DM horror stories (warning! rage inducing)

[Story]

@OP: My god. I've only heard one worse horror story and thats the SUE Files DM.

There was also the one that ended with the police being called.

[Stux]

And he didn't even give you a full set of custom relics? You're right he is a terrible DM.

Awesome, looking forward to this being a full on forum staple!

[Ortesk]

Awesome, looking forward to this being a full on forum staple!

I cant make references lest i be a troll :P

[Segev]

I'm actually curious why this became a "grapple your borrowed PC back to the party" thing.

Were you trying to "escape" the party, or what was going on? Why did you need to be "brought back?"

[ArqArturo]

Oh, God.

I'm... Flabergasted by the story, it's... Wow...

I'll share one as well, and, to be fair, as a DM, I found myself guilty of doing something similar, and I feed really bad for it.

It all started with the player's going up against a group of supposed bandits that had been stealing relics from local temples for some time. One of the players had a Dhampir Gunslinger, with two levels of monk with the maneuver master archetype, so she could shoot, then grab, then drink blood. Long story short, they pretty much killed everyone, to the except of a young member that arrived only to watch the Dhampir suck the blood out of his father, and escaped in horseback. They lost the chase (fortitude saves, shooting and all), and found out these guys had been not just stealing relics, but also destroying them, to 'liberate magic'.

After that, they found that the kid told the people a few towns away of what happened, and described the Dhampir as a vampire. The town refused to aid any of them, and there was pretty much the typical mob of peasants with torches and pitchforks.

The dhampir decided she was not having it, and looked on the 'leader' of the mob and decided to intimidate him. It worked, the mob dissolved and they got the town to help them, just as long as they left quickly.

Soon, word got around of the dhampir, and so the character got a price on her head. The player was fine with it, until another group of adventurers, a CoDzilla included, wiped the floor with the party, but the cleric offered mercy if the dhampir would accept a Mark of Justice to atone for her sins.

The Mark's edict was simple: For a Year and a Day, you will live under the code of the Paladin. The player, bummed and pissed off about it, began to make his character act 'erratically' because she was 'going insane' because the code was against 'everything the character stood for'. He then dropped the character and rolled for a druid.

Now, I consider that I did wrong in the sense of a) setting the word too quickly and people reacting too harshly b) setting them up against an encounter with their opposites c)I think the Mark of Justice might have been too much, too rail-roady.

However, this player always tries to bend the rules somewhat, in very little things, which he knows I suck at looking at first, and usually it's because of the times I find out, I have to audit the entire party. It's a bit frustrating, and I hate to do this, and I want to trust my players, and I want my players to have fun, and to make stories they might find interesting.

[Oko and Qailee]

I think that most (not all) of that is ok and logical. An angry mob appearing makes sense, and its not like they didn't handle it fine.

As for the "opposites fight", I think sometimes showing there are more powerful NPC's is a good thing, the only big issue is "following the paladins code for a year and a day" is really much.

[Dirtychainz]

I'm pretty new at being a DM but I've played alot of DnD and my brother was a great DM and I learned alot from him and feel like I do a decent job. Anyways i find out some friends at the time like to play and I'm trying to introduce my wife to the game so we start a game going and it becomes pretty regular. So the group is myself DMing. My wife, a friend and his wife playing. I'm big on little details. Finding your food keeping track of rations and especially gold. I want to make sure if you buy something in game you paid for it. Well the friends wife develops this character.... a "super hot elf princess who's parents are super rich and she always gets what she wants" her words. right away the discription irks me. (Her character having a charisma score of 11 yet being "super hot") but what ever. AS our session goes on this character we'll call Eleanor, truly starts to take on the role of "I get what I want" when asking to pay her bar tab. Or to cover life expenses over months she would just state "my parents pay for everything" THEN the real kicker was after every game session of getting frustrated trying to get her to play by the rules her husband would text me and give me tips on how to DM to cater to his stupid wives princess wishes. But it didn't end with her trying to just have her rich parents pay for everything. She wanted the rules to bend to her desire of "I get what I want" trying to cast spells in spots she can't see. Trying to change into bear form, change out of bear form cast bark skin, change back into a bear, and attack all in one turn.... And then get pissed at me when i tell her no. Always stating "i get what i want!" And good lord if I ever forgot her turn idhear about it from her. Then her ***** husband after the session. It's slim pickings here for players so I tolerated all this because I just wanted to play but I finally gave up and disbanded the group. I've never hated a player character so much in my life. But maybe that's just it. Maybe she played her character too well! And it's the exact kind if person I dispise. If so good for her.

