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!

 

[MNblockhead]

Well, the worst things a DM can do are similar to the worst things a person can do in any situation: abuse, boorish behavior, poor hygiene, etc. I think "favoring one player over another" falls into the general social skills bucket. If you are favoring one person over another, you need some lessons in etiquette and empathy.

As for issues specific to the art of running a TTRPG, many of the complaints are a result of misaligned expectations. With that in mind, I think the following are areas that present pitfalls to well-meaning and socially well-adjusted, but perhaps inexperienced, DMs:

1. Not clearly setting player expectations

Have a session zero or at least discuss the campaign with players before you start play. Make it clear what major homebrew rules will be used, the theme of the game, how open world it is (is it focused on some save-the-world plot line the party is expected to engage with or it is a full-on sandbox), do you have character limits (only official material, only PHB, no dragonborn, etc.). There are plenty of articles and discussions online about what should be included in a session zero.

2. Not prepping the session

Most DMs are not skilled improv artists. DMs that are able to just sit down with no prep and run great games tend to have a mixture of natural skill and years of experience. They also tend to have lots of tools and GM aids that help them run the game. Their preparation is often years of DM experience and having the tools they need ready. Most DMs, however, are running published material or modified published material. Most DMs need to spend time reading and rereading the material and marking it up to run the game smoothly. It isn't fun waiting for a DM to flip through the material and read it for the first time. It breaks the flow of the game. Even if you wrote the adventure yourself, you likely need to spend time preparing before the session. This also includes having minis and battlemaps ready and organized. It is better to just throw and M&M or eraser or some other odd item to represent a monster than to have everyone wait 5 minutes while you go searching for the perfect mini.

3. Playing the players' characters

I know that this has been brought up already, but it bears repeating. Do tell me my player is scared unless there is a magic or similar effect that imposes the fear condition. Don't tell me I'm grossed out. Describe the scene so that I can decide how my character reacts. Perhaps more controversially, I would also say that I find it even unacceptable for the DM to say "your character would not do that." No. Your character may not BE ABLE to do that, but that's up to the game mechanics. You may say that your alignment is no longer X because alignment is a game mechanic and represents social norms or even cosmic reality. But a GM shouldn't be telling players what their characters would or would not do.

Things become murkier when it comes to player vs character knowledge. There are long threads on the subject in this forum, with detailed arguments and counter-arguments on this. I think this goes back to point 1: agree with the players at session zero what level of metagaming is acceptable. I would argue that unless you are playing with long-term friends who all enjoy deep-immersion games, don't get hung up on metagaming.

 

[GMMichael]

For me the worst things are:
1. House ruling

Ow! Oh! You stab at my delicate GM heart!

Here's the worst thing. Here's what turns a role-playing game into just a game:

Me: I look across the hall. Is anyone wearing a Wintercloak uniform?

DM: Roll.

Me: Fine, I walk through the crowd, passing as many people as I can. Any uniforms?

DM: Roll.

Me: Ugh! I shove the bard off his soapbox, jump up on it, and shout, "Wintercloaks! I bring news from your leader!" Does anyone react?

DM: Roll.

 

[Koloth]

IMO the worst thing a DM/GM can do is forget that players always have the right to get up and walk away or if one of the players is hosting, telling the DM/GM to leave the place.

Another bad thing is inconstancy. If fireballs don't light cows on fire today, they shouldn't turn cows into raging running fire starters tomorrow, everything else being equal. Now if unknown to the rest of the party, the thief snuck in to the corral and wet the cows down with oil, that's different.

 

[iserith]

There are two things that bother me:

DM Fudging or Obviously Pulling Punches. You rob me of the importance of my decisions as a player when you do this. I made some decisions, hopefully reasonably informed ones, and because you called for a roll and didn't like the result or because things are not headed toward an outcome you need to happen, you start ignoring or lying about dice results or having the monsters pull back. That will tick me right off. I'd rather my character die horribly, as long as I had a chance to avoid that fate at some point.

DM Asking for Ability Checks When I Haven't Declared an Action. "Give me a Perception check, iserith." Why the heck are you asking for an ability check when I haven't described what I wanted to do? You're assuming or establishing what MY character is doing and that's not your role in this game. Describe the environment. Ask what I want to do. If I say I'm looking about for something or whatever, THEN you can ask for that Perception check - don't just assume! What if I wanted to do something else? Or how about this: You don't need a player to make a Perception check to describe the environment! The roll always follows the description by the player for what the character is trying to do, when the DM finds that outcome uncertain and decides there's a meaningful consequence of failure. You're totally jumping the gun otherwise. So just describe the environment. You don't need the dice's permission to perform your role.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Wow.

