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!

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

That's they way they have worked in pretty much every edition. In 1e when you walked in and charmed a stingy merchant into giving you a great deal, do you really think he's not going to be aware of how "off" his actions were when these particular strangers walked in this shop? He may or may not know it was a charm spell, but he is going to know that they messed with his mind somehow.

Maybe, maybe not. I'd like an Insight check to help determine that as opposed to an automatic "hey I got messed with!".

In my experience, most DMs don't think about the logical consequences of things like charm person and simply allowed a level 1 spell to be much more powerful than it should have been. Most charm/dominate spells are going to leave the target aware that their minds were messed with.

Using magic to give you a boost to a roll is pretty far from dominating someone and turning them into your puppet. The real problem is that WotC, by deciding that cantrips like Friends pretty much automatically turned someone who might have been neutral into a "hey, that jerk just used MAGIC on me!" made something like that not worth using.

A vastly better way to make spells like this worthwhile would be to have them work kind of like the Bard's Inspiration. Note that the Bard CAN'T use inspiration on self in general so it's of no help to the usual face of the group. Maybe something like this:

Socialize (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)

Enchantment/Charm
Components: VS
Level 1
Area of Effect Self
Duration: 1 hour

For the duration of the spell the caster lends a subtle magical weight to her words. The caster can add, as a reaction, +D6 to any Charisma check used to influence via Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion up to three times during the duration of the spell. The spell leaves a lingering magic aura: Any target affected by it has an aura of Enchantment magic for 10 minutes that can be detected via Detect Magic or similar magics.

Cast at a higher level: If a 3rd level slot is used, the bonus is +D8. If a 5th level slot is used the bonus is +D10. If a 7th level slot is used the bonus is +D12.

This is totally off the cuff and thus likely has some bugs but it would work nicely to have something that's not totally "he's my puppet and does what I tell him to do" which I do agree should be fairly obvious.

 

[iserith]

Right, I think that's the part I don't care about. I run things the way I run them and wouldn't substantially change my style depending on the game, though obviously themes will shift. I'll certainly look at the rules but if the designers assume something I don't care for, I will usually change it or ignore, assuming it's possible. Sometimes things are just too embedded in the system to do that.

I used to think this way until I realized that, coming off D&D 3.5e, my D&D 4e games were just not as good as they could be. At that point, somewhere around 2008 to 2009, I decided to do what I continue to do until this day: Change my approach depending on the game. When learning a new game, I set about examining every approach I'm using and questioning whether it is appropriate in the context of the game I'm now playing. Different games have different assumptions and rules that demand different approaches. If I'm running all games the same way, then it's very likely that I'm not running the game in the way it's intended to be experienced. So my D&D 4e games are not like my D&D 5e games. My Dungeon World games aren't like my D&D 4e or 5e games. And so on. I change my approach to fit the game, not the other way around.

They're fine as far as they go but there are very few meaningful powers (broadly speaking) that help social interaction and they are often highly costly to choose, especially for characters that would logically have them.

That looks to me more like D&D 4e thinking though. (Which is a game I love, mind you.) The D&D 5e approach, based on the rules, would see the players trying to suss out the NPC's agenda and personal characteristics (personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw) in an effort to adjust the NPC's attitude temporarily to something better than it currently is, for example, hostile to indifferent or indifferent to friendly. At that point, they can make an ask which is resolved, if necessary, with a Charisma check at DCs determined by the nature of the ask compared to the temporary attitude of the NPC. Charming the NPC skips the bit where the PCs need to suss out personal characteristics and agenda for advantage, but at a cost - you get what you want and you burn a bridge at the same time.

Hmmm, the big difference between what I tend to do, assuming I have time to lay things out, is create an area with a basic set of conflicts and locations in which to explore them and then turn the PCs loose, filling in details as attention gets focused. It's very much like The Secret of Bone Hill, which is more of a small sandbox campaign setting, though that one didn't have any kind of larger story goal. "Mapping" a city by listing out the power groups and indicating pictorially what their relationships were was something that the original Vampire the Masquerade pioneered, and it works quite well. This just generalized the idea of a dungeon.

