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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Pictured sourced from Pixabay
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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!

 

[Butch R]

All good points. I've had to deal with "special players" who got magic weapons at first level or over powered animal companions. I would add my person "least favorite". Vengeful God Syndrome. DMs who let real world dislikes or hurt feelings decide how things go in their world. You said something the DM didn't like? Oh look, three crits in a row against you. You point out , after the game, that the DM was wrong? Guess who will be rolling up a new character next session? I get that sometimes it's hard to just let some things go but that's always just seemed petty and childish to me.

 

[Celebrim]

Worse is a useless categorization. For any given n, I can always give you a hypothetical n+1 that is worse.

Nor is there I think a single answer. The GM wears many hats, none of which are less important than his other hats. How he can violate the trust and responsibility of a given hat differs from hat to hat. The worst thing you can do as a judge is different than the worst thing you can do as an arbiter which is different than the worst thing you can do as a secret keeper which is different than the worst thing you can do as antagonist which is different than the worst thing you can do as setting designer, rulesmith, storyteller, friend or person.

We could probably imagine a hypothetical worst GM ever that was a terrible person, friend, storyteller, rulesmith, designer, judge, arbiter, secret keeper, and on and on, but I don't know that this exercise in hyperbole would tell us much of anything.

It's the common and not extraordinary faults we have as GMs that are more useful to talk about.

 

[MNblockhead]

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

Yes, we know they do. They are designers. They fiddle. They demo. Look at some of the alternative initiative rules that have been proposed. They have YouTube videos of them creating custom sub-classes.

Maybe at a public game they would still to the RAW, but we know they use homebrew rules in their home games.

I think a game designer is the last person you want to game with. Just like an engineer can annoy their loved ones because they keep tinkering with things that were working just fine. I like testing new software and customizing my computers. I'm always breaking things and people have trouble even using any of my computers with their remapped keys, text-macro, funky Kinesis keyboards, uncommon operating systems, etc.

This said, there is nothing wrong with your preference. Actually, I think you would like my DM style as I strive to keep to RAW, at least when I'm running APs.

 

[Mechani-Kong]

Running a game that ignores a character's strengths and goals.

I played once in a game where the PCs spent a large amount of time crafting unique characters with interesting backgrounds, motivations and specialties, only to be placed into a campaign where no one was given the opportunity to use any of it. If that's the plan, just give us pre-gens and save us the time and effort.

 

[Nagol]

Running a game that ignores a character's strengths and goals.

I played once in a game where the PCs spent a large amount of time crafting unique characters with interesting backgrounds, motivations and specialties, only to be placed into a campaign where no one was given the opportunity to use any of it. If that's the plan, just give us pre-gens and save us the time and effort.

I admit to the flaw with respect to backgrounds. When I think about D&D, I think the character background is what's happened since play began (assuming a level 1 start). As a player I will provide a minimal background if I'm prodded, but I don't really want to see it in play (typically a black sheep only child of impoverished farmers killed by ankhegs s or some such). Other games, are far more character-focused and backgrounds mean much more.

Motivations and specialties though, those are gold in a PC are should be exploited and encouraged.

 

[Benji]

I would indeed run it as (b). It's no concern of mine per se that the drow assassin has a pretty good chance of surprising the PCs; however, I will have telegraphed this possibility at some point prior to this scene. (I'm pretty diligent about this.) The choice the players made to Keep Watch instead of, say, Draw a Map (which is worth gold in my games) or Track (which allows them to increase or decrease their chances of a wandering monster encounter), may be indicative of why the PCs are all Keeping Watch in this example.

In this, you've cleared up the last bit of my understanding on your viewpoint. I can now see not only see how you run a game but also why you do it that way. It's been a really interesting discussion and while it might not change the way I choose to DM, it has totally justified your standpoint and meant my opinion of your opinions will be regarded more highly in the future so thank you for taking the time to clarify.

Yes, it's a passive check which is used to determine surprise per the rules. I'll add as a point on terminology that there are no "active checks" in D&D 5e. I get what you mean by that but I think that muddles what these mechanics are meant to resolve.

By active check I just meant really 'actually rolling a dice and therefore yielding one of twenty results that lead to a rules as written success/fail binary' rather than passives 'cosulting a static unchanging number that provides one result that leads to a rules as written success/fail binary' but yes, I agree,there is no such term.

What I was really sticking to is that PG179 discussion of the skill check and wondering how you'd resolve that 'hearing creatures sneaking through a wood' because before the last few points you never gave an example of actually making a perception roll in an ambush situation but now I've seen in example how you draw those differentials with a little more supposed context, I can get behind your way of playing it.

