How do you determine a "Real Bad Dungeon Master"

[Jupp]

You mentioned this twice, and I'm still trying to see the problem with it. My players met my original (circa 1978) PC's in their very first campaign, and have come to view them as a good source of info and adventure. They drink with the dwarf, get healing from the cleric, get in trouble with the rogue, buy magic items from the wizard, and ignore the ranger

You need these type of NPC's anyway, why re-invent the wheel? As long as they stay in the background until needed, their well-developed histories and connections are a good source of material.

Well as you play it there is no problem with a DM having his old PCs as NPCs in the new campaign. It starts to go downhill as soon as those NPCs start to take the fun away from the players with things like

- Taking command of the group and literally leading them into adventure
- They single-handedly take out the boss mob with the players being spectators watching the mad skillz of the NPC
- The only way to advance in the story is to consult them and play boot-licker to those NPCs

If you actually build them into the game world and let the behave as a part of it (not as THE part of it) you can have some fun moments with them. But its always a challange for the DM to not overplay them, else they could take the fun away from the players. Also the DM may not be protective over them. If they get killed, so be it.

 

[billd91]

Lately? I check the mirror.

I used to think I had mad skills, but it turns out that, while I'm a decent storyteller with some creativity, I have poor command of large amounts of rules, and a penchant for letting the campaign "get away from me."

By "get away from me" I don't mean that I try and keep it so closely heeled that there's never any flexibility (see below for railroading grades), but that I'm not very well organized when it comes to keeping track of all that's going on. Couple that with poor ability to manage rules heavy systems (like d20), and it can descend into chaos, or TPKs, or chaotic TPKs in Yuan-ti fortress dungeons.

My advice for anyone in a similar situation is recruit your players to help.

Having trouble remembering some bonuses (bless, bard song, cover, etc)? Write them on the battle map or on a white board and have one of the players be responsible for updating durations and all that on the board each turn.
Ask one player to act as chronicler. Print up a calendar for him so he can have the materials ready to write down notes on what happened as a campaign diary.
Have a player act as the turn keeper with respect to initiatives.

And so on.

 

[delericho]

Even on a one-shot adventure? I can understand a campaign not being railroaded, but one shot adventure almost always suffer from it, don't they?

Good question. I'm torn about one-shot adventures. Frankly, as long as the group has fun, I don't think it matters. And to provide the most enjoyment for the most people, the DM can probably get away with saying, "look, guys, you need to accept this mission." But it's important to tread carefully. On one hand, the game could end up going nowhere, on the other, the players have no choice in what they do. The best situation is somewhere in the middle.

On the other hand, even if the PCs have a choice, can't the DM go with the choice but have the consequences of their choice just land them back in the main plot line. Is that railroading as well?

If the PCs can't avoid the plot, I label that railroading. Now, the DM can guide the plot somewhat, by having some backup hooks to bring the group into the plot or whatever, but ultimately, the players will choose to rejoin the plot or not. If, however, the players decide to simply ride out of town and avoid the plot entirely, and then the DM has them rounded up by mercenaries and forced back into town, or has them encounter the exact same situation in the next town over, then he's gone to far, IMO.

As with everything else, if you're having fun, that's fine. If not, or if the DM is having fun at the expense of the players, that's a bad sign.

 

[irdeggman]

A couple of examples (both were and are friends of mine).

First one:
Runs a game like he wanted to be in the party himself. What I mean the NPCs outnumbered the PCs in the party and they were, or course, much better equipped and statted up.

Same person also likes to use the analogy ”They could do it in the computer game and the books had him do this or that.”

Same person is not a really good role-player, plays his PCs as min-max munchkins that aspire to be gods (every time).

Second one:
First off this GM is a tremendous role-player and it is almost always a joy to game in the same party as his PC.

Doesn’t understand the rules. Instead of looking things up (either at the table, (worst thing to do) or when putting together the adventure). He goes by memories of “years of experience as a player and GM in 2nd ed” and thus makes things up at the moment that don’t fit into any sort of consistency.

Doesn’t know how to tell a story. His games are almost always 99.99% random encounters that he rolls up at the table. “Take a 45 minute break while I put together the stats for this encounter you are going to have, but don’t know yet.”

Makes the game his house-ruled setting (which is absolutely fine and this behavior should be reinforced IMO). But he doesn’t think things out when he puts them together. For example elves have susceptibility to cold iron (3.0 before the material type of 3.5) and take an extra point of damage when hit by weapons made of iron and iron alloys. Well he didn’t give them any benefits to balance out this restriction. So all of sudden elves can’t use most metal weapons (mithral is allowed), wear most armors or even eat out of most cookware without taking some kind of damage. Can’t even use metal arrow heads.

Has no concept of what balance means. IMO balance is what keeps one player from thinking he is getting shafted while another is getting huge benefits simply due to the character they are playing.

One PC started with a herd of trained horses (didn’t need any ranks in handle animal), got to wear her armor all of the time (even sleeping) and really had no down size to this. The horses did most of the fighting when we had encounters and she got to tell them what to do in pretty specific detail.

Another PC came from same region only more educated. The DM placed a lot of background and history in this region, even though the adventuring party was set in another distant region. This PC got to start with better than average equipment (katanas that were house ruled to be even better than the one in the DMG).

PCs from other regions pretty much got squat with no history of their area to base any sort of character development on.

