Red Flags for DMs?

[icefractal]

A basic thing? I often forget to concentrate before casting a spell and therefore occasionally get a fistful of AoUs to the face.

I hate this one. And way too many GMs do it - "Simon Says" style GMing, where even when there's no conceivable reason that an action makes sense to the character, and is only happening because the player misheard or forgot to say something, it happens, no takeback! And why? So they can laugh about how they "outsmarted" the players by doing a bad job at providing an interface?

If your Concentration skill is high enough to always succeed at casting defensively (which it really should be by epic level), then I recommend making a big sign that says "Always Casting Defensively" and set it on the table next to you.

Related, GMs who discourage or hinder taking 10 / taking 20.
* No, taking 10 does not take ten times as long. RTFM!
* No, being in a generally tense situation like "inside enemy territory" does not prevent taking 10, only being directly under threat or directly distracted does that.
* If you ban taking 20, but leave other rules the same, people will just roll 20+ times. How is that better?
* And no, skill checks do not auto-fail on a natural '1'. RTFM, again!

Maybe if your game requires PCs randomly screwing up on non-hard tasks, then your game is bad and you should feel bad.


Somewhat tangentially:

also, it's one thing to refluff, one to have to also adapt the game mechanics of psionics to make them mesh with whatever the setting dictates.

You're free not to like psionics, but the mechanics of (3.x) psionics match up to most fantasy source material better than pseudo-vancian magic does. Heck, the "vancian" magic used in D&D doesn't even match the way it works in Vance's stories!