DM Schticks That Grind Your Gears

[Rystil Arden]

Exactly.

If you think you take the opponent without harming the horses, you do it. If you think the horses are your opponent's weak spot, you exploit it. Easy as that.

Of course, a stupid ogre might not think to smash the horse, and a mountain lion (or, for that matter, a dragon) wouldn't have reason to keep it.

RC

Absolutely. And even the stupid ogre will eventually attack the horse if the mounted player keeps outrunning the ogre and playing hit and run because the horse is too fast for the ogre to catch up. If the mounted character is staying in melee with a melee combatant and trading full attacks, the opponent will aim at the character. On the other hand, a ranged opponent who has long range attacks will attack the horse if they think they can kill it fast enough to get more attacks on the character after the character is forced to walk (300 feet away, the horse could run up to you in possibly 1 round, but the full-plate-wearing rider takes 5 to clank all the way there, so you actually get more attacks on him by killing the horse first).

Bottom line: If you are going to use your horse to make life miserable for the opponents, expect it to be attacked. If you don't then they are wasting their attacks on the horse and will attack you.

 

[lukelightning]

The guy you're working for/who hired you is actually the main bad guy in disguise, manipulating you into doing his dirty work.

I had great fun scaring the party with a situation similar to this; it was a cliche "wizard asks you to get something from somewhere" plot that smelled totally of "wizard is gonna blast you and steal the object." The party was totally worried this powerful mage would turn on them.

They were pleasantly surprised to find that the mage was on the up and up and only had the best of intentions. The fact that he was a ghost all along was a bonus.

As far as convoluted plots go, I found it is much simpler to hint at a convoluted plot and then just throw the usual random stuff at the players, who will then make the connections for me.

"Didn't the goblins we fought in the caves use morning stars? Som of these muggers we just fought in town had morning stars as well...maybe they are connected!"

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Preach On, Winged Rat!

The guy you're working for/who hired you is actually the main bad guy in disguise, manipulating you into doing his dirty work.

Speaking as an escapist, this scenario is also too much like "real life" employment.

-Samir

 

[Rystil Arden]

The guy you're working for/who hired you is actually the main bad guy in disguise, manipulating you into doing his dirty work.

Now, let me clarify. I like that particular trick, and I've used it myself, but it's got to be done in moderation. As a PC, I don't mind being set up/manipulated occasionally. It's great for building enmity with the villain. But I've played under DMs for whom this was the case every. Single. Time. Not only across multiple adventures, but across multiple campaigns. Sometimes he'd shake it up by having the guy be a disguised third party, rather than the disguised villain, but that was it.

Enough already.

I try not to overuse this, but I will admit that a while ago I threw a relatively unimportant subplot with one of these into an adventure where the main plot had one too because the PCs had fallen hook line and sinker for the guy from the main plot and I wanted to give them a second chance to think about it. Of course, they didn't figure out the subplot either

 

[Mouseferatu]

I try not to overuse this, but I will admit that a while ago I threw a relatively unimportant subplot with one of these into an adventure where the main plot had one too because the PCs had fallen hook line and sinker for the guy from the main plot and I wanted to give them a second chance to think about it. Of course, they didn't figure out the subplot either

Well, sure. Like I said, the technique's just fine when properly used. It's just one of those that can be so easily overused if the DM isn't really, really careful. And it only takes one use too many to sour everyone on the whole thing.

 

[IcyCool]

Just Handing Him Ammo.
Your backstory serves one, and only one, purpose: to give the badguys more way to get you. Come from a town? It'll be razed. Have a sibling? They'll be attacked, kidnapped, turned into undead, or similar. Mentor? Killed before your very eyes, or turned evil. So on and so forth. Anyone you care about will be used against you in some way. If you have noone, you're fine, but you have people in your life they are tragedy waiting to happen.

Wait, how is this bad? I could see where it would get annoying if the DM consistently and systematically annihilated everything from your backstory, essentially leaving your character's history nothing but an empty shell, but, otherwise, how is involving a character's backstory in the game a bad thing?

No liabilities/weaknesses = boring characters (the only interesting things about the character likely involve game mechanics). I'm not saying a boring character with no backstory is bad, but, you get out of the game what you put into it.

Didn't we kill you? "Well, I got better."
No matter what you do, or how you kill him, the bad guy keeps coming back, WITH NO EXPLANATION. He's not a lich, he hasn't been resurrected, it's not his twin, he's just back. Did you disintegrate him? He's fine. Did you trap his soul in a gem a mile beneath the crust of the planet? He doesn't seem to mind.

