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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nostalgia Ward" data-source="post: 7758344" data-attributes="member: 6909862">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:  “<a href="https://www.quora.com/As-a-D-D-player-what-is-the-worst-thing-your-DM-could-do-to-take-the-fun-out-of-playing" target="_blank">As a D & D player, what is the worst thing your DM could do to take the fun out of playing?</a>”[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] [ATTACH]101478[/ATTACH] Pictured sourced from <a href="https://pixabay.com/en/book-star-open-book-magic-read-2160539/" target="_blank">Pixabay</a> 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: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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 </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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. </li> </ol>  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 (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?6909862-Nostalgia-Ward" target="_blank">Nostalgia Ward</a>)  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 <a href="https://patreon.com/NostalgiaWard" target="_blank">Patreon</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/saltyasparagus1" target="_blank">Twitter</a>. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/ensider/columnists.html" target="_blank">please contact us</a>!</blockquote>

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