D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[BookBarbarian]

These days I like a campaign that has an endpoint in real time so we can work towards that as a group and finish on a high note. I don't want it to be like those TV series that go on forever until they just peter out.

What you don't want to do a back in time, or it was all a dream season?

 

[Kobold Boots]

Eh. I'll add my own experience to the campaign mix for the sake of elaborating more on the overarching theme that there's no one right way but everyone kind of does the same things from their own perspectives.

When 1e was a thing I ran many rosters of players through adventures in a setting of my own creation. None of these groups lasted for more than a year and many petered out, but the ones that finished a story were in some ways railroaded and in some ways sandbox, but no one complained. All of these 1e things were done in a way such that they all built on what came previously - so I consider all of them one 10 year or so long campaign, even if only 3 of the easily 50-60 or so players were continuously there.

I've since called that my world's first age.

I've done the same with 2e (though by then I had moved to Rolemaster and left behind D&D entirely) and missed much of 3rd edition but by the time I came back to 3rd, the same pattern played out and that ended up being the second campaign and second age. Again, maybe 2-3 of the 100 or so players that floated in and out of games stuck.

As I've said before I'm more a 4th ed person and now that I'm doing one-offs here and there thinking about Rolemaster again but I don't consider any particular group of folks a campaign unless I've gone through heroic through epic tier with at least one of their characters. It's way easier to feel successful in gaming as a hobby when you set smaller milestones to hit and much more rewarding when you look back over a number of years and realize you have a huge amount of shared fiction.

But you can't DM well by limiting what's in your toolbox for use. There are going to be times when it's necessary and appropriate to railroad (like when you have problem players) and there are going to be times when the DM needs to get out of the way because the shared improvisation and creativity is better than whatever is going on in his or her own head.

However, everyone has the opportunity to be one of these DMs that has epic campaigns that last a decade. It's really not that hard to do. All that's needed is to keep running games and have the forethought not to throw out what happens in the games you run, even the bad stuff. The next group of players won't know how good or bad the last group experience was, but the DM can get better with every game run.

2c
KB

Edit: I will also give a tip of the hat to folks that like to be a part of the "Netflix" style stories where it's clear that there are 5-10 things that need to happen to finish a storyline and the group stays together to finish them, then moves on.

I think that were I to start a game right now, that would be exactly how I'd structure it. Both because I think that this generation of players would appreciate it, and I would have a clear exit from having to play with anyone that walked in day 1 and I had issue with.

 

[Hussar]

Dunno about "kids these days". I'm 46 and I really, really appreciate the Netflix shorter seasons. It's kinda fun to compare, say, Daredevil or Jessica Jones to the CW heroes stuff like Flash or Arrow. Don't get me wrong, I like all four shows. But, if I had to choose, I'd definitely go with the Netflix pacing. I grew up with these shows that lasted season after season, like Star Trek Next Generation, and then going back and rewatching and realizing that in these days of streaming and on-demand, you don't need to retread so much stuff. It the past, you might miss an episode or two, and it didn't really matter all that much. You'd catch up in the next episode because the ongoing story took so long to resolve. But with streaming, I don't miss anything, so, well, get on with it already.

I think the same applies to my gaming. Back in the dark ages of school, I had time to play soooo many hours a week. Now, I don't. Not even remotely. So, if we spend two sessions kinda faffing about not really moving anything forward, that's like almost a month of gaming for me. The notion that I'm going to spend ten years in the same campaign, which, if you stripped out all the extra stuff, would actually last about two years, is just not appealing to me. No, I don't thing the journey is the most important thing. The journey is important, but, the resolution is equally important as well. I've done SOOO much journey over the years. Now, I want my dessert. Just to mangle a couple of metaphors.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Dunno about "kids these days". I'm 46 and I really, really appreciate the Netflix shorter seasons. It's kinda fun to compare, say, Daredevil or Jessica Jones to the CW heroes stuff like Flash or Arrow. Don't get me wrong, I like all four shows. But, if I had to choose, I'd definitely go with the Netflix pacing. I grew up with these shows that lasted season after season, like Star Trek Next Generation, and then going back and rewatching and realizing that in these days of streaming and on-demand, you don't need to retread so much stuff. It the past, you might miss an episode or two, and it didn't really matter all that much. You'd catch up in the next episode because the ongoing story took so long to resolve. But with streaming, I don't miss anything, so, well, get on with it already.

