Fauchard1520
Adventurer
What is the worst case of a "Gotcha GM" that you've experienced? Did they ever get better?
(My go-to Gotcha GM example.)
(My go-to Gotcha GM example.)
Gotcha GMs
Nebulous
Legend
A Dark Sun DM penalized them from the get go for not burying their water skins overnight and all their water dehydrated. Despite the "characters" knowing this is a threat in their world, even if the players didn't.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
I'll cop to having been a gotcha GM back when I was first running Vampire: The Masquerade. I was exacting in watching for PCs that failed to properly cover their tracks. I like to think that I got better.
The worst gotcha GMing I experienced as a player was during a game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. I didn't do well on a check to pilot a helicopter. The GM told me I flipped the thing upside down. A few rounds later, assuming that I had righted the thing, since I hadn't crashed, I decided to fly closer and leap out into the melee that was occurring below. The GM told me that the helicopter was somehow still upside down, and thus that character ended up going through the proverbial blender.
The worst gotcha GMing I experienced as a player was during a game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. I didn't do well on a check to pilot a helicopter. The GM told me I flipped the thing upside down. A few rounds later, assuming that I had righted the thing, since I hadn't crashed, I decided to fly closer and leap out into the melee that was occurring below. The GM told me that the helicopter was somehow still upside down, and thus that character ended up going through the proverbial blender.
GreyLord
Legend
Not really a gotcha DM, but a jerk move DM.
Many years ago (decades actually)...
We had gone into caves to hunt a pestering goblin tribe down. As a Human I had no infravision. We were playing at work as a group. One weekend between workdays the DM continued play with two others that he knew. They played our characters. They decided to leave to town and leave the rest of the party in the dark without any lights (yeah...really, like my character or others would actually even agree to this).
Then, while in the dark the DM had the goblins attack us. Everyone of the party but those two characters died.
They came back, got all the treasure after wiping out the last few (we took some of the goblins with us) and leveled up.
Ironically, we continued to play with that DM, but looking back at that instance it was sort of gotcha (aha, you are a human who has no lights in the dark) even though I had no say in the situation with my character...AND was a VERY jerk move by the DM (who the heck has someone else play others characters only to leave characters in situations that the players would never approve of and then kills them off??? I'd call that a jerk move by a DM).
Many years ago (decades actually)...
We had gone into caves to hunt a pestering goblin tribe down. As a Human I had no infravision. We were playing at work as a group. One weekend between workdays the DM continued play with two others that he knew. They played our characters. They decided to leave to town and leave the rest of the party in the dark without any lights (yeah...really, like my character or others would actually even agree to this).
Then, while in the dark the DM had the goblins attack us. Everyone of the party but those two characters died.
They came back, got all the treasure after wiping out the last few (we took some of the goblins with us) and leveled up.
Ironically, we continued to play with that DM, but looking back at that instance it was sort of gotcha (aha, you are a human who has no lights in the dark) even though I had no say in the situation with my character...AND was a VERY jerk move by the DM (who the heck has someone else play others characters only to leave characters in situations that the players would never approve of and then kills them off??? I'd call that a jerk move by a DM).
Fanaelialae
Legend
This DM had a penchant for placing characters in demeaning situations.
The characters, after fighting through much of the dungeon, found themselves in front of a 100 foot deep pit. Looking into it, they didn't detect anything out of the ordinary. After some debating as to who should go first my monk decides to run down the wall (because he had that ability).
The DM starts laughing and declares that the monk finds himself waist deep in dungeon denizen poop. I got a bit irritated at this point, since the DM hadn't mentioned anything about the scent of poop, and asked how that could be. The DM declared that the scent of all this offal only rose about halfway up the pit and was undetectable from the top. I said, well in that case as soon as I detect the scent I want to make a U turn and run back to the top (as a high level monk with some movement boosting buffs, I had plenty of movement). We argued about it a bit, and finally the DM offered me a high Dex check to pull off the turn around, and I succeeded. My character successfully avoided running into the naughty word pit, but even then the DM basically taunted me about it for the rest of the dungeon.
