Things I hate

[JacktheRabbit]

4) DMs who design adventures around 1 PC, aka "Golden Boy Syndrome". Basically, every other PC is given a supporting role to the golden boy. Sometimes the golden boy is the favorite NPC of the DM, in which case it is doubly obnoxious.

I do this all the time via the character background the player created with me.

The only time it is a problem is when you get someone too lazy to create a character background. They will likely never get to be center role in an adventure since I have little to use as base material. This does change as time goes on and levels are gained. Eventually everyone gets some background just from the adventures alone.

 

[DragonLancer]

There are things that I have to a DM do when i play D&D. Just wanted to see what others thought.

#1 Use a grid...I can't say how much I HATE it when DM's don't do this.
#2 use the rules...I have seen dome DM's who ad lib rules as they go...I understand making a decision on the spot to keep the game going..but not being consistent or not bothing to learn the rules....ugh
#3 I hate it when DMs are santa claus with xp..money...magic items..etc. I may seem weird by saying this but 3rd edition is a game of balance, give too little or too much disrupts that. I like to feel tht I have earned a magic item.

#1.
I don't use them. D&D/Roleplaying is about imagination, not playing chess with metal mini's on a grid board.

#2.
I agree here. Consistancy, even if its house rules.

#3.
Agreed, but D&D3 isn't balanced. The game is still pointed at powergamers sadly.

 

[barsoomcore]

1. Whiny players who can't handle a little impromptu fun that doesn't spell out every single friggin detail.



Relax, people. I ran a 3E version of Ravenloft (I5 or whatever) without using any grids and we had a hoot.

"I run past the bad guy out the door!"

"Okay, he's pretty close to the door so he'll probably get an attack of opportunity against you as you go by."

"Cool."

...blah blah blah... How is this difficult? Grids do slow things down, no question. Sometimes it's fun, but sometimes it's inappropriate. I'd rather keep the action rolling than worry about every little five-foot square.

"Best Guess, Mr. Sulu."

Well, there's all sorts of ways to play. All I'll say is if you've never run a game, don't be too quick to complain that your DM doesn't do it the way YOU THINK it should be done.

 

[barsoomcore]

Here's a thought -- not using a grid forces a DM to learn how to describe scenarios clearly and succinctly. When you need your players to understand what the potential interferences and paths and dangers are in a room, you need to be able to communicate your vision very clearly.

Takes skill. Takes practice. Takes passion.

Whiteboard pens on a plastic grid -- not so much.

Just striking one for the old ways!

I recommend everyone read James Ward's latest Rant on what it was like gaming with Gary Gygax for a sense of what a great DM can really bring to a game.

It's got very little to do with drawing on grids with markers.

 

[Jenale]

I hate two extremes of bad DMing:

1) No matter how well the party works together, and how good their tactics are, they are facing a TPK because the opponents are just too powerful.

2) No matter how disorganized the party is and despite all lack of plan, they will *always* succeed in their attempts without anyone ever being at risk of character death.

The other thing I hate:

3) Over-controlling DM.

No matter how carefully you plot it out, you will not be able to capture the bad guy before the DM has pre-ordained that he can be caught. Or the DM changes your action because what you wanted to do would "ruin things". For example, one PBeM I was in (and subsequently left), I was playing a CG thief. I had just seen my fellow party members captured by a corrupt city guard, but I was able to get away. I decided I wanted to sneak my way across town to a temple I'd visited earlier in the day (trying to get info), claim sanctuary, and then figure out who needed a bribe, what the bribe should be, and how to get it to them in order to get my friends released. Instead, because the DM knew that the corrupt guard was going to have a "plot vital" conversation in the yard of the city's mayor's house (where the others were taken), my character was forced to sneak into said yard so she could overhear what the bad guys (who really weren't bad guys, they just didn't want to openly oppose the mayor) were plotting. Like there was any reason my PC should have suspected that they were going to stand out in the yard and talk loud enough to be overheard. Couple instances like that, and I felt like the DM had 95% control over my PC's actions, so I just said "here, take the other 5%." I mean, really--need that much control, write a novel, don't DM.

