D&D General Biggest DM regret

[DND_Reborn]

Hmm... well, this was over 25 years ago and back in high school. I was DMing and at times slightly viscous. One time, when a player really pissed me off about his character dying, I grabbed his character sheet from in front of him, stood up and tore it to pieces right then and there in front of him and everyone else! Wow, that was a crazy moment... The shock, the horror, the utter power of playing god, etc. I then handed him a blank character sheet and told him to start rolling.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Hmm... well, this was over 25 years ago and back in high school. I was DMing and at times slightly viscous.

A sticky situation indeed

 

[not-so-newguy]

Creating a poisonous liquid called “orange goo” many, many years (2nd edition iirc, perhaps 3.0)

Orange goo properties: At 0 degree Celsius or below orange goo is a liquid. Any warmer than that, then orange goo turns to orange gas. Ingested or inhaled, orange goo is an “instant death” poison (no save).

Anyway, I had a small rivulet of this orange goo flowing through the rooms of a dungeon. If the party followed the rivulet, then they would eventually reach the treasure room (after facing off with the BBEG).

As the party entered the dungeon, I describe the first room: It’s freezing, ice crystals have formed on the walls, patches of frozen water dot the floor, a rivulet of orange liquid flows through the middle of the room and leads to the exit. Of course, the party gathers around to inspect the rivulet

Fighter: I take my torch and put it in the liquid.
Me (just realizing the huge mistake I have made in designing the poison): The torch hits the orange goo and forms a small cloud.

…and that’s how I got my one and only TPK as a DM

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not pushing for player improvisation, and players knowing the improvisation rules rather than relying earlier on me to call it out, in my time running 4e. The DMG page 42 guidelines should have been in the PHB. Every class section should have had notes on what sorts of improvised actions might flow naturally from the abilities found in the class, skill section should have had notes on how skills could be used to create improvised actions in combat, etc.

but it because I waited so long to really lean into it, it was more work than it should have been to get my players into the spirit of it.

 

[S'mon]

My biggest regret was back in 1E/2E. We had a new player (from another game) visit and I had spent some time pre-game helping him make the character (A fighter 6/wizard 6/Rogue 6). I was looking for a good and feasible point to drop him into the groups lap, but before I knew it, the entire game session had passed and I hadn’t brought in his character. I apologized profusely and the player claimed they still had a good time listening to our session (and gave some insightful suggestions how to drop him in next game), but I’ve ever after made an effort to drop a new player in at the start of the session, no matter how strange the appearance might be.

Oh yeah, I had a similar thing ca 6 years ago - playing BX D&D RAW, PC M-U with 2 hp died to the first goblin arrow, and the player rolled up a PC then rather than tell me to bring him in, sat there looking unhappy, waiting for me to take the initiative - which I failed to do for the rest of the session. So he was even more furious.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Guest 6801328]

My biggest regret is the amount of time I've spent reading about D&D on the internet, rather than running games...

 

[Blue]

Biggest DM regret. Okay, I'm not going to reach back to when dinosaurs still covered the earth and I was a newbie DM, let me go for something that I should have known better.

I was running a long-running campaign in 3.0. (Total was about 5 years). I was light on giving out permanent magic items, and for some reason the high-Charisma sorcerer (who loved them in-character) ended up with the vast majority of them. Other players (but not characters) knew, and had no complaints.

Anyway, that player needed to take a several month break (birth of first child?) so with his permission I wrote him out. He ended up being captured, and rescuing him would end up going against a bunch of NPCs armed with all the magic items he collected to rescue him prior to his return - and would also have a bunch of additional ones so it would be a windfall for him and the party.

But unexpectedly in the middle of his break he was able to return for two sessions and then would be back out. So I worked up that who he was playing wasn't really him, it was an unknowing clone of him (that made sense in the plot but I don't remember why) that would break down soon. So his character returned - without any of magic items. So it looked like I just took them all away.

My regret was not bringing the player in on it and both (a) doing something cooler with the fact he was back and (b) leaving him thinking I took away all of his toys permanently. Instead I trying to keep the player firmer on the player side of the DM screen and missed out on making more fun and letting a player know it's all good.

I now try to run with player narrative a lot more, and invite them to conspire with me. Definitely leveled up my games.

 

[pogre]

My biggest regret of the last several years was ending a campaign that had some life left in it. I ran a weekly campaign from November to August. We had a great time, it was a crazy group, and I was really enjoying it. Back then I always had to take a work-related hiatus from gaming from August to November.

So, I restarted the campaign the following November, and then in December I had three players (out of five) call off for a session. In a fairly immature move I sent out an email saying that I was ending the campaign. I said the campaign had lost its energy and I was done. All of the players asked me to continue, but I did not. Looking back, it was pretty much pouting on my part. I was polite and nice about it, but it was a knee-jerk reaction.