D&D 5E Deal Breakers - Or woah, that is just too much

[Magil]

Oh! One thing that's a huge turn-off for me would be "theater of the mind". I've seen it attempted and it always resulted in more confusion than was necessary. I feel that combat in DnD really needs a grid, no matter how much the developers (or others) might try and convince me otherwise. I really feel like that point of reference that allows for visual/spatial thinking is necessary to make informed decisions without playing "DM may I" (which I find becomes annoying after a while). I pretty much don't care to play in games that don't use a grid for combat anymore.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Heh. As bait and switch jobs go, it isn't the worst I've experienced.

I once pitched a campaign as a bait-and-switch. Start as ordinary people in a small American town. Something is going to happen to you -- but I'm not telling what.

That wasn't the pitch the group went for, though.

 

[Azurewraith]

Things that will make me walk other than the obvious problems players in no particular order

1)No feats
2)RaW is law guys
3)overly long flowery descriptions of ability's every single time

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Would be cool to see example of "Too much railroading" and "Too strict on the rules" that made players really stand up and quit.

One real-life "too much railroading example" was when we had one of the players DMing, he'd written this elaborate adventure and so on (this was just after the first Prism Pentad book had some out, so early '90s), we were excited as prior to me being DM, he'd been a DM, though none of us had played with him then.

We get to the end of an adventure - and finally confront the evil wizard! But the DM has decided that we don't get to fight the wizard, his GMPC does, so he says the wizard gets to go first (even though he lost initiative!), and cast some paralyze-y spell on us (I forget what). My PC is, for some reason, explicitly immune to their spell (item or race, I forget which). Two of the other PCs roll their saves. The DM gets very angry, insists those saves didn't count and that my immunity doesn't protect me - I point out that it literally specifies that spell... eventually he argues us all down, we agree to go along with it, then the GMPC runs in, throws a magic spear, and boom, the evil wizard is dead (one-shot!).

That was the last time he got to DM.

Of course there was an earlier incident, no so much "railroad" as "DM attempts to enforce his own twisted morality on the players" which would probably have made it his last time too:

So usual adventure stuff, then after fighting some orcs we find there are some baby orcs. They are harmless and pathetic by the DM's description (in fact, he emphasized how pathetic they were). So we, being not monsters, decide they're now basically orphans, so we'll take them back to the local church of some nice-guy loves-the-weak deity and they'll look after them (one of us is a cleric there). The DM flips his chips. He never questions the premise, in fact he agrees that said church would take care of them, but he demands that because we are good-aligned, we have to murder the baby orcs. Raising them good isn't enough. They are apparently inherently evil. This is in the FR, where orcs are not inherently evil, just tend that way, note, and that had been established even back then.

So we're just refusing to go with this, and he has his GMPC Paladin turn up, zap all the orc babies somehow (to our utter horror!), and then attempt to tell us off (which was a bit like Genghis Khan trying to explain to some peaceable monks how THEY were the evil ones!). Le sigh.

 

[Nagol]

I once pitched a campaign as a bait-and-switch. Start as ordinary people in a small American town. Something is going to happen to you -- but I'm not telling what.

That wasn't the pitch the group went for, though.

See, I'd be fine with that pitch -- it isn't bait and switch it is "Build X then something will happen to make it not-X. I'm not telling you what will happen as I don't want it to inform for design of X, but I promise something will happen."

The campaigns I dislike are "Let's play X! Everybody ready? Surprise! It isn't really X, it's Y!"

 

[TheCosmicKid]

See, I'd be fine with that pitch -- it isn't bait and switch it is "Build X then something will happen to make it not-X. I'm not telling you what will happen as I don't want it to inform for design of X, but I promise something will happen."

The campaigns I dislike are "Let's play X! Everybody ready? Surprise! It isn't really X, it's Y!"

Yeah, I agree. I was offering that as an example of how to do it better.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Greg K]

1) Eberron, Planescape, Spelljammer
2) DM didn't think about the races, cultures, deities (including their priests/priesthoods) of their world prior to character creation
3) DM not having a printed list of house rules and banned content
4) DM uses adventure paths or modules
5) DM tied to telling their story/can't adapt to the actions of the PCs or them going off in a new direction
6) Hack and Slash campaigns
7) Dungeon crawl campaigns
8) Monty Haul campaigns
9) Pun or otherwise non-serious campaigns
10) Spaceships, blasters, robots, firearms etc.
11) The group is compromised of min-maxers and/or individuals heavy on either the butt-kicker (a.k.a hack and slasher) or power-gamer axis.
12) Evil PCs
13) Player vs. Player: I am fine with pcs having disagreements or rivalries, but not to the point that they would kill or screw over one another.
14) Dragonborn, Tiefling, Aasimar, Genasai, Dhampyr, Shadar-Kai, Githyanki, Githzerai, or one of several other races as PC.
15) Magic shops other than for potions, scrolls, and minor trinkets and talismans
16) Players unable to handle not having the spotlight on them for short periods.
17) DMs that favor certain players (e.g., a girlfriend/boyfriend, best friend, etc.) over the others
18) lots of plane hopping
19) PCs modeled after comic book super-heroes

 

[Azurewraith]

1) Eberron, Planescape, Spelljammer
2) DM didn't think about the races, cultures, deities (including their priests/priesthoods) of their world prior to character creation
3) DM not having a printed list of house rules and banned content
4) DM uses adventure paths or modules
5) DM tied to telling their story/can't adapt to the actions of the PCs or them going off in a new direction
6) Hack and Slash campaigns
7) Dungeon crawl campaigns
8) Monty Haul campaigns
9) Pun or otherwise non-serious campaigns
10) Spaceships, blasters, robots, firearms etc.
11) The group is compromised of min-maxers and/or individuals heavy on either the butt-kicker (a.k.a hack and slasher) or power-gamer axis.
12) Evil PCs
13) Player vs. Player: I am fine with pcs having disagreements or rivalries, but not to the point that they would kill or screw over one another.
14) Dragonborn, Tiefling, Aasimar, Genasai, Dhampyr, Shadar-Kai, Githyanki, Githzerai, or one of several other races as PC.
15) Magic shops other than for potions, scrolls, and minor trinkets and talismans
16) Players unable to handle not having the spotlight on them for short periods.
17) DMs that favor certain players (e.g., a girlfriend/boyfriend, best friend, etc.) over the others
18) lots of plane hopping
19) PCs modeled after comic book super-heroes

That's certainly a list. Do you ever struggle to find a game? I only ask as I live in the sticks and my potential game pool is about 4 or 5

 

[Satyrn]

The only thing on that list I think I don't fit is #8, Monty Hall Campaigns, but only because I'm lazy about prepping treasure finds.


Oh, and #17 but that only because no one loves me