DM. In my 'beginning' years as a DM I also took a lot of flak from gamers on 'subjective' XP awards for roleplaying. Here are a few things that I have learned over the years.

1. Roleplaying awards, in my opinion, are granted for events that pushed a player to a new level in roleplaying.
2. 'Veteran' versus 'Newbie'. Who deserves more XP, the veteran who brings out an 'oscar' performance, complete with British accent, when granted an audience with the king or the newbie who finally got up enough courage to 'barter' down the cost of a new set of leather armor. Both, in my mind, are awardable events.
3. If your party is not playing as a group, someone always seems to get 'ruffled' by the awards.

My solution: I bought a 3 dollar medallion on a leather string at a Ren. Festival a few years ago. If you get to wear the medallion in the game you get an XP bonus (I never tell them how much so I can still keep some subjectivity in it). I keep track of how many times a player is awarded the medallion. The genius part is that I leave it up to the party members to award roleplaying awards. When THEY feel someone in the party performed well they can out-of-character make a motion to award the medallion to that player to wear around their neck. If the motion is upheld by another in the party (as it usually is) the medallion is passed to the new player. Big rule:You can not be awarded the medallion if you are already wearing it.

It solves so much. The medallion is cool and has taken on the aura of being a good luck charm (the amount of 20s that get rolled by those wearing it is uncanny). It almost magically unifies the party as they start paying closer attention to each others play. Even those players with the overriding ego get into it because they cannot get their next award until the medallion has passed to at least one other member.

When you first introduce the method that medallion is passed around every other word, but as long as you don't tell the players how much XP the medallion is worth, you just adjust the amount down a bit to combat the initial flurry of medallion passing.

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

DM Toad.