DM Schticks That Grind Your Gears

[Votan]

Slowly, the one that drives me nuts the most is changes to the rules system. It never, ever seems to work out when the DM introduces setting specific major changes. I love story and so I find it kind of cool as an idea at first.

But it can radically change the balance of a game and make things a lot less fun.

In particular:

1) Mass banning of certain spells or classes of spells in order to enforce the campaign theme. This can go very badly, very fast. For example, no teleport spell seems like a reasonable choice. But then you decide it's a water themed world so only water or ice damage spells exist. And then you note that summons don't work including things like the mount spell.

After a while it can really effect playability.

2) Very restricted character classes -- a party can be awkward to balance if you discover no healing classes are allowed and so forth.

3) Restricted items and technology. Wizards can't get spellbooks (I watched this for 8 months once). Magic items are nearly non-existent. Standard weapons are not available to be purchased or used (okay, I can understand the spiked chain but banning all armor of any kind, for example, can have balance issues). But then a rifle doing 5d10 damage shows up.

4) House rules that radically change how key mechanics work. In the old days, my favorite example was fumble rules closely followed by critical hits that did loads of damage. These days a system where arcane spells fatigue casters (see Unearthed Arcana) is my current favorite child for this sort of problem.


My main issue is that these changes, made for story reasons, are hard to do well. As a result, the game often ends up going very badly.

I like to tinker but I think the next time I DM I will make a point of not modifying any rules!

 

[Aaron L]

It can be effective to use bait and switch to get the proper type of character backgrounds, though. What if the DM wants to run a campaign revolving around the difficulty of disaffected nobles now penniless and ruined and having to eke out a living as mercenaries using their meager "courtly" sword training.

So you tell them that the campaign is going to be based around nobles and political intrigue. They generate appropriate characters complete with all sorts of associated NPCs and organizations that can come into play later as enemies or allies that have been likewise affected. That sounds like alot of fun to me.

That would be a really prickish thing to do. The right thing to do would be asking if the rest of the group wants to play a game like that, not duping the players.

 

[Hussar]

I gotta agree with AaronL on this one. Duping players on the nature of the campaign is generally not a good way to start. It might be fine for groups that have played together for a long time, but, if the players and DM don't know eachother, blatantly lying to your players at the outset might hurt that whole trust the DM thing I keep hearing about.

 

[ChristianW]

Man, what?

I loathe bizarre, crazy monsters created just for the sake of slapping templates together.

Take the half-dragon treant, for example.

 

[shilsen]

I loathe bizarre, crazy monsters created just for the sake of slapping templates together.

Take the half-dragon treant, for example.

What about templates being used to create variants of traditional creatures, with the flavor being changed to fit whatever is desired, while retaining the mechanics? The half-dragon treant doesn't have to be the result of a dragon mating with a treant. It can just be a treant warped by magical energy, resulting in a more powerful treant (improved stats), with thicker bark (improved natural AC), the ability to fire a hail of sharpened wooden spikes (breath weapon), etc.

The mechanics are only what you make of them.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Bizarro Templates

I loathe bizarre, crazy monsters created just for the sake of slapping templates together.

Don't tell BLACKDIRGE.

-Samir

 

[Odhanan]

Story Protection for Characters
I'm here to play a game in which character death is sometimes determined by the luck of the dice, not to see your pet plot line through to the grand finale. Luck is a part of the game - don't rob me of that, either good or bad.

QFT. If the campaign's possible events doesn't take into account the possible death of the PCs as a result of bad luck or sheer mistakes, then the campaign's design is flawed at the core. I highly dislike any type of fudging because "the story demands it". That hides the incompetence of a DM who thinks in terms of novels, movies, whatever BUT in terms of RPG campaigning, in my opinion.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

It can be effective to use bait and switch to get the proper type of character backgrounds, though. What if the DM wants to run a campaign revolving around the difficulty of disaffected nobles now penniless and ruined and having to eke out a living as mercenaries using their meager "courtly" sword training.

So you tell them that the campaign is going to be based around nobles and political intrigue. They generate appropriate characters complete with all sorts of associated NPCs and organizations that can come into play later as enemies or allies that have been likewise affected. That sounds like alot of fun to me.

You've just lied to the players. And if what the GM wants to run is the last thing the players want to run in, you just might find yourself looking for new players. RPGs are a cooperative venture. Ignore that fact at your peril.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

Don't tell BLACKDIRGE.

-Samir

All right that's it. Prepare to meet thy doom at the slimy tentacles of a fiendish half dragon paragon pseudonatural banana slug of legend.

BD

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I hate the opposite of this as well - Jim can't be here tonight so we'll have his character suddenly vanish in the midst of the adventure, unexplained, because the GM doesn't want to run the character as an NPC.

I'm very guilty of this. I haven't found a satisfactory way of dealing with it that doesn't involve me running the character - if I do that, they are at risk of death, which isn't fair (IMO) if the player isn't there to control their own character.

It doesn't bother any of my players, however.