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

Aldarc

Legend
Definitely. I want my GM "Master of the Game" like it says at the start of the 5e DMG. I like them pretty Gygaxian, old school.
And in contrast, I typically have anti-authoritarian tendencies when it comes to understanding the role of the "Game Master" and their power relation with players.

i find it funny because in truth all power flows from the players - without them a Gm is alone but its also true in reverse.

Each gets given their power by the others consent and barring that consent there is no player agency and is no "Gm is god of the campaign extreme at all.
Sure, but I generally prefer systems where there are checks and balances between the players and GM (e.g., Fate, Numenera 2, arguably DW). Additionally, I have found that players are often more invested in worlds when they help shape it in some way before and during play.

Once the warlock player gets to demand his patron be "off limits" then why not the paladin deciding his oath thingy is too restrictive so he wants that off-limits, the cleric finds that whole religion things and god stuff to not be "a thing in the game" and hey maybe the whole "i am an elf" or "i am a half-orc" shouldn't be a thing either...
There is no need for reductio ad absurdum. I would say part of the issue is that sometimes the Player can feel that the GM is impinging on their character concept or backstory through what they may regard as a "misuse" of their patron or their pre-made conception of that patron relationship thereof. In many respects, the GM is thereby encroaching on the player's understanding of their character and their creative agency. And this can quickly sour a player's experience at the table.

BTW I don't think I have ever seen "hands off my X!" in actual play. I do see a lot of "When are you going to use my X?!" - player writes special-snowflake backstory and demands the GM incorporate it into the game, when the GM (me) wants to keep it as background-only. I still have nightmares over the 85 page 135-year* backstory I didn't read, that apparently entitled the PC to be Duchess of Kerandas. That experience made me rather over-hostile to backstory in general.
Unless I am running a one-shot with premade characters, I invariably run a Session 0 with the group to hammer out these sort of issues.
 

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pemerton

Legend
Since here "play with my stuff" actually means "use player created backstory elements", I don't like it (GM banned from using the material) because of the metagame implications. I don't actually use PC backstory stuff much, in fact I'm far more likely to get complaints about me failing to incorporate PC backstory into the game. But I do like Develop-in-Play, and that occasionally includes Luke-I-Am-Your-Father stuff.
its when you submit for approval to the GM an NPC you want added to the game that you are making that an element of the game for the GM to use. Anything you do not want in the game to play a part in the game - thats between you and your own fan fiction pages.
One system that I play and GM - Burning Wheel - charges PC-build resource points for relationships. These are cheaper if they are close family (and hence, everything else being equal, looming larger in the life of the PC) and cheaper if they are enemies rather than friends (and hence, everything else being equal, hostile to rather than supportive of the PC).

One thing the player is paying for when purchasing a relationship is the focus of the fiction: the GM is obliged to incorporate relationships into the game. By spending the additional points required for the PC to be a friend rather than an enemy, the player is paying (i) for the GM not to have the character oppose the PC, and (ii) for the prospect that adversity in the game (as established by the GM) will include his/her PC's commitments to friends and family being called into question.

In its details this is nothing like the system [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] described, but I don't find it odd that a RPG should include rules that allow a player to direct the GM as to how a certain bit of background may be used. I certainly think the suggestion that it's either open-ended for the GM to decide, or else "fan fiction", is wrong.

DM treating NPCs that were offered up into the campaign by the player like they are NPCs and having them be interacted with and interact with as all NPCs do - IMO fine because we have mutual agreement coming in that NPCs are going to be handled that way and a player can choose to not insert those NPCs or to not choose to run a character with those properties.
the NPCs in the campaign are the purview of the GM - not the player - and that is a pretty simple and clear distinction.

<snip>

the idea that the player gets to invent NPCs, control them and/or prevent any interaction with them by other NPCs is a bit beyond what I normally see happening in games with Gms and players and group play.
I'm sure that you are accurately describing the typical way of playing 5e. But that approach to NPCs seems largely independent of the other components of the game, and I doubt that 5e would break in some fashion if a different approach was taken by a table. When I GMed AD&D, the players generally controlled their PCs' henchmen. It didn't cause any issues.

