D&D General worst (real) advice for DMs

[Thomas Shey]

His decisions are not your decisions. Let it go.

Last time I looked, this whole thread is to talk about bad GMing advice. If he's unhappy with my insisting that's what he's presenting, nothing is stopping him from stopping responding to me. Or even participate in the thread at all.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Last time I looked, this whole thread is to talk about bad GMing advice. If he's unhappy with my insisting that's what he's presenting, nothing is stopping him from stopping responding to me. Or even participate in the thread at all.

This thread was a fun, humorous thread about bad DMing advice we'd received over the years. Now the only thing it is is tiresome.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This thread was a fun, humorous thread about bad DMing advice we'd received over the years. Now the only thing it is is tiresome.

That was going to happen the first time someone decided to embrace one of the example advice as a good idea. Shocker, I know.

 

[MNblockhead]

I've recently realized my biggest issue with the 1E DMG is how much it presents the DM-player relationship as adversarial. There's a whole lot of bad DM advice in that book.

I don't know, that era also had a strong emphasis on rules which is where the fairness comes from. For players who enjoy challenges, a DM who plays to win, but plays fair and by the rules can be fun.

I like to play CRPGs on "story mode", my son tends to play at the hardest challenge level. Neither preference is better, though it makes it almost impossible to enjoy playing multiplayer CRPGs together.

Currently I'm running a campaign where I ham up the adversarial DM role, including posting an obituary list on the wall of my game room. I play combat encounters like the NPCs want to win. Players know I'll kill their PCs and gloat about it. Now that's mitigated by adherence to rules and the fact that a group of 4-6 veteran players have a huge advantage over a DM when you adhere to rules.

My favorite live game podcast is the Glass Canon Podcast and the DM hams up the adversarial DM schtick and it works well.

I wouldn't run a game like this with a group of strangers or new players, but when done with players who are in on it, and when done in a spirit of everyone having fun, an adversarial approach can be fun.

 

[MNblockhead]

This is actually great advice. If your players pick abilities to focus on things, like trap disarming or what-have-you, and your don't know about it so they never get a chance to shine, that's a missed DM opportunity and makes the player regret picking it.

Now, you think it's bad advice - why do you feel that way?

I'm in the middle on this one. Personally, I don't want to have the extra burden. My practice in general is to let the players be the experts on their character sheets. One benefit of not knowing everything on their character sheets is that I can be surprised on occasion. This, of course, works best with experienced players. But for important encounters, especially with recurring villians or villians who have means of gathering intel on the party and who would be expected to be well prepared for the party, I will spend time going over their character sheets and prepping the encounter accordingly.

In my prior post defending adversarial DM style, I mentioned the Glass Canon Podcast. One thing that really struck me when I started listening to it is that their were occasions where the players would not tell the DM all of the options they selected when leveling up. Or they would say they were readying an action but not tell the DM what they were readying. It gives the game a very different flavor and feels more adversarial than I remember 1e ever being. But it works well for them. I still haven't run a game like this, but I think it would be fun to try.

 

[MNblockhead]

My two cents: I don't think that knowing all the rules of a game is bad advice for playing any game. And advocating ignorance is just terrible advice in general.

Saying that you don't have to have mastery of the rules isn't advocating ignorance. Many people play the game for years without DMing because they are intimidated by the pressure of knowing all the rules, feeling like they have to be prepared for everything, etc. It is perfectly fine advice to say you don't need to know all the rules to start playing and have a good time. You can learn as you go.

Personally, I see "knowing the rules" as a group responsibility. A DM shouldn't have to bear the entire burden.

 

[Lanefan]

Go back and look at what you said in post #111. Heck, I'll quote it for you:

"If, however, you're suggesting that parties should never be put (or be able to put themselves!) into positions where choices like this have to be made, then I have no sympathy." [Emphasis mine].

"be put into positions where choices like this has to be made" has no obvious other meaning except that they'll have to decide to abandon people or die. If that's not what you meant, you expressed it extremely badly.

So you never put challenges or enemies in front of your parties that are above their pay grade?

Even 5e, for all its other faults, recommends that a certain percentage of encounters be (I forget the exact term they use) very difficult; which I take to mean difficult enough (on paper, anyway) that a party cannot go in expecting to win and could, if unlucky or unwise, lose outright. And at "lose outright" you're into flee or die territory, at which point individual survival becomes paramount.

