D&D 5E (2014) Dirty Secrets?

[TwoSix]

I don't wear pants at the gaming table while I'm DMing. Or playing. Or I'm not at the table.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Mine is that I try to present a front to my players that I am a cool cucumber with everything under control and that I know exactly what I'm doing. Oh, how wrong that usually is.

 

[GameOgre]

My dirty secret is that I really like the player characters and do not want them to die. I keep the illusion going that I like to kill PC's as if It gives me DM Creed with my fellow DM's. I run the game as slightly antagonistic while in reality I am a pushover and love to see the pc's beat the crap out of my favorite npc's and villains.



I really love it when they are in a (unbeatable) situation and then they think outside the box and find that one thing the godlike genius 5,000 year old lich didn't think of and trash him. I like to look stricken and flip through my notes in frustration (like I really have pages and pages of things the lich did think of)and disgust and then weakly try and negate the idea with a weak reason why it wouldn't work and see that gleam in their eyes and let them provide work arounds and reasons why I am wrong.

 

[GM Lent]

My dirty secret is that I really like the player characters and do not want them to die. I keep the illusion going that I like to kill PC's as if It gives me DM Creed with my fellow DM's. I run the game as slightly antagonistic while in reality I am a pushover and love to see the pc's beat the crap out of my favorite npc's and villains.



I really love it when they are in a (unbeatable) situation and then they think outside the box and find that one thing the godlike genius 5,000 year old lich didn't think of and trash him. I like to look stricken and flip through my notes in frustration (like I really have pages and pages of things the lich did think of)and disgust and then weakly try and negate the idea with a weak reason why it wouldn't work and see that gleam in their eyes and let them provide work arounds and reasons why I am wrong.

Ultimately, that should be the dirtiest "secret" of them all: we are all on the same team, looking to tell a good story.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I think the closest thing I have to a dirty secret is that I don't care when a campaign stops - I've got (sometimes literally) dozens of other ideas in mind for other campaigns and for a variety of game systems, plus a shelf full of board and card games for the rare occasion that I can't just toss the players some fresh character sheets and start up something else should a campaign end.

I've been intentionally eliminating all my secrets as a DM for about a decade now because I realized that not one of the typical DM secrets was actually doing anything for me.

 

[Blue]

My dirtiest secret as a DM is that I lay pipe and throw out clues all the time and a lot of the time I have no idea how I'm eventually going to use it. Big campaign arcs I start with ideas but it's not until the campaign has been going for a while that I have a stronger feel for what the players and characters are actually interested in (which can vary from our pre-campaign talks) and things will transmogrify around the story the players are interested in. Then I can really tie in those early bit on what they "actually mean".

For example I ran a seven year 3.5 campaign with a lot of mythic overtones including a strong "the land is the king / the king is the land" sort of Fisher King / Tim Power's "Last Call", with a seemingly political pawn used to reunite a split empire actually being an ancient doppleganger-type that was born before the gods but since was "unfinished" never received any gifts. It saw all of creation as it's rightful domain. But in addition to that when they found the millennium-old king from the lost lands they had come from, trapped in the faerie courts and transformed into a jester, one of the player got him lucid and his blessing as heir and went on to assume responsibility for all the peoples of the land to become king. So the campaign took a turn in a place I never expected as the players explored this, doing things like freeing the lesser giants from the fist of the fire giant overlords in order to protect them as people, etc.

 

[GameOgre]

My dirtiest secret as a DM is that I lay pipe

Did they change the meaning of Lay pipe? I'm a old dude so it really might not mean what it did back in the day.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Did they change the meaning of Lay pipe? I'm a old dude so it really might not mean what it did back in the day.

I thought the same. I wonder what he/she meant by this

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

My dirtiest secret is that none of those details existed until you asked about them.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

My dirtiest secret is that I'm a girl. Apparently.