Burning Questions: What's the Worst Thing a DM Can Do?

In this column, we take common D & D questions posed on Quora and attempt to answer them in a friendly, practical and informative way. Today's question: “As a D & D player, what is the worst thing your DM could do to take the fun out of playing?”

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I regularly DM my games—I can count on one hand the number of times I've played as PC—but the one thing that always brought me out of a game was a boring DM or a DM who was so focused on the rules, they didn't make it very fun for the players. In this case, “boring” can mean a number of different things:

1. A major emphasis or strict adherence to specific rules. I love the mechanics of D & D as much as the next guy, but an over emphasis on rules can render an otherwise fun adventure tedious.
2. The DM insists upon railroading the players and not accounting for their ingenuity. Yeah, it sucks that on occasion, the players will completely bypass that insane dragon encounter you spent all afternoon building, but you have the ability as a DM to improvise right along with them and figure out a way to work that encounter back into a new path. As a DM, always has a contingency plan for unexpected player action. It doesn’t always work, but at least we have fun.
3. A lack of energy in the game. Simply reading the box text of an adventure, without emotion or flair, puts me to sleep. The DM’s job is to engage the players. Without engagement, the game is boring and easily
4. The DM gives special treatment to another player. This has ruined far too many games in my own experience. The party is a team with each member possessing their own strengths and flaws and I’ve always had more fun when the party functions as a team, rather than individual units.

While this probably isn’t unique to my own experience, it does seem to be a common concern around my FLGS. This is a bit of an experiment and we’d love to know what our readers think about this topic in the comments. We’ll be back with another RPG Quora Question soon.

This article was contributed by David J. Buck (Nostalgia Ward) as part of ENWorld's User-Generated Content (UGC) program. When he isn’t learning to play or writing about RPGs, he can be found on Patreon or Twitter. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!

 

[Nagol]

Of course they are comparable. Why would it be okay to change the rules in one game and not in another game?

The only reason D&D 5e isn't for me as a player is that there aren't any other DMs that want to play by the rules.

Fundamentally, because unlike chess, the rules for D&D are incomplete. Every legal move in chess is described. Anything that is not a described move is illegal. This is obviously untrue in D&D.

Even worse, unlike some RPG systems, D&D uses unique subsystems rather than a universal system which means that how you extend the rules to cover a legal but undescribed move is non-obvious. So extending the game to cover an undescribed move requires a ruling. If that ruling becomes a consistent response to the move, it becomes a house rule and you've just changed the game.

The secondary reason to change the rules of D&D, much like chess, is you want to change the strategy/flavour of the game. Since D&D is a much more expansive game, to shift genres and/or conceits and tropes is relatively straightforward alterations to the ruleset.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

And could that be because there's one or two significant written rules in 5e that seem to have some issues, based on what I've read in here, to the point that any decent DM is going to at least look at if not fix before running her game? (the biggest of these, from what I can tell, being various aspects of resting)

I've yet to see an issue that cannot be resolved without breaking the rules. I mean I run into these problem as DM myself and resolved them all so far.

Or could it be because 5e intentionally leaves some things a bit vague to allow DMs some space to make rulings to suit their own games?

It intentionally leaves things a bit vague and leaves various decision to the DM because playing is faster and consequently more fun if you don't have to look up rules all the time to determine what modifiers to apply. If anything it makes it easier for the DM to abide by the rules, since he has already enough flexbility even without breaking any. In no way it's an indication that they were written to be broken. The opposite is the case.

Or could it be because 5e was written with the specific intent of being kitbashable - at least, that's what was said during the playtest - with DMs then encouraged to do so?

Those are for the cases were DMs make their own campaign (which I'm not interested in at all).

Here's another question for you: if a DM had made up her own entire rule-set from scratch and thus by default had to be playing by the rules as written seeing as she's the one as wrote 'em, would you play in that game?

If I selected the ruleset as the ruleset I want to play with, then yes.
Or in other words, if Jeremy Crawford offered to DM me, I'd love to be a player!

 

[Nagol]

I've yet to see an issue that cannot be resolved without breaking the rules. I mean I run into these problem as DM myself and resolved them all so far.


It intentionally leaves things a bit vague and leaves various decision to the DM because playing is faster and consequently more fun if you don't have to look up rules all the time to determine what modifiers to apply. If anything it makes it easier for the DM to abide by the rules, since he has already enough flexbility even without breaking any. In no way it's an indication that they were written to be broken. The opposite is the case.


Those are for the cases were DMs make their own campaign (which I'm not interested in at all).


If I selected the ruleset as the ruleset I want to play with, then yes.
Or in other words, if Jeremy Crawford offered to DM me, I'd love to be a player!

Except he uses house rules. They all do.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Fundamentally, because unlike chess, the rules for D&D are incomplete. Every legal move in chess is described. Anything that is not a described move is illegal. This is obviously untrue in D&D.

Even worse, unlike some RPG systems, D&D uses unique subsystems rather than a universal system which means that how you extend the rules to cover a legal but undescribed move is non-obvious. So extending the game to cover an undescribed move requires a ruling. If that ruling becomes a consistent response to the move, it becomes a house rule and you've just changed the game.

Maybe it's a semantics issue - for me a house rule is a rule that is in conflict with an existing rule. A ruling is just deciding how to handle something that's not in any rule. I don't mind the latter.

