Terrible games you've played in

[Clueless]

I bet amnesia looks attractive now, eh?

Yes.
Yes it does - actually the *reason* Clueless ended up amnesiac was b/c I'd finally burned out of DnD just about. Had *nothing* left to give. Luckily Shemmie found a way to re-spark me (His game's been going on for 1.5 yrs and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon).

Ok, some limited stories re: that group. And mind you, they are for the most part wonderful players, enthusiastic, cheerful, sane folks, knowledgable of the rule and not too bad on the min-maxing. The problem is that they'd all be in the *same* room when playing. Stylistic differences crossed with personality differences resulted bad stuff. The sad part was the stories were good - when they were good, they were *very* good. So you kept coming *back*.

Shemmie actually summarized most of the problems, tracing the stories behind these problems would take too long, as they're rather chronic as opposed to one bad session and all was done.

Game length:
Usually you expect a game or two to fall flat on it's face, fine, no problem. 10 games in a row ending within 2 months.... heh. See "nothing left to give".

Ego issues:
The player who couldn't give up being a GM, also tended to come across as incredibly judgemental - both as PC and NPC. Not *nessecarily* a bad thing, given an OOC understanding that you can work it out. That understanding did not exist. If you were on the bad side - you just sorta... stayed there. Cross that with an odd need to 'force' group unity when playing, and things get even more shakey. Group bonding doesn't occur at the drop of a hat as most of us know.

Trap laying:
Plotwise - not rogueish wise. You (or at least I) learned how to see it coming and dodge the bullet persay, much to DM annoyance on one occasion as I scuttled the entire plot for the day instead of taking the obvious way to tick off all of Cormyr at us. Too often a DM setup that gave a chance for us to get yelled at by powerful NPCs without a feeling of "We can work this out." See above.

Balance issues:
Do not encourage everyone to sink a lot of time into their characters without telling them the character is inappropriate for your plot, and/or handicapping the character from the get-go by providing political power to other characters. DnD does not have an advantage/disadvantage system. It *needs* one if this is your intention. Political power should not come for free.

Psionic issues:
Aka, why not to play with your best friend from high school. One more godling who acted like some of the worst bullies I've ever seen. Very nice guy *out* of game.

Expectation issues:
It's usually not a good idea to laugh (literally) at the idea of a player saying "Hey, I'd like to be leader this go around." and respond with "No way, I can't see you giving any orders to <insert other player's name here> that he'd listen to." Really doesn't build confidence in your GM.

Courtesy issues:
Do not ever use the following method to boot someone from your game. Tell them the game has stopped, then restart the game without telling them about it, on the same day at the same time, when you have mutual friends. They *will* find out. They will *not* be pleased. Especially when you can find no better reason that 'No one could pick you up to bring you' - which considering circumstances, was patentedly false. I'm still not entirely sure what happened - save that apparently character incompatibility led to the GM wanting to be rid of his closest source of trouble. Without the nerve to tell me so to my face.

 

[Hypersmurf]

After using a wand of ice to stop bleeding, he could as well have used a flamethrower to light his cigarettes.

Heh.

In Lady Slings the Booze, Spider Robinson relates an (supposedly factual) anecdote about a physicist who uses a nuclear explosion to light a cigarette.

That has a lot of style

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Anything you did necessitated a roll at some absurd DC.

Oh dear. That just reminded me of one.

I don't think I've ever had a truly bad FTF gaming experience. I've had a less-than-stellar DM (the raft incident springs to mind), but nothing appalling.

I've had a couple of creepy PbEM experiences... there were the two guys with the inevitable slutty lesbian drow, and there was the game I thought was a free-form "Fall of Rome" type scenario, that ended up being some sort of cooperative pornography writing exercise... eek!

But one of the most frustrating PbEMs I ever played was all the more disappointing because three of the four players (one didn't really do much at all) immediately got heavily into character, and 'clicked' as a party (the theory being that even though the game had just started, the characters had known each other for some time). The players were fine, but the DM... gah!

We walked into the village about noon. We headed for what looked like an inn.

"Make a Spot check," I was told.

Now, this necessitated back and forth emails involving a dice server, so any given roll could take about two days to actually resolve. I rolled a 3, but with a +10 in Spot, that made 13.

"You walk straight into someone you didn't see."

It turned out that this guy wasn't hiding or anything... he was a big burly innkeeper standing in front of his inn, at midday, sweeping his step. I just hadn't noticed him because of my appalling 13, so I walked into him and offended him.

Oooo-okay.

Now, the rolls were called for for any action. That gets a little irritating in a FTF game (like the raft incident), but in a PbEM, where the DM insists on using a dice server, it's interminable. It takes forever to do anything in a PbEM under normal circumstances.

At some point the innkeeper invited us to follow him into the back room.

"Okay, we follow him."

