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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kitsune9" data-source="post: 5709703" data-attributes="member: 18507">I know I've ranted this in other threads, so here's my list of "bad DM". Before I get into the list is that it's really more about personal taste than true attributes of what makes for a bad DM. There are many players who actually quite enjoy the play styles that would make me want to go to prison for capital murder. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Ultimately, if your players are having fun at your games, then whatever you're doing makes you a "good DM".1. Lack of preparation. I don't like DM's who make up adventures from pulling them out of their butt. Too many situations of where the game gets bogged down to negotiating for customizing armor, exploring a dungeon with no monsters, DM doesn't want to run combats, and adventures have no plot and everything about the campaign is completely random or nonsensical. 2. "Fast and loose". DM doesn't want to play the RAW game because he's wants to do things fast and loose which means he's been too lazy to sit down and read the rulebook to learn how to play the game. DM's like this make erratic judgment calls, every decision the player wants to make is not confidently judged by the mechanics because he has to run it by the DM first to see if the action is allowable at the moment before determining if a die will be needed for success. My example for this was at a con game where the admitted he skimmed the rules (i.e. he didn't read a word). When a combat broke out, he said the monsters were going first (there was no suprise, he just said they were). He called out segments (we were playing 3.0), and he didn't allow a player's sneak attack, flanking, no AoO's, and multiple attacks.3. Kewl Homebrew Rulz. Every DM flirts with some form of homebrew rules. I like to create some very campaign specific ones myself to add to the tone and flavor of the game, but they are very very few and mostly minor. But I won't rewrite Pathfinder. I played in two different games where one DM essentially rewrote how combat works in D&D and claimed that these rules "should be in the next edition". He even called his ruleset "Rules That Don't Suck!" They did. Another DM was a lady who basically created her own fantasy rpg; however, the rules were a confusing mishmash of poorly written English and incomplete concepts. What was sad about that game was this lady was represented all three points here. Yuck.</blockquote>

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