Poor application of existing rules. For example in order to craft a wand the character had to start with a masterwork quality wand. When asked what this meant and how one would make it the answer was all magic items need to have a masterwork base component its in the rules (no it isn’t only weapons and armors have this requirement). In order to make a masterwork quality wand a character could use whatever skill worked (again what does this mean?). The description of the cost of crafting a magic wand includes the gp for spells. He read this as referring to the cost of the wand itself. Again when pointed out what happens when the wand’s charges are used up? Per the rules it turns into a useless stick, well masterwork items don’t deteriorate like that they are supposed to be sturdier. Also what qualities are placed into the generic masterwork wand that makes it masterwork? Weapons get a +1 to hit, armors get their armor check penalty lessoned by 1 and tools get a circumstance bonus to their function. What does a stick get?

Reminiscing on how the campaign he ran with another DM was so enjoyable that people just had a great time with it. Turned out they a great time despite his method of running the game, the other DM was a tremendous one who basically carried the load (per some of the players who actually played in the game).

 

[kenobi65]

Well as you play it there is no problem with a DM having his old PCs as NPCs in the new campaign. It starts to go downhill as soon as those NPCs start to take the fun away from the players with things like

- Taking command of the group and literally leading them into adventure
- They single-handedly take out the boss mob with the players being spectators watching the mad skillz of the NPC
- The only way to advance in the story is to consult them and play boot-licker to those NPCs

Exactly. When an NPC is the hero of the adventure, there's something wrong going on. Using your old PCs as NPCs isn't a bad thing, so long as they remain in the supporting cast.

 

[griff_goodbeard]

You want plenty of example's check out the 'What's a Player to Do' board over at the WotC Message Boards, about every other post is a different DM horror story.

 

[Someone]

Even on a one-shot adventure? I can understand a campaign not being railroaded, but one shot adventure almost always suffer from it, don't they?

On the other hand, even if the PCs have a choice, can't the DM go with the choice but have the consequences of their choice just land them back in the main plot line. Is that railroading as well?

Pinotage

The worst case of railroading I remember was playing Legend of the Five Rings. Our group had to go from point A to point B, and there was 2 ways to arrive there: one was taking one road, and other was over the Kaiu wall.

"We use the road."

"You cant, it´s been repaired. So you travel on the wall."

Later, we had to cross a labyrinth (was more like the D&D movie labyrinth) with some tests we had to pass. I told the others to enter and tell me then what the found, so I could finish it more easily (I played an scorpion). You guess it: it was impossible to enter it afterwards, just because the DM had not entertained that possibility.

It´s natural the there are some events that are going to be "forced": the adventure, after all, revolves around them, like facing the BBEG. The problem appears when the DM has planned not only the key events, but what the players must do, and won´t tolerate you do it otherwise. If you have to visit a tavern halfway from Greyhawk to Furyondy, suddendly you won´be able to Teleport, Overland Flight won´t work, and you´ll be forced to travel the old fashioned way.

 

[delericho]

To reply to the original question...

I have been fortunate to only ever play under one truly bad GM (also very few of any other kind ), although I have played under a few pretty good GMs with bad qualities.

In my experience, the qualities of a good DM fall into three categories: rules mastery, story mastery and table mastery. Rules mastery is, of course, knowledge and application of the rules of the game, story mastery is to do with plotting, characterisation, tone, theme and pacing, and table mastery is control of the players themselves, in the adherence to table rules, desired tone, and the handling of intra-party squabbles.

A bad DM, therefore, is lacking in one or all of these areas.

A lack of rules mastery is easy to spot: they don't read the rules they're using, they make things up on the spot that have no bearing on the game, or they insist that rules from the previous edition still apply, even when they were removed for very good reasons. Alternately, they have too many house rules, or apply the rules inconsistently, whether favouring NPCs or one PC over another.

A lack of story mastery is seen in the form of railroading, in really boring adventures, in characters with nothing to do or, conversely, no time to ever try to figure things out. Maybe they fly by the seat of their pants when they really should not, or perhaps they are so stuck with their predetermined plot that any attempt to deviate creates problems. In one case, an otherwise-good DM I know stated he wanted to run a "reasonably serious" Ravenloft game, and then made the mistake of allowing a character called Jigglypuff. Another, in the World of Darkness, insisted on including every supernatural type in the game in his chosen city (in a six-session campaign!) based not on the logic of their appearance, but rather by how kewl they were.

A lack of table mastery can easily lead to the group as a whole breaking up, can lead to players walking out, and can lead to bad blood between all concerned.

However, the only true sign of a really bad DM is this: an inability to recognise and learn from mistakes. Everything else is just experience.

 

[Aeson]

If you think railroad is something besides a form of transportation you might be a bad DM.

If you use sex to creep out your players you might be a bad DM

If you hit on anything with breast you might be horny

If you need your NPCs to save the PCs you might be a bad DM

 

[The_Gneech]

One of the worst DMing behaviors that I've ever seen is the "pet NPC." Usually, this NPC is at least a few levels higher than any of the characters, privy to information that the characters are not, the "leader" of the group, and unusually "lucky."

This NPC is the one that saves the day, gets the glory, takes the magical McGuffin for himself, and is the center of the story.

I encountered that at a convention game ... the DM's pet was a barbarian chainmail bikini babe who got multiple attacks in a round with one weapon (when the rest of the group was 3rd level), who negotiated with the NPC hiring us, and more or less was going on the adventure herself with a superfluous bunch of hirelings (i.e., the PCs).

I started referring to her as "Mary Sue, the Barbarian." I don't think the GM ever picked up on it.

-The Gneech