One thing that I've found as I've gotten older and the folks I play with have similarly is that pure sandbox gaming is too hard for us. We need to get pulled into the conflict more quickly. Still, I like to set up an area with possible directions and choices and do let the players guide things quite a bit, though I will throw them events and such to keep them going. This has become more relevant with the game being mostly online, too, because online systems are clunky for a lot of really large maps.

What I tend not to do, at least when I can, is give just one path. I try to give a few. So, yeah, once you've chosen to go on a particular path then it's going to be more linear or a sequence of events or a small dungeon or what have you, but which path you're choosing can vary quite a bit. I also have events happen to the PCs, for instance once setting up an adventure by having one of the PCs getting summoned and then presenting the rest of the group with the choice of what to do. They followed him via magic and then, having spent a good bit of time solving the problem posed by the summoners, got involved in conflicts there, which lead to various dungeons, social interaction, and so on. I didn't have that all designed and waiting for them, but had the rough overall outline of what was in that location. Had they not been further interested, I would have dropped it.

I'd probably use D&D 4e for such games because in my view the tactical choices in combats and skill challenges will offset the comparative lack of choices in this approach. This isn't a criticism of event-based adventures, of course. It's just about what I see as using the best tool for the job.

 

[iserith]

Using magic to give you a boost to a roll is pretty far from dominating someone and turning them into your puppet. The real problem is that WotC, by deciding that cantrips like Friends pretty much automatically turned someone who might have been neutral into a "hey, that jerk just used MAGIC on me!" made something like that not worth using.

If you're playing the game with the social interaction rules, then Friends starts to look good if time is of the essence and the cost of making the NPC hostile is less than the cost of whatever consequences may follow "wasting" time sussing out agenda or personal characteristics. Whereas normally you have to take time to figure those things out and then apply them for advantage on any Charisma ability checks that may ensue, with Friends you're just making any Charisma checks the DM may call for at advantage from go. It's a real time saver.

I'll add that subsequent interactions with the NPC are handled with the same social interaction rules. If you need to go back to him or her for help and he or she is miffed about the use of magic in a previous scene, that just means the social interaction challenge is more difficult and/or takes longer. The odds of success are reduced, but it's not impossible (unless the DM rules that it is).

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe, maybe not. I'd like an Insight check to help determine that as opposed to an automatic "hey I got messed with!".

I look at who is being affected. A farmer in the back country probably would just end up confused. A merchant in a city? Not so much unless wizards and magic are rare. I'll only roll if I'm uncertain about whether or not the person would realize they are being messed with. My point, though, was that charm/mind control spells are likely to clue the victim in that something happened.

Using magic to give you a boost to a roll is pretty far from dominating someone and turning them into your puppet. The real problem is that WotC, by deciding that cantrips like Friends pretty much automatically turned someone who might have been neutral into a "hey, that jerk just used MAGIC on me!" made something like that not worth using.

Usually, it's more than a boost, though. The fluff matters. For instance, charm person says, "The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance." A victim that is not a friendly acquaintance already is going to be aware that their feelings were very oddly off.

Socialize as you describe it below, is much more subtle and would likely not be detectable in a stranger. People are often charismatic and that spell just makes someone a bit more charismatic. Most mind influencing spells aren't that subtle, though.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I used to think this way until I realized that, coming off D&D 3.5e, my D&D 4e games were just not as good as they could be. At that point, somewhere around 2008 to 2009, I decided to do what I continue to do until this day: Change my approach depending on the game. <snip>

Interesting... I really disliked running 4E. It didn't do what I wanted and forced me to think like the designers. I don't copy other people well. I can't do it in really any area of my life. As I say to every student I teach at the start of the class "I basically always hate every textbook I use." So I'm pretty much never going to do it the way you suggest. I want what I want. I recognize that nearly any game will be a bit off from that and will deal with "good enough"

That said, 4E did have some useful and interesting ideas.