But no. The DM posted a tactical map of the inn, with 5' squares and a coordinate system, and required us to post our movement path in combat rounds. This round I can double move 60 feet... so I'll go I3 to L3, then south east to N5, then south to N10... what can I see through the door?

Understand, nothing happened... after a couple of "rounds", we were in the back room, and we had a conversation with the innkeeper. But it was vital that the DM knew exactly which squares we passed through.

I wasn't at all upset when that game collapsed.

-Hyp.

 

[Clueless]

I've had a couple of creepy PbEM experiences... there were the two guys with the inevitable slutty lesbian drow, and there was the game I thought was a free-form "Fall of Rome" type scenario, that ended up being some sort of cooperative pornography writing exercise... eek!
-Hyp.

*blink*
.... I think I was in a game with the two guys... too bad it'd be rude of me to ask for names.

 

[Hypersmurf]

*blink*
.... I think I was in a game with the two guys... too bad it'd be rude of me to ask for names.

The names aren't important.

Play in enough PbEMs, and eventually you'll meet two guys playing slutty lesbian drow. I think it's a law.

Or maybe a franchise. Somewhere, there are two guys getting rich licensing the concept out to lots of other guys.

-Hyp.

 

[jerichothebard]

Ok - here's my bad game story:

I show up for the FLGS's game night at a local pizza dive. It is mostly CCG and wargames, but I had heard there was a DND game getting started there that week, and what the hey. I thought I'd give it a shot.

The FLGS advised me that the game was only for people of 18 years of age or older.

Shoulda been my first clue.

Show up, take with the DM and her boyfriend, and sit down to make a character - I think a few levels advanced from first.

Then, just for fun, the DM shows me her new chart.

The mutations chart.

Shoulda been my second clue.

She says, "These all give enhancements, and you'll probably need them".

That whooshing sound, there, going by my head? That was the third clue.

So, after rolling a d4 (2) and then 2d20 (6 and 17), I am now a giant dwarf (size category large).



With 4 arms.




oooooooookay....


About 30 minutes into the game, it has become apparent (quite, heartbreakingly, obviously, tragically apparent) that the DM has concocted this new game as a way to run her boyfriend through the script of Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail.



And he knew going in.



And he had the script memorized.



And we were just accessories.





Normally, in the other campaign that started off at this Pizza dive, I was sad when the owners kicked us out at 9:30.


Not so that night.



I did not give them my name and number and I have not gone back to the pizza place since then.




geez.

jtb

 

[James Heard]

Gee, I think I've played in some alternate history version of most of these games - and ran a few too at one time or another.

I think my favorite are the games that aren't all that bad, but are awful for certain players. If the entire game is rotten I usually just walk away immediately, I've seen enough bad games that the only thing that might occassionally get me to stay through a truly loathesome one is a pizza or friends among the players that I would risk offending otherwise.

I like the players who die before they ever enter the game. During my monolithic extreme sport-gaming spectacular Cyberpunk game in the early 90s (At one time I had something like 30 players in a single session, that's when I found out that even I have limits) I was running a two or three location concurrent game with a another GM. As always when we were just beginning the night we had a bunch of newish players and characters, who were supposed to be listening to the recaps and trying to figure out where everyone should be going into which group and whatever. So we had a player who'd played before and he'd decided to switch groups, thinking to gain an advantage with this I guess. The Cyberpunk game was like a James Bond movie sometimes though, so we were always cycling through interesting locations and a lot of the 'NPC activity' that the players were chasing all the time was actually PCs doing 'outside jobs' and then not telling everyone (or not showing up) after the session. So this guy thinks he's going to piece things together, but he picks the night when we'd already planned for the groups to come together anyways so it's no big deal. The other GM and I have fumbled together a scene where one group (already mostly played through) is in Tokyo running a diversion, another group is trampling through the jungle looking for a contact that's been kidnapped, and the last group is parachuting into the same jungle like freaking special forces to steal the contents of a hidden bioweapons lab. Except the only people that know anything about the two groups going to the same place won't find out till 'tomorrow' in game time and they're sitting in the kitchen like giddy schoolgirls drinking booze waiting for the inevitable. So the guy that's switched, he's 'not-looking' for a secret weapons lab while I'm running the other group in another room as they come in like gangbusters and take out the perimeter guards and establish a perimeter of their own. The one guy knows a little better than the rest of the group his hunch on where they should be looking for hostages in the middle of a jungle though, so he takes Point and they let him lead them towards the lab. At some point my co-GM and I take some time out to discuss the timetable on things and conclude that we're still ok because the paratroopers got there a long time ago. We sort of assume that everything will work out. But then my group decides that they're getting nervous, so they start suiting up like secret weapons labs guards while their computer guys get what they came for and wait for their ride. When the other group comes up on the lab they see it's been blown to crap, but there are still guards out there. My co-GM says he was going to give them some hints immediately at that, but the guy who switched doesn't have much respect for the players he switched from so he immediately starts firing at the other group. Now, did I mention that one group was there to pick up hostages and the other was rigged out for an assault? The guy wounds one of my players, assuming that he's going to go down like a goon. Big stop in the game. I describe the snipe from the brush, trying to play up the idea that it probably wasn't lab guards or some vicious sniping ninja plot that I've inserted to make their life interesting. No luck, they react in force. Where their actual assault was sort of an anticlimax in how silently and carefully they orchestrated their fire, since the 'jig is up' now they let loose all the heavy machinery that they've brought with them more or less in a slash n' burn philosophy that probably would have looked like a scene from Predator. I've got the other guy's sheet, double check everything, and finally have to figure out how much damage the assault team does to the rest of the other group from laying down 'covering fire' and from their overlapping fields of fire. Yes, since you asked, we DO train the Army Rangers just down the road from here. Now, Cyberpunk is a pretty lethal game, but this was way over the top. More maxed out and crazy than anything I'd actually throw at the players as a GM and one of the other players notes that pretty quickly and then another chimes in with some rather astute remarks on what sort of hardware would have to be used to generate that damage. Oops they go. But not the switcher, he's incensed. His second character dead in two sessions! He didn't get to DO anything! We didn't give enough clues or information! We've shown favoritism, because the other group didn't take any casualties while the hostage group is about half gone now and needing mommies and ambulances besides! Worst, I think, we're laughing our butts off. I mean literally crying, it was the most absolutely priceless moment I've ever had even if somewhere in the part of me that cares I was feeling for the guy and everyone else who'd died basically just from showing up on the wrong side of the wall of lead and doom. Some of the other players aren't too happy about it, especially those who'd managed to survive a year or more of previous sessions without harm beyond the occassional ICU visit. That guy though, he wouldn't play with us ever again until one of the other players started up an 2E game. Held a grudge against me for years, retelling the story at odd times as an illustration of what an awful game I ran and how I screwed over the players.