 

[shaylon]

[Peter Griffin] You know what really grinds my gears? This Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay Lohan with all those little outfits, jumping around there on stage, half-naked with your little outfits. Ya know? You're a... You're out there jumping around and I'm just sitting here with my beer. So, what am I supposed to do? What you want? You know, are we gonna go out? Is that what you're trying to - why why are you leaping around there, throwing those things all up in my, over there in my face? What do you want, Lindsay? Tell me what you want? Well, I'll tell you what you want, you want nothing. You want nothing. All right? Because we all know that no woman anywhere wants to have sex with anyone, and to titillate us with any thoughts otherwise is - is just bogus. [/Peter Griffin]

Sorry, it had to be done. As to the OT, I hate railroady adventures. I find it really annoying when you are trying to do something only to get blocked by the dm because he has nothing prepared for that way. I can see this happening at first with a new group but after a while you know what your players are likely to do, prepare for it!

 

[Hitokiri]

Well, I'm definately guilty of a few of these over the years.

"But you didn't ask about it"
My biggest pet peeve is anytime a DM decides to "forget" to mention pertinent details when describing something, especially when they should be painfully obvious). Nothing like finding out the room you are standing in has a floor coated in oil (which you could walk across fine until combat started and some chump started throwing torches at your feet) or that the courtier is apparently wearing full plate instead of the foppish garb you last saw him in. Of course, whenever asked about these odd occurances and why you weren't informed of some bit of rather critical information, you usually get the "but you never asked about that?" response. I've found the solution (if talking to the DM doesn't work first) is to spend a session asking every stupid question about every minute detail you can come up with.

GM: "A man stands before you on the path, his arm raised signaling you to halt"
Player: "Where's his other hand? What is he wearing? Are there any Distinguishing marks? Does he talk, and with what type of accent? What type of shoes is he wearing? Do I see a mount nearby for him? How about tracks from a mount? Are there any other footprints nearby? What type of soil is he standing on? Does it look disturbed? Does any of the ground look disturbed? What about trees, are there any trees nearby? What type of trees? How high are they? Do we see any broken branches?" et cetera ad nauseam. With a little practice you can get every encounter to last for an hour before the first words are spoken. (I'd only do this as a last resort though, as I can see DMs quiting because of it).

"If the DM mentioned it, it must be important"
Almost the opposite of the previous one. The DM gives you all the pertinent information, but that is all he gives you. If you walk into "A darkened room, lit by a candelabra", the safe money says that that candle holder is in some fashion important. Forget about actual furniture or detritus cluttering the room, everything that gets mentioned is either treasure, a clue, or the activation for a hidden door.

Luckely, these mistakes seem to be done more often in new DMs. A little work usually gets them on the right path.

 

[Vanye]

Some very good ones here! I actually recognize some of my own stuff ("My Old PC Runs This Bar" for instance is a trick of mine - I guess that one's annoying when the GM tries to run his old PC from behind the screen and tries to show it off by any means necessary, as a mentor or obstacle. I'd be annoyed as well in these conditions, to be frank).

One of my current DM's is very guilty of this. His incredibly powerful elven ranger/thief was following us around piping up any time we were discussing our options; his powerful wizard had a private demiplane we could use to route some troups through to get to the aid of some allies quickly, AND had a gold dragon cleric cohort...there were a few other things like that....


I will admit to sometimes having the problem of being the DM who asks the PC's what they want to do. I do try to give them 2-3 options when doing so, though...

 

[Rystil Arden]

Well, sure. Like I said, the technique's just fine when properly used. It's just one of those that can be so easily overused if the DM isn't really, really careful. And it only takes one use too many to sour everyone on the whole thing.

That's true. Of course, I don't tend to use the adventure hook of a patron hiring the PCs to do something for her too often anyways. When I do, she usually has additional ulterior motives more often than not, but that doesn't mean she is the BBEG, just that I felt the need to justify why this character would hire the PCs to do something instead of doing it herself. For instance, maybe the Paladin who hires the PCs to break out some slaves from a Lawful Evil city is a former slaver who turned to the path of Paladinhood and is trying to seek redemption, even while she is afraid of falling from grace for not respecting the laws of the city where slavery is legal. The PCs only know that they are freeing slaves because some girl paid them gold. If something like this (additional information withheld from the players, but the goal they think they are to accomplish is the same as the one the patron wants) happened in 95% of cases, would it be bad?