Dopey things DM's have done.

[WhimsyTheFae]

I have some of these. Those of my doing include forgetting little things (SR, DR, abilities) at different times. Usually nothing too major. If I remember any of my good ones, I'll post them. For now, memories of my first DM's "dopey things" overrides memories of my own. Here are some of them:

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Party dwarf, wearing full plate, falls in quick sand.

Me: I'll throw a rope to him, what do I need to roll?
DM: Well, his AC is a 25, so roll an attack roll.
Me: Uh...I'm pretty certain that he can't use his dex in quicksand, I am not trying to bypass his armor and he is not actively trying to avoid being rescued...

He gave me some bonuses...

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DM: You see a winged creature in the distance.
PCs: What does it look like?
DM: It looks like a large winged creature flying toward you.
PCs: What type of winged creature?
DM: You really can't tell.
PCs: How far away is it?
DM: Well, it's getting closer, it's at about 100 yards.
PCs: Can we tell what it looks like now?
DM: Not really.
PCs: Dude, does it have two legs or four? Scaled wings or feathers?
DM: Hmmm...okay, make me a roll.
PCs: We've been watching it approach...fine...*clatter* *clatter*
DM: Oh, okay, it looks like a giant eagle.
PCs: I think that we would have figured out it was a big bird of prey before it got to 100 yards.
DM: 100 yards? No, it just flew over.

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DM: Surprise rolls.
PCs: *clatter* *clatter*
DM: Everyone's surprised...great...*clatter* *clatter*...okay, so player1 gets hit for 23 by a hill giant. You now notice that there are 4 hill giants on the road in front of you.
PCs: huh?
player1: I warn the others.
DM: Roll to see if you hear him shout his warning.
...blah blah blah...

In the end, one player took four rounds before he noticed that the party was fighting 4 hill giants. He only found out when he was critically hit and almost killed.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I generally forget special abilities in important combats.

I think the worst time was when the PC's were underground fighting a beefy Ankheg - they had no idea what it was and the only character who could see (a dwarf) was screaming in terror.

In the dark, I forgot all penalties and miss chances and what not and even described the beastie, the caverns layout, and the sink-bogs through the chamber.

I remember finally describing it's death as the PC's are frantically trying to save each other from the sink bogs.

"In the darkness, it.. wait, who can see exactly?"


Freudian slips all the time. I've mentioned traps, the fact that the guy was a villain, the fact that spooky, wierd monsters the PC's had never heard of were actually just umber hulks before the PC's ever saw them, etc etc.

"You see the murderer..er, the innkeep.."

It's funny at the time but it's still kinda annoying, especially in investigation games. I've never screwed a Cthulu game, luckily.

 

[EvilGM]

Roll a Sense Motive on the door (wtf?)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One of my buddies was running an adventure for a group of high level PCs in a campaign-world shared by 3 DMs (including him, of course). Generally speaking, we don't run our own PCs when we're DMing.

It was a pretty cool session until we encountered the adventure's fatal flaw. He designed an battle encounter that could only be solved by casting a particular spell...forgetting that the only PC capable of casting that spell was his own...who was not on the adventure, of course.
***
To throw myself on the bonfire, I ran a huge campaign that lasted over a year in which the main protagonists were a homebrewed demonkin, The Dark. They could be damaged by anything that shed light, but they had powerful mind-bending abilities. To use anything that shed light against them, a PC had to make a Will save that round. They also had the ability to damage stats (more on that later).

Early on, the combats were tough and exciting. By the end of the campaign, the PCs were handling the Dark with ease. I couldn't figure it out. Invariably, no matter how much stat damage the Dark did, someone would eventually make a Will save and it was flashbulb time and the quick end of the combat.

It wasn't until they handily dispatched the BBEG of the Dark that I realized what had gone wrong. Yes, they had mind control to prevent their opponents from using light as a weapon. Yes, they damaged stats...but it was Strength they damaged, not Wisdom...so those Will saves got easier and easier and easier...

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I had one DM who must have liked trains, for he used railroads a lot. In the game, I mean.

First session, I play a wood elf archer with a pretty high dex. We're in a big city, looking for a thieves' guild, when their leader finds us in a dark alley and wants to talk. Of course, my wood elf, not trusting cities and their denizens, draws his bow and trains an arrow straight for the guys heart. He proceeds to warn us ("if you don't stop looking for us, we will find you, and then noone else ever will" or something like that). And then "he just lets himself fall backward into a window and is gone. No initiative check to see whether I can just let loose (remember, I was aiming a drawn bow at the guy), and no chance to follow.

