The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Hussar]

I am surprised by the number of DMs on this board that I would absolutely not want to play with.

It's funny. I've polled on the boards a few times over the years about people's experiences with DM's. Typically, it winds up about 30% (give or take) have poor experiences with DM's. And, for some reason, I still get people who insist that bad DM's are a totally rare thing that only a few experience.

Now, the big trick here is, what defines a "bad" DM. But, IMO, "bad" DM translates to "I played with this DM and had a bad time because I didn't like the way this DM ran the game". It doesn't necessarily mean some objective value of bad. Just that this DM was bad for this player.

Which is all a really long way to say that I am actually not surprised by the number of DM's I wouldn't like to play with.

 

[Cadence]

It's funny. I've polled on the boards a few times over the years about people's experiences with DM's. Typically, it winds up about 30% (give or take) have poor experiences with DM's. And, for some reason, I still get people who insist that bad DM's are a totally rare thing that only a few experience.

Now, the big trick here is, what defines a "bad" DM. But, IMO, "bad" DM translates to "I played with this DM and had a bad time because I didn't like the way this DM ran the game". It doesn't necessarily mean some objective value of bad. Just that this DM was bad for this player.

Which is all a really long way to say that I am actually not surprised by the number of DM's I wouldn't like to play with.

30% of experiences with DMs were poor, or 30% of people had a poor experience with a DM?

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's funny. I've polled on the boards a few times over the years about people's experiences with DM's. Typically, it winds up about 30% (give or take) have poor experiences with DM's. And, for some reason, I still get people who insist that bad DM's are a totally rare thing that only a few experience.

Now, the big trick here is, what defines a "bad" DM. But, IMO, "bad" DM translates to "I played with this DM and had a bad time because I didn't like the way this DM ran the game". It doesn't necessarily mean some objective value of bad. Just that this DM was bad for this player.

Which is all a really long way to say that I am actually not surprised by the number of DM's I wouldn't like to play with.

It shouldn't be surprising. While there's some general consensuses about certain GMing habits, there are a lot of outliers that are supported by enough people to not be particularly uncommon, and some of those evoke very strong feelings (both pro and con).

 

[CleverNickName]

What I've noticed:

Sometimes, a DM is "bad" because they keep cancelling gaming sessions at the last minute, and they always show up underprepared.

Sometimes, a DM is "bad" because you wanted them to run Spelljammer but you got outvoted and they ran Ravenloft instead.

And sometimes a DM is "bad" because they told someone 'no' at a Session Zero once.

It can feel a lot like Yelp for gamers around here sometimes. "No Tortles?! Worst. DM. Ever. One star, do not recommend."

 

[overgeeked]

What I've noticed:

Sometimes, a DM is "bad" because they keep cancelling gaming sessions at the last minute, and they always show up underprepared.

Sometimes, a DM is "bad" because you wanted them to run Spelljammer but you got outvoted and they ran Ravenloft instead.

And sometimes a DM is "bad" because they told someone 'no' at a Session Zero once.

It can feel a lot like Yelp for gamers around here sometimes. "No Tortles?! Worst. DM. Ever. One star, do not recommend."

The DM wouldn't let my terrible reading of the rules that let me be utterly OP stand. Worst DM ever.

The DM wouldn't let me play my terrible build that's based on several incredibly bad readings of the rules into his game. Worst DM ever.

The DM wouldn't read my 85-page backstory or let it utterly dominate the game. Worst DM ever.

The DM insisted that I stop calling the other PCs my hirelings and stop treating them like my servants. Worst DM ever.

The DM insisted on me gasp sharing the spotlight with the other players. Worst DM ever.

 

[ichabod]

One bad DM I had just had us floundering around. We had amnesia and were wandering around on an outdoor map that ended at the edge of the page in a mirror we couldn't pass through. We were only able to find one thing: a dragon who had no treasure (it was a bone collector). Finally after wandering around for a few hours the assistant DM pulled the main DM aside. I later learned the the assistant DM asked why the DM was dorking us around, and that he should just get on with the story. So then we ran into a blind mute guy walking along a river with his hand in the water. So then we spent an hour trying to get anything out of the blind mute, which went nowhere until the end of session. There was no second session.

The other bad DM just refused to do anything about a really bad player who kept picking fights with people way more powerful than us, and then yelled at me for "bad roleplaying" because my character got pissed at his character for nearly getting my character killed.

 

[Hussar]

30% of experiences with DMs were poor, or 30% of people had a poor experience with a DM?

About thirty percent of players had poor experiences with a DM.

 

[Cadence]

About thirty percent of players had poor experiences with a DM.

I'm not sure that signifies much?

I wonder what the percent of people are who have had poor experiences with restaurant servers? With doctors? With teachers? With neighbors? With airline check in? With <insert>?

I will admit this slides over the question of how many DMs they had, but it feels like it means that well under 30% or DMs are bad. And I'm guessing the percent doesn't compare too unfavorably at all with many other things. (Which still doesn't mean improvement can't be made).

 

[MNblockhead]

Based on many of the posts I've read on on a number of threads here in over the past few months, the percentage of bad players DMs would not want to play with would be far higher than 30%. Really, 30% doesn't seem too back. Take almost any activity and randomly sample others engaging in that activity. How many of them are you going to want to spend 4-6 hours with 1-4 times a month for most of a year year (based on typical 5e campaign).

 

[Thomas Shey]

The DM wouldn't let my terrible reading of the rules that let me be utterly OP stand. Worst DM ever.

The DM wouldn't let me play by terrible build that's based on several incredibly bad readings of the rules into his game. Worst DM ever.

The DM wouldn't read my 85-page backstory or let it utterly dominate the game. Worst DM ever.

The DM insisted that I stop calling the other PCs my hirelings and stop treating them like my servants. Worst DM ever.

The DM insisted on me gasp sharing the spotlight with the other players. Worst DM ever.

So, the equivalent of all the GMs who complain about players who don't accept their unlimited authority without complaint, even when they do things patently dumb, obnoxious or egomaniacal? Sounds about right.