Stupid Dungeon Master Syndrome

[VirgilCaine]

It still wasn't as bad as the time his big bad guy used a time stop spell to strip the entire party of all weapons and magic items before creaming us with golems. Ever been forced to go naked against a dozen stone golems? I can't remember how we got out of that situation, but I do remember all the spellcasters flipping through the books looking for spells that didn't have material components (because those were gone too). Uh, I also remember permanently losing all our best magic items.

I guess that was ultimately his intention.

Gee, it wouldn't be that hard...lots of them don't have material components--I'm talking good combat spells, not utility spells.

 

[Orichin]

Anyone who's even attempted to run any rpg is associated with the lures of railroading. It sucks, but until the dm gets better, the players kinda have to live with it a bit (until the DM perfects other ways to keep the characters in a moving story).
That said, one of the biggest turn-offs as a player is when a DM loads PC's up with so much magical gear or mystical permanent effects that the base character becomes insignificant. I've had a fighter/rogue lvl 8ish whose base attack provided the lowest portion of his bonus to hit with his preferred weapon. Make level one characters rolling 5d6 and drop 1 die? and a +5 weapon of my choice?
thanks anyway.

 

[Gort]

Heh, my favourite bout of SDMS happened when I ran a vampire as just a tall dark mysterious stranger for about an hour and a half straight, cause I didn't want my players to know his weaknesses right away, I wanted them to work it out.

PC: "Okay, I run over here."
Me: "Who's up? Ah. Okay, the vampire ducks behind the table. Er, I just said "vampire", didn't I?"
PC: "I look for something wooden and stake-like."

 

[Crothian]

Heh, my favourite bout of SDMS happened when I ran a vampire as just a tall dark mysterious stranger for about an hour and a half straight, cause I didn't want my players to know his weaknesses right away, I wanted them to work it out.

PC: "Okay, I run over here."
Me: "Who's up? Ah. Okay, the vampire ducks behind the table. Er, I just said "vampire", didn't I?"
PC: "I look for something wooden and stake-like."

I did that once. They entered a room and I said "You see a Vampire standing next to his enthralled slave" and then I paused, slapped my forhead and said "Ya, I know...roll initiative...."

 

[Sado]

My DM wouldn't let me kill myself.

I was playing a half-orc ranger, and had just fallen over the side of a castle wall. Our HALFLING bard, amidst a hail of arrows, managed to grab hold of me before I went plummetting down (how the heck he was holding me up is anyone's guess). His grip was slipping and worse, he was about to fall over himself. I said I was going to let go so he wouldn't fall over as well and so he could get away from our rapidly approaching enemies. It would mean my death, but I wouldn't take him with me.

Nope, he says. No one would ever willingly let themselves be killed, under any circumstances.

 

[Nightcloak]

The worst game I was ever in was with a woman DM and all the players were men. We encountered a roper that had some rather extreme anatomical modifications... I suppose she wanted to teach us men about rape. This DM wasn't stupid at all, she just had... issues.

 

[RangerWickett]

Wow. You poor effin' people. I could imagine a few stupid stories like that, but . . . wow, overall they're just stunningly bad.

I believe the worst experience I ever had was when we started a campaign with amnesia tied to the bottom of a canyon (how do you tie someone to stone ground?), with a huge dam looming overhead. The dam opens, and as we struggle to get free before drowning, we are being bitten by the pirahnas in the water.

The worst I've ever done was probably 9 years ago, when I had a society of great wyrm dragons of each type challenge the party to a duel between them and the great wyrm red dragon in the council, because the party had killed a lesser dragon. When the party buffed all to hell and dealt hundreds of damage to the dragon, I had the dragon also be a 17th level wizard so I could power word kill them and not make the dragon seem like a chump. Of course, the whole thing was 'just a test,' so they weren't actually killed.

*slaps forehead* Yeah, that was pretty bad.

 

[James Heard]

Most of the truly awful bad GM stories I have are about myself, for not making things crystal clear ahead of time to the players with my ominous and heartfelt glances to try to keep them from doing completely stupid things which required me to do equally stupid and unfun things as well. Like the time I told everyone that they were going to be starting off in the military, and everyone was cool with that until someone brought a few friends over at the last moment who were apparently not cool with it. So, five minutes into the game these new guys have attacked their superior officers and half the party is dead because there's only one appropriate response to a group of your most elite soldiers apparently deciding to assassinate their immediate superiors and talking about killing the royal family in "retaliation." It wasn't the rest of the party's fault that I couldn't figure out exactly to stress the consequences of not putting down their weapons and surrendering immediately as in right freakin' now. I think exactly two characters made it out of that fiasco alive, and at least several players probably still think I'm the cruelest most idiotic guy that ever ran a game for running an almost TPK before the characters had even gotten to a tavern to exercise a cliche or two. Then there was the time I thought that it would be ok to send my players as messengers to give something to a dragon at 1st level, never dreaming that they'd attack the thing that I described as "bigger than the barracks." They were pretty happy about that, but *I* still feel stupid for letting the Paladin throw his shield at the beast like Captain America and "Sure, you'll knock it out if you can roll two 20s in a row" and so what he did and now I'm the guy who lets 1st level characters frisbeecide dragons - and how stupid is that?

But seriously, the guy who showed up to run the game in a bulletproof vest and drunk (he drove himself and smelled like a malt liquor factory)- he was worse. I went "to the bathroom" and out the door without saying anything. I didn't even get my stuff out of the car.

 

[pogre]

I enjoyed reading this thread, but I must remind everyone:

Rule 0 means there are no stupid DMs only interesting, alternative rulings!

 

[Li Shenron]

I did that once. They entered a room and I said "You see a Vampire standing next to his enthralled slave" and then I paused, slapped my forhead and said "Ya, I know...roll initiative...."

Been there, done that... Sometimes it's just so stressful to prepare an adventure well, and you have to read it a few times and repeat in your mind the many things you're afraid to forget, that it's not unlikely to slip out things like that when you shouldn't...