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!

 

[MNblockhead]

I remember when boxed text first appeared. It was clearly done as an aid to noob DMs. However, I think good DMs would learn to transcend it fairly quickly and rephrase it in their own words. (Or read it in a monotonous style for effect!) A passable to mediocre DM uses it as a crutch and never gets past it.

I'll readily admit that I may be only a passable to mediocre DM. I'm certainly no Chris Perkins or Matt Mercer. Well, Chris Perkins will read from the boxed text, but he wrote it, does he get a pass?

But, in this mediocre DM's opinion, sometimes the boxed text is cool. Sometimes it contains detailed clues that to impart without reading the text would basically require rewriting it.

I'll also say as a player that more annoying than a pulseless reading of the boxed text is the DM who is winging it. Who avoids the boxed text and then has to go back part way through an encounter and to point out things s/he forgot to mention or retcon to make up for missed details.

Boxed text is a tool to be used, or not, at the DM's discretion and which can be abused.

I posit that using or not using boxed text isn't an indicator of good DM, but rather how the DM presents the room, with or without the boxed text.

By making use of boxed text one of the "worst" things a DM can do, you risk creating more DMs with lack of awareness of their own poor improv and descriptive abilities ignoring it to their and their player's detriment.

 

[77IM]

Of course you can kill/beat the players.

You can?!?!?! Yikes!! I'd have to call killing/beating the players the worst behavior on this thread, by far!

 

[MNblockhead]

Allow me to engage in a bit of setting of perspective...

The *worst* things a GM can do have nothing to do with amending rules, or fudging... they have nothing to do with play. The worst things the GM can do are more around being a horrible person.

For example, the GM can come to your house unwashed, and reeking of stale sweat and cigarettes. Lots of people playing at cons have perhaps experienced this.

Or, also unfortunately common, a GM can sexually harass a player.

So, I submit that anything having to do with not playing the game exactly the way you want is a mild annoyance compared to the really bad things they can do.

Well yes, which is why I distinguished between character flaws that apply to any social settings and those that are (more) specific to the role of the GM. I read the question to be what is the worst thing that a DM can do in the context of the game mechanics and role of the DM that would turn you off on that game, rather than what kinds of terrible people would you not want as a GM. There are people that I like to hang out with and who are fun as players, but I would not want to be a player in their game if they were GM. Most of these are people who are disorganized, don't prepare, and are terrible at improv. Anyone who takes the role seriously and comes prepared will generally be fine by me.

I can enjoy all kinds of play styles and play under all manner of homebrew. As long as the DM is generally a good socially well-adjusted person who comes prepared, I can have fun. This is because I understand my part of the social contract. I have a responsibility as a player to abide by the GMs ruling and let the DM run the game and to actively engage in the game, pay attention, and come prepared. One thing that kinda bothers me about this thread is that we are heaping so much responsibility for a games fun on a GM. I would rather play with a group who is more flexible and forgiving, who will work together to make the most of any situation, and can find fun in any game. When I read comments citing not using a DM screen as a dealbreaker, I have to scratch my head. Really, THAT is what controls your ability to have fun?

Part of this may be that I don't get to play often, so I need to make the most out of any opportunity to play. You know what, that makes my games very enjoyable for me. Some on this thread seem too jaded.

 

[Lanefan]

Lanefan I feel you not are engaging with the group. Read Getting Along
https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Alon...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1537361722&sr=8-1
I want 500 words on how it applies to a 5 person homebrew and 8 person AL table. MFLA format.

Teacher, I'm sorry but I'm not familiar with the Mind Flayers' Legal Action format - could you explain it to me please?

 

[ajchafe]

3.The DM’s job is to engage the players,..... hahaa ha. You have to pay me to for it to be a job. It is everyone's job to engage with the game and players.

I agree 100%. I want my players to engage the world more than me as the DM. I want them to indicate to me what they are interested in so I can draw on that.