Later one of us got a vision of some island we had to go to (it was made via that dream spell, nevermind that the character in question was an elf, and that they were immune to that spell. That's just a minor oversight, or can easily be forgiven if it serves the story). Being the high-level characters we were, we used our magic to fly to the area the dreamer recognized and started to look for the island. Of course, we could not find it. He "let slip" that we won't find it unless we go there by ship, as in the vision. Of course, we shipwrecked there (and that was only after we found a ship despite the naval war going on)

Then, at the beginning of the campaign, he forbade me (and only me, apparently), to take rogue levels, because he had something planned about free levels or something like that, and it would make my character too powerful. Anyway, at one day he then told us that we all had to take a level of rogue in our next level-up - seriously messing up most character concepts, or course. We were able to talk him out of that, though.

And then there was a ritual or something - an ancient device to be activated or something like that - and we had to get a diamond worth at least 10.000 gp or so for it. Of course, the metropolis we were in at the time suddenly had zero diamonds of elegible size (and that was a trading city of a decadent people - they were supposed to have all kinds of comforts and luxuries there). And of course, the locations of any mines were secret, not even the guys that sold gems knew where it came from - and we were pretty sure they didn't know, for I tortured the guy using a lot of time and finesse in the art.

In fact, those gem merchants were more secretive than the Twisted Rune, the Knights of the Shield and the Iron Throne Combined: The only way for the merchants to contact them was to write a message and put it in a magic box that teleported its contents to the gem mines ones per day.

We found other uses for that one. First, they found the fingers of the guy we just "interviewed" in it, and later we invented the portable toilet.

For now, memories of my first DM's "dopey things" overrides memories of my own. Here are some of them:

(Hell on earth)

Is that the same guy who does things like: "I put on the boots of speed" "make a dex check" "Uh, 3" "you strangle yourself on the shoelaces. Make a new character" ?

 

[Chimera]

Roll a Sense Motive on the door (wtf?)

Bad Acting School?

"Lessee....I'm a door. I'm a Door. What's my motivation again?"

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Is that the same guy who does things like: "I put on the boots of speed" "make a dex check" "Uh, 3" "you strangle yourself on the shoelaces. Make a new character" ?

Well, I don't remember him doing that, but he would do stuff like this:

Random encounters -

1) If the encounter is not hostile, the DM would say "no biggie" and move on with the adventure (no chance to see or interact)...UNLESS, he felt that we could be tricked into attacking a good creature (see winged creature example above).

2) We had to roll surprise checks, but the opponent was never surprised. Surprise rolls were made using a d6, with any roll of 4 or less indicating surprised (if you were an elf, you were surprised on 3 or less - being a ranger gave a plus one to the roll). So, all non-elf/non-rangers were surprised by anything 66% of the time (including hill giants walking toward you, from in front of you, on a road --- or dragons flying toward you on a clear day).

3) Ninety percent of encounters began at around 10' and the opponents were randomly placed around the party (using a d8 for the points of the compass).

4) There was a 1-in-6 chance of an encounter per hour, regardless of where we were.


Travel -

1) If we were moving up or down a hill (twenty-five degree angle or more) we had to make a dex check to avoid falling (whether walking or running). The checks were to roll under our dex using 3d6 (add a d6 if wounded by half, add a d6 if wearing metal non full-plate armor, add 2d6 if wearing full-plate armor - so, obvioiusly). So, if you were in metal armor, or injured, you went out of your way to avoid all inclines.

2) When climbing, the DM used the percentage table from 2nd ed., but only gave a 5% bonus for using a rope and wall. The table gave like a 55% bonus, but he felt that is was too much and not realistic. Climbing was all but impossible (without magic, only thieves would have a chance, since they had their own percentage). On one climb, 5 out of the 9 party members had a negative chance to climb a wall, even though we had a rope to use.

3) When sleeping, you had to make percentage roll to determine "how much asleep" you are. In order to wake up, you had to make a percentage roll that was greater than the one you made when going to sleep. This was the only way to wake up, short of taking physical damage.