What, then, is even the point of having a DM?

The DM has the following jobs:
1. Telling the players what their PCs perceive.
2. Making sure everyone abides by the rules.
3. Use educational skills that help everyone getting along and having fun.

It's definitely not the DMs job to make up or change the rules (at least not if you play by a ruleset which was not created by the DM).

As an analogy, the DM is like the referee in a soccer game. He can decide if something was offside or not if it wasn't clear, but he cannot decide that the offside rule does no longer exist.

Or going further, what give you the impression that the game's intention isn't to be tinkered with?

Common sense? Or rather, it's the usual case for all games. If I agree with a friend that we play a round of chess, I expect him to play by its rules and not suddenly make up "Hey I think it would be fun if the bishop could turn around 90° once while moving."

Where do you draw the line? The Player's Handbook has "ask your DM" type points all over it, and the DMG is a toolkit for making up your own stuff.

If a rule says that the DM decides it, then the DM deciding it is not changing the rule but abiding by it. Perfectly fine.

The DMG does not conflict with any of the rules. If any of the rule variants are used, I want to be informed before joining. The DMG also explains how to handle situation not covered in the PHB, those are just additional rules to abide by. The rest about "making up your own stuff" is basically agreed upon when joining a game. Like when I join a game that's supposed to be the Out of the Abyss campaign, then I want to play that campaign and not a setting the DM made up (I only join official adventure path games, meaning most of the DMG does not apply).

How exactly do you believe the game is "intended" to be played?

Like with any game: How the creator of the ruleset intended it. Meaning if something is unclear, ask Jeremy Crawford.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

DM Asking for Ability Checks When I Haven't Declared an Action. "Give me a Perception check, iserith." Why the heck are you asking for an ability check when I haven't described what I wanted to do? You're assuming or establishing what MY character is doing and that's not your role in this game. Describe the environment. Ask what I want to do. If I say I'm looking about for something or whatever, THEN you can ask for that Perception check - don't just assume! What if I wanted to do something else? Or how about this: You don't need a player to make a Perception check to describe the environment! The roll always follows the description by the player for what the character is trying to do, when the DM finds that outcome uncertain and decides there's a meaningful consequence of failure. You're totally jumping the gun otherwise. So just describe the environment. You don't need the dice's permission to perform your role.

In D&D 5e I'd apply passive perception to determine that. In other rulesets, it would probably be hidden rolls then? Rather than asking.

(Note: In my opinion, the description of the environment can vary depending on how perceptive the PC is.)

 

[iserith]

In D&D 5e I'd apply passive perception to determine that. In other rulesets, it would probably be hidden rolls then? Rather than asking.

(Note: In my opinion, the description of the environment can vary depending on how perceptive the PC is.)

In my view, the DM can't call for a passive check until the player has established that the character is engaging in a task with an uncertain outcome, a meaningful consequence of failure, and is doing said task repeatedly over time. Simply put, there can be no checks, passive or otherwise, without the player describing what he or she wants to do.

So, in my games, you have to say you're keeping watch for danger while traveling the dungeon (for example) before I ever apply your passive Perception to resolving an outcome. To make sure this is done, I simply ask the players what they do in general while moving around the adventure location, make a note of it, and ask them to let me know if they decide to do something else instead.

 

[belphanor]

I've had a GM say "your character wouldn't do that, it isn't what their personality would allow". I've also had the same GM say, "If you guys didn't suck so badly, I wouldn't have to cheat to keep you alive."
(that last one was because he had set us against a 20th level dragon when we were 10th level in a 4th ed campaign. If there had been ANY way to escape that combat, we would have used it.)
I'm also not a big fan of the whole "you need to solve this puzzle, out of character, based on some obscure bit of setting trivia, to get past this blockage" especially when the setting is a homebrew and the GM is not forthcoming with any setting info.

 

[Nagol]

I've had a GM say "your character wouldn't do that, it isn't what their personality would allow". I've also had the same GM say, "If you guys didn't suck so badly, I wouldn't have to cheat to keep you alive."
(that last one was because he had set us against a 20th level dragon when we were 10th level in a 4th ed campaign. If there had been ANY way to escape that combat, we would have used it.)
I'm also not a big fan of the whole "you need to solve this puzzle, out of character, based on some obscure bit of setting trivia, to get past this blockage" especially when the setting is a homebrew and the GM is not forthcoming with any setting info.

I can't imagine letting the same DM say both. Very shortly after saying either, he wouldn't be my DM.

 

[Jay Murphy]

The Game Master running a PC in the game, I do not like that.