Your biggest screw-up as a DM?

[wrabbit37]

I have plenty of my own, but the first that popped into my head was one that another GM in my group did. We were all chasing a barbarian who was, naturally, running around shirtless. It was a pretty tense scene as we kept going through and chasing the guy. So we finally get to a place where we think the barbarian is and the barbarian, who was standing behind some shrubs at the time, rises to face us in what will no doubt be a great, dramatic scene.

Until the GM describes what we see of the barbarian standing up from behind the shrubs:

"All you see is a torso and a bush."

And that killed *ANY* chance of a dramatic serious scene. He had to call the session because we were cracking up too much.

 

[derelictjay]

If your gonna talk about DM word flubs, my favorite was when a certain DM I played under, decided that the stream running through a cave was running EXACTLY in the center of the cave. Needless to say, a column of water running horizontal through a cave, basically killed the session as the DM couldn't get the game back in control, and the stream was too important in the plot in the adventure to make us forget his statement.

 

[Chimera]

My Greatest Error (tm) as a Gm was to decide to bludgeon a group of "Beer and pretzel / Just let us kill something" players into actually roleplaying, paying attention to the plot and doing something besides wandering around looking for monsters to kill.

Lost a bunch of 'friends' that way. In the long run, it was all just as well that it happened, but I probably shouldn't have done it.

Otherwise, yeah, it's the 'forgetting a major plot point' stuff.

 

[eris404]

Except for agreeing to let certain people join our gaming group even though my instincts were screaming not to. I do not ignore my instincts any longer.

I feel your pain. Do I ever.

OK, to actually add something of value to the thread, my biggest screw-up is not paying attention to the magic items the PCs were buying and getting blindsided by them. It got to a point that there were items I wanted to ban just because I was sick to death of players using them constantly (Ring of the Ram).

This isn't really a screw up, but it was an episode that I still can't live down. In order to perform a certain ritual, the characters needed a list of items, among them milk. As they were in a remote part of the world, it was going to be difficult to get the milk. One of the players got the bright idea to have the druid (whose player was blessedly absent that session) turn into a cow so that the party could milk her. Which led to my ruling that no one could milk another character when that character's player was absent.

I really hope that's not offensive to anyone's grandma.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Shadowrun: Never, ever run a published adventure with the big plot twist clearly encapsulated in the friggin' title of the book.


"So, is this the part where we get Double Crossed?"

"So, have we been Double Crossed yet?"

"Man, that Double Cross sure is taking its sweet time to show up. Oh, maybe this is it now."

LOL!

Oh LOL.

Ow.

 

[Pants]

There was one time where the players were instructed by an NPC to go to the port district of a certain city. Well, the PC's get to the city and I happen to glance at the map and guess what... the city is landlocked. No rivers, no coast, nothing. So instead of making a river up on the spot, the players were kind enough to say that the NPC sent them to a different city. It took them months to forget that one...

Then there have been times whre I've forgotten key abilities to monsters and characters. This thing has SR?! I forgot about its Trip attacks! Thankfully, I've gotten better...

 

[CalicoDave]

My worst DM flub was to do a total party kill. This wasn't just any TPK but it was in a campaign that had a definite ending, and the TPK was about 5 hours of playing time from the end of the campaign! So the players played the same characters for about a year, just to have them all accidently killed just before the finale. I felt like the biggest moron!

D.

 

[Piratecat]

Then there have been times whre I've forgotten key abilities to monsters and characters. This thing has SR?! I forgot about its Trip attacks!

I do that all the time, too. I've started circling SR and DR in big red pen and labeling it "don't forget this, moron!" It's helping.

In retrospect, I regret telling my players how excited I was to be running "The Great Modron March."

 

[Pants]

I do that all the time, too. I've started circling SR and DR in big red pen and labeling it "don't forget this, moron!" It's helping.

My books would be red if I did that

 

[Kichwas]

Back around 1990 or so...

A book called Strikeforce or something like that came out for Champions and suggessted the idea of 'blue booking' to increase the presense of roleplay and subplots.

In blue booking you write it down, as if in a chat room...

I got a punch of pads and passed them out, and told everyone we would try this 'new idea'.

I was a complet disaster, nothing got done and everybody was utterly bored. People actually walked out after a while and I lost three players in one night.


Reading the section on 'blue booking' I had followed it to a tee, and simply came to the conclusion that it was the worst idea I'd ever seen in print.

It sounds good on the surface. Get your player to write out their actions to increase the drama and characterization, and allow for deeper subplots.

But people come to the table to talk and be social. They care more about having fun than writing the next best selling novel. Give them fun and excitement, and a few hours of social activity. You'll be the best GM they ever had even if nothing gets done in the game.

I do encourage journal writing, but not blue booking - keep it out of session, and make it your own. A story of the game helps, but putting the game into the story hurts.