DM Schticks That Grind Your Gears

[The Thayan Menace]

The Ace of Spades

I chose to go elsewhere.

Frankly, I tend to side with you ... however, let's not quibble. He kicked you out, didn't he?

-Samir

 

[kigmatzomat]

Oh, and you all level, heck, you level twice.

The GM abhores letting players know about their experience points. It's just so much simpler to toss them a freaking level whenever he feels like they are getting antsy.

I admit to being a DM who doesn't give out XP each session. For one thing, it means I don't have to calculate xp each session and since my players often go on tangents that may or may not have unexpected encounters, that can be a pain.

I don't mind telling people how far they are into a level, but I don't want the "rat hunt" to be a motivating factor. "Hey, I need 15xp to hit next level, let's go kill rats!" By making the XP a little more abstract the players seem to focus more on the game. Not that some of them don't bring pre-leveled character sheets with them to drool over.

Well, Jim called and said he won't be here tonight. oops! he's dead.

Yeah, that's rude. However, I get irritated at people who call the day of the game about something they new about for more than week. I make concessions for last-minute stuff (one guy is a hospice manager, two others are on-call computer security guys) but if someone forgot to mention their vacation in advance, I'm sure they will be sufficiently inconsiderate in the future to justify booting them from the game.

Now, if you had gone the other way...

This GM just can't resist telling players what loot they missed / what secrets they didn't get when they left somethign alone.

Oh, this hurts. As a GM it can hurt so much when the players were just inches away from the really "kewl" thing and missed it. I had an encounter where the players decided "this thing is too dangerous, lets go get help from the village up the road." The thing is, they had defeated all the major threats and all that was left was a relatively helpless BBEG. The day-and-a-half round trip significantly altered the gaming landscape (BBEG ceased being a "newborne" and is no longer helpless) but Dang! I wanted to have that encounter at the time.

 

[Piratecat]

Frankly, I tend to side with you ... however, let's not quibble. He kicked you out, didn't he?

We have asked AO to not discuss this on the boards. As such, I'll ask that other folks not discuss it as well. It's a personal matter between himself and his former DM, and this isn't the place to dissect it.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Scratch That ....

I concede ... back on topic.

My biggest DM "gear-grinder" has to be incompetence (i.e., not knowing the rules).

-Samir

 

[The Shaman]

So let me get this straight....From your post, you don't put any work into character background, or try to make your character have any fluff or extra cool things about it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "extra cool things."

I write character backgrounds that provide a motivation for adventuring: who is this guy, and why is he taking up the life of an adventurer? My characters are carefully woven into the tapestry of the setting, so that they are at home in the game-world.

What I don't do is craft a novella and assume that my character is destined to be a great hero, and therefore immune from such mundane fates as getting skewered by a randomly encountered goblin. If my character survives to be a great hero, then the adventures that lead him to that point are the only backstory that matters.

You also don't mind if, while having a fun or challenging campaign, that your character dies and the DM tells you, sorry bud, don't bother showing up the next three weeks cause the campaign is going to end.

Again, that's just poor game mastering: if the "story" is so tightly written that a game master hasn't left an opening to introduce a new character, then that game master is a nitwit.

If I have to play an NPC for an evening, or if I get to run a monster or two during combat while waiting for my new character to be introduced, that's cool. If the game master told me to take a hike for three weeks because it would muck up her plot to bring in a new character, then I'm happy to pack up my things and find someone else with whom to play, because that game master should be writing fan fic for the web and accumlating rejection notices from fantasy publishers, not running a roleplaying game.

You also don't mind if the DM throws traps or challenges that shouldn't be life threatening, but more a challenge, and if things go wrong, like a bunch of 1's rolled by a PC or a bunch of 20's rolled by the DM, then the DM shouldn't fudge things, to ensure that YOU have a fun time.

"Fun" isn't defined for every gamer as "not dying except when it's dramatic enough," Keifer113. That may be your definition - it's most definitely not mine.

It's a game, and part of the game is resolving the element of chance with dice.

 

[shilsen]

Apart from everything mentioned above, my main problem with this is that any player who falls behind will never catch up again no matter what. Even people who used the 3.0 XP division method with average party level could still help the character who died catch up by maybe throwing them a little solo encounter that explores their backstory or something. With this method, no matter what happens, the character who fell behind stays behind, and if she falls farther behind, she stays there, until eventually that character may be several levels behind if there is a chain reaction.

I completely forgot to mention that specific situation since it hasn't come up yet, but if someone falls a level behind they will be getting extra XP so that they catch up.

 

[LostSoul]

As a bit of further explanation, this XP system does not depend solely on following the storyline that I provide the hooks for. Character driven goals that are achieved earn XP but not PLAYER driven goals. If the group decides that going on a quest for a rare thingy needed to craft an item then the group gets XP for any challenges faced in pursuit of that goal and a bonus for completion. If the PLAYER decides that he/she wants to go out and hunt down a troll for some crafting XP then XP is not awarded.

Hmm, that's interesting. What if the player decides to put in a quest because he needs XP for some crafting? What if a player wants to do something specific in the game (some kind of quest he think would be kick-ass fun to play)?

I'm not sure I see the difference between player goals and character goals. Although that could be because I have my head... um, in the clouds.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

My biggest pet peeve's from GM's also include...

Changing how spell durations work in mid battle, or right BEFORE the big battle.


but the big one is....

"OK, I've tallied up your XP award for the last 3 months. Everyone, you get 150 XP, Honey buns..."

"Yes squishy poo?"

"You get 25,000 XP and the Gods grant you two wishes!"



I HATE THAT!

A variant is:

OK, after stopping the Mechaniods, going to Africa and stopping the Four Horsemen, and rescuing two of your friends from the Dimensional Market of Atlantis, you all get...

250 XP.

 

[Chimera]

YOU KILLED MY PC, SO I'M KILLING YOURS!

GM's that bring crap from other games into the one they are GMing, or bring stuff from the game they GM into the one they are playing in.

It drives me nuts.

Happened a lot when I was in High School back in the late 70's and we rotated GMing every session. Moreso than that was the period where Jim started to destroy everyone's magic items in revenge for losing some of his. Or when he tried to take Revenge on Stan for losing his favorite character to the ultimate ending of a copy of Stormbringer.

 

[Lanefan]

On that note, I'm curious whether the following would grind your gears. Anyone else please feel free to answer too.

IMC, I don't award XP based on CR or any other in-game challenges. Instead, I just provide a flat XP award per session (usually about 1000 XP) to keep PCs advancing at a speed I'm comfortable with. That works out to about as many sessions to make the next level as your current level. PCs get the XP if the entire session was spent without a single die being rolled, if they had three fights or killed a huge dragon, if the player was absent from the game and I NPCed him, etc. Hence, I don't usually tell players how much XP their PCs have, though I do have a running total at all times, so I can let them know if asked. I generally just say, "Okay, you guys level up," and we go with that, and sometimes let them know a couple sessions in advance.

So, how much would that bug you?

Quite a lot, if it seemed some PC's were taking more risks and-or getting more done than others yet everyone got the same ExP award all the time. Far too easy to get into a mentality of letting other peoples' characters stick their necks out...

Doesn't matter as much, though, in a low- or no-risk game.

Lanefan