I don't think I would enjoy a game in which (i) the party needed henchmen/NPC allies to have a chance of successfully engaging the scenario the GM presents (which can easily be the case in AD&D if you have a small-ish group of players), and (ii) the GM insisted on running those NPCs. I see it as the GM's job to provide the fictional situations that the players engage, not to pose challenges to his/her own NPCs!

If you are going to pick a class that has obligations(cleric, paladin & warlock), you have to expect that obligations will come knocking at some point. The warlock class even has a section called Sworn and Beholden, which says this gem, "More often, though, the arrangement is similar to that between a master and an apprentice. The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron’s behalf.". If you don't want to be treated like an apprentice and obligated to perform services for you patron, don't pick warlock. If you don't want to be obligated to the church and your god to do things, don't pick paladin or cleric.
Unless you are playing a non-standard method of D&D, picking a class comes with all the fluff and obligations of that class. By the very act of choosing warlock, the player's conception will include being an "apprentice" of the patron and being obligated to doing tasks for that patron.
i want to play a druid but lets drop all that nature stuff except for the powers

<snip>

i want to play a cleric but lets skip all that religion stuff - not at my table without a very good discussion and Gm approval.

<snip>

i want to play a warlock but lets skip all that patron stuff except for the powers
These posts seem to run together two completely distinct things - is my character bound by obligations and/or connections to someone/something else and does the GM get to decide stuff about the content of those obligations and the nature of those connections?

When I started a 4e campaign about 10 years ago I told the players that each PC had to have a loyalty to something or someone (I got three Raven Queen devotees, a feypact warlock whose patron was Corellon, a cleric of Kord committed to opposing the Bane-ites of the Black Eagle Barony, and a dwarf devoted to proving his worthiness by the standards of the dwarven hold he came from).

But it would never occur to me that I could tell those players what is required to honour the Raven Queen, or Kord, or the Black Mountain Dwarfhold. I will (and have) frame situations that push the players to answer those questions, but it's not my job to provide answers. (As it happens, each of the Raven Queen devotees has a different view about what is required to honour their mistress.)

As a player in a Burning Wheel game, I play a knight of a religious order (the Knights of the Iron Tower) who is obliged to honour the precepts of his order as well as his noble family. I expect the GM to put those commitments to the test. I would quit the game if the GM tried to tell me what those commitments required. (When my PC encountered a demon, and stood against it without relenting although I had no chance to beat it, the GM was - I think - genuinely surprised. That was me deciding what my character's obligations demanded of him. The demon retreated - it had better ways to spend its limited time on this world then killing a largely irrelevant knight - and the GM determined that my character gained an infamous reputation in the hells as a demon-foe, which will influence future reactions of demons that he encounters. That's the sort of GM decision-making that I regard as completely appropriate.)

I tend to want to explore relationships and character in great detail

<snip>

I would be a bad fit as a player for anyone who runs games where they decide the course the players should take ahead of time and shape play to reach a desired outcome. I am also a bad fit as a GM for players that expect me to give them the answer as to which course they should take. I will frame scenes, create situation, and be generous with information. They need to play their characters.
100x these things. Which relates to the approach to PC-obligations as well. If I'm playing a knight of a holy military order, I want to decide what my character has to do. I'm not interested in the GM telling me that. But I want the GM to present me with situations where being a knight of a holy military order matters!

And that's not the only example. My PC has a wizard companion (paid for at PC building). My PC has a belief that he must protect Aramina. Aramina has a belief that s/he does not need Thurgon's pity. I expect the GM to frame situations where these things will matter, and probably come into conflict.

