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I was just responding to the theory that any human not armed with a howitzer would stand no chance against megafauna - whether that's a T-Rex or a dragon. Jurassic Park has given us the impression that the dinosaur could just ignore fully automatic assault rifle damage from close range and not...

Spoken like someone who never encountered a pissed off rooster. :)

A T-Rex is just a giant chicken. Unlike what Jurassic park would have you believe, they are just animals. Meanwhile our ancestors did hunt things like wooly mammoths which were about as massive. Obviously no human has ever fought a T-Rex, but we are quite efficient at killing pretty much every...

My point was not about historical accuracy of people encountering T-Rexes, it's that if you want a "dragon" that works according to real world physics you have to strip away a lot of what makes a dragon a dragon. First thing that goes is the breath weapon and flying. Then you ask if the...

In my game? The ritual still would have happened. On the other hand, the ritual would never be world ending because I don't want to create a brand new world. It would have been quite bad for the city and surrounding region. edit - there have been times when city states have fallen and there...

People did hunt grizzly bears with stone tipped spears, there are stories of warriors that would hunt them with only a dagger as a challenge. Admittedly a bear is "only" going to weigh 600 pounds or so but people (and the MM IMHO) really underestimate their power. If movies like one million...

True, but a serious simulation of a dragon sans magic is never going to breath fire or fly. Try to design a realistic dragon and you'll end up with something that looks like a T-Rex. While a T-Rex would be terrifying our ancestors have been killing everything in their path with stone-age...

I (almost*) never use quantum ogres, if the players make a choice I will always try to make it a meaningful choice. There are, of course many times when things go as I had envisioned they would but its up to the players. If they go in an unexpected direction I'll improvise. I typically outline...

You're assuming there is a "right" way. I don't. If alignment is a useful descriptor for an individual it can be an aid. While I discuss alignment with my players if they ask, it doesn't matter if we're in 100% agreement. It's nice if we're in the same ballpark for discussion purposes but as...

I've run campaigns for decades in the same world, many of them up to the highest level. I don't know why you think I'd run out of stories to tell. I have an entire world and multiple planes of existence to work with. Almost every campaign leaves some threads dangling, things that were only...

Evil is just one aspect of a person's personality and worldview. They may be LE but really love puppies or, even if they are a complete sociopath that can't feel emotions like love they could still value and treat them well. Outwardly it may look like kindness and empathy but really it's just...

I don't necessarily see it as an either or. You have an entire world to play with, there can easily be a region controlled by powerful vampire like Ravenloft and another area that's standard city based adventure or anything else you want. Why limit yourself? I typically start with a specific...

I'm not sure what label would be correct, but they do represent different approaches and trains of thought. One view is that there is logic and reason, the world works like a clockwork mechanism and there is a reason behind everything even if we don't understand it. Another view is that there...

When 9% of the people responding to a poll say that all or almost all of the DM's they have ever had were bad, and one person far upstream said every DM that they had ever had was bad. I think it's pretty save to assume that some people would say Mercer is a bad DM. On a related note I just...

Whether or not a game is boring is subjective. Some people thrive on high risk campaigns even those that include tropes I would personally never touch with a 10 foot pole (and any DM that does use them should okay it with every member of the group, asked in private) are part of the excitement...

Can we then politely ask that you not conflate your opinion of what bad means with an objective standard? Because that's what most of this is about - any judgement about whether a DM is "bad" typically comes down to personal preferences and judgement. One person may think a DM is bad another...

I was the one who decided it because I will never run a game with evil characters or even participate in a game where evil characters are a focus of the game. It's a personal preference of how I want to spend my leisure time. But there are other examples of someone leaving for some reason...

I "drove a player to another game" because I don't allow evil characters. I don't like running games for evil characters and I have players that don't want it either. That makes me a bad DM? Really? By your definition if a DM is not the right DM for every player in existence then I think...

Maybe it does for you, I think abusive and controlling (along with a couple other terrible patterns) is what makes a bad DM. But this whole side tangent was spawned out of discussions of abusive and controlling DMs. The poll was given as support for the idea that abusive and controlling DMs are...

Technically you included "might" but the implication is pretty clear.