D&D General What is the worst piece of DM advice people give that you see commonly spread?

[bloodtide]

The over said "No plan/adventure/story/plot survives contact with the feral players, so you should just improv random stuff out of thin air to make the greatest game play ever".

And the follow up "the game is whatever the players randomly do on a whim and the GM should just follow along and create and recreate the game on each players random whim"

 

[Tutara]

“Players are the enemy, and will seek to undermine you at every opportunity. Giving them a say at the table or treating them like equals is a huge mistake - they will use it to exploit you every time”

I could not imagine running a game with people I do not trust and like, and yet some DMs clearly loathe their players, going by some of what is said in discussion!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The over said "No plan/adventure/story/plot survives contact with the feral players, so you should just improv random stuff out of thin air to make the greatest game play ever".

And the follow up "the game is whatever the players randomly do on a whim and the GM should just follow along and create and recreate the game on each players random whim"

That said, both of them are bad only because they are extremes, not because they contain no truth at all. It's true that no plan survives contact with the opposition (be that GM plans opposed by players or player plans opposed by GMs!), so being prepared for improvisation is essential--but "be prepared to do X" is a far cry from "never do anything but X." Likewise, one absolutely must not, under any circumstances, take the problems of the second thing to mean "caring about what your players want to do is bad, so never ever adapt to your players' interests, especially if those interests don't make sense to you." Because doing that is a one-way ticket to pissing on genuine player enthusiasm and feeling good about doing so.

As C.S. Lewis said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. [...]those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I draw the contrast here because my thing above--"you're the DM, you figure it out"--is inherently a problem. That message, very intentionally and explicitly, rejects the very idea of seeking advice, developing skill, and aiding others. It cannot be softened without abandoning that core message, at which point it becomes something like, "Well, as DM, you have the power to make that decision and whatever you say will be 'correct' for your table, but if you would like some help, <advice.>"

 

[Temperantia]

"You're the GM, roll behind your screen and fudge the dice / the monster stats if necessary for your story to work / dramatic effect etc."

If the quality of your story or encounter is defined by a single dice roll that you as a GM must either succeed at or fail, chances are they need some more work.

Even when done in favor for the players, fudging leads to an invisible railroad that eliminates an opportunity to challenge the players with a negative outcome and let them find creative ways to deal with it. If you don't want the monster to have at least a shot to kill a party member, maybe that monster shouldn't be there at all.

And fudging a roll in favor of the NPC adversaries, well, why roll at all then?

 

[S'mon]

A GM is responsible for their party's fun.

Yeah. Any advice that a GM has failed if not every player enjoyed every moment of every game. Conversely the best advice I've seen was Noism's advice to players: "You are responsible for your own orgasm".

 

[Dioltach]

"You're doing it wrong, you should be doing it the only right way, by which I mean my way."
And anyone who says the DM has to create an immersive experience for the players.

 

[Shiroiken]

"You can just reskin it." I hate this advice with the burning fires of a thousand suns. While sometimes this can be a viable option, there's occasionally unintended consequences on both sides of the screen that need to be considered.

 

[Lanefan]

"You can just reskin it." I hate this advice with the burning fires of a thousand suns. While sometimes this can be a viable option, there's occasionally unintended consequences on both sides of the screen that need to be considered.

I don't understand - in what context do you see this as bad advice? Or, what is the "it" you don't think should be reskinned?

 

[AnotherGuy]

In one way, this may be viewed as a thread for calling out badwrongfun

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In one way, this may be viewed as a thread for calling out badwrongfun

Really? I've seen very little, if any, statements I would consider at all related to that. Calling out people for saying "never seek advice! Just make decisions!" or "Never make plans, just improvise everything and it will always turn out great!" seems not only reasonable, but prudent. There's a lot of free advice out therethat isn't worth the money paid for it.

"You can just reskin it." I hate this advice with the burning fires of a thousand suns. While sometimes this can be a viable option, there's occasionally unintended consequences on both sides of the screen that need to be considered.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Lanefan here. This doesn't seem so much like dismissive bad advice as..."if this is a problem because the narrative doesn't make sense, alter the narrative so that it does." Obviously that isn't a trivial task, and can be easier said than done, but...well, I've found that in the vast, vast majority of situations, reskinning is incredibly easy and rarely leads to significant trouble later on.