Bad DMs/GMs

[Zhaleskra]

Something that's always bugged me, especially when groups "fire" their GM: How do you expect bad GM X to even have a chance to become a better GM when you "fire" him/her?

If they dismiss suggestions out of hand, that's one thing, but I'm thinking more like players not liking something the GM is doing, not telling him/her (or telling him/her in the "you're stupid" way), and declaring that that person is not allowed to GM anymore/mass unexplained walkout.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think he explained further how he didn't know his scheduled game had been cancelled, the wasted journey etc. He wasn't nasty, he just refused to leave and stood there until I let him in. I didn't want to be nasty to him.

Part of the issue is it's a public Meetup and there's some expectation of accommodating people if there's space. But I have turned away players before.

I think a big element is the absence of aggression - if someone is yelling at me or being rude I have no trouble standing up to them, but if they just wheedle and beg it's much harder. At work I have set standards for whether I let students onto my course, but it's much trickier with a social activity like RPGs.

I guess if it was a public meetup that does make it a little different, but it still sounds odd. Did he continue to show-up at games or was this a one-time thing? If it was a one-time thing I suppose the worst is over.

 

[S'mon]

I guess if it was a public meetup that does make it a little different, but it still sounds odd. Did he continue to show-up at games or was this a one-time thing? If it was a one-time thing I suppose the worst is over.

It happened at the last session I ran of that campaign, the next session is not for several weeks.

 

[S'mon]

Something that's always bugged me, especially when groups "fire" their GM: How do you expect bad GM X to even have a chance to become a better GM when you "fire" him/her?

If they dismiss suggestions out of hand, that's one thing, but I'm thinking more like players not liking something the GM is doing, not telling him/her (or telling him/her in the "you're stupid" way), and declaring that that person is not allowed to GM anymore/mass unexplained walkout.

Have you seen a bad GM become a good GM in response to criticism? Because frankly I have not.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Have you seen a bad GM become a good GM in response to criticism? Because frankly I have not.

I have. But in this case he was very new to dm:ing and really wanted to listen to those complains/advice. Oh, and found his style.

I've seen people get better, and less teeny (which helped in many cases) when time has passed, but that's natural change.

In all other cases though, criticism has only made matters worse.

I've also seen dm who was really horrible in fantasy games, but did modern games really well. But his fantasy, shee it was bad. Still, I must say, some people really liked that too. Matter of taste, maybe.

So unless issue is jerky personality I still believe that bad gm might some day make good gm/be good gm to some other people. I would quit the game thought. I don't have energy for sucky gaming anymore. I have done my time.

 

[Oryan77]

Have you seen a bad GM become a good GM in response to criticism? Because frankly I have not.

I'd like to think I turned out to be a good DM because of criticism. My first few DMing sessions back in 2e were horrible. I guess I was so bad that a friend of mine wouldn't even play. He said he didn't like the setting, but I know he didn't like my DMing. It sucked too cause he was a good player and he only played in the very first session. He didn't even give me a chance.

I just wasn't confident as DM at the time, I didn't know the rules well enough to run things smoothly, and I may have railroaded a bit. I just didn't really know what I was doing and I threw myself into the DM chair (pressured by the players to hurry and DM). It didn't help that I had only played D&D a year as a player and I was learning the Planescape setting for the first time (which totally confused me).

This players refusal to play with me made me try harder to be a good DM. Other players also complained when I made mistakes and I just kept trying to improve. Even to this day, if a player criticizes my DMing, I take the criticism into consideration and think about it. I may not always agree with it, but I do continue to try and improve.

Now if we are talking about a bad DM that is not exactly new to DMing, then yeah, I don't think he'll ever change.

 

[d2OKC]

I've been gaming with the same core group for about 12 years or so now (we've had some changes to the group, but there have been two or three constants the whole time, and everyone who plays in our group is very familiar, if not very friendly, with each other). We've had a few cases of bad DMing (myself included, unfortunately):

- One DM had a very cool scenario developed where he wanted us to fight a dracolich. Our group was pretty terrified of this, so our wizard used a "control undead" scroll which, by the rules, would have let him control the dracolich and send it away. The DM didn't want that to happen and just ruled that the scroll didn't work and we had to fight it anyway. It did make us pretty mad at the time, but he's still one of our best friends (and a very, very good player), and he's since apologized for it, which is cool with me.

