How do you determine a "Real Bad Dungeon Master"

[rushlight]

Well, considering he spent about 3 game sessions and several in game weeks planning the heist, the DM could hardly complain that she didn't have fair warning. He outright told her this is what he was planning and then spent much of his time in game and a fair bit of time outside of the game, working out a "perfect crime". What more could a DM possibly ask for from a player than that? To be that engaged in the game that he spent that much time doing something only to have her pull the rug out at the 11th hour? That's a BAD DM.

Well, we still don't have all the information. If, just prior to the player beginning to hatch his plan, the DM had said something like "Okay, you've just discovered the Prince missing, and you know that Evil Stevie the Wizard is involved and planning something dastardly! What will you do?" Then the player resonds with, "Well, I think I'll spend the next week planning to rob the jeweler!" Don't you think that's a problem?

In otherwords, we don't know what the current storyline was. There's a fine line between trying to tell a good story and railroading. Just like for the players there's a fine line between being part of the story and just driving off in random directions just for giggles. Granted, the players shouldn't be bound to jump through the DM's hoops. But they should at least try to be part of the story he's telling. And if that story doesn't involve weeks spent planning a heist, then that player is out of line. If the DM agrees to working the heist into his plot, then everything is groovy. It all comes down to respect. The DM needs to respect the players - like by building adventures that fit their playstyle and preferences. The players need to respect their DM - like by trying not to make the DM's hours of work wasted by making absurd random choices based on greed (or whatever). It's a two-way street.

Were I the player, and I wanted to pull off the heist, I'd ask the DM first if he could fit the heist into his story. If he agrees, then I'm off to plan. If he indicates that it would hold up the game (especially if the other players weren't involved in one player's side adventure) then I'd not derail his game.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

All this and no mention of Blackleaf? Now her DM was Bad with a capital 'B'.


Think delericho had it right with the story, rules and table mastery way of expressing it. I find it's worst when the players and the DM have different expectations of those things.

Had one GM who could spin a great story, but wasn't good at running combats - tended critter favouring/PC nerfing (inconsistent) house rules. Might not have been a terrible problem, except that 3 of the 6 players were number crunching MMORPG players. He ended up dropping his story elements in favour of trying to 'beat' those PCs... Very bad combination and everyone ended up pissed off. Wasn't entirely the DMs fault... partly induced by the 'wrong' players.

I've gamed with was the crazed DM. Just opened his mouth and spewed out weirdness for us to cope with. Flying badger attacks, the contents of dali pictures, weird surgical crap - anything goes. With no rhyme, reason or consistency. Was kinda funny for the first half an hour, but after that it made my head hurt. He was a nightmare as a player too - kender every time.

 

[Hussar]

Well, we still don't have all the information. If, just prior to the player beginning to hatch his plan, the DM had said something like "Okay, you've just discovered the Prince missing, and you know that Evil Stevie the Wizard is involved and planning something dastardly! What will you do?" Then the player resonds with, "Well, I think I'll spend the next week planning to rob the jeweler!" Don't you think that's a problem?

In otherwords, we don't know what the current storyline was. There's a fine line between trying to tell a good story and railroading. Just like for the players there's a fine line between being part of the story and just driving off in random directions just for giggles. Granted, the players shouldn't be bound to jump through the DM's hoops. But they should at least try to be part of the story he's telling. And if that story doesn't involve weeks spent planning a heist, then that player is out of line. If the DM agrees to working the heist into his plot, then everything is groovy. It all comes down to respect. The DM needs to respect the players - like by building adventures that fit their playstyle and preferences. The players need to respect their DM - like by trying not to make the DM's hours of work wasted by making absurd random choices based on greed (or whatever). It's a two-way street.

Were I the player, and I wanted to pull off the heist, I'd ask the DM first if he could fit the heist into his story. If he agrees, then I'm off to plan. If he indicates that it would hold up the game (especially if the other players weren't involved in one player's side adventure) then I'd not derail his game.

How is spending three game sessions derailing someone's game? If the DM had a problem with it, shouldn't the DM step up and pull the player aside BEFORE the player wastes all that time coming up with something? The DM let the player jump through all the hoops and just before he got the brass ring, she pulled the rug out (to mix a metaphor).

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less about a DM's story. I don't expect players to instantly care about mine as well. If I can't come up with decent ways to make the players care about my plotlines, why should I expect them to follow them. Instead of the players going, "Ooo ooo, look, a plot hook, guess we're off on an adventure!" I'd much rather scatter a number of hooks in front of them and see which one they take.

So what if the prince is missing? Unless my character has some sort of tangible hooks to the nobility, what reason is there that I should care? You say that it is a two way street, yet when the DM comes down from on high and lays down the hook, the players better line up and follow, or they are "derailing" the game. Guess what? If your game can be derailed, then you're railroading.

If this had been a quick choice - the rogue player suddenly decides to do this and jumps in the next night, then I'd probably agree with you. The fact that the player took several weeks to enact his plan means that this isn't a "absurd random choices based on greed". The player gift wrapped a huge juicy plotline for the DM. Did all the work. And the DM took a big old dump right in the middle of it. To me, that's about as bad a DM as you can get.

I, for one, certainly don't expect my players to meekly toe the line when I decide that tonight's game is going to be about Wizzie Steve and his Amazing Exploding Rodents. When your players say that they want to do something, LISTEN TO THEM! If your players are that engaged in the campaign setting that they actually proactively want to do something, go for it. You have most of the work done for you already. You don't need to create a bunch of new NPC's, because the party wants to interact with ones they know. You don't have to create new maps because the party wants to do something in a known place. You don't even have to work out much of the plot, since your players have already done most of the work for you.

