D&D 5E Anti-DM Tips (AKA what NOT to do!)

[TerraDave]

53. Deck of many things

Really... over 50 and this hasn't come up yet?

Again, I have done this and will do it again.

Though probably not soon.

 

[Hussar]

33. Did your players kill your BBEG in two rounds, giving him no time to use all his cool "totally balanced" abilities? Don't worry, It was just a dream sequence! It never really happened, and in fact they were imprisoned while they were sleeping.

66. Corollary to this. Imprison you PC's while they were sleeping. Repeatedly.

67. Create house rules to "fix" the game without doing the basic math required to ensure that the "fix" actually fixes anything.

68. When adjudicating actions that are not specifically covered by the rules, always make sure that you set the difficulty so high that failure is virtually guaranteed. Then complain loudly that your players "never think outside the box".

 

[rgoodbb]

69. Whatever stupid path they take in their ridiculous theoretical sandbox world, they always find the single railroad option I need them to find...

 

[TerraDave]

69. Whatever stupid path they take in their ridiculous theoretical sandbox world, they always find the single railroad option I need them to find...

And yet again...this is sometimes good advice.

 

[Imaculata]

70. Never bother to write down the names of your npc's, and then forget their names the next session. The players are supposed to write these things down. Besides, who cares that the King suddenly has a totally different name, appearance and different siblings?

71. Make every dungeon a gigantic meandering labyrinth of empty tunnels and dead ends. If the party didn't take that one right turn towards the excitement, it is all their fault.

72. Force them to draw out the dungeon on graph paper, and await the moment where their version of the map inevitably no longer makes any sense.

 

[5ekyu]

73. Say "no" to what the players want their characters to do ***unless** you really have a **really compelling reason** to do so. "yes!", "yes but..." or "yes and" are so much more useful and fun.

 

[BoldItalic]

74. When the PC's search for stuff and you ask them roll to see what they find, describe in loving detail all the amazing things they failed to find and now never will. Emphasise that they only missed by 1 or 2 on the dice roll. This will encourage them to put more more points into search-related abilities and skills. When they do, raise your search DCs to compensate and continue as before. Eventually they will give up and not bother searching at all which is good because it speeds the game up.

 

[Kobold Boots]

22. Plan for at least 1 TPK per session. The players will love the memories years from now.

If you tell them up front that the game's lethality is such, then all bets are off

 

[Volund]

75. Whenever players make a choice, later on in the session tell them what they missed by not making the other choice. "Good thing you didn't take the forest path; there was a gorgon waiting for you." After every encounter tell the players how some other group of players handled the situation when you previously ran the encounter. Emphasize how much more clever they were. Get mad at player metagaming.

 

[Kobold Boots]

76. When recruiting players, convince them that your game is exactly what they're looking for. It'll be fun and surprising when they find out that your game isn't anything like what you sold them to begin with.