Suppose Aramina does something that, from Thurgon's religious point of view, is an affront - but also puts her into danger (eg she enters a forbidden shrine). That will be a challenge for Thurgon to deal with, which it would be completely fair game for the GM to bring about. But if the GM even began to try and tell me what decision is the right one for Thurgon in such circumstances, or adjudicated the situation with an eye to there being a right decision, that would spoil the game for me.

I never really got the desire most people seem to have to always get on with the next thing. The idea of 5 combats in one session seems exhausting to me. I would rather have one really good fight that involves an underlying social conflict where we get to engage the mechanisms of the game and the fiction all at once.
This one is interesting. Over the past few years I've mostly been GMing a few systems that are mechanically lighter than 4e, and they make it possible to get through more fiction in a session than 4e normally does. While I miss some of the epic grandeur of 4e, I've found it interesting and enjoyable to get through fiction at a rate that is closer to that of a movie or TV show. (Though still not that rapid, I don't think.)

So I wouldn't say I have a firm preference one way or the other here, except that - and on this I think we probably do agree - I want the fiction to matter to play. I'm not much interested in backdrop for its own sake, nor in "filler" material in play. One concrete example: when at the end of the first session of my Classic Traveller campaign the PCs arrived on a planet with a corrosive atmosphere, with their ship carrying an ATV, and two of them having Vacc Suit skill; with the possible goal of heading to a different planet with a breathable but disease-ridden atmosphere; then (to self quote from a write-up of that session) I became:

pretty committed to finding some way to get the PCs out in either the corrosive or disease-ridden atmosphere with nothing between them and near-certain death but their ATV and some vacc suits.)

(As it happened, in the second session they left the domed city of the corrosive-atmosphere world in their ATV; and in the third session they were out of the ATV in their vacc suits staging an assault on an enemy outpost; and one of the PCs did suffer a vacc suit incident that exposed him to the atmosphere, although he was able to survive by entering the enemy complex after stealing an unruptured suit from a dead enemy.)
 

S'mon

Legend
When I GMed AD&D, the players generally controlled their PCs' henchmen. It didn't cause any issues.

I don't think I would enjoy a game in which (i) the party needed henchmen/NPC allies to have a chance of successfully engaging the scenario the GM presents (which can easily be the case in AD&D if you have a small-ish group of players), and (ii) the GM insisted on running those NPCs. I see it as the GM's job to provide the fictional situations that the players engage, not to pose challenges to his/her own NPCs!

I'm actually running a 1e AD&D Forgotten Realms Play-By-Post (bulletin board) currently, and running the 2 NPC henchmen in the party, along with basically a GMPC (my PC ,who became an NPC when the first GM quit) and the two PCs. This is working really really well IMO, but the PBP format facilitates it - I can resolve NPC-NPC attack rolls, and post NPC-NPC conversation, much more viably in this asynchronous format than in a live game.

I would say that the NPC-NPC relationships become part of the challenge to the PCs, as well as resources to call on. Eg the henchmen (Shukura the serious-minded Cleric of Nephtyls, & Fulnok of Ferd, a rather egregious Thief) don't get along, which is a lot of fun to play out in this format.
 

pemerton

Legend
I'm actually running a 1e AD&D Forgotten Realms Play-By-Post (bulletin board) currently, and running the 2 NPC henchmen in the party, along with basically a GMPC (my PC ,who became an NPC when the first GM quit) and the two PCs. This is working really really well IMO, but the PBP format facilitates it - I can resolve NPC-NPC attack rolls, and post NPC-NPC conversation, much more viably in this asynchronous format than in a live game.

I would say that the NPC-NPC relationships become part of the challenge to the PCs, as well as resources to call on. Eg the henchmen (Shukura the serious-minded Cleric of Nephtyls, & Fulnok of Ferd, a rather egregious Thief) don't get along, which is a lot of fun to play out in this format.
That would drive me bonkers whether as player or GM!

In the AD&D game I referenced, I think I may have made the odd loyalty check, but I think loyalty was nearly always at or above 100% and so it didn't really matter.

Presumably if the GM is playing the henchmen then the loyalty system becomes less important?
 