What more could a DM ask for?

 

[rushlight]

How is spending three game sessions derailing someone's game? If the DM had a problem with it, shouldn't the DM step up and pull the player aside BEFORE the player wastes all that time coming up with something? The DM let the player jump through all the hoops and just before he got the brass ring, she pulled the rug out (to mix a metaphor).

Well, to be fair, we are talking about a bad DM here. Clearly, he didn't want the jeweler robbed. A better DM might have chosen a different path, like telling the player out of game before he got all carried away that his actions were not in the interests of everyone's benefit. Or perhaps choosing a different method to prevent the player from attaining success (as you suggested). But you likely can't pin all the fault on the DM - that's my point. The player bears some responsibility in keeping the game running too.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

I would define bad DMs as those who don't listen to the players, don't admit their own mistakes and don't seek to get better.

Those who DO are just inexperienced (temporarily bad ) and will eventually grow out of the various mistakes already highlighted above.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

About railroading, IMX it comes in degrees, which can cause some confusion. In the end, it boils down to putting limits on PC choices and/or to the scope of their consequences, but some limitations may well be within the limits of believability.

It could almost be a feat tree:

Railroading: While you are careful to keep limitations believable, you put so many of them that the players feel powerless before the almighty power of Plot, as there is only one path available and any other choice would be meaningless; after all, what's the point of interactive storytelling if you take the 'interactive' part away?

Improved Railroading: Beyond ordinary railroading, you go to the lenght of having Fate itself conspiring against the players; any deviation from the intended plot is nullified by nonsensical NPC behavior, extreme coincidences and targeted application of Murphy's law. By doing so you destroy believability and estabilish a confrontational stance.

Advanced Railroading: The apex of railroading; you discard the inefficient lesser methods and either you just tell the players what their PCs do or you retroactively edit their actions.

 

[Nomad4life]

Also about railroading:



Some of the worst adventures I’ve ever been on were so bad because they were TOO open-ended. I’ll never forget how frustrating one session in particular was; We weren’t provided with a lot of direction or clues about what we were “supposed” to be doing to advance the plot. After hours and hours of mindless blundering around, a few of the players found excuses to leave the game, and the rest of us just directly asked what it was we were supposed to be doing. “Whatever your character wants to do!” came the enthusiastic response.



Now, I’m all for not forcing things upon the players, but there must be some kind of fine line; I’ve only got so much free time to game with, and I want to take part in an interesting story/plot, and meet interesting NPCs- not just hear myself narrate what I do and feel, or talk with random NPCs like some kind of “alternate-world simulation.".”



The GM finally told us that the “plot” of her adventure had already transpired- that we had wandered away from the main story, and those events had already resolved themselves! We were now just “playing our characters.”



In other words, we had been blundering around for hours for no real “reason.” Stunned, we all found reasons to leave immediately as well. Even years later, some of the players from that sessions still hold actual HATRED for that GM, and the “time she stole from our lives.”



I’ve had two other bad experiences like that one, where the game was just TOO open-ended, and TOO much “about the characters.” There simply is a time and place to either lure or prod players in the “right” direction- A “good” GM can do these things subtly and creatively.

 

[Odhanan]

A DM who has no concept of what psychology is, what the concerns and interests of the player characters around the table are, and/or who is egotistic to the last degree, piloting *his* story from behind the scenes even if that means destroying the roles of his players and what they like about them, that is a real bad DM.

All the bad DMs I've met (and they are not that many, in fact) had a problem with their oversized egos.

 

[wingsandsword]

Some of the worst adventures I’ve ever been on were so bad because they were TOO open-ended. I’ll never forget how frustrating one session in particular was; We weren’t provided with a lot of direction or clues about what we were “supposed” to be doing to advance the plot. After hours and hours of mindless blundering around, a few of the players found excuses to leave the game, and the rest of us just directly asked what it was we were supposed to be doing. “Whatever your character wants to do!” came the enthusiastic response.

I've seen GM's do this, but only novice GM's who haven't played much themselves, in other words people trying to game but really don't know what they are doing yet.

You can easily have too much railroading, where the PC's feel they have no freedom and are spectators on a predetermined path. Just like a railroad it is named after, it only goes in one way and you can't steer it at all.

You can have too little of a road too, where the PC's feel aimless, wandering, with no direction and no sense of plot. The players have no fun because they've got no clue where to go. This is the opposite of railroading.

What you need is something more akin to road paving than railroading. The GM establishes a clear direction for the game, an intended plotline and a way things will go if the PC's do not interfere. He then establishes the characters and setting, shows them where to begin, and turns the PC's loose. Hopefully they walk down the road. If they don't, they wander off into the forest. They'll probably get lost because there is not that much in the forest, but if they want to have fun for a while they can, they can walk back to the road when they get bored. If they get totally lost and wander around, the GM will probably have them stumble across the road (with maybe a passerby on the road to help get things started).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

There are some published adventures that railroad to an extreme. White Wolf adventures for their old WoD line often had the characters as spectators rather than participants. (The one with the death of Baba Yaga comes to mind, where the PCs are dragged from scene to scene, and aren't even allowed to throw themselves from the train by an uber powerful NPC. It even states outright what the characters are allowed to feel! Bah!)

The Auld Grump