 

[Lanefan]

Something worth asking yourself is: What happens if Nattick's player fails the History check? You're right back where you started.

So what?

Not everything has to succeed, and not everything the players/PCs try is necessarily going to move the story forward.

In this case, if the history check fails the PCs just have to carry on without whatever clues might have been hidden in the Dwarven runes - if any. This is why pre-emptive checks can be useful - sometimes things just get found (or missed) by random chance en route to doing something else unrelated.

 

[Lanefan]

I'll readily admit that I may be only a passable to mediocre DM. I'm certainly no Chris Perkins or Matt Mercer. Well, Chris Perkins will read from the boxed text, but he wrote it, does he get a pass?

This obliquely raises a point thus far missed: we're assuming with this boxed-text debate that there's in fact boxed text to read and that the boxed text is accurate. Not all modules have it, and of those that do there's all kinds of instances where the boxed text is either in disagreement with the map (e.g. map shows room as 30x40', boxed text says 30x30') or disagreement with the DM-only information given below (e.g. DM info talks about a large statue in the room, big enough that nobody could fail to notice it, but the boxed text doesn't mention it).

But, in this mediocre DM's opinion, sometimes the boxed text is cool. Sometimes it contains detailed clues that to impart without reading the text would basically require rewriting it.

Yes; when done well boxed text can be very useful.

I'll also say as a player that more annoying than a pulseless reading of the boxed text is the DM who is winging it. Who avoids the boxed text and then has to go back part way through an encounter and to point out things s/he forgot to mention or retcon to make up for missed details.

True, but as noted above this might not always be the DM's fault.

Boxed text is a tool to be used, or not, at the DM's discretion and which can be abused.

I posit that using or not using boxed text isn't an indicator of good DM, but rather how the DM presents the room, with or without the boxed text.

By making use of boxed text one of the "worst" things a DM can do, you risk creating more DMs with lack of awareness of their own poor improv and descriptive abilities ignoring it to their and their player's detriment.

Yeah, using boxed text isn't in and of itself a bad thing. Using it blindly without amending to account for errors or for which direction the party's coming from or for the fact the party just filled the room with vision-blocking smoke is, however, not that great.

Lanefan

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

In this case, if the history check fails the PCs just have to carry on without whatever clues might have been hidden in the Dwarven runes - if any. This is why pre-emptive checks can be useful - sometimes things just get found (or missed) by random chance en route to doing something else unrelated.

100%, that's exactly what I use an informational check for, as well as tension building. A failed check often does move the tension up. The players know there were failed checks with potential information missed, which makes them start to wonder what's going on. (Well at least I would hope so, but clearly that would depend on the player.)

I've definitely curbed my own propensity for calling for rolls where there isn't any consequence but in this case or when the player's description is just fluff, but something like the check I outlined has consequences.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

By making use of boxed text one of the "worst" things a DM can do, you risk creating more DMs with lack of awareness of their own poor improv and descriptive abilities ignoring it to their and their player's detriment.

Sorry for any confusion. I really wasn't trying to imply it's one of the worst things, just noting that it's something that can be a sign of mediocrity. I've played with people who only read the boxed text, mostly because they're just following the module as a script. That gets old really, really fast.

As Lanefan noted, it's not all that unusual for the boxed text to be wrong, too.

An analogy which makes sense to me, but possibly not to others: I have played a lot of jazz. One thing you often encounter is people who think that jazz is found on the page of a chart. It's not there, though.

 

[jasper]

No. Jeremy Crawford is the creator, so he makes the rules. Not the DM, that's what I explained in my last something posts.

DMs that feel entitled to mess with the ruleset just piss me off and that's why it's my top 1 "Worst thing a DM can do". And yes I don't like it and thus don't play.

No. There as Rules as Written. RAW. Rules as Intented. RAI. And sage advice. While JC may have wanted passive perception to be always on. RAI. He did not write them that way. So Accept Dm variations.