And yes, in D&D it's harder to figure out how something works compared to an easier ruleset - but that doesn't really mean you shouldn't try to figure it out first.

You can also declare before the game which rule expansions apply for your game. Someone saying he only uses the PHB rules is just as good to me as someone who says the rules in Xanathar's Guide on what can be done with tools apply, as long as you know what kind of ruleset you are playing when you start to play.

That still works similar in board games. Maybe not chess because it's so popular every corner case is already covered, but occassionally you will also run into corner cases in board games that aren't handled by the rules or unclear. Then you'll have to make a decision on the fly. Also, the board game creator might later update the rules and resolve that issue. For me that doesn't justify changing any of the clear rules, though. And also after the rules update is published I'd expect everyone to use that.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Except he uses house rules. They all do.

You think he'd go against what he posted on Sage Advice?

 

[Benji]

Consistently with how I understand iserith's posts above, I want to say: if the complex of monsters and treasures will be especially entertaining, then why gate it behind a random chance of having fun? Just tell the players that their PCs notice the secret door! (If the GM wants to achieve this by providing the information to the player whose PC has the best Perception score, as a tip-of-the-hat to that PC's build, then that seems harmless enough, but very much a secondary consideration.)

Right, I have an example. It has numbers and it's quite long but it serves to demonstrate my concerns with this. I'd like to say I think you're right some of this is just taste and framing but here's where I think it can become problematic. SO hang on with me and I think you'll see where I am coming from:

A group of five 5th level heroes are sneaking through a dungeon. They have a party member who is maxed out: has a wisdom of 20 and is proficent in perception. They have announced the are keeping watch. They enter a room with several column in it and behind one is an drow assassin - using the assassin statblock, which xanathar's says is 'balanced'. The group announce they are still keeping watch and moving through the room. there are a few ways to handle this -

a) The DM is a bit railroady and decides to frame the attack as a surprise without actually using any rules.
b) We do things the way I undrrstand iserith's stance - the players use their passive perception when the attack happens. The are keeping watch and being alert but the dm isn't going to ask for a perception check
c) We do it the way I'd do it - The skill example for perception on PG178 of the players handbooks suggests that you can make a perception roll to detect hidden creatures - we allow a roll
d) You want to frame this encounter but are a 'narrative' dm and want to avoid being the person from example a)

So let's run through this -

a) the assassin attacks and becuase no dice are rolled, it has surprise, uses it's abilities and sneak attacks/posions someone and kills them without the players having any agency. The feel railroaded.

In b) the dm allows passive perception. Given the assassin has a +11 in stealth, the DM will beat the highest perception on a roll of 7. or if the dm just wants to frame it as an 'Average challenge' There's a high chance the assassin does the same functional thing as example a) except the player this time said they were keeping watch but they functionally had no input in the ambush. the dm either rolled a dice or as I understand the way some people play it, eyeballed and average score for the assassin (21) and ruled a successful ambush. Players feel they had no agency.

c) players roll perception checks at DM's behest to spot the assassin in hiding. Their range of failure success on the highest party member is now between 9 and 28. they might succeed or fail but they felt like the fact they were keeping check had an in world effect. If they succeed, it's because they were allowed to roll against a 'gate'. if they failed they still feel like they had a chance to effect the outcome but understand they at least had a run at the gate.

d) the dm doesn't want the assassin to kill anyone and decides to frame it as no surprise or only a few people surprised. In this case, why both with stealth as a score? Why bother with these rules at all?

I think some of my problem comes with 'we have to stick to the rules. but if I feel like not using the rules and framing something pre-combat or socially instead, that's fine'. it's a double standard in my mind.

 

[Nagol]

You think he'd go against what he posted on Sage Advice?

In his home game? Probably. Sage Advice is for those who would like a slightly clearer understanding of RAW for the rules presented.

The developers fiddle because that's what they like to do. They know the RAW, they know the RAI, and they also know what they would like to do differently. So they change the rules to better reflect RAI (which Sage Advice explicitly said it wouldn't do) and where they have different intentions from the common published rules they build house rules to fit their intention. So they adopt a different initiative system or redesign a class, or alter how particular feats work, or whatever the particular proud nail might be that they want to pound flat.

 

[Benji]

Back then it was simply harder to figure out how RAI is. That doesn't change much about the situation, though. You should always try to abide by the rules. Plus it's a combined effort of players AND the DM to interpret the rules. The problem for me is only if the DM feels entitled to intentionally change them. Or if he doesn't listen to his players when they try to explain how the rule works.

Wait, earlier you were saying it's sage advices way or no way. This is ashifting of that position. You used ot be able to ring up Gary Gygax. His advice seemed to be universally always 'What did/would you do? That seems fine.'

 

[Mercule]

But I certainly think nothing of a situation in which two players discuss ideas among themselves while I'm dealing with another player.

Eh, it wasn't the side conversation aspect that bothered me. It was the "you aren't permitted to hear" implication.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Wait, earlier you were saying it's sage advices way or no way. This is ashifting of that position.

No, my position is still the same.

The order of priorities is:
1. Rule is clear? Yes -> Use the rule
2. Sage Advice exists? Yes -> Use sage advice
3. Rule not clear and no sage advice? Discuss with your players.
4. Agreement -> Use agreement
5. No agreement -> DM decides