D&D General How Do I Help Mentor a GM Making Rookie Mistakes?

[MR. Vincent]

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m a Forever GM who tends to be a “bad player” on the rare occasions I get to play. I don’t necessarily cause problems, but I have strong preferences, and it’s easy for me to get bored or judgemental.

Recently, I decided to take a break from running games and have chosen to limit my time in the hobby. I’ve passed the GMing duties to the college-aged daughter of another player in the group. I’m trying to be adaptable to the GM’s style, go along with playing a system that isn’t my favorite, and taking a class that isn’t my favorite to accommodate the fun of everyone else at the table. In short, I’m trying to be supportive as a player. And as a former GM, I’m trying to do everything I can to help her succeed - giving her access to minis, battlemaps, ambient music, rulebooks, etc.

But there’s stuff that I really want to push back on. For example, she has a habit of adding houserules in the middle of play. To make things more confusing, we're playing Level Up, which is a system that is new to us and a little more complex than we're used to. She keeps adding and changing things so we can't get our bearings.

“You just got a critical hit, so you’re going to take a lingering injury that can’t be healed without proper medical care.”
“You’re not going to keep your starting wealth. So you’re broke.”
“You don’t get hit points every level.”
“You have to burn Hit Dice to recover hit points on a rest.”
“I’m not going to tell you the DC or why you’re rolling.”
"I didn't realize that feat was so good - you can't use it anymore."
Additionally, it seems that EVERY encounter has taken place with me out of my armor with an AC of 10.

Basically, this is a GM’s first campaign, and there’s a lot of stuff she’s doing that’s against “GM best practices” and that I can tell are annoying other players as well as me.

So, do I bring this up to her? If so, how do I do it that doesn’t make me seem like a jerk trying to usurp control from a first-time GM? I want to be supportive, but I am seeing her make rookie GM mistakes. Do I try to push back to have a better time in the game - or do I value the necessity of her making these mistakes?

Bringing up 'mistakes' in the wrong way can be discouraging. But, what you've described is really a simple fix. Game 'rules' official or homebrew should be known to all, before the game starts. If a rule is omitted, or added, or changed because the DM thinks it's better, or easier, or cool is fine, as long as everyone knows that it's a thing. You could just ask for some clarifications before you start...and if a DM wants to add a problem to the rule, like "your wound is not typical and can only be solved by doing X, there should be some explanation, like: this creature oozes some goop that hinders 'normal' healing...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ask her to define what she means by "challenge characters" and "grittier" because that can be done a dozen different ways.

IMO it sounds like she should switch to a system that would better support her preferences; like the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG!

Level Up works perfectly fine as a grittier game that can challenge your players PCs.

WotC's recent offerings perhaps less so. 5e as a system is not the problem, as much as I love the OSR.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

One thing I'm not sure was clarified was how may sessions you have been at in the campaign., For me, it takes 3-4 sessions to get into any new moderately crunchy system, and I'd allocate at least the same time for a new GM to settle in, so I'd honestly expect the first 6-8 sessions to be rocky, confusing and have a lot of changes and adjustments.

Assuming you are beyond that baseline, I'd look at the one thing that make it hardest for you to enjoy the game. Then think how you can help in a way that makes the GM's job easier and offer the GM that assistance. If it is something that only the GM can do, then let them know that, making it clear that you are hoping they can help you with your problem, not phrasing it as fixing their problem.

As an example, if changing house rules are an issue, volunteer to keep track of the house rules by keeping track of them in a document. You can use your skills as an experience GM to make the house rules clear and add a checkbox to say "this is a rule we are currently using" and then let the GM make edits and decide which rules to use.

Mostly though, echoing @Umbran's advice: Your goal is to help them enjoy being a GM so as much as possible, roll with their inexperience and adapt your preferred style to them rather than try and adapt them -- even when that adaptation would be obviously better. Good luck!

 

[SlyFlourish]

She thinks it's difficult to challenge characters and that there are too many HP in 5e. (I don't disagree.) Also, the rules changes are meant to reflect the grittier campaign setting. (Which I think shows creativity and dedication to the premise. I'm not against it - I just want to know how the mechanics work and for them to be consistent.)

To be fair, I was her previous GM. So maybe I have already done all the mentoring she needs.

Have you shown her Shadowdark? That might fit the style she's aiming for more than A5e which is pretty super-heroic fantasy.

Someone else might have already suggested this... sorry.

My general feeling is that its ok to describe how you feel about things if you're not having fun but in a non-judgemental way.

"I'm having trouble hanging onto the game because I feel like the rules keep shifting on me"

and

"I feel like the capabilities of my character keep disappearing on me"

This is, in my experience, a better way of trying to address the issues than "you're not playing A5e right" (I'm not saying you're saying that but some might).

Two other hard options are:

A. Live with it.

B. Step away from the game saying it's not really for you as a player.

There are gradients in there, of course, but its important to think about those two options.

 

[Scribe]

Have you shown her Shadowdark?

 

[AnotherGuy]

Ask her to define what she means by "challenge characters" and "grittier" because that can be done a dozen different ways.

Exactly.

There are a number of ways this can be done...