I think the same applies to my gaming. Back in the dark ages of school, I had time to play soooo many hours a week. Now, I don't. Not even remotely. So, if we spend two sessions kinda faffing about not really moving anything forward, that's like almost a month of gaming for me. The notion that I'm going to spend ten years in the same campaign, which, if you stripped out all the extra stuff, would actually last about two years, is just not appealing to me. No, I don't thing the journey is the most important thing. The journey is important, but, the resolution is equally important as well. I've done SOOO much journey over the years. Now, I want my dessert. Just to mangle a couple of metaphors.

Just means that were I your DM, I'd need to serialize things such that we ran like an episode of Blacklist or some other show over the course of two sessions. that way you'd get a fix every month and we'd string maybe a half year of gaming into a season of shows. (one arch of plot plus a bunch of mini plots.)

Honestly, I don't see groups lasting in any single incarnation longer than 6m these days even if only one player leaves and another comes in to take place so it's completely sensical.

KB

 

[5ekyu]

How do yoiu know how long the campaign was meant to last - were you there? And how do you know what is a trivial waste of time? What make you think you can tell me how I should spend my leisure time?

I have no idea what you mean by this.

Seriously? The thread asked what DM flaw has caused me to leave a game.

I answered. Why would you expect me to point to things that I like by way of explanation? Are you another poster who thinks I have a moral duty to play with a bad GM whose game I don't enjoy?

Says who?

In reverse order...

says who... the rpg rules which say the gm runs the npc and the player who chooses an option tied to a bargain ongoing with an npc. Again, Patron is not spelled with an E in 5E which the example was keyed at.

Seems obvious.

Then... seriously... I know nothing of your morals so I won't get drawn into that discussion.

Then ... you having no idea... an ongoing series deriving significant ements from your character and the patron with an eventual blow-off to a climax is not often time many players consider poorly spent or wasted. Tho perhaps some do.

 

[5ekyu]

Dunno about "kids these days". I'm 46 and I really, really appreciate the Netflix shorter seasons. It's kinda fun to compare, say, Daredevil or Jessica Jones to the CW heroes stuff like Flash or Arrow. Don't get me wrong, I like all four shows. But, if I had to choose, I'd definitely go with the Netflix pacing. I grew up with these shows that lasted season after season, like Star Trek Next Generation, and then going back and rewatching and realizing that in these days of streaming and on-demand, you don't need to retread so much stuff. It the past, you might miss an episode or two, and it didn't really matter all that much. You'd catch up in the next episode because the ongoing story took so long to resolve. But with streaming, I don't miss anything, so, well, get on with it already.

I think the same applies to my gaming. Back in the dark ages of school, I had time to play soooo many hours a week. Now, I don't. Not even remotely. So, if we spend two sessions kinda faffing about not really moving anything forward, that's like almost a month of gaming for me. The notion that I'm going to spend ten years in the same campaign, which, if you stripped out all the extra stuff, would actually last about two years, is just not appealing to me. No, I don't thing the journey is the most important thing. The journey is important, but, the resolution is equally important as well. I've done SOOO much journey over the years. Now, I want my dessert. Just to mangle a couple of metaphors.

I draw the distinction at Buffy, Babylon 5 and other that are sort of between the old school episodic and infinitum and the Netflix 10s.

B&B5 championed the bbeg season approach where there was a general theme and story for each season of 22 eps and (by initial design or between season writing) the seasons told a bigger story.

To me, it's an important part of an rpg I run for each of the characters to get story flow and resolution, not just the story of the fall of the bbeg. It's rather crowded to get four to six of those to conclusion and done justice in one season.

So 4-6 seasons over 2-3 years tends to work out well for me.

But then, so much of the story is what they decide, not what I planned, really all bets are off.

 

[pemerton]

an ongoing series deriving significant ements from your character and the patron with an eventual blow-off to a climax is not often time many players consider poorly spent or wasted.

What's that got to do with anything I posted about?

 

[Aldarc]

Yep. Shadow of the Demon Lord is one of my favorite RPGs, and I think it has the right idea for campaign length. You start at level 0, you gain a level every session, and you end the campaign after 11 sessions, once you've hit level 10.