That looks to me more like D&D 4e thinking though. (Which is a game I love, mind you.) The D&D 5e approach, based on the rules, would see the players trying to suss out the NPC's agenda and personal characteristics (personality trait, ideal, bond, and flaw) in an effort to adjust the NPC's attitude temporarily to something better than it currently is, for example, hostile to indifferent or indifferent to friendly. At that point, they can make an ask which is resolved, if necessary, with a Charisma check at DCs determined by the nature of the ask compared to the temporary attitude of the NPC. Charming the NPC skips the bit where the PCs need to suss out personal characteristics and agenda for advantage, but at a cost - you get what you want and you burn a bridge at the same time.

Right what I'm suggesting is an intermediate point where there are some spells (or powers more broadly) that can help boost a social character but I would totally agree that what you should do is exactly what you describe most of the time. 4E had some powers like that, such as Arcane Mutterings. These were cool because they let a non-face sub in as a face for a limited time. These kinds of abilities are also helpful because they mean that a face can sometimes do much better than just their baseline fundamentals as determined by their skills, but only at some cost. Remember that the natural face character, the bard, cannot self-help.

But as I said... I don't actually care what the designers wrote in terms of limitations or the game they imagined I want to play. Part of why I do wish they'd make some things more official is because many of the online tools, such as D&D Beyond, are utterly painful to deal with for anything not in the rulebooks. There are torturous hacks to work around issues, but still, it's nasty.

I'd probably use D&D 4e for such games because in my view the tactical choices in combats and skill challenges will offset the comparative lack of choices in this approach. This isn't a criticism of event-based adventures, of course. It's just about what I see as using the best tool for the job.

I was initially skeptical of 5E, having been burned by 4E, but as soon as I played it I was 100% fine seeing 4E go off to the dustbin of my personal history, although as I said previously, it had some decent ideas. My big issue with it was how slow play speed often was and how much it just focused on the equivalent of mini combats. But that's a different set of posts.

(Aside: I do have a fairly complete collection of 4E books in quite good shape if anyone in the USA is interested.)

I don't think I'm expressing what I run well enough though. I always felt 4E was much more events and set pieces with sandbox not really being on their minds. My game's not something I felt aligned with 4E. There are events that happen or not, depending a lot on what the players do. What I don't run is some super complicated dungeon where the PCs are room-crawling, but I long ago stopped running that kind of game.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I look at who is being affected. A farmer in the back country probably would just end up confused. A merchant in a city? Not so much unless wizards and magic are rare. I'll only roll if I'm uncertain about whether or not the person would realize they are being messed with. My point, though, was that charm/mind control spells are likely to clue the victim in that something happened.

I don't mind that there's some residue of some sort. My issue is that it's utterly automatic and that essentially every charm spell works that way.

You're right that a DM could interpret it a variety of ways, but, again, no guidance or even suggestions (pun intended).

Usually, it's more than a boost, though. The fluff matters. For instance, charm person says, "The charmed creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance." A victim that is not a friendly acquaintance already is going to be aware that their feelings were very oddly off.

I'm not disputing that. My issue is that essentially every charm works that way.

Socialize as you describe it below, is much more subtle and would likely not be detectable in a stranger. People are often charismatic and that spell just makes someone a bit more charismatic. Most mind influencing spells aren't that subtle, though.

Right, which is IMO a substantial design flaw on the part of WotC. And yes... I can put something like that in my game but this demonstrates a serious lack of imagination on the part of the designers. When one has to deal with tools like D&D Beyond which enforce official rules, it's painful to have to deal with variances and house rules for something that should be in the game already. Of course, they more or less just blew the skill system off regardless.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't mind that there's some residue of some sort. My issue is that it's utterly automatic and that essentially every charm spell works that way.

You're right that a DM could interpret it a variety of ways, but, again, no guidance or even suggestions (pun intended).

Heh. That's in keeping with the design intent of the game, though. They want DMs to create their own rulings and ways of doing things, like D&D saw in 1e and 2e.

I'm not disputing that. My issue is that essentially every charm works that way.

Are there any subtle charm type spells like you suggested? I've just started playing 5e and wont be running it for a few more months, so I'm not terribly familiar with the spells yet. In any case, that would be the general rule for charm spells, but an individual spell like you suggest(pun plagiarized) would be the specific that beats the general. Create that spell for your game and hand it out to the players. Perhaps introduce it via a villain.