What I really want to know is who in their right mind poops in a 100 foot deep pit!? You're leaning back, doing your business, lose your balance and fall head first into a deep latrine. Game over. World building at its finest. :/
Like I said, not the first time he pulled that kind of crap, just the most recent that I can recall. Sometimes his gotchas would be of the deadlier variety, like the time he put three adjacent 5'x5' pits in a random spot in a 5' wide hallway of the main thoroughfare of an inhabited dungeon. My character climbed out of the pit only to fall into another. And then again! How the heck did anyone come and go from this darn dungeon!? Then again, I suppose I should just be greatful that those pits didn't double as latrines...
The characters, after fighting through much of the dungeon, found themselves in front of a 100 foot deep pit. Looking into it, they didn't detect anything out of the ordinary. After some debating as to who should go first my monk decides to run down the wall (because he had that ability).
The DM starts laughing and declares that the monk finds himself waist deep in dungeon denizen poop. I got a bit irritated at this point, since the DM hadn't mentioned anything about the scent of poop, and asked how that could be. The DM declared that the scent of all this offal only rose about halfway up the pit and was undetectable from the top. I said, well in that case as soon as I detect the scent I want to make a U turn and run back to the top (as a high level monk with some movement boosting buffs, I had plenty of movement). We argued about it a bit, and finally the DM offered me a high Dex check to pull off the turn around, and I succeeded. My character successfully avoided running into the naughty word pit, but even then the DM basically taunted me about it for the rest of the dungeon.
What I really want to know is who in their right mind poops in a 100 foot deep pit!? You're leaning back, doing your business, lose your balance and fall head first into a deep latrine. Game over. World building at its finest. :/
Like I said, not the first time he pulled that kind of crap, just the most recent that I can recall. Sometimes his gotchas would be of the deadlier variety, like the time he put three adjacent 5'x5' pits in a random spot in a 5' wide hallway of the main thoroughfare of an inhabited dungeon. My character climbed out of the pit only to fall into another. And then again! How the heck did anyone come and go from this darn dungeon!? Then again, I suppose I should just be greatful that those pits didn't double as latrines...
Do self-gotchas count?
I was running Rise of the Runelords for my group. It was going pretty well, and we were getting to the end of the second module (“The Skinsaw Murders”). That module ends with a fight at the top of an old tower. There’s a trap as well as some monsters on the way to the top. Whatever happened, the ranger was nearly dead after all this. The party gets to the top, and the fight agains the lamia matriarch begins. The ranger charges, she takes her Attack of Opportunity, and the ranger drops after she does barely any damage.
Me: Wait, what? Didn’t you heal up after the last encounter? Do you want to have healed up? (Implying it would be a good idea, and offering the opportunity literally right when the PC had gone down.)
Players: Nope.
Me: Ooookay….
After that, the fight spiraled out of control, ending in a TPK. Because the players didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to heal up retroactively when one of them unexpectedly went down at the start of a fight.
I was running Rise of the Runelords for my group. It was going pretty well, and we were getting to the end of the second module (“The Skinsaw Murders”). That module ends with a fight at the top of an old tower. There’s a trap as well as some monsters on the way to the top. Whatever happened, the ranger was nearly dead after all this. The party gets to the top, and the fight agains the lamia matriarch begins. The ranger charges, she takes her Attack of Opportunity, and the ranger drops after she does barely any damage.
Me: Wait, what? Didn’t you heal up after the last encounter? Do you want to have healed up? (Implying it would be a good idea, and offering the opportunity literally right when the PC had gone down.)
Players: Nope.
Me: Ooookay….
After that, the fight spiraled out of control, ending in a TPK. Because the players didn’t take advantage of an opportunity to heal up retroactively when one of them unexpectedly went down at the start of a fight.
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Pit with a rust monster at the bottom.
Ah, memories...
Ah, memories...
