Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 6828675" data-attributes="member: 413">I've been on both ends of the bad DM thing.  A couple:Years and years ago a friend and I were co-DMs.  We both had different styles but whatever...I was just happy to be able to play.  One of our players asked if he could try his hand at game mastery...so we let him.  He set the game in Krynn.  Opening scene...1st level PCs.  We're in a tavern in the wharf quarter of some seedy city.  In walks a Dragon Highlord _and_ a black robed wizard (sounds like the opening to a joke)...At this point we were thinking "okay...I guess Dragon Highlords and black robed wizards need to get out a bit and have some drinks just like everyone else."  Then, without warning or provocation the wizard drops circle of death and the highlord starts killing tavern patrons.  We never did learn why. We played on for a few session...eventually one of the PCs was polymorphed into a giant pink flying fuzzy dragon thing with a pouch that the rest of us could ride in...then it got weird.In a game I was DMing with brand new players (coworkers who I convinced to try D&D) I described a pile of debris to them covered in cobwebs.  They didn't take the bait so I rolled some sort of perception checks (this was 2e) and told the halfling rogue player that he noticed something shiny in the pile.  He said he would go over and search the pile.  Of course the pile had a giant spider in it, the spider got the jump on him, bit him and he died. He quit and never came back.  Later he told me he felt like I had baited him into getting his PC killed and that he thought the pile of debris was just something small, not large enough to contain a giant spider...so know you know why I try very hard to make sure you understand what I am describing and avoid "leading" you into dangerous actions.  They guy was into star wars, Lord of the Rings, ancient and medieval history, etc...It still bothers me that I had a chance to introduce him to the hobby and blew it in a single evening.I was a player in a public game at a hobby store.  The first session the DM described the setting and we started making characters.  The DM and one of the players had a conversation that went something like this:P: "What alignments can we play?"DM: "I run a heroic game so I prefer you play good.  No evil characters."P:  "I only ever play true neutral.  What classes?"DM: "Anything in the PHB."P: "I only ever play thieves. Can we play more than one PC?"DM: "We have 6 players...so one PC per player."P: "I only ever play twins so I'm going to play two."DM: "Yeah, this game isn't going to work out for you.  You can go."We were all very relieved.  The rest of us continued to play together for the next 2 years.</blockquote>

Verification