 

[The_Gneech]

I played for three or four years without a map, then started using a map for HERO System in college; now I hate playing without one. It's possible, sure, but a major nuisance. There's always one player who either doesn't get what's happening, or keeps trying to fudge things; or the DM is so vague in his descriptions that everywhere may as well be a featureless 40x40 room.

That's still probably my biggest pet peeve, actually.

"What are the walls made of?"

"Uh, I dunno."

"You don't know? You're the friggin' DM!"

"Um, they're stone."

"Bricks? Blocks? Slabs?"

"Uh, I dunno. They're just walls! Who cares what they're made of?"

-The Gneech

 

[Numion]

My beef is with character abilities that the DM won't let them use. Like having a ranger and never getting to track anything because the DM doesn't want you going striaght to the bad guy's hideout. Or being a cleric with a high charisma and extra turning and then never running into any undead. Stuff like that.

In the beginning of 3e I probably was too strict in letting people use their abilities. My new rule of thumb is that if in doubt, let it work. We don't use battlemats, so I'll just usually say yes if the rogue asks if he can flank. Easier that way.

Which brings me to my second point: we never use miniatures / battlemats. Sometimes a small map is drawn, but it isn't updated regularly or anything. What DM says, goes. We usually don't argue against DMs, but thats ok too, if it doesn't get out of hand.

 

[Henry]

Games with no gridmaps
and ad hoc Gamemasters,
Monty Haul dungeons
and rules-laden disasters
DM's with players hung out on string,
these are a few of my most hated things.

When the setting sucks,
when the style stinks,
when we're feeling mad,
we just tell the DM to give it a rest,
and then we don't feel so bad.

 

[navriin]

I absolutely hate it when a DM plays his own character in a game he runs! For some reason I encounter this a lot, and the DM always makes sure his character is the baddest person around.

Really, what's the point if every plot centers around how the DM's character saves your butt from that which only he can deal with?

In hand with this, I hate DMs who totally change the rules at their whim. Usually, this is done to allow their character to be more uber. Conversely, when you try to do something it doesn't work, because he 'interepts' the rules differently.

(so I'm ranting)

I always use a battlemat, i'm fine without one, but I find it helps my imagination to know where everything is in relation with each other.

My biggest peeve of all though has to be railroading. The game becomes pointless when I can't do what I want to because a plot must go a certain way. I've left campaigns because of this. Invariably it's the classis 'DM wants you to get captured approach', and they always get bad when you foil that. I've seen paladins punished for helping people because the DM wanted someone to be captured, for crying out loud.

...sigh, I wish I could find someone to run who I like, I'm always the DM because of this

 

[jdavis]

Never used grids or mini's, if it's a big encounter we will use a sheet of scratch paper with a crude map on it. I've gamed with the same people for 10 years or so (some longer) so we rarely have a problem with confusion, we rely on very good descriptions of the scenes and we keep it simple. Any game we have played using a battlemap or a grid of any kind has been a disaster, I don't know if I'd even play in a game that used mini's I've had lots of bad experiences with it turning into a huge wargaming session and that's not what I like.

I hate it when we get to bound up in the rules and end up flipping books looking for some obscure rule instead of getting on with the game. Make a decision and get on with it, I could care less if it is 100% accurate lets get on to gaming. It happened twice in the last session and once we never did figure it out, it killed almost a half hour of gaming time trying to get the rules right, I'd rather the DM just make up something and keeping the game running smoothly as opposed to stopping the game and everybody digging out their books to figure out a rule that rarely comes up. Once again I have gamed with the same people for a very long time, I trust their judgement, if I was gaming with somebody new and they just started making up rules it might be different.

I have all sorts of problems with magic items in the games now. It seems like we always have a wagon load of +1 weapons we don't want, we make more money looting bodies than from the actual treasure. It's not that I want a light magic world it's that it just gets crazy at times.