Worst DM Quotes at Gencon

[Pielorinho]

Plus, I can playtest dungeons on strangers before I unleash them on my own players.

Funny -- I was really nervous about judging at a Con, so I actually took a week off from running my normal campaign and instead playtested the RPGA adventure with my normal group before I unleashed it on Con players. They were very good sports about it, and it really helped me in running for the convention.

Daniel

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Is this some kind of an (extra low int) troll? Dividing up the treasure based upon its monetary value (somewhat abstractly--characters get money and can then buy the treasure items out of that) actually is the way that Living Greyhawk RPGA events divide up treasure. (Most other RPGA events that I'm familiar with--Living Dragonstar, and Living Arcanis--allow players to divide the treasure however they want which may be easy or may lead to long "discussions" over who gets the single ueber item at the table and who walks away from the table having lost healing potions and got nothing out of the adventure).

Not stupid. Moronic.

Just have the PCs divide the treasure based upon its monetary value and all of the problems you cite are solved.

The RPGA is silly for not being able to come up with a better solution than the moronic one it uses. [/B]

 

[heirodule]

Not stupid. Moronic.

Just have the PCs divide the treasure based upon its monetary value and all of the problems you cite are solved.

The RPGA is silly for not being able to come up with a better solution than the moronic one it uses. [/B]

Oooh, that will solve everything!

6 players, treasure is a +2 longsword and 2 potions of levitate and 196 gp

divide that.

 

[guedo79]

I've even seen DMs hand out a sheet with the 'Rules of the Table' spelled out for everyone. Breaking them results in in-game penalties and (at the extreme) expulsion from the table.

Does anyone have examples? I'm bad at this kind of thing. Sometimes I feel like a (as someone said in another thread) wet noodle of a dm.

 

[Lurch]

Re: Re: Worst DM Quotes at Gencon

Well if that was at a major con like Gencon, He could have forgotten to pack his books, or the airline could have lost his luggage with his game stuff, ect. .
I have been to a few local cons run by gaming friends that I know, I go there to play. The second I walk into the do, one of them asked "want to DM in half an hour? Here is the adventure". That DM might have gotten suckered like that, too.

Possibly, or it could be like the experience I had at the RPGA Open two years ago, where the DM showed up:

a. without rulebooks;
b. without pens, pencils, paper, or dice;
c. without any kind of battlemat or positional markers;
d. without even a basic working knowledge of 3E D&D;
e. with an attitude that told us we should be honored to be at the same table with him.

Some choice quotes:

"Forget it honey, I'm not spending money on a mat for the one or two games a year I run." (when we tried to figure out how he could possibly adjudicate combat between 9+ combatants in his head, including reach, AoO's etc. His solution: he doesn't use all that "fancy crap," primarily because he'd never cracked a 3E book)

"I've never seen a bigger bunch of rules-lawyering crybabies in my life" (whenever we dared to question why he was using 2E rules in a 3E game)

"I personally guarantee you not one of you will advance beyond this round, and I'll tell you something else -- I'll still be judging here long after you're all gone!"

At this point I snapped and had to silently leave the table lest I throttle the guy. It was also at that point that I swore to do whatever I could to prevent at least a few tables each year from suffering through a guy like that. Circumstances prevented me from judging at Gen Con this year, but you can be sure I'll be ready to go in 2004!

 

[guedo79]

So what happened?
It was two years ago, is he still running?
Closer, man, I need closer.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I'm getting in on this a bit late, but here's my bad GenCon GM quote. I was playing in a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and nobody at the table had ever played before (it was an introductory game).
The GM sits down, we make introductions, and he says "OK, just to let you know, I just picked up a bag of 100 zombie miniatures, so I'm going to just keep putting them on the table until I run out, so you'll have to keep on killing them." And he proceded to do just that. 4 hours of nothing but shooting zombies in a mall. Whenever we tried to roleplay our characters, he'd drop 10-15 zombie figs on the table and start rolling the dice. 6 players went through 12 or 14 characters in the game. Granted, it IS a zombie game based on Night of the Living Dead, but it gets a bit boring after a couple hours of the same thing. The table next to us was playing the same game, and they were having a great time from the amout of noise and laughter they were making. My table just sat there and played variations of shoot, run, die, shoot, run, die.

 

[billd91]

So, much as it would be exciting to DM a group of different people, I am not sure I'd want to risk getting a drama queen, cheater, or rules lawyer. This last one really scares me. This notion that the DM has to know every single rule when running a game at a convention is somewhat intimidating. But that's the impression I get from some folks. I'd say that as long as he's fair and allows a reasonable amount of time to look up rules before using DM fiat, then he is running things okay.

When it comes down to it, if I ever find myself at GenCon I'm looking up Teflon Billy and a few others to game with. The last thing I want to do is waste 5 hours playing or running a game for a bunch of slackjawed idjits.

Well, that's the risk you take running at a con. While this thread may be about whacked-out DMing ranging from totally incompetent to, apparently competent (the blowback issue), you easily get the same range of players sitting at the table. Sometimes you get a fantastic group of players, sometimes you get complete duds, sometimes you get an interesting mix.

I've run the AD&D Open and Villains and Vigilantes and seen an intersting variety of player skill. This year, I ran some V&V. I plotted for considerably more than any 4 hour session could include because I had multiple ways to get to the resolution of the scenario and I couldn't predict which way a group would take. Turned out to be a good thing since the players in the two session I ran went in VERY different directions through the scenario. And I think everyone had a reasonably good time all the same.

One of the tricks to running an event like this is to either be extremely linear so that any group has limited options, or extremely flexible so that you can make do with whatever a group does with credibility. Overall, I think the second option here is generally the better one. You simply can't easily predict how very different players are going to behave. But for me, that's part of the fun. Why else would I want to go to a con for more than one day but to see how other people are playing and learn how I can do a better job by comparision, contrast, or emulation? If I want to play with the same old people, I'll stay home or go for just one day to check out the exhibit hall.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...When it comes down to it, if I ever find myself at GenCon I'm looking up Teflon Billy and a few others to game with. The last thing I want to do is waste 5 hours playing or running a game for a bunch of slackjawed idjits.

I think you could do worse than just taking your chances with EN Worlders. I did so in PC's Spycraft game and there was a mix of folks I wanted to game with for a long time (Clay, Pielorhino), people I was aware of but had no opinion about (Zarathustran, Emergent) and people I knew not in the least (Spider) ...and I'll tell you: they were all bottled dynamite.

One of the better groups I've ever played with, and without question the best con group I've ever played with.

 

[Storm Raven]

Oooh, that will solve everything!

6 players, treasure is a +2 longsword and 2 potions of levitate and 196 gp

divide that.

If your adventure gives you that treasure distribution, then your adventure is moronic, and shouldn't be dignified with being called a publishable piece of work.

If that is the result of an actual adventure the RPGA put out, then they are doubly silly.