[ATHATH]

I'm pretty new at being a DM but I've played alot of DnD and my brother was a great DM and I learned alot from him and feel like I do a decent job. Anyways i find out some friends at the time like to play and I'm trying to introduce my wife to the game so we start a game going and it becomes pretty regular. So the group is myself DMing. My wife, a friend and his wife playing. I'm big on little details. Finding your food keeping track of rations and especially gold. I want to make sure if you buy something in game you paid for it. Well the friends wife develops this character.... a "super hot elf princess who's parents are super rich and she always gets what she wants" her words. right away the discription irks me. (Her character having a charisma score of 11 yet being "super hot") but what ever. AS our session goes on this character we'll call Eleanor, truly starts to take on the role of "I get what I want" when asking to pay her bar tab. Or to cover life expenses over months she would just state "my parents pay for everything" THEN the real kicker was after every game session of getting frustrated trying to get her to play by the rules her husband would text me and give me tips on how to DM to cater to his stupid wives princess wishes. But it didn't end with her trying to just have her rich parents pay for everything. She wanted the rules to bend to her desire of "I get what I want" trying to cast spells in spots she can't see. Trying to change into bear form, change out of bear form cast bark skin, change back into a bear, and attack all in one turn.... And then get pissed at me when i tell her no. Always stating "i get what i want!" And good lord if I ever forgot her turn idhear about it from her. Then her ***** husband after the session. It's slim pickings here for players so I tolerated all this because I just wanted to play but I finally gave up and disbanded the group. I've never hated a player character so much in my life. But maybe that's just it. Maybe she played her character too well! And it's the exact kind if person I dispise. If so good for her.

Dirtychainz, do you know what thread necromancy is?

[Marlowe]

It's when someone wears really dated fashions? Am I right?

I bet I'm right.

[Zombulian]

I'm pretty new at being a DM but I've played alot of DnD and my brother was a great DM and I learned alot from him and feel like I do a decent job. Anyways i find out some friends at the time like to play and I'm trying to introduce my wife to the game so we start a game going and it becomes pretty regular. So the group is myself DMing. My wife, a friend and his wife playing. I'm big on little details. Finding your food keeping track of rations and especially gold. I want to make sure if you buy something in game you paid for it. Well the friends wife develops this character.... a "super hot elf princess who's parents are super rich and she always gets what she wants" her words. right away the discription irks me. (Her character having a charisma score of 11 yet being "super hot") but what ever. AS our session goes on this character we'll call Eleanor, truly starts to take on the role of "I get what I want" when asking to pay her bar tab. Or to cover life expenses over months she would just state "my parents pay for everything" THEN the real kicker was after every game session of getting frustrated trying to get her to play by the rules her husband would text me and give me tips on how to DM to cater to his stupid wives princess wishes. But it didn't end with her trying to just have her rich parents pay for everything. She wanted the rules to bend to her desire of "I get what I want" trying to cast spells in spots she can't see. Trying to change into bear form, change out of bear form cast bark skin, change back into a bear, and attack all in one turn.... And then get pissed at me when i tell her no. Always stating "i get what i want!" And good lord if I ever forgot her turn idhear about it from her. Then her ***** husband after the session. It's slim pickings here for players so I tolerated all this because I just wanted to play but I finally gave up and disbanded the group. I've never hated a player character so much in my life. But maybe that's just it. Maybe she played her character too well! And it's the exact kind if person I dispise. If so good for her.

Shoo shoo dirty necromancer, lest we end up with a graverat infestation again. Yknow what they say, if you see one... there's thousands more out of sight...

[Buufreak]

Dirtychainz, do you know what thread necromancy is?

Judging by it being his first post, I'm leaning towards they haven't even read the first line from the forum rule book.

[Calthropstu]

I have had some horrible gm stories, some of which I have shared here.

The worst was the guy who eventually ended up tackling me as I left his campaign because I refused to hand him my character sheet, but I have had plenty of other bad gms.

The very first GM I had was my younger brother. I was playing 2e with him and his friends. I loved the concept and couldn't wait to try... but when I get there within 15 minutes they've genked my first lvl wizard for no reason. I smacked my brother with my coat on my way out, they were being flat out *****.

Another guy, much more recently, ran a campaign that was flat out horrible. Nevermind the fact that there were NINE players at the table, all of the characters were pregenerated. I picked the druid because I had never played one before. Only somehow I'm a 7 year old who gets magically aged to 17 and turned into a werewolf looking creature with no spells, no animal companion, no wild empathy and pretty much **** for everything else. It was... bad. Not to mention the fact the room we were in was super cramped and if one guy had to use the restroom everyone had to get up. It was also super plot railroad bull****. Easily the worst GM I have ever experienced. Not so much because he was a jerk, but more because he was incompetent. You can still have fun with a jerk GM, but an incompetent one will always suck.

As for the first one I mentioned, his game was fun... the guy was just a collossal asshat, as were his players.

Edit: Oh damnit, another necro thread.
*Gets a scroll of undeath to death*