 

[Blue]

I'm in the middle on this one. Personally, I don't want to have the extra burden. My practice in general is to let the players be the experts on their character sheets. One benefit of not knowing everything on their character sheets is that I can be surprised on occasion. This, of course, works best with experienced players. But for important encounters, especially with recurring villians or villians who have means of gathering intel on the party and who would be expected to be well prepared for the party, I will spend time going over their character sheets and prepping the encounter accordingly.

The players still are the experts on their character sheet - I'm not advocating the DM dive into the details, just know what all of the features are for all of the characters. For example, if someone playing a ranger picked Desert as their favored terrain and it hasn't come up, using that next time I need a distant location makes the player feel like it wasn't a wasted choice and get some spotlight time. The obvious abilities like casting or expertise in deception are obvious because they get scene time already - it's the non-obvious ones that need to be remembered.

Since I'm advocating for this as session/adventure prep tool, I'm not even talking about keeping it all in your head - just write down new features every month or two when they level up, and glance at that sheet when prepping for the next session or adventure

In my prior post defending adversarial DM style, I mentioned the Glass Canon Podcast. One thing that really struck me when I started listening to it is that their were occasions where the players would not tell the DM all of the options they selected when leveling up. Or they would say they were readying an action but not tell the DM what they were readying. It gives the game a very different flavor and feels more adversarial than I remember 1e ever being. But it works well for them. I still haven't run a game like this, but I think it would be fun to try.

I can see people enjoying that, but that's not my personal style. In the case where players are actively hiding what's on their character sheet from the DM, and the DM is fine with that, you are prevented from following this advice to help spotlight little-used character abilities.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I don't know, that era also had a strong emphasis on rules which is where the fairness comes from. For players who enjoy challenges, a DM who plays to win, but plays fair and by the rules can be fun.

I like to play CRPGs on "story mode", my son tends to play at the hardest challenge level. Neither preference is better, though it makes it almost impossible to enjoy playing multiplayer CRPGs together.

Currently I'm running a campaign where I ham up the adversarial DM role, including posting an obituary list on the wall of my game room. I play combat encounters like the NPCs want to win. Players know I'll kill their PCs and gloat about it. Now that's mitigated by adherence to rules and the fact that a group of 4-6 veteran players have a huge advantage over a DM when you adhere to rules.

My favorite live game podcast is the Glass Canon Podcast and the DM hams up the adversarial DM schtick and it works well.

I wouldn't run a game like this with a group of strangers or new players, but when done with players who are in on it, and when done in a spirit of everyone having fun, an adversarial approach can be fun.

Perhaps it comes down to how strictly one defines “adversarial”, but I think a DM can take an adversarial approach and still be a fan of the player characters. The DM, at least in 5e, is not really trying to “win” every combat after all. They are trying to present varied challenges that, like you are saying, make for a game experience that is fun for the table. At the end of the day, if proper expectations are set up front, then concerns about an “adversarial” DM can be minimized.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm in the middle on this one. Personally, I don't want to have the extra burden. My practice in general is to let the players be the experts on their character sheets. One benefit of not knowing everything on their character sheets is that I can be surprised on occasion. This, of course, works best with experienced players. But for important encounters, especially with recurring villians or villians who have means of gathering intel on the party and who would be expected to be well prepared for the party, I will spend time going over their character sheets and prepping the encounter accordingly.

In my prior post defending adversarial DM style, I mentioned the Glass Canon Podcast. One thing that really struck me when I started listening to it is that their were occasions where the players would not tell the DM all of the options they selected when leveling up. Or they would say they were readying an action but not tell the DM what they were readying. It gives the game a very different flavor and feels more adversarial than I remember 1e ever being. But it works well for them. I still haven't run a game like this, but I think it would be fun to try.

The biggest issue if you're not going to know what the PCs can do, you need to make sure to provide enough different challenges that whatever they picked is liable to be useful at least some of the time.

As an (admittedly extreme) example, if you have a thief or rogue (to be relatively system agnostic) in the group with a lot of things that are trap-focused and start ignoring using traps, their investment is completely wasted.