• Reduce starting point buy
• Make Long Rest require 24 hours or longer
• Increase damage by monsters by a die
• Give monsters a Feat or Class Feature for every 4 HD.

...etc

 

[MichaelSomething]

Bumping because I'm wondering how it turned out? Has this new DM rise up to the challenge??

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I don't have a solution but this doesn't seem like "rookie" type mistakes to me. I've played with plenty of veteran DMs whose application of the rules was about as consistent as a half-rotten jellyfish, and just as likely to sting you unexpectedly!

 

[Retreater]

Bumping because I'm wondering how it turned out? Has this new DM rise up to the challenge??

We've taken a few weeks off the game due to scheduling issues, so we haven't returned to the campaign.

 

[tetrasodium]

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m a Forever GM who tends to be a “bad player” on the rare occasions I get to play. I don’t necessarily cause problems, but I have strong preferences, and it’s easy for me to get bored or judgemental.

Recently, I decided to take a break from running games and have chosen to limit my time in the hobby. I’ve passed the GMing duties to the college-aged daughter of another player in the group. I’m trying to be adaptable to the GM’s style, go along with playing a system that isn’t my favorite, and taking a class that isn’t my favorite to accommodate the fun of everyone else at the table. In short, I’m trying to be supportive as a player. And as a former GM, I’m trying to do everything I can to help her succeed - giving her access to minis, battlemaps, ambient music, rulebooks, etc.

But there’s stuff that I really want to push back on. For example, she has a habit of adding houserules in the middle of play. To make things more confusing, we're playing Level Up, which is a system that is new to us and a little more complex than we're used to. She keeps adding and changing things so we can't get our bearings.

When I was running levelup for players new to it I would frequently need to stop & explain rules that were different from wotc's dnd5e to players who I'm skeptical even skimmed the book. While levelup doesn't have "lingering injuries", you very much appear to be describing the fatigue & strife system it does have. Based on your description of a clearing something that recovers differently depending on if you are resting at a haven or not. In fact... a lot of these appear likely to be base rules.

“You just got a critical hit, so you’re going to take a lingering injury that can’t be healed without proper medical care.”

likely fatigue & strife mentioned above

“You’re not going to keep your starting wealth. So you’re broke.”

The starting wealth past 1st level on page 353 says "When starting at a higher level, you may choose to spend your starting gold on the following equipment" & mentions buying different items, it doesn't say anything about keeping unspent gold though. That one could easily go either way from gm to gm depending on the style of game they are running and the possible metagaming shenanigans that seem to be at play like hypothetically claiming deadPC's magic items for 0gp & starting with the giant pot of gold coins or something. I could definitely understand why she might say that since I generally tell players to give me their PC ahead of time & that I'll give them some interesting custom magic items for that build & story... More than once I've said no, that original PC didn't give it up to NewPC when the player shows up with a totally new pc built around shamelessly exploiting a now lolbroke-unbalanced item that would have been fine with the original pc. Prior to 5e the response was "OMG sooo coooool I love it" & similar but I've seen a lot of 5e players simply expect that taking the item & rebuilding the pc from the ground up around it without even asking was so totally cool that there was actual outrage I would tell them no

“You don’t get hit points every level.”

Not sure what's going on here but lay equal odds as poorly described or miscommunication

“You have to burn Hit Dice to recover hit points on a rest.”

There are some things like the sewer plague in T&T's maladies section that cause this.

“I’m not going to tell you the DC or why you’re rolling.”

"I didn't realize that feat was so good - you can't use it anymore."

"wow that's kinda broken & causing problems, I'm going to need to make a call here" is not unheard of. I'd only say that this is unreasonable if the GM isn't allowing you to change it or work with them to resolve why it's "so good" so there is a balanced middle ground. Sometimes it's a legitimately unexpected thing, other times it's a case of differing interpretations of the rules. One example I saw of this was a player who took both the vampirism &lycanthropy feats & was outraged that I wouldn't allow him to get the benefit of both bites with a single action when I told him that one involved piercing veins then drinking blood while while the other involved more of a rip chew swallow (iirc different damage dice too).

Additionally, it seems that EVERY encounter has taken place with me out of my armor with an AC of 10.

If you are resting often it would be expected that you are out of your armor unless you are trying to use the "roughing it" rules on 320, I'd expect a player intending to use those so they could sleep in heavy armor to be up front & vocal about the fact that they are going to be sleeping in their armor knowing that it would cause them to recover half the normal HD while clearing zero points of fatigue/strife

Basically, this is a GM’s first campaign, and there’s a lot of stuff she’s doing that’s against “GM best practices” and that I can tell are annoying other players as well as me.

Are you sure that it's not a case of players not knowing & possibly making an effort to avoid absorbing the differences in rules?

So, do I bring this up to her? If so, how do I do it that doesn’t make me seem like a jerk trying to usurp control from a first-time GM? I want to be supportive, but I am seeing her make rookie GM mistakes. Do I try to push back to have a better time in the game - or do I value the necessity of her making these mistakes?

Maybe something like: "do you know what page that rule is on or can you point me to the general thing to lookup so we can learn & remember how it works by reading it real quick?"