S'mon

Legend
Presumably if the GM is playing the henchmen then the loyalty system becomes less important?

Yes, since they are fully characterised NPCs, I'm not normally rolling Loyalty d%. I do roll BX-style d20 roll-under-CHA checks for the PCs, who have 8 & 9 CHA (whereas both players are very charismatic) :)

Fulnok of Ferd is Furnok of Ferd, an NPC created by Gary Gygax in The Village of Hommlet as a recruitable NPC. EGG gave me plenty to work with re his personality, then being an FR Grey Box game I added in a bit of Ed Greenwood style extra lechery & humour to round it off... Gygax tends to make his NPCs rather unpleasant, for this game I wanted Fulnok basically likeable if annoying!
 

S'mon

Legend
Which relates to the approach to PC-obligations as well. If I'm playing a knight of a holy military order, I want to decide what my character has to do. I'm not interested in the GM telling me that. But I want the GM to present me with situations where being a knight of a holy military order matters!

Just thinking about this. I very much want it to be the player - with internal aspect on their PC - deciding "what is the right thing to do?" That's not a decision for me as GM to make. But my NPCs may well have strong views on the matter! So NPCs such as fellow knights of the order may well think the PC was right or wrong, guided by their own view of the order's precepts. The universe won't tell the PC he was right or wrong - I don't use Alignment penalties & prefer to ignore Alignment except as a stated Allegiance. I don't think I would run a game like Dogs in the Vinyard where the universe ensures that whatever moral decision the PCs make, it was the right decision, although I'm sure that particular Narrativist game is interesting to play. Likewise I don't want a player telling me "The holy military order is part of MY backstory - *I* get to decide how the other warrior-monks react to my decision!"
 

Nagol

Unimportant
Alternatively, a player can have lockdown elements of their character's backstory by *not submitting them as in-game* elements.

Can he though? If I include no details of life pre-play, can I expect none to appear at the DM's whim? 'Cause it's happened a fair bit. Many DM's over the years have asserted that because my past was blank canvas they felt free to -- obliged even -- to draw on it. So now my general character background is an only child from a poor farming family whose parents were killed/farm destroyed as part of an appropriate regional disaster (not assassinated, not killed by a specific type of creature, nothing mysterious), and am seeking my fortune having nothing to go back to. Background would a great mechanic to signal how uninterested I am in that stuff.
 

Nagol

Unimportant
Conversely, it's between you the GM and your own fan fiction pages. It should never be a problem for the player to tell the DM, "No, I don't want to deal with that, that's not what I had in mind when I made this character, please don't do that." If a DM can't keep his or her mitts off the player's characters, then I have zero interest in playing at that table.

<snip>

This is especially true in that the DM, not knowing the fan fiction stuff, can decide to fill in elements in the campaign that directly contradict the fiction. In fact, I favour the opposite approach where the DM needs to know elements in the backstory -- not so he can use them necessarily, but so he doesn't contradict them (or have them contradict essential elements he does plan on using).
 

Nagol

Unimportant
Hmm. I think I'm ok with this if the GM still has the right to veto a Background element - to require that either it be useable in play, or that the player remove it as a Background. At that point the discussion falls within the sort of pre-game negotiation I think is entirely legitimate. And I do see how this sort of discussion can be helpful to ensure everyone is on the same page.

I do wonder though what is the point of having something in Background if neither GM nor player can actually use it? How is this different from player written fanfic about their character?

1) It can't be contradicted by normal play at the table like fanfic can be.
2) The background information becomes canon which means it can have consequential effect on the game world.
3) It signals play where the player would not be comfortable or has no interest in pursuing.
 

S'mon

Legend
1) It can't be contradicted by normal play at the table like fanfic can be.
2) The background information becomes canon which means it can have consequential effect on the game world.
3) It signals play where the player would not be comfortable or has no interest in pursuing.

Well if this is all done by discussion and mutual consent I guess it's ok.
 

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