Stupid Dungeon Master Syndrome

[Paragon Kobold]

"You've been travelling across plains, deserts and rolling hills for 2 weeks when you spot a mighty fortress-town on the top of the next hill... <long, melodramatic description of mighty stone walls, towers, turrets and flickering torches> ...spread out around the town is dozen chained guard terrasques."

At which point my friend gathered his dice, got up and left.

I know exactly what I would do in this situation:

"I charge the closest one. Do I get a surprise round?"

Of course; if your character gets killed you have a good excuse to leave early...

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

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."

Good lord, I do that all the time. It's highly irritating. After 15 minutes of "The creature" or "The dark-cloaked man"....

"Okay the

Spoiler

attacks... dammit!"

I must admit, though, I've had no spectacularly bad DMs, albiet with the occasional bad adventure. I've mostly gamed with the same group, though, so the pool is limited. Also I DM most of the time....

I wonder what they think of me? (Hah, no worries- I ask for feedback, which is always a good idea). The only real forehead-slapper I can think of is a battle in which they fought illusions. The idea was to lure them out and make them waste resources before trying to kill them in their sleep (they were facing a crafty opponent); the net effect was a very long and exceedingly unrewarding combat. Oh well.

 

[Algolei]

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

It was 1st edition. I can't remember what few spells we could come up with that we had memorized and that didn't require material components, but the only spells which could affect a stone golem were rock to mud (slows the golem 50% for 2-12 melee rounds), mud to rock (restores all damage suffered by the golem), and stone to flesh (makes the golem vulnerable to normal attacks on the following melee round).

We were boned.

 

[Samuel Leming]

What are urds?

They're like kobolds with wings. I've known DM's to give them breath weapons.

You win.

That's nothing compared to many of the horror stories in this thread over at rpg.net:

Creepiest Person You've Gamed With

You'll wish you could wash your eyes and brain afterward.

Exactly.

Sam

 

[Romnipotent]

ME: "Ice Substituted Fireball!"
DM: "It reacts with the Frire Elementals creating a ploom of steam, 40ft in radius, blowing over the party" goes for 9d6 for blowback.
ME: "WHAT?!"

This generates into me explaining "MEGA SORCERER TACTIC #1!!!" involving a Summon Monster and a ice Fireball creating a MEGA radius of fire damage, 20ft with 9d6cold and 40ft with an extra 9d6fire (18d6 in 20ft total) for two level 9 sorcerers (that we had in the party). He was annoyed that we were playing smartly. The DM then retracted his idea, for it would be abused more than a cute puppy with ADHD.
He never liked it, even when I played ultimate utility sets and could feed 60 people a day, and had that many followers with me.

I guess its SDMS, but a first timer DM asked us to use our Charisma mod instead of Wisdom for a will save because the monster said "The save DC is Cha based." This has since been cleared up.

as for the dozen tarrasque guards, I've done similar. Animated Tarrasque statues! That and the player sounds a little too stubborn, and the DM maybe too silly. But never leave over something so trivial.

 

[Sejs]

Universal Resource Denominations.

Kind of like a meta-henchman.

Universal Resource Demihumans.

But yeah - kobolds with wings.

We encountered a roper that had some rather extreme anatomical modifications...

Glemph and Nort?

 

[fafhrd]

I know exactly what I would do in this situation:

"I charge the closest one. Do I get a surprise round?"

Of course; if your character gets killed you have a good excuse to leave early...

and a free ticket into the Stupid Players Syndrome thread. I'm starting to see the pattern...

 

[BryonD]

DM: The Dragon blows a bunch of swords at you.
Me: What?
DM: It says right here: Breath Weapon.

In fairness, this was like 25 years ago and I was about 10. The DM was just another kid and really wasn't seriously interested in playing.

 

[OregonGM]

I'm one of the few, the proud, the eye-stalk/antimagic abusing DMs.

My players (all veteran, like myself) called me on it instantly! I was blessed with smart grownups.

Player: Um, it's targeting me AND I'm in the anti-magic zone?
Me: Sure, (due to placement of the encounter) at the moment, you all are.
Player: Before we get too deep into this combat, what say we take a smoke break?
Me: When did you start . . .oh (I was the only one with the habit)

A short time later, outside and away from the others
Player: . . .so that's why I'm a little confused.
Me: (cough, cough) well crap.
Player: What if . . .what if the reason I couldn't cast is that gem I picked up in the last chamber? Is it cursed?
Me: (slowly smiling) It is now. Take 200xp. out of petty cash if y'all survive this.

That player (and the 2-3 others like him) will ALWAYS have a chair at my table.

 

[Vocenoctum]

For me the worst kind of DM is the railroading type. Once upon a time I played in an WHFRP campaign that had the ending totally scripted.

Gm in a Shadowrun game.
::my character while leaving, takes a shot at one of his EgoPC's::
"You miss"
"Um.... I didn't roll yet."
"Oh, go ahead and roll."
::dice come up great::
"You miss."