Stupidest Things DMs Have Done

[HelloChristian]

The dumbest thing I've done is not give campaigns enough time to develop. I've ended many games prematurely. I wish I would have given players time to really get into their characters.

My bad.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

This one may have been given already. It's probably a common failing. Years back when I was just a novice DM, I would build up all this mystery and suspense about the BBEG my players were fighting. I enjoyed describing the creature and altering its looks just enough to throw the guys off so that they were always guessing at what it was. So, I'm running through initiative after going through all of the trouble of building the mystique of the enemy and I say something like, "OK. So, the fighter's done with his turn? [affirmative given from the player] All right. The cloaked stranger, wrapped in shadows that mask his features steps up to the fighter. He hisses, 'You're mine!' The vampire then slashes at the fighter with his claws leaving a horrible gash in his flesh."

The players then start babbling, "Oh! It's a vampire!" And I'm all, "Crap! Dammit! I didn't mean for you to know that!"

Yeah, I don't make that mistake anymore. :\

 

[pawsplay]

I let my step-brother play the Green Lantern. After dispatching Sinestro, he decided to become ruler of South America. I had him fight Superman. Superman lost.

It was kind of awesome, but it certainly wasn't the campaign I had in mind. Yikes!

 

[KingCrab]

Was that in Ravenloft or did you mispell lizard man?

Nice refrence. Hadn't thought about feast of goblyns in a while.

 

[jdrakeh]

In the very first D&D 3.0 game that I ever played in, the DM misunderstood the rules for balancing encounters which led to such fun as a pack of eight dire wolves versus two 3rd Level PCs. Repeat ad nauseum. After a few dozen meat grinder encounters like that, I finally bought a copy of the DMG myself and read said rules. I was lucky to have a receptive DM who rectified the situation. Play afterward was much more enjoyable -- fun even

 

[Jubilee]

Our characters were about 15th level in a campaign where we had learned that Orcus himself was working on a ritual that would instantly kill us upon its completion. We had learned that there was a 'dungeon' of sorts leading to a portal to the realm of Orcus that we would have to make it through to get there. We also knew that the final room was guarded by a red dragon.

Maybe it was because I had recently read the "wight dragon" story, or maybe it was because of the way the GM grinned when he said "red dragon" - but I was convinced we were not in fact facing a red dragon, but some other kind of dragon that had been mistaken as red. My character, an archivist, attempted alot of research on the matter, but couldn't find any evidence the dragon was anything other than 'red.'

So we get there, and I make us immune to fire, and I think, electricity. We had a construct-elf who we've been carrying around in statue form that we finally activate, so we can send her in first. She steps around the corner and is immediately obliterated by a blast of pure force (I haven't mentioned until now, but the GM was running a 3.5 game but felt that Dragons really ought to do damage with their breath weapons equal to their current HP).

So we start to rush into the room in an attempt to damage it sufficiently before it can recharge its breath weapon and obliterate the rest of us. Half of us get into the room when it erects a prismatic wall across the entry way.

Prismatic Wall! Force Dragon!

Turns out the force and prismatic dragons are on facing pages of the epic level handbook, and the GM kept going back and forth between the force dragon and the prismatic dragon (the "red" dragon was of course a force dragon with a "red sheen" to him).

By some miracle, and a revify to the person who did get blasted when the breath weapon recharged, we made it to the realm of Orcus in one piece.

/ali

 

[thedungeondelver]

Two related funnies:

I let "friends of friends" join the game; a boyfriend/girlfriend couple. Let's call them Jim and Sue.

Sue was on medications for psychological problems (I didn't know this when I said 'sure thing, come on board'). Sue begged to play a Monk, so I let her. Whoops - first DM bonehead play. She'd spend whole combats doing nothing, claiming she was trying to figure out what to do. It usually involved her coming up and making a wholly unremarkable attack that didn't rely on her monk abilities (this is AD&D).

Sue's moodswings were unpredictable and tended to drag the game around as Sue would take her boredom out on her b/f, Jim.

Anyway, this is becoming a "bad player" story so I'll get to the (second) DM bonehead story:

I think we'd just about had enough and I think they sensed it. So I was talking to the folks who'd invited them (actually very nice people, really) and they told me the couple probably couldn't make it again anyway, so no big deal.

So I tore up their character sheets.

About 30 minutes later they showed up as cheery as all get-out ready to play.

Whoops! I feigned off not being able to find them, everyone else at the table was struggling not to laugh. Regardless, they took the hint about me "losing" their character sheets and didn't come back. Yes, it was horrible and passive agressive of me not to just say "Look, you guys...it isn't working out, maybe a different game or different classes would be more your speed" etc. So there you have it.

 

[JediSoth]

The absolute stupidest thing I ever did as a DM occurred when I was preparing my World's Largest Dungeon campaign a few years ago: I told everyone they could use pretty much any resource they wanted when making a character (within certain vague, unimportant guidelines like "had to be 1st level" and "have to use XXX attribute generation method).

WLD was NOT designed for Warmages with Orb spells. Or pseudodragon rogues with weapon finesse (sting) (that character was made when they were all about 8th-9th and needed a replacement character).

I've learned my lesson. Now I spell out exactly what resources, races, and classes are "legal" for my campaigns. Though I flubbed my first Ptolus game by allowing too much, the next one will be perfect.

Oh yes....perfect.

JediSoth

 

[bytor4232]

Needless to say I don't think my girl will ever play DnD again, I tend to be a bit of a ______ and I didn't want to ruin the game for my other players who just sat back and didn't really care. But in the end it was the longest game in my history as an RPG'r. I had sit back and watch as she would just go nuts with random ideas (but very creative at the same time) and sadly the NPC (which by the way was one of my main characters for the group to interact with) who she was playing died by charging (weapon drawn) at an angry mob that threw rotted fruit and veggies at her and the others. yeah, that didn't go well but at least when she went crying upstair to my wife saying "daddy killed me, he did it on purpose". My wife new better and just told her to go to bed.

At least your wife knew better. I allowed my 6 year old ( now 7 1/2 ) to play ONLY after she ran through a few basic training sessions with me, with my wife helping out for support. Now she goes to my regular monthly campaigns and loves D&D.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The dumbest thing I ever did was completely forget about the special attacks and defenses of one of the big creatures in the adventure. It was a custom creature written for the adventure and I didn't spend enough time preparing for it. The fight started and I just used the poorly written statblock embedded in the text rather than turning to the full page description in the back. Only after the PCs killed it in 2 rounds without getting touched did I notice all those cool abilities that would have made the thing an actual threat.