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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 6820087" data-attributes="member: 6788736">My DM dealbreakers:1) Too railroady (those games where it doesnt matter what the players do, nothing ever changes). Where you actually vibe from the DM that your characters involvement in the story is just slowing things down. Games where you can literally sit on your backside and the plot just... advances and there is nothing you can do to affect it. Not every game has to be a sandbox and you can accept the fact that your characters are bound to a plot to a certain degree, but you need to feel like its the players advancing it, and having an impact on it, and not just mere passengers. 9/10 these are the same DMs that force Mary Sue DMPCS on the players also so its a double whammy.2) Rules incompetence. Know the rules if you're going to DM. Read the DMG and PHB and have a good knowledge of the black and white rules, and also the 'meta' considerations behind them (the 6-8 encounter 2 short rest AD in 5E for example). Im constantly shocked at the number of DMs who havent read (and absorbed) the DMG.3) No planning. Any DM that doesnt devote at least an hour or so of planning to every 6 hour session isnt fit to be a DM. Even if youre a guru at improvisation, there is no session or campaign that doesnt go better with planning. If you cant be bothered putting in the legwork to run a game, dont get behind the screen.4) DMs who start campaigns only for them to fizzle out within a few sessions thanks to the DM losing motivation. It happens from time to time, but some DMs are worse than others and are repeat offenders. I had one DM that this happened several times over the course of a year (with many systems) and I ended up just (politely) refusing to create characters for his 'campaigns'. Saved me a ton of time as none of his attempts afterwards ever lasted more than a session or two either. It's a pity as well, as he was an otherwise good DM.My player deabreakers:1) Players who invest zero time and effort into their characters. No backstory, no reason for adventuring, no engagement with the campaign world or the adventure plot. The dudes that rock up to roll dice with two dimensional 'characters' and nothing else. Theyre just bunches of numbers on a sheet and zero personality.2) Immature players. The kind of murderhobos that break into an NPCs house and murder him in his sleep for ripping them off 5 silver the night before, or for kicking them out of the bar or something equally trivial. The kind of players that will attempt to justify acts of genocide on a LG paladin, or the most metagame actions with convoluted (and clearly rubbish) real world reasoning, or who insist on playing joke characters all the time. Also: players that overly sook about stuff fall into this category as well.3) Constant no-shows. Obviously I expect players and DMs to put some effort into their characters and campaigns. We all have lives to lead, but the blokes that constantly text you 5 minutes before the session starts to inform you 'something came up' or whatever get my goat.4) Players that dont understand how their characters abilities work, constantly forget the abilities they do have, and need the same rule explained to them every single session, despite playing the character for several months.Oddly most groups tend to have a player from each one of those 4 categories in them.</blockquote>

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