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

[Bigsta]

I know DMs who say you should show rather than tell and they are all cowards.

 

[James Gasik]

We can add to that - Is it wrong to phrase such questions in terms of "wrong"? Right and wrong are questions of correctness, for which we'd require some known orthodoxy to reference for answers. Assumed, implied, unspoken orthodoxies make the answers confusing.

Similar, and probably more generally useful, questions might be:

Does setting up narrative beats for specific characters usually work out okay?
Are there pitfalls to setting up a number of encounters for each session, and how can they be managed?
What problems typically arise if you kill or remove characters from a session?
What are the benefits and detriments to treating characters as anything other than easily-replaced player avatars?

You're right, sorry, I should have said "is it correct". I wasn't implying that any answers are wrong here, outside of possibly "wrong for your group".

 

[James Gasik]

Oh! I remember one from my AD&D days.

"Action stated, action done!" Even if in jest, if you suggest or say your player might/could/should do a thing, the DM should instantly take that as if your character does that thing, no matter how inane or ridiculous! D&D is serious business!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I know DMs who say you should show rather than tell and they are all cowards.

And Spec Fic Writers.

Basically anything from On Writing is bad advice if you're not trying to literally be Steven King.

 

[Shiroiken]

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?

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.

The "it" is everything that doesn't fit the game narrative. It can be a player who wants to play a race that doesn't exist in the DMs world. It can be a DM who wants to use a monster, but doesn't want to deal with having it exist in their world. It can be a useful tool, but when you separate the mechanics and the story it can create some very jarring situations. I'll give the best example I personally witnessed.

The campaign is opposing an orc empire, so the DM wants to use orcs any time they can during the campaign. The party finds itself fighting against a bunch of guerrilla fighter orc that fight from the trees, moving nimbly between them. They have crossbow bolts that open into nets when they strike the target. We kill the orcs and really like those crossbow bolts. The DM refused to let us have them, claiming they just used the last ones. Confused, we said that seemed extremely coincidental that all of them had a different number of bolts, and each of them happened to use their last one before they died. It was because we didn't fight orcs but a reskinned spider creature. Us having those crossbow bolts would have unbalanced the game, which isn't something the DM considered when he decided to "just reskin" another monster.

Another example, albeit less problematic, was the player who really wanted to play a Drow in a Dark Sun campaign. They don't exist in the world, and they really don't make sense there. She instead reskinned herself as a normal elf that got scorched by defiling magic, explaining her skin tone. The fact that she had sunlight sensitivity and drow magical spells was never explained other than "reasons."

I'm not against reskinning as a tool; I use it myself. It's the fact that I've seen too many see it as a catch-all without bothering to fully consider how you would reskin something without potential consequences.

 

[MersharrS]

I'd submit: "You need to know all of the rules and be an excellent storyteller to be a DM"
The truth is that you just need to be present and willing to give it a try. You'll learn over time, but any DM is better than no DM, and people are awfully patient if you're putting yourself forward for their entertainment. Just do it!

 

[Lanefan]

The "it" is everything that doesn't fit the game narrative. It can be a player who wants to play a race that doesn't exist in the DMs world. It can be a DM who wants to use a monster, but doesn't want to deal with having it exist in their world. It can be a useful tool, but when you separate the mechanics and the story it can create some very jarring situations. I'll give the best example I personally witnessed.

The campaign is opposing an orc empire, so the DM wants to use orcs any time they can during the campaign. The party finds itself fighting against a bunch of guerrilla fighter orc that fight from the trees, moving nimbly between them. They have crossbow bolts that open into nets when they strike the target. We kill the orcs and really like those crossbow bolts. The DM refused to let us have them, claiming they just used the last ones. Confused, we said that seemed extremely coincidental that all of them had a different number of bolts, and each of them happened to use their last one before they died. It was because we didn't fight orcs but a reskinned spider creature. Us having those crossbow bolts would have unbalanced the game, which isn't something the DM considered when he decided to "just reskin" another monster.

