Rat bastard DM or just the norm? Share your stories.

DM-Rocco

Explorer
Okay, I would like to pose a question or two to the community and see what the general consenus is.

Senerio
You are first level, you have been in a unexplored ruin (like all unexplored ruins they are less than a half mile from largest city in the world) when while fighting a few zombies a Dire Rat sneaks up behind you and bites you. Of course you pitiful Fort saves at first level, specially for a mage, fails and you get in fected with Fever Filth disease. Still early in the day, and with a town just a few minutes away, you decide to try your hand at the next lower level before going back to town to find a cure disease spell. Wait, the DM is tired, you have to wrap things up, fade to black...

...Fade from black, it is a few days later (in the real world, still the same time in D&D) and the DM decides that the party, who has been split and started in seperate parts of the world since level one needs to merge now that schedules have finially resolved themselves to where everyone can finally meet on the same night. So the DM, without warning or a quick few minute walk inot town to do things like buy extra gear and cure a disease, transports you, a fist level mage with a wasting diease, into the middle of the wilds, at least 70 miles from any town, lotted together with level 2 characters, in a wild land where CR7 creatures freaquently roam and a red Dragon uses the grounds as a lunch buffet and oh yeah, no healer, and even if there was one, not near capable of casting cure disease.

Now, to me, this is one of the stupidest things a DM can do, ever. Sure, given the world I might try to brave the wilds since no where else is going to be much safer, but I would not just jump into a world of such a threat on the open road without much better supplies. Better armor for my henchmen, more scrolls, FINDING SOMEONE TO HEAL DISEASE!!!

I personally think it was a bad call on the DM to teleport me into this situation without a chance to hit a town first. He gave me little chance to survive, and indeed, we had to go back 70 miles to town cause I was quickly dieing from the disease he wouldn't let me heal from first. On the way back, our party of mostly level one guys got waylaid by a Hill Giant, who in short order took out the party barbarian and both of my henchmen before the rest of us were forced to run away. Of course we lost our mounts in the battle too.

So, Jack Ass DM?

Or just stupid players for playing in his world.

Please comment but also feel free to add in your own horrible DM stories.

I should mention that he asked me to post this. So don't think I make a habbit of whinning about horrible DMing on this forum in hopes of getting me way.
 
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In theory, the GM should have just handwaved and said, "Oh, you visited town and got supplies and cured the disease before going into the wilds."

On the other hand, he could certainly decide that NPC Archmage Bob teleported you to a different zip code without bothering to do a health inspection on you first. Or maybe your 1st level wizard didn't realize he had a disease until he has spent several days traveling into the country.
 


I'll side with you on this, DM should not just handwave transportation like that without at least some half assed in game explanation.

A Rat Bastard DM would have rolled your fort save in secret so you don't know for sure if you are infected or not until the diseases incubates and damages your stats. Either that or had you roll that first fort save after the incubation period was over [using the fort save bonus you had when you got bit].

DISEASE
When a character is injured by a contaminated attack touches an item smeared with diseased matter, or consumes disease-tainted food or drink, he must make an immediate Fortitude saving throw. If he succeeds, the disease has no effect — his immune system fought off the infection. If he fails, he takes damage after an incubation period. Once per day afterward, he must make a successful Fortitude saving throw to avoid repeated damage. Two successful saving throws in a row indicate that he has fought off the disease and recovers, taking no more damage.

These Fortitude saving throws can be rolled secretly so that the player doesn’t know whether the disease has taken hold.
 
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DM-Rocco said:
So, Jack Ass DM?

Or just stupid players for playing in his world.

Please comment but also feel free to add in your own horrible DM stories.
Poor GM obviously, who forgot the one rule GMs should stick to: Players should have fun with the game. Now you can discuss that with him, and if things don't improve, just seek another game.

I have seen much worse than this:

1) Game begins, and my character polymorphed into a bird flies over the castle we are supposed to investigate. My character lands down onto the highest tower's roof, and then the DM says: "You're dead". No amount of discussion changed anything to it. Of course the DM had a perfect explanation for this: "The vampire-mage-assassin has been alerted by a demon sentry in the ethereal, so he used his mirror of mental prowes to come to you and kill you. Period." End game for me after just 20 minutes of gaming session. Of course I didn't play again with that DM.

2) Novice DM winds it up all the way, obviously having no knowledge of d20 rules (he had been a player in a 3e campaign of mine for 12 months though). After 1 hour and a half of play, I told him I couldn't continue with a game run like this. The new campaign aborted just there and never resumed. I am in no hurry to ever play again with that DM, even using a rule-lite system...
 

Note that there is a huge difference between a Rat Bastard DM and a Jackass DM.

The Rat Bastard DM may do horrible things to your characters - or more likely, set up situations where you do horrible things to them yourselves - but in such a way that you end up loving the experience.

While you call him "You bastard", you give serious thought to throwing the adjective "magnificent" in there.

You don't get the same joy from a Jackass DM.

-Hyp.
 

Endur said:
In theory, the GM should have just handwaved and said, "Oh, you visited town and got supplies and cured the disease before going into the wilds."