The most notable thing about the 2E game I recall for that guy though? He played a cavalier....and insisted on bringing his lance into the dungeon with him. My sympathy faded.

Anyways, all the truly dismal games I've been a part of were poorly run LARPS. Which weren't that bad either, the worse the game was at the LARP the better my game seemed when I wooed the goth kids away from the dark side and into the Light.

 

[James Heard]

The names aren't important.

Play in enough PbEMs, and eventually you'll meet two guys playing slutty lesbian drow. I think it's a law.
-Hyp.

I thnk you'd be clearer making it 'slutty lesbians' period. I've had the ignoble experience of going to see one of my players before and found them describing their PbEM Vampire characters in terms that made me want to go take a shower in acid just from peeking over their shoulder.

 

[Zappo]

In Lady Slings the Booze, Spider Robinson relates an (supposedly factual) anecdote about a physicist who uses a nuclear explosion to light a cigarette.

...I will never, ever again complain about wizards being able to place a fireball so that they hurt the enemy and not the party fighter in melee with said enemy.

 

[Bihor]

My worst game ever.

Once opon a time a friend ask me if I wanted to try the new 3e. It was my first time not DMing after 9 years of playing.
It started bad because the DM dind't have any 3e books.at the first game he was making the rules as he went on (because he never read them: no books). One of is rules was: "I don't give XP, you will go up a level after 2 or 3 games.
Then, every week one player had to lend is player's hanbook, and me lend my DM guide so he could prepare the next game.

After 6 games we still had never won a fight (average 2 fight a game). Every time the fight ended up in ether two ways: 1) My bard bluffing the bad guy to let me go with my uncuncius friends or 2) two of us running away from the bad guy with the two other on our backs (they where uncuncius).
At least he never railroaded us, we had tons of things to do. Let me see:
-Protect a village from a invading orc army.
-Get rid of werewolf in the nearby woods.
-Finding out why we could't sleep outside any village without being attack by ghost.
-Help a other group of "heroes" unite the kingdom.
-Find a group of raiding brigans.
-Stop the local noble from making a evil plot with a other evil neibor.
-Help save the only PC stronger than us in this village, he was the only paladin in the land and was tured into a anti-paladin.
This all at the same time at the tird game.

We dind't have money and no magic item and he killed every horse we could by or steal. The party sorcerer used to cast mount 4 time a day so we could travel without sleeping in the wild, because of the ghost.

At around 5th we asked the GM to let us win and have money. After that we found a shrine that could resurect people, we destroy the invading orc encampment with a single scroll of cloud kill. destroyed the raiding brigans and found out that there stronghold had 4 crystal ball on top of there tower. All this in a low magic campaing. Then we died after he skared the 8th level paladin.

The only thing we where proud of it's the time we defeated the anti-paladin, we where suppose to subdue him but he was to strong so the almost-dead-and-alone-monk finished him. The DM was P@£¢d off and made a giant shadow run off with the body.