Another example, albeit less problematic, was the player who really wanted to play a Drow in a Dark Sun campaign. They don't exist in the world, and they really don't make sense there. She instead reskinned herself as a normal elf that got scorched by defiling magic, explaining her skin tone. The fact that she had sunlight sensitivity and drow magical spells was never explained other than "reasons."

Ah - seeing those examples, I understand your point.

Put more broadly, perhaps the "bad advice" that covers this might become "When changing anything, don't worry about knock-on effects".

I'm not against reskinning as a tool; I use it myself. It's the fact that I've seen too many see it as a catch-all without bothering to fully consider how you would reskin something without potential consequences.

Reskinning can also include simple renaming, though, which IMO/IME is a very useful tool. For my current campaign, for example, I renamed several iconic common monsters (Orcs, Goblins Kobolds, etc.) to homebrew names without otherwise changing anything about them. Really helped give the game a different tone and feel, and kept some experienced players on their toes for a while until they (like their PCs) learned more about the creatures.

I also rename monsters in my written adventures if I'm concerned about running afoul of WotC. So, the part-reptile-part-human creatures ain't called Yuan-Ti any more, but they look and function pretty much the same in the fiction.

 

[James Gasik]

I'd submit: "You need to know all of the rules and be an excellent storyteller to be a DM"
The truth is that you just need to be present and willing to give it a try. You'll learn over time, but any DM is better than no DM, and people are awfully patient if you're putting yourself forward for their entertainment. Just do it!

I'm not refuting this, but when I first tried my hand at DMing, I only had a story and little rules knowledge. My players ran roughshod over me, thinking it was great fun to take advantage of my ignorance, so I resolved to read the rulebooks cover to cover. A lot.

I gained a fascination with how rules systems function, and the ire of DM's and players alike who apparently don't want the rules to get in the way of their fun...even if that fun is at the expense of DM's who don't know any better, lol.

 

[Mort]

The "it" is everything that doesn't fit the game narrative. It can be a player who wants to play a race that doesn't exist in the DMs world. It can be a DM who wants to use a monster, but doesn't want to deal with having it exist in their world. It can be a useful tool, but when you separate the mechanics and the story it can create some very jarring situations. I'll give the best example I personally witnessed.

The campaign is opposing an orc empire, so the DM wants to use orcs any time they can during the campaign. The party finds itself fighting against a bunch of guerrilla fighter orc that fight from the trees, moving nimbly between them. They have crossbow bolts that open into nets when they strike the target. We kill the orcs and really like those crossbow bolts. The DM refused to let us have them, claiming they just used the last ones. Confused, we said that seemed extremely coincidental that all of them had a different number of bolts, and each of them happened to use their last one before they died. It was because we didn't fight orcs but a reskinned spider creature. Us having those crossbow bolts would have unbalanced the game, which isn't something the DM considered when he decided to "just reskin" another monster.

The true problem was the DM hadn't yet learned the don't give NPCs equipment you don't want the PCs to get access to rule.

The reskinning part of the story actually seems pretty cool.

Another example, albeit less problematic, was the player who really wanted to play a Drow in a Dark Sun campaign. They don't exist in the world, and they really don't make sense there. She instead reskinned herself as a normal elf that got scorched by defiling magic, explaining her skin tone. The fact that she had sunlight sensitivity and drow magical spells was never explained other than "reasons."

I'm not against reskinning as a tool; I use it myself. It's the fact that I've seen too many see it as a catch-all without bothering to fully consider how you would reskin something without potential consequences.

As a DM: Wait, you want to VOLUNTARILLY, give yourself sunlight sensitivity in Dark Sun!?! Ok then, you do you!

 

[bedir than]

And Spec Fic Writers.

Basically anything from On Writing is bad advice if you're not trying to literally be Steven King.

Definitely don't get hit by a car/van/truck