GM Confessional

[Reynard]

Ok, I didn't see this one posted yet... my GM sin is that I don't like choosing and divvying out loot, particularly magic items in D&D. It's not that I don't mind the PCs having magic items, it's just that I don't like picking and choosing through lists of them and deciding where they will get found. Maybe compounding this, I don't like handing out plain ol' +1 Swords and Armor and the like, I prefer my magic items to have a bit more flavor. Often times, I'll skim through other modules or random tables I own and steal from there.

On the upside, that's an easy fix: roll randomly and let the players figure it out.

 

[TheHand]

On the upside, that's an easy fix: roll randomly and let the players figure it out.

Ah, you mean my tried and true failsafe !

 

[Reynard]

Ah, you mean my tried and true failsafe !

IMO you can't go wrong in D&D by increasing your reliance on dice!

 

[pogre]

I push the action forward. I need to be more patient with player character to player character interactions.

 

[Asimovian]

Like some others have posted here, I have serious GMADD. Once I've started a game (always with lofty dreams of a years-long campaign) I get thinking about another game, and I end up wanting to abandon the one in favour of the other.

My players joke about it and are very patient with me as I waffle between games I'm going to run. I really need to take their advice and plan for shorter campaigns of a half-dozen sessions or so.

Second sin: I try to make the campaign setup overly epic and, as a result, it becomes complex and burdensome.

Third: For a given setting, I have particular notions of what kind of PCs and styles of play are suitable, and I feel frustrated when my players make choices which don't align with my ideas. Yes, I try to lay things out in Session Zero, but it doesn't work as well as I'd like.

 

[Fenris-77]

Third: For a given setting, I have particular notions of what kind of PCs and styles of play are suitable, and I feel frustrated when my players make choices which don't align with my ideas. Yes, I try to lay things out in Session Zero, but it doesn't work as well as I'd like.

I don't actually think this is a bad thing and I stick to my guns. If I've decided there are no Lizard folk, or whatever, in the setting, then there aren't. That said, when it comes to style of character, which also can easily not match the setting goals I have a lot more flex, but I will tell the player that the build they want may not feel as useful as they'd like at the table. To use a D&D example, if someone wants to run a social skills Bard type in what was slated to be a wilderness and dungeon exploration game I'll let them, but I'll warn them, and I'm not going to bend over backward to try and find ways to make that character equally useful at the table.

 

[aramis erak]

But the longer I go as a GM, the less tolerance I feel for players who simply CANNOT, for the life of them, try anything other than their usual "schtick" as a character.

And maybe that's just normal --- the longer you play, the more you know what you like, so why should you play something you don't like?

But as a GM, it's just . . . so . . . boring to watch from our side of the table. "Oh brother, here we go again." eye roll

That seems pretty normal; the solutions are multiple...

... play games with random character gen
... talk to players about the issue
... give bonus XP to players when they don't go to schtick-spamming.
... get new players...

 

[Thomas Shey]

That seems pretty normal; the solutions are multiple...

... play games with random character gen
... talk to players about the issue
... give bonus XP to players when they don't go to schtick-spamming.
... get new players...

Short of your last one, I think you're over-optimistic if you think that'll actually stop that problem (if problem it is).

 

[aramis erak]

Short of your last one, I think you're over-optimistic if you think that'll actually stop that problem (if problem it is).

#1 and #2 have worked for me many times in the past.
Especially the guy who plays the same type in AD&D every game and insists on Mode IV, V, or VI.... WFRP1 with the random broke him...
RQ 3 broke him, too.
Once he got used to playing characters other than his initial type, he blossomed out into the other problem...

... every new character needs to be weirder than the last...

 

[Thomas Shey]

#1 and #2 have worked for me many times in the past.
Especially the guy who plays the same type in AD&D every game and insists on Mode IV, V, or VI.... WFRP1 with the random broke him...
RQ 3 broke him, too.

You've obviously never encountered people who will simply take the swordbush method until they get a character close enough to what they want. You can force someone to use random character gen, but one way or another they can find ways to generate new characters until they get what they want (unless what they want is ultra-specific in a way the random gen system interacts with).