I'm sure if you have the opportunity to play multiple times a week, you'll be much more amenable to longer campaigns.

Personally, I also prefer 8 episode limited series on Netflix to 15 season procedurals, and I'm always advocating for my favorite shows to just finish up already, so there's probably a personality aspect involved.

Heh. Back during my high school and college anime days - in the days before online streaming - I would typically only consider shows that had a max cap of 26 episodes, with a few exceptions. These exceptions rarely, if ever, exceeded 52 episodes. This cap was a decent sign that there was at least some semblance of a narrative structure with an end point. And typically there was a better return on investment when it came to the satisfaction of reaching a resolution point (incidentally, see [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point earlier on resolution). And this is why I could never get into shows or manga like Dragonball Z, Naruto, One Piece, or Bleach. Incidentally, this is also why I have grown to disfavor mega-spine multivolume fantasy epic novels. I appreciate the art of concise narratives that respect my time.

When it comes to tabletop gaming, we are absolutely saturated with excellent quality games other than D&D. I want to play more than just D&D. But the available time for our late 20s and early 30s group is more limited. So the long sprawling 20 level adventures across a year or more are no longer feasible for us. Some tabletop RPG systems, whether knowingly or not, seem to have seized on this realization. A number of D&D-inspired systems are now only go to ten levels (e.g., SotDL, 13th Age, Black Hack, BtWaOA, DW) or are level-less entirely (ICRPG).

 

[Hussar]

In reverse order...

says who... the rpg rules which say the gm runs the npc and the player who chooses an option tied to a bargain ongoing with an npc. Again, Patron is not spelled with an E in 5E which the example was keyed at.

Seems obvious.

Then... seriously... I know nothing of your morals so I won't get drawn into that discussion.

Then ... you having no idea... an ongoing series deriving significant ements from your character and the patron with an eventual blow-off to a climax is not often time many players consider poorly spent or wasted. Tho perhaps some do.

To be fair though, a patron isn't exactly an NPC in the traditional sense. If you're an Old One Patron warlock, I really, really doubt that whatever old one you draw from is even aware of your existence. ((or, perhaps, heaven help you if it does ))

And, the thing is, that sort of thinking tends to make players REALLY gun shy about making any sort of connections to the anyone or anything in the game. Your patron betrays you is almost cliche by now. It's to the point where an NPC that doesn't stab you in the back is a pleasant surprise.

One mechanic that I saw in a game called Chronica Feudalis is something I do love. It's called Background. Not background as in where your character came from, but, background as in something not in the foreground. The player gets to delineate two or three things about his character that are in the Background. They are true for the campaign but, the DM is specifically not supposed to do anything with it. So, if your Background was, say, Extended Family - then maybe you have relatives all over the place and everywhere you go, you meet (or can choose to meet) them. But, the DM is not allowed to center any play around that. So no kidnapping a sister, nobody gets into trouble and needs to be bailed out, that sort of thing.

I tend to treat things like Warlock Patrons the same way. I'd be very, very careful messing with a player's Patron in any way. That's a major part of that character. I would always talk to the player beforehand before making any sort of change in the relationship between the PC and the Patron.

I've found that this approach means that players will stop coming to the table with Man with no Name characters who are orphans who just arrived in town on a ship/caravan from very, very far away.

 

[5ekyu]

What's that got to do with anything I posted about?

Memory problems already?

The original part I wasx esponding yo was your dismissal of 10-20 hours of a quest driven by Patron request macguffin etc where you called it ludicrous and went on about how you did it without screen time.

"The idea that I would play for 10 to 20 hours just so a GM can set up a long-term villain is (in my view) ludicrous in itself.

Setting up a long-term villain in my 4e game took no play time in two..."

Etc

You have chosen yo characterize that screen time quest setup negatively so far, iirc multiple times, and that's fine of course but as I said in my experience such a series of sessions or hours of play derived from and focused around that PC specific relationship is not something I have seen many come away with that view.

Obviously, anything can be just setup off-screen with write-ups - not unlike having critical info for a movie done in opening voice over narration, but it's rare to see someone so heavily against what of effectively the rpg equivalent of the entertainment axiom of "show them, don't tell them."