To be clear, I'm sure you know all this. I'm just putting it out there to clarify my position and to offer up what the rules say to those who aren't familiar with this game.

Absolutely it was taken as such, I don't feel patronised. It's often important to over-explain to avoid misinterpretation, so I hold no malice. I took this whole thing as nothing more than an exchange of ideas among equals, thank you for your postive candor.

 

[Hussar]

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.
/snip

Heh. I tried to say this in another thread and got dogpiled for it.

 

[Hussar]

But rolling this back around to the original question of the thread, IMO, ((barring the more extreme/illegal actions a person might do)) the worst thing a DM can do as a DM (and not just as a human being), is allow his or her ego to dominate. Pretty much every DM/Player issue that's the DM's fault can be traced back to the DM not checking his or her ego at the door.

People who forget that the DM is just another player at the table and is no more or less important than anyone else at the table make very, very poor DM's.

 

[iserith]

But rolling this back around to the original question of the thread, IMO, ((barring the more extreme/illegal actions a person might do)) the worst thing a DM can do as a DM (and not just as a human being), is allow his or her ego to dominate. Pretty much every DM/Player issue that's the DM's fault can be traced back to the DM not checking his or her ego at the door.

People who forget that the DM is just another player at the table and is no more or less important than anyone else at the table make very, very poor DM's.

I agree. The DM has no more power socially than anyone else. It gets weird otherwise, like that Jack Chick tract.

 

[pemerton]

I don't recall much GM advice wrt classic Traveller let alone advice to maintain narrative pressure. Where did you find it?

Book 3 (Worlds and Adventures), p 19 of the 1977 edition (in what I think is a 1978 printing):

Non-player characters are frequently encountered by travellers in the course of their adventures. Such persons are manipulated or controlled by the referee; their actions and deeds influence and direct the activities of the actual player characters in the game. . . .

Adventurers, as they travel about on planets, have random encounters . . .

Some random encounters are mandated by the referee. For example, a band may encounter a guard patrol at a building whil in the course of visiting (or burglarizing) it. The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so.​

There's a bit of contradiction there (mandated and imposed "random" encounters), but I think that can be forgiven. And obviously the advice is not as rich as found eg in Luke Crane's Adventure Burner for Burning Wheel. But the "responsibilities" of the referee in running the game include framing encounters that will "further the cause of" the adventure - that's clearly something about being engaging, or exciting, or creating some sort of pressure with an eye to where it will drive the play of the game.

The problems I have with concerning myself with the "good of the story" is twofold.

First, it's not my story; I have input, each player has input, and we allow random input. Ultimately, though, it is the players' story; they pick the challenges, they devise the stratagems, and act on them for good or ill.

Second, what I think makes a good engaging story is almost certainly at odds with the story each player wants and in all likelihood, they will have a hard time agreeing between themselves.

<snip>

The best signal a player can make as to what story they'd like to see is their action declarations. My best option is to react to those signals as plausibly as I can.

I admit to the flaw with respect to backgrounds. When I think about D&D, I think the character background is what's happened since play began (assuming a level 1 start). As a player I will provide a minimal background if I'm prodded, but I don't really want to see it in play (typically a black sheep only child of impoverished farmers killed by ankhegs s or some such). Other games, are far more character-focused and backgrounds mean much more.

Motivations and specialties though, those are gold in a PC are should be exploited and encouraged.

To me, these seem to go together.

If one player's PC's motivation is (say) defeat Lolth and redeem the Drow, then action declarations on their own aren't enough. If all the action is framed as piratical derring-do on the high seas, the "story" of how this PC set out to defeat Lolth and redeem the Drow is unlikely to be told. (Picking challenges itself depends upon the GM providing the framing - unless you're using some sort of "kicker" technique.)

Which also feeds into the issue of what is the "best signal" - I don't look just for action declarations, but for backgrounds, Beliefs and the like in systems that have them, informal signals of thematic/narrative concern, etc. (Think even of Classic Travell Book 1, and the example merchant Jamieson's resentment at being let go by the service at the height of his career.)

Part of the challenge of being a GM is then weaving these things together across multiple players, multiple PCs, multiple sessions, the details of the system, etc. I rely on a mixture of advice (eg about pacing), system and techniques (eg does the system require party play, like D&D; or allow actions of one PC to affect the situation for a geographically and even temporally separated PC; etc), and the social dynamics at the table.