DM Murder

[Chimera]

He sounds like someone I know who has mild Asperger's Syndrome which is the mildest form of Autism. He has a very poor perception of emotions and cannot recognise or understand them well especially in others. As with many people with this condition, he can act/react intellectually with people and has compensated in an intellectual fashion when dealing with the emotions of others. He isn't rude and IS a really nice guy but he can come across as cold, distant, unfeeling or oblivious.

"Adults with Asperger's have trouble with empathy and modulation of social interaction - the disorder follows a continuous course and is usually lifelong."

I know a guy with Aspergers. Or rather, I used to. An extremely bright guy, very knoweldgable about physics and even psychology. But completely unable to deal with other people's emotions. He has learned to emulate certain behaviors on an intellectual level, but once you get out of his depth or experience, he responds with hostility and threats - even when such things are incredibly inappropriate.

"Oblivious". Yeah, seriously so. Extreme ego combined with no empathy.

 

[Wycen]

We did it once, and it ended the campaign. We switched DM's after a 10d6 lightening bolt was thrown at our party of 1st and 2nd level characters. The replacement was great except he considered it funny to say things like "meteor hits you you all die" or "you are more powerful than level 4 because you have high stats" or "you can't have any permanent magic items except the barbarian who can buy this intelligent mage slaying sword from the wizard's guild, never mind the fact the party has 3 arcane casters" and the final straw, "you open the invulnerable vault after finding the 3 keys and find a whole in the floor and graffiti on the walls". Well, he didn't say all those things, some happened in the game.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I run a campaign that my players love. As a result, any 'off night' or longer than normal situation sends some of them into 'crisis mode' and I hear about it as soon as they can corner me.

They enjoy the game. I enjoy it. But they need to chill out from time to time.

 

[nopantsyet]

I certainly hope that my players would be adult enough to talk to me if there were a problem, unlike a number of people in this thread have expressed. This isn't first grade kickball, folks, where you just shun the kid who always boots the ball over the fence and won't get it. This is an inherently social game played among adults or near-adults.

Personally, I periodically ask for feedback from my players. They're pretty easygoing, and don't have many strict expectations, which makes my life easier and more difficult. The upside is I have a lot of freedom to express my creativity in the game I run. The downside is, unlike Keeper of Secrets, when I have an "off night" I don't necessarily know how the players felt about it or what to change.

 

[Sejs]

In fact, the DM held up his hand and said, "This is the hand of plot, telling you that you can't go in there until you go to this other place first."

Reply being: "And this is the finger of choice, telling you that we can go where we damn well please."

 

[BaldHero]

Uh, actually, you are weasles. "Under the guise of taking a break"? Where you afraid of this person? Didn't want to hurt their feelings? I mean come on, it's roleplaying. It's not like being an elite member of a golf club or something and getting invited to a more elite club and lying about it. It's D&D, it's a game. If the DM was your friend, you are a super weasle. If the DM was a casual acquantice, why bother lying?

If I'm misreading your post here, I apologize, but it sounds sniviling at best.

Wow, weasels, and sniveling all in the same post. This is what i was asking for i guess. I feel differently of course. Since i feel we were manipulating the game in order to let our friend off the hook easy, for blatantly wasting our time, and for ignoring our polite conversations and suggestions made in a spirit of friendship. I was under the impression that keeping the friend was better then arguing over the game. Were we afraid, no. we liked this person, wanted to play with them, just not have them DM for us any longer. We wanted to spare a person their pride and feelings.
At any rate, it is good to see so many replies here, since it means thatwe arent the only group to undergo this, and we are handled it better then some, and maybe worse than others.

 

[Darklone]

Well.... It's really sad for a DM if he runs a campaign for a year and asks the players pretty often how/whether they like it and what could be improved... and then they plot without telling him, stop to come and play somewhere else...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Wow, weasels, and sniveling all in the same post. This is what i was asking for i guess. I feel differently of course. Since i feel we were manipulating the game in order to let our friend off the hook easy, for blatantly wasting our time, and for ignoring our polite conversations and suggestions made in a spirit of friendship. I was under the impression that keeping the friend was better then arguing over the game. Were we afraid, no. we liked this person, wanted to play with them, just not have them DM for us any longer. We wanted to spare a person their pride and feelings.
At any rate, it is good to see so many replies here, since it means thatwe arent the only group to undergo this, and we are handled it better then some, and maybe worse than others.

But see, here's the problem. What if he finds out that you were lying to him? I have several friends who DM and ask me to play and I tell them straight out, "Look, your style of DMing doesn't jive with my playing style. No harm no foul." They take it much better than, "Well dude, I'm drying my hair each and every week that you're going to be GMing, and if you hear that I'm at some other dude's hosue playing, it's a lie!"

 

[Mercule]

Well.... It's really sad for a DM if he runs a campaign for a year and asks the players pretty often how/whether they like it and what could be improved... and then they plot without telling him, stop to come and play somewhere else...

That's kinda the key. If the DM refuses to accept feedback, becomes defensive of "his game night", and generally dumps any issues back onto the players, then that's kind sad, too.

I guess, either way, you should say something to the DM first. In my case, we did, but I doubt he recognizes it. Depending on who you asked, you'd get different answers about whether we'd approached him or not.

Heck, six or eight months after his game fell apart and I started DMing, Eberron came out. When I threw out the idea of my switching to Eberron to him, he said something to the effect of, "Well, if you're going to run something other than homebrew, I'll probably just go ahead and run the game myself."

Needless to say, I found that comment rather too offensive to comment on at the time.

 

[Chimera]

Heck, six or eight months after his game fell apart and I started DMing, Eberron came out. When I threw out the idea of my switching to Eberron to him, he said something to the effect of, "Well, if you're going to run something other than homebrew, I'll probably just go ahead and run the game myself."

Needless to say, I found that comment rather too offensive to comment on at the time.

Wow. Yeah, that's one of those "Um, gee, I think I need to go run some errands right now" kind of moments.