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What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7496387" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Of the games I didn't want to continue play, all three cases were over improper use of improvisational techniques.</p><p></p><p>Every DM has to improvise. But if I can tell you are improvising, you aren't doing it well, and there are two things I never want to sense about your game:</p><p></p><p>a) You are improvising challenges based on the strengths and weaknesses of my PC, and not some sort of narrative or simulation based demographics. That is, the challenge I'm facing is not based on what is reasonable for the scenario, but what you think challenges my PC. If that happens, I'm walking at the end of the session and I'm never coming back. </p><p>b) You are improvising a narrative where you had no clear idea when you began the narrative what was going on, often with the idea that I'm going to fill in the blanks for you so that I'm both the one inventing the difficulty and resolving it. In terms of a TV show, this is the 'Lost' problem and a reoccurring problem with TV Sci-Fi since the days of 'X-Files', where the producer initiates a story and a conflict with no real idea what was underlying the story, what the answers to the riddles or questions posed by the story might be, and no real substance underneath the superficial aura of mystery, and some hope that either the story can be dragged out long enough that it will be a success regardless of its lack of answers or else that somehow they are going to come up with answers at some point down the road. This games are so invariably badly thought out and incoherent and empty of content that it is a total waste of my time. </p><p></p><p>Just about everything else is excusable. Those two, it's hard for me not to leave the game angry.</p><p></p><p>Although I've never encountered it, the third thing that might get me upset is complete lack of agency in any game that was more than a one shot. For a one shot, I might be Ok with an occasional game on rails where I couldn't change the ending if there was a good enough twist involved. The CoC scenario where it turns out everyone was already dead at the start of the game comes to mind. But if on the other hand it turns out that the GM just wants to write a novel and make me witness it, I'm probably not going to be on board that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7496387, member: 4937"] Of the games I didn't want to continue play, all three cases were over improper use of improvisational techniques. Every DM has to improvise. But if I can tell you are improvising, you aren't doing it well, and there are two things I never want to sense about your game: a) You are improvising challenges based on the strengths and weaknesses of my PC, and not some sort of narrative or simulation based demographics. That is, the challenge I'm facing is not based on what is reasonable for the scenario, but what you think challenges my PC. If that happens, I'm walking at the end of the session and I'm never coming back. b) You are improvising a narrative where you had no clear idea when you began the narrative what was going on, often with the idea that I'm going to fill in the blanks for you so that I'm both the one inventing the difficulty and resolving it. In terms of a TV show, this is the 'Lost' problem and a reoccurring problem with TV Sci-Fi since the days of 'X-Files', where the producer initiates a story and a conflict with no real idea what was underlying the story, what the answers to the riddles or questions posed by the story might be, and no real substance underneath the superficial aura of mystery, and some hope that either the story can be dragged out long enough that it will be a success regardless of its lack of answers or else that somehow they are going to come up with answers at some point down the road. This games are so invariably badly thought out and incoherent and empty of content that it is a total waste of my time. Just about everything else is excusable. Those two, it's hard for me not to leave the game angry. Although I've never encountered it, the third thing that might get me upset is complete lack of agency in any game that was more than a one shot. For a one shot, I might be Ok with an occasional game on rails where I couldn't change the ending if there was a good enough twist involved. The CoC scenario where it turns out everyone was already dead at the start of the game comes to mind. But if on the other hand it turns out that the GM just wants to write a novel and make me witness it, I'm probably not going to be on board that. [/QUOTE]
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