D&D General worst (real) advice for DMs

[Burnside]

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.

Gygax's intro to the 1E DMG is appreciated best when read aloud in the voice of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

 

[Blue]

Y'know...I hear people SAY this is common advice...but I never actually see it.

I see a LOT of people claiming that that's the advice, that it's something people dogmatically insist upon. But I've never--not once--actually seen a real person claiming, "You absolutely must use perfectly balanced encounters all the time."

Where are you seeing or hearing this?

Now, keep in mind, I see a vast, vast, VAST difference between "most encounters should be reasonably balanced" and "literally 100% of encounters should be perfectly calibrated to the party's level." The former is pretty common advice, and generally quite good advice at that. Constantly throwing wildly unbalanced encounters at a party is likely to generate problems. Unless, that is, your players are really ready for a crapshoot where every single time they roll initiative, they may waltz through like the encounter isn't even there, or may get their faces smashed in by a boot in twelve seconds flat. If they really are game for that then awesome, you really can throw almost anything at them and they'll probably be cool with it. But I find most groups are not so relaxed.

The latter is a strawman I see brought up every. gorram. time. people talk about encounter design as though pursuing balance was only and ever exactly two states, "absolute diamond perfection" and "there is no balance in Ba Sing Se."

I do legitimately see that DM should use level-specific encounters, and any encounter that reasonably will kill them is the sign of an antagonistic DM. Not the "every must be perfectly balanced", but the negation of the opposite which has the same effect.

 

[Blue]

The DM must know all of the abilities of all of the PCs in the party.

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?

 

[billd91]

I'll add one bit of advice I've seen mentioned that I think is bad advice. The idea that you can't make a mistake, or that you can't change something once it's established.

Mistakes happen for everyone. There's nothing wrong with that, and certainly nothing wrong with acknowledging it and correcting it. I understand the goal of verisimilitude and so on, but at the same time, everyone is aware that you're playing a game and that everything in the game is made up.

Yes, mistakes do happen. But there's also something to be said for moving on from the mistake and resolving to handle that case better in the future should a similar case come up. This becomes more important the longer ago the mistake occurred. By all means, if you realize the mistake within a round or two, fix it as best you can. But if it happened a couple of sessions ago, just move on.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

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?

A good understanding or general awareness of characters is one thing, and I fully agree with.

But
1. knowing
2. all abilities
3. of all characters

… is beyond reasonable for a DM. It is a subset of the worse advice that DM’s must know all the rules.

My job is the DM, running all the monsters, knowing all the rooms, building the world. Players’ jobs are their characters. If we’re going to tell DMs that they need to master all of the player character’s abilities as well as the monsters, and come up with a world, and the dungeon… it’s bad advice.

I‘m (not) advocating ignorance. Just that knowing all abilities (spells to!?) of all characters is too high a bar to advise.

[edit for adding a missed word in the last paragraph.]

 

[Composer99]

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?

(1) It's a player's responsibility to keep track of their character's own special abilities.

(2) If you have cleric or druid PCs, and to a lesser extent wizard PCs, this is a way to exhaust yourself.

(3) If you play at an open table, and so might have many PCs belonging to different players who may or may not be present in any given session, there's too much to track. Especially for something like AL where there are many "street legal" character options.

It's all well and good to recommending having at least a rough idea of what your PCs are capable of - and (a) you should be able to discern some of that based on the things they do in play, and (b) the fewer moving parts any PC has, the easier it is to get a handle on their capabilities - but there's clearly a point where being expected to know everything they can do is simply unreasonable, and therefore bad advice.

 

[CleverNickName]

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.

 

[Jer]

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.

When you realize that Gygax's earliest players were his own kids, things click into place a bit. There's a whole lot of "spare the rod, spoil the child player" wound in through the earliest parts of the game.

 

[Blue]

Relatively balanced encounters should be encouraged. It's not good to throw stuff at a party they can't handle or stuff that's far too easy. Balanced however shouldn't be seen as a rigid absolute either, since that doesn't exist.

See, this is what I personally would classify as bad advice. It IS good to occasionally throw stuff at the party they can't handle, and stuff that's far too easy.

If you train players that everything they encounter is a beatable fight, they can and will default to fights. And they will never learn to plan to retreat.

And sometimes you need to let the players feel like heroes and curbstomp opponents. if their numebrs keep going up but every battle plays the same it will never feel like they are becoming badass.

 

[Blue]

(1) It's a player's responsibility to keep track of their character's own special abilities.

Which doesn't in the slightest address that it's the DM's responsibility to write good adventures and give players spotlight, and highlighting features they haven't used is important. Please, actually address what is written.

(2) If you have cleric or druid PCs, and to a lesser extent wizard PCs, this is a way to exhaust yourself.

Really? Do you give the caster a chance to cast? Then yes, you are aware of their ability and have given it spotlight, exactly as I mentioned. Again, I don't think you are actually addressing my point, just making up a point in your head that you are trying to respond to.

(3) If you play at an open table, and so might have many PCs belonging to different players who may or may not be present in any given session, there's too much to track. Especially for something like AL where there are many "street legal" character options.

Creating adventures tailored to the party isn't something you do at an open table. So this is irrelevant to what I put forth.