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Message: <blockquote data-quote="William Ronald" data-source="post: 1664115" data-attributes="member: 426">Things to ruin a campaign that I have unfortunately seen. This all happened towards the end of a gaming group that collapsed last year. (The campaign setting and the group was good for most of the 21 years that I was in it.) So, DM's here are someways to ruin a campaign and alienate players.The DMs pet NPCs are not only vastly more powerful than anyone in the party, they are even more knowledgeable than characters who are considered among the most knowledgeable people in the world.Rules, what rules? The DM decides that he will allow any book into the game, and not tell people what is being used.  That's right.  You may be using the core rule books or WotC books.  However, the person next to you may be using rules for several different D20 games and products -- without you knowing it. Set no guidelines.Balance.  Have a wide disparity in power levels among the characters.  Have certain skills and focus areas of characters such as knowledge and diplomacy be about as relevant as basket weaving.  Allow some characters to have access to equipment that outshines the abilities of some of the fellow PCs. (Yes, those wonderful artifacts without any side effects or consequences.) Allow some characters to suddenly excel in areas where they showed no competence -- have magic items take the place of skill ranks or class levels. Increase the disparity so that many players feel their characters are about as important to the group as luggage.Exploit rules loopholes: If something is theoretically allowed by the rules, such as absurdly powerful skill bonus items, allow it.  See Balance above for telling other players what is allowable. See balance comment for impact on characters.Consistency:  Be willing to change major characters, background, and history at the drop of a hat.   Have villains pop out of historical eras which no one even knew existed before -- except the DM's pet NPC.  Treat any questioning of this with dismissal or derision. Feel free to let verisimilitude break down so players of long standing no longer have any belief in the credibility of the setting or the DM.Respect:  My way or the highway is a great attitude -- to get people to leave your game.   So is diminishing someone's contributions to a campaign and expanding your own contributions.  Do not even consider other opinions.  Play favorites and allow some people to do things that would have other people being read the riot act. The cure for this, from a player's view, is to walk away.  From a DM's point of view, some self-reflection might be useful.</blockquote>

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