On the other hand, he could certainly decide that NPC Archmage Bob teleported you to a different zip code without bothering to do a health inspection on you first. Or maybe your 1st level wizard didn't realize he had a disease until he has spent several days traveling into the country.
I did have one other PC with me who was a cleric, also 1st level, who knew I had a disease, so I did know, but couldn't do anything about it until I got back to the city, which was fine, cause it was on our to do list before night fall, several hours away.

Gearjammer said:
Extremely poor DM.

So how did he explain this teleport? *Boom* for no apparent reason you're out in the woods?
No BOOM, just a, "as you contemplate downing down the stairs you suddenly find yourself in a field of rolling hills with your horse and both henchmen. On a hill infront of you are three strangers, roll Initiative," of course the other three people on the hill were the other PCs. :confused:

frankthedm said:
I'll side with you on this, DM should not just handwave transportation like that without at least some half assed in game explanation.

A Rat Bastard DM would have rolled your fort save in secret so you don't know for sure if you are infected or not until the diseases incubates and damages your stats. Either that or had you roll that first fort save after the incubation period was over [using the fort save bonus you had when you got bit].

DISEASE
When a character is injured by a contaminated attack touches an item smeared with diseased matter, or consumes disease-tainted food or drink, he must make an immediate Fortitude saving throw. If he succeeds, the disease has no effect — his immune system fought off the infection. If he fails, he takes damage after an incubation period. Once per day afterward, he must make a successful Fortitude saving throw to avoid repeated damage. Two successful saving throws in a row indicate that he has fought off the disease and recovers, taking no more damage.

These Fortitude saving throws can be rolled secretly so that the player doesn’t know whether the disease has taken hold.

I was bit, I made a 26 on my knowledge Flora check (used in the wilderlands campiagn setting) to figure out that it was a dire rat and that its bit had most likely infected me, plus the cleric confirmed the infection with a heal check. Regardless though, the DM was kind of a dink about it. It is a new game and I haven't played under him for a long time, so I tried to see it from his perspective and give some freedom, but I think that was a crappy way to go about things, specially since I lost so much cause I wasn't near as prepared as I would have had I had a moment in town first. I would never go into the woods without certain gear and to deprive me a chance to buy what I needed and to take care of things like diseases was just a bit unfair. That and he clearly stated that his first priority was to kill my NPC Sage cause I took at least 1 point of knowledge in all local regions and he didn't was to give me a write up on those regions. Yes, he was one of the first to die.
 

DM-Rocco said:
That and he clearly stated that his first priority was to kill my NPC Sage cause I took at least 1 point of knowledge in all local regions and he didn't was to give me a write up on those regions. Yes, he was one of the first to die.

Find a new DM
 

Turanil said:
Poor GM obviously, who forgot the one rule GMs should stick to: Players should have fun with the game. Now you can discuss that with him, and if things don't improve, just seek another game.

I have seen much worse than this:

1) Game begins, and my character polymorphed into a bird flies over the castle we are supposed to investigate. My character lands down onto the highest tower's roof, and then the DM says: "You're dead". No amount of discussion changed anything to it. Of course the DM had a perfect explanation for this: "The vampire-mage-assassin has been alerted by a demon sentry in the ethereal, so he used his mirror of mental prowes to come to you and kill you. Period." End game for me after just 20 minutes of gaming session. Of course I didn't play again with that DM.

2) Novice DM winds it up all the way, obviously having no knowledge of d20 rules (he had been a player in a 3e campaign of mine for 12 months though). After 1 hour and a half of play, I told him I couldn't continue with a game run like this. The new campaign aborted just there and never resumed. I am in no hurry to ever play again with that DM, even using a rule-lite system...
That is funny, at least I am not alone.

He is a good friend, well a friend anyway :) ;) :cool:

I knows the rules, but I think he is more concerned about tripping people up on rules and bad choices of words than actually having fun. Once we had a Gromlock bound in rope, I was trying to talk to him when one of the PCs did a coup de grace with a great axe. DM said your attempt to communicate was hampered by his death but on the bright side you have four equal lengths of rope as the axe ruined your rope. Not very happy with the blood thirsty PCs I have just joined but wanting to try and get along I said, "Looks like I have 4 12.5 length bits of rope." Later I wanted to bind another grimlock and the DM declared I had no rope. I told him I had 4 equal 12.5 foot long lengths of rope, he said "yes, you do, on the ground where you tried to bind the last one. You never said you picked them up." :confused:

I could go on, but I won't. I want to make it work with the DM cause we are friends and I am tired of playing in a low magic Grim and Gritty game (our other game with a different DM) but with the DM trying to constantly trip people up with rules and words, and a cowardly dwarf who runs from everything and a blood thrity mage who only wants to kill everything that lives, including those bound and helpless, my Lawful Good mage is having a hard time fitting in.
 

Hypersmurf said:
Note that there is a huge difference between a Rat Bastard DM and a Jackass DM.

The Rat Bastard DM may do horrible things to your characters - or more likely, set up situations where you do horrible things to them yourselves - but in such a way that you end up loving the experience.

While you call him "You bastard", you give serious thought to throwing the adjective "magnificent" in there.

You don't get the same joy from a Jackass DM.

-Hyp.
LMAO

I think he is a close breed of the two. By his own naming he has taken the mantle of Rat Bastard. So far he is more of a Jackass DM :) ;) :cool:
 

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