Dopey things DM's have done.

[Kae'Yoss]

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

Oh my god. No matter how great a guy he might be, he should not be allowed to run a roleplaying game. This is utterly barbaric. Noone ever wanted to make a campaign, convincing this guy that it's much more fun to be a player??

 

[DM-Rocco]

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?"

Okay, at the risk of being shunned from the ENWorld, I claim credit on this.

I had the idiots (er, players), make a sense motive on a door, go ahead, laugh it up, but I was really just trying to be a nice DM. They were going through the Tomb of Horrors and kept opening doors and the same trap kept auto hitting them. If the players couldn't figure out that every door had the same trap on it, I figured that their characters, which have higher IQ's, might. So I thought to myself, what would make sense, I figured intuition, which would fall under a wisdom check. But, it should have been fairly obvious that the same trap was on the doors so I wanted those who might be more attuned to their intuition to have a better chance of getting a gut feeling that something was not right, so I allowed the Paladin to sense Motive on the door, which gave him a better role.

Now, I just let the PC's kill themself, I have suffered enough at their hands for being nice.

It doesn't matter, EvilDM likes to post this every time one of these "name the stupidiest thing your DM has done," threads comes up. Don't worry, I'm bringing a tape recoder to your new campaign, I will have fodder for when the next list comes up.

 

[Nomad4life]

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

You know, I used to believe there was no “wrong” way to play D&D.

I now see the ignorance of my ways. Of course there is a wrong way to play D&D. This is it.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

You know, I used to believe there was no “wrong” way to play D&D.

I now see the ignorance of my ways. Of course there is a wrong way to play D&D. This is it.

I'll admit that for a small number of us, it was the social aspect of the game, not the actual game that we came for. A quarter of the group went to the same tech college, pursuing programming degrees and just hung out.

A larger number had a different "extra-curricular" activity that they can to partake in...dice rolling was secondary. When most of the group showed up, there would be as many as 15 or more crowded in the attic. Out of that number, only a quarter of us didn't indulge...

Also, there was the trainwreck mentality, as some of us would try to remember as much of the silliness that occured and discuss it later.

He was my first DM, as well as some of the other players' first DM. Eventually, a number of us left the game...but, not before going insane .

 

[Nomad4life]

Also, there was the trainwreck mentality, as some of us would try to remember as much of the silliness that occured and discuss it later.

“Trainwreck mentality.” I like that. And I know just what you mean. A friend convenced me to play in a homebrew game with people I didn’t know back in the late 90’s. It was bad. No, I mean reaaally bad- Synnibar bad. Afterwards, my friend tried to apologize for dragging me into it and said we didn’t have to go back for “Part II” if I didn’t want to.

I told him I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It was like playing the MST3K RPG.

 

[Nebulous]

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.

THANK YOU for this post! That was the funniest thing i've read all week. I can just see this happening in a Monty Python-esque movie.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

THANK YOU for this post! That was the funniest thing i've read all week. I can just see this happening in a Monty Python-esque movie.

You are welcome. It would have been even more entertaining if I didn't lose a 12 level wizard in that very chain reaction. Wands have a lot of charges and if they exploded, look out (-100+ hp was not uncommon).

And yet, not once did a player come up with the idea of tossing fully charge wands amongst the bad guys and fireballing them. I can't believe that I didn't think of that 15 years ago...stupid me...

Alas, reminiscing about those days always brings a tear to my eyes, a chuckle to my mouth and my psychologist's phone number to my mind. *repress* *repress* *repress*

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

Now to point the finger directly at me. I have made many a "goof" as a GM, here are three that came to mind:

1) Why of course I can play a Tarrasque to its full potential - four rounds later the three 9th level characters celebrated their victory...hmmm

2) What's wrong with a Deck of Many Things at 3rd level? - one party member death, one party member wish to undo death, four levels gained, one henchman, one keep, one powerful magic item and two attribute bonuses later and I realized that the Deck may have been a bad idea (and the players' luck made me sick - I shuffled, I swear).

3) The Rod of Seven Parts sure is cool, huh? - after a less-than-challenging trek through the Spelljammer universe, one of the players possessed the full rod...the campaign stunk after that (he was 8th level, I believe).

My biggest problems have had to do with too much Monte Haul and not enough challenge (the other DM's unreal challenge-level must have caused me to compensate a bit too much). The players got spoiled and some became a little difficult to deal with. I still game with one, but wouldn't have it any other way, since I'm married to her (although, I'll admit that I have gone too far the other way in recent years - she should probably start getting some better rewards ).

 

[Andor]

I still game with one, but wouldn't have it any other way, since I'm married to her (although, I'll admit that I have gone too far the other way in recent years - she should probably start getting some better rewards ).

Must... not... touch... straight line.... Eric's grandmother.... sniper rifle...

 

[DM-Rocco]

2) What's wrong with a Deck of Many Things at 3rd level? - one party member death, one party member wish to undo death, four levels gained, one henchman, one keep, one powerful magic item and two attribute bonuses later and I realized that the Deck may have been a bad idea (and the players' luck made me sick - I shuffled, I swear).

I had the players play a game with a bunch of demons to get out of the abyss. It involved the deck of many things and each party member having to draw once and up to three times. The demons had an equal amount of people in it and they had to each draw once as well. I had a weird scoring system to see who one, but basically, no one wanted to draw just once, everyone wanted three pulls. I had pretty much the same results as you.

One PC was imprisioned, one got the wish and wished him back. One pulled the death card and had to fight a minor death, I didn't have states, so I used the old 1st edition stats for a minor death and had him always hit and deal full damage. The cleric took four rounds of punishment as he buffed, he then cast heal on the minor death and smited him into nothingness. I guess I should have made him immune to necromancy spells or give him unbeatable SR, but I didn't. One PC got the keep, one got a henchman, and since one of the succubi had her alignment turned to good, I was almost forced to have her follow them, but I wisely didn't give him her as the cohort.

Anyway, Deck of Many Things is just wrong. If you pull enough, you will not have any bad results.