- We had a DM who had his own world. It was a very detailed world that he has spent years tinkering with in various forms. One of the biggest problems was the dreaded DMPC, which followed us around for literally the entire campaign, and it was hard for our PCs to really feel cool around him. However, I think he started to realize it was a bad idea, and the character ended up dying close to the end of the campaign, and it is still one of the most fun, fulfilling campaigns our group had played, and we still talk about certain scenes from it to this day, many years later.

- I'm very bad at roleplaying as a DM. I know this weakness of mine, and my game, which has been running over two years now, has been tailored to suit my strengths as a DM. There have been many sessions where I've tried to do more RP for my players, and it always ends with them half-asleep from boredom. Bad DMing, not recognizing what works and what doesn't.

Basically, we've had our problems, but we've been pretty good at diagnosing them and treating them, and we have a very good group. Fortunately, we've never really broken up over any of these issues.

 

[S'mon]

I'd like to think I turned out to be a good DM because of criticism. My first few DMing sessions back in 2e were horrible. I guess I was so bad that a friend of mine wouldn't even play. He said he didn't like the setting, but I know he didn't like my DMing. It sucked too cause he was a good player and he only played in the very first session. He didn't even give me a chance.

I just wasn't confident as DM at the time, I didn't know the rules well enough to run things smoothly, and I may have railroaded a bit. I just didn't really know what I was doing and I threw myself into the DM chair (pressured by the players to hurry and DM). It didn't help that I had only played D&D a year as a player and I was learning the Planescape setting for the first time (which totally confused me).

This players refusal to play with me made me try harder to be a good DM. Other players also complained when I made mistakes and I just kept trying to improve. Even to this day, if a player criticizes my DMing, I take the criticism into consideration and think about it. I may not always agree with it, but I do continue to try and improve.

Now if we are talking about a bad DM that is not exactly new to DMing, then yeah, I don't think he'll ever change.

I've had phases of being a bad DM (notably in 1994-5, after several years away, and using Dungeon adventures of the era - I railroaded, I ran crap adventures, I was crap. I also ran Traveller: the New Era, badly*.). Mostly though I'm a flawed DM, not a bad DM I think, so constructive criticism helps me improve. But I've never seen an actually-bad GM take criticism onboard & improve.

*Jeez, in hindsight the '90s really sucked for RPGs!!!

 

[Pentius]

Something that's always bugged me, especially when groups "fire" their GM: How do you expect bad GM X to even have a chance to become a better GM when you "fire" him/her?

If they dismiss suggestions out of hand, that's one thing, but I'm thinking more like players not liking something the GM is doing, not telling him/her (or telling him/her in the "you're stupid" way), and declaring that that person is not allowed to GM anymore/mass unexplained walkout.

I've only been part of firing one bad DM, and honestly, I wasn't thinking about helping him be a better DM. During the five years of playing with him regularly, during which time myself and other members of the group gave our honest criticisms and feedbacks, I was trying to help him be a better DM. We fired him when we realized that it had been five years, and he wasn't any better a DM than at the start(and he was new at the start of those five years, too).

 

[Hussar]

Something that's always bugged me, especially when groups "fire" their GM: How do you expect bad GM X to even have a chance to become a better GM when you "fire" him/her?

If they dismiss suggestions out of hand, that's one thing, but I'm thinking more like players not liking something the GM is doing, not telling him/her (or telling him/her in the "you're stupid" way), and declaring that that person is not allowed to GM anymore/mass unexplained walkout.

As S'mon said. You can make an innexperienced DM a better DM through criticism. But a truly bad DM? Nope, not going to happen.

IME, player revolts are never a spur of the moment thing. They take time. Most players are perfectly willing to put up with mediocre games - heck, they stay in mine. But, by the time the group, en masse, decides that enough is enough, there's just nothing else that will get through to the DM.