Monsters -

1) When fighting monsters, the DM only kept track of their hitpoints. All stats would be rolled on a round-by-round basis, as needed. Realize, that this DM used stats in place of saving throws. So, if the creature had to make a Dex check to take half-damage from a fireball, the DM would roll his Dex and the check together. If the creature had to make a Dex check later that round, the DM would do the same. Yes, some creatures had an 11 Dex and an 18 Dex in the same round.

2) Trolls were one of his favorites. They received Move Silently and Hide in Shadows like a ranger. They moved at a higher rate of speed. When regenerating from negative hitpoints, they would be at max hitpoints once they hit positives.

3) Dragons could claw-claw-bite-wing-wing-tail-rake-rake-breath weapon every round.

4) Don't get me started on Ogre Mages...

We often joked about the Winged Troll Magi


Player Characters -

1) You rolled your gender randomly. Not a big deal, but many a character was purposely killed by those who were unwilling to play the opposite sex.

2) The DMs wife had two characters that she would play. One was a cleric that could turn into lava at will (sort of like Johnny Storm, without the flight) and the other was a Bone Devil (I forget what it's 2nd/3rd ed. name is, but it's the skeletal Devil with the scorpion tale) that could change to a human whenever it wanted to. No...there was no favoritism.

3) Dwarves rolled a Con check to completely resist magic (the DM noticed that dwarves were resistant to magic in the PHB, so treated it like actual MR/SR).

4) All elves had 5% a chance of being a winged elf. Winged elves had a set number of feathers (I forget how many), and each feather was worth 1,000gp. Yes, some of our party members would canibalize their own feathers to get rich (one went so far as having his wings removed, because the money was worth more to him than the ability to fly).


Magic Items -

1) Everyone had a 10% chance of getting the magic item that they are looking for in any shop. You call a number on a d10 when entering the shop and if you hit that number the item you want is there. If you miss, the next person can walk in, make his roll and get the same item that wasn't there for you. The only catch is that you had to have seen the item beforehand. Yes, once the party got ahold of Bracers AC2 and Staves of Power and such, they passed them around so that everyone could eventually buy one.

2) Anytime a save was missed against a damaging effect (area of effect, like fireball or whole body, like falling), the items each had a 50% chance of being destroyed (magic or otherwise). If destroyed, the item would have a 50% chance of exploding. Exploding items delivered 1d10 damage per plus or charge or other arbitrary factor. The explosion would affect a 30' area.

Yes, we would often have chain reactions in the party, where only the dwarves would come through unscathed (save completely vs. magic). In fact, we once (I'm not joking) had a character miss his Dex check when walking up a small incline (by the DM's description, it was maybe thirty degrees). He then had his bracers and cloak explode. The resulting chain reaction of exploding items took out three party members.

One party member always traveled at least 90' away from the party and teleported to safety when sleeping for the night.

Disclaimer: I enjoyed many aspects of this DM's campaigns - the socializing was fun, the fact that I was going to tech college - living at home - working part time - and had no responsibilities made those years memorable and enjoyable, the other players would get into some of the campaigns and we would talk about the puzzles and such at school.

I like the guy, so I don't want anyone to think that I am bashing him...just some of his DMing practices .

 

[ceratitis]

man this sound like such a bad dm. a classic me vs everone bohaha kind.
Z

 

[Einan]

We had a DM once who was a brilliant world builder and a horrid role-player. His NPCs were always the same old man, even the females. And we learned very quickly that we only had to listen to an NPC after he uttered the magic words, "I tell you what..." Anything after that was plot and worth listening to.

Of course, I had an absolute ball playing in his fantasy GURPS games. I once played a lizardman who decapitated a leader of a group of assassins and ran around using the head as a weapon while screaming bloody murder. Routed 7 assassins, he did. Great fun.

Einan

 

[Dragonbait]

Is this easy enough to figure out the stupid misake I made?:

Me, as the DM:The room is rectangular in shape, with wooden walls and a polished floor. Like the other rooms, there are three bronze statues of warriors in here standing still.

Players: We attack the golems

Me, as the DM: Hey, how did you know they were golems?!

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Long ago I drew several maps for the players and included the secret doors in them. whoops
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I once, randomly insisted that a pair of mummies that would apply their DR against magic spells like magic missile in addition to physical attacks. The mummies became much harder for the group to fight. I am normally the monster man, and had to teach the other players what DR, SR, and so on were, and I had to keep reminding THEM that DR works only against physical attacks, and not spells (that's what SR is for). I have no idea what went through my mind at that moment. So, to rectify the problem, I gave the group more XP for that battle.