Right, which is IMO a substantial design flaw on the part of WotC. And yes... I can put something like that in my game but this demonstrates a serious lack of imagination on the part of the designers. When one has to deal with tools like D&D Beyond which enforce official rules, it's painful to have to deal with variances and house rules for something that should be in the game already. Of course, they more or less just blew the skill system off regardless.

I don't think it's a lack of imagination, so much as design intent. They've said repeatedly that they don't want a rules heavy game like 3e and 4e where the rules tried to cover as many conceivable possibilities as they could think of. They want the play of the game to vary from table to table as DMs and groups decide how best to play given situations.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Heh. That's in keeping with the design intent of the game, though. They want DMs to create their own rulings and ways of doing things, like D&D saw in 1e and 2e.

As I said elsewhere, I find it... strategic in terms of the areas they decided to blow off. Lack of much of a skill system was a real weakness in 2E. The 5E designers didn't blow off the combat system.

Are there any subtle charm type spells like you suggested? I've just started playing 5e and wont be running it for a few more months, so I'm not terribly familiar with the spells yet. In any case, that would be the general rule for charm spells, but an individual spell like you suggest(pun plagiarized) would be the specific that beats the general. Create that spell for your game and hand it out to the players. Perhaps introduce it via a villain.

Not really.

I don't think it's a lack of imagination, so much as design intent. They've said repeatedly that they don't want a rules heavy game like 3e and 4e where the rules tried to cover as many conceivable possibilities as they could think of. They want the play of the game to vary from table to table as DMs and groups decide how best to play given situations.

Yeah but this is something that seems pretty darn basic. They have some real gaps and have been exceptionally slow in filling them. There's no shortage of evocations but some schools of magic don't have spells for multiple levels. XGtE helped fill some of this out but still, it was an issue from day 1. Yes, I can fill those gaps but (a) IMO I really shouldn't have to fill all of them and (b) gaps are problematic in the increasingly online world when systems like D&D Beyond make home content exceptionally clunky and awful to implement.

 

[Maxperson]

As I said elsewhere, I find it... strategic in terms of the areas they decided to blow off. Lack of much of a skill system was a real weakness in 2E. The 5E designers didn't blow off the combat system.

The 5e skill system is much more robust than 2e's was, and 5e's combat system is much less refined and rules heavy than 3e's.

Yeah but this is something that seems pretty darn basic. They have some real gaps and have been exceptionally slow in filling them. There's no shortage of evocations but some schools of magic don't have spells for multiple levels. XGtE helped fill some of this out but still, it was an issue from day 1. Yes, I can fill those gaps but (a) IMO I really shouldn't have to fill all of them and (b) gaps are problematic in the increasingly online world when systems like D&D Beyond make home content exceptionally clunky and awful to implement.

If there are spell levels without a spell for a given school, I will agree with you that there is a lack there. Every school should have at least 1 spell for every spell level. I don't mind coming up with magic items prices and creation requirements, but I don't want to have to design spells. There's a lot more in the way of balance issues that I'm not going to be able to test effectively with spell design. Plus I want my players to be able to just look the spells up. Is that lack still there once you include Xanthar's? I know they introduced more spells in that book.

 

[Hussar]

Not 100% convinced on this one, based on my own experience...and I guess that'd make me a very very poor DM in that from either side of the screen I do see the DM as the most important person at the table. Never mind that no DM = no game.

Having a reasonably strong ego often implies also having a reasonable degree of self-confidence, without which a DM is more or less doomed. Yeah there's examples of overkill out there, but I can think of one DM from way back who was quite good at it mainly (or only?) because of his ego - he was insufferable as a player (I both played with him and DMed him) but very entertaining as a DM.

Lanefan

Heh. I haven't played in a group with only a single DM in forever. My current group of six has four of us that DM regularly. The notion that no DM=no game hasn't occurred to me in a very long time. I sometimes forget that for some groups that DM isn't easily replaceable.

But, yeah, I'll stand by what I said - every really bad DM decision boils down to ego issues.