D&D General Bad gaming experiences and how they made you a better player/GM...

[ART!]

Con game. I sign up for one session of a multi-session thing, but the description states that playing just one session is fine.

Our session starts with picking pregens, and I luck out and get to play my favorite class at the time. So far, this is looking great: favorite class, setting I love and know well, rules that I know well and that were designed for the setting. Sweet!

But then!

The PCs are presented very early on with an impending attack on a village, with not much time to prepare before the attack. I groove right into problem-solving gear, and start proposing solutions to different aspects of the problem, how to defend the village, trying to get a sense of the village's resources - all kinds of stuff. I'm good at this. It's one of the things I love about ttrpgs.

The GM obstructs me at every. Single. Turn. Nothing I suggest is possible, useful, or will work or even help at all in any way. This was my first hint that I was just a cog in a machine.

I honestly don't remember the rest of the events, because eventually it got so bad that we were just observers of a huge, climactic battle at the end of the session, that I assume was Very Important In The Larger Story. The GM was describing things well, but I was past caring. At one point in their descriptions, though, they must have read the look on my face and said to me "Come on - get into it!".

I politely said nothing, but inside I was seething.

 

[Oofta]

With apologies to Queen I can't help but have this (slightly modified) song going through my head:

I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of dice
Thrown in my face
But I've come through

And I mean to go on and on and on and on

I am the DM, my friends
And I'll keep on rolling till the end
I am the DM
I am the DM
No time for PCs
'Cause I am the DM of the campaign

 

[Oofta]

Well, I think every DM is a work in progress so if I didn't learn from mistakes I'd never (hopefully) improve. Mistakes I've made?

• Had a climactic fight ... between NPCs. As in actually ran the combat. Fortunately I only did this once, although now and then I will have a scene off to the side the PCs will always have something to do other than just watch.
• Too much detail. Okay, I enjoy world building. So at one point my players actually asked if they could just skip the box text when I was giving some descriptions. Now? Now I just post details to a wiki and tell people they can read it if they're really, really bored and try to be relatively concise.
• Allowing absolutely everything. I know some people are anything goes people but ... I had guy who play seven foot tall albino elves (back when elves topped out at 5'6") who used no weapons. For that matter, I don't think he even had any offensive capability of any kind. He just stated that when he walked into the room people were scared of him; no rule support, no mechanical effect, nothing. He had to borrow a dagger from a fellow PC. When another guy wanted to play a half-dragon half-vampire with a cape that billowed mystically in the nonexistent wind, I just said no.
• I used to go out of my way to make sure PCs didn't die. Then I had Jack. Jack was bound and determined to see how far he could push it. Eventually it dawned on me what was going on and I killed his PC off. Which leads into the next bullet point.
• I accept now that I can't be the right DM for every player. Jack, for example, quit the campaign a few sessions after I killed off his PC because my game had overarching stories and was "too structured". Not that I railroaded the PCs, just that there were conflicts and things going on in the world and they were given the option to pursue. He wanted to play an adventurer that "Just went to the tavern and things happened." I still have no clue what he meant. But I also learned to not take it personally.

Anyway, those are just a few.

 

[Iron Sky]

You missed the second bit

So many:

1 GM gives professional actor in group majority of spotlight since he's so entertaining. Everyone else expected to watch, play scraps.

2 Make magic user. GM doesn't like how broken power-gamed wizard is in RPG system that they wrote. Spontaneous magic nerfs and all enemies heavy anti-magic (in m magic rare setting) during play.

3 Running a gritty game of noble politics with young group wanting consequence-free action.

4 Playtesting crunchy homebrew system with brand new players.

5 Follow the badass GMPC.

6 Simulationist, player-choice-focused game for narrative, follow-the-GM-plot expecting players. "What are we supposed to do next? Why don't NPCs come in and rescue us or lead us?"

7 Story-focused 4e.

8 Enable the toxic player because he's a friend.

9 GURPS. Half-joking.

Lessons learned:
1. Don't play with groups like this. As GM distribute spotlight.
2. Don't play with groups like this.
3. Don't.
4. Don't.
5. Don't.
6. Don't.
7. Good luck.
8. Don't.
9. Don't. Half-joking.