What was your worst DM ever? This thread is impervious - roll to disbelieve!

[Boci]

Those situations are handled by not rolling at all. If you're rolling, there HAS to be a chance of failure or success. Otherwise, put the dice away and stop abusing them.

What is there is no chance of success or failure, but the character wouldn't know that? The GM can say "don't bother", but they can also say "go ahead. nope, nothing happens" and leave the player wondering if the task is impossible or whether they just didn't roll well/badly enough.

Following the above logic, shouldn't a DM just tell the players when they search for traps in a corridor where there are none?

[BeerMug Paladin]

I have one from very recently, my first time playing a homebrew setting.

I once gamed with a guy who would do this with individual dungeon layouts and designs. But he wouldn't steal everything. And he didn't do it all the time.

The closest I did for that is run a game where the starting scenario for the player party is the opening scene from the campaign Descent Into Darkness in the Battle For Wesnoth game. And it diverged from there pretty quickly.

[Mr Beer]

Naturally, this translated into me not being allowed to find or disarm any of the hidden secrets and traps. If I even amde the slightest hint at looking at my sourrunding, the DM switched right over to somebody else. Mentally, I allready saw us being mauled by all the mean ****e deeper in the temple. But I was "lucky", if you can call it that. It seems that one other player, the one who had argued with Big Daddy while I was gone, had played the game too (Which was the cause of their earlier argument). DM had shut him down after his first complaint and told him to "just roll with it". And that he did. And proceeded to loot every nook and cranny inside the temple, subtly point other people into the right direction to find Loot or hidden secrets, and managed to disarm almost all traps with the help of another player. You could practically hear the DM's heavy breathing on the other side of the Mic.

All in all, the session was incredibly boring and predictable, and ended with the two guys shouting at each other again. An incredible waste of a saturday evening.

Why didn't the DM just switch around some of the items on the fly? So treasure becomes trap, trap becomes treasure? I mean not copying a video game in its entirety and then getting pissed that other people have also played that game would be a better move, but it's not like it has to be a game-ending problem.

[Honest Tiefling]

This is from a game DMed by a guy who is normally a stand up dude, but seems to be a bad DM. Neither story is probably as bad as some.

Spoiler: The Adventure of Escorting the Great Priestess!

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First, we had a large party of 7 people. This isn't a problem in of itself, but it didn't help some flaws in his DMing style. The first problem occurred when some characters were told they came up to the walls, and got a brief description of the queen and the city itself, which was interesting. I forget how, but he turned his attention to others already in the city, who were in a bar. That wasn't the problem, but I zone out at this point and start doodling my character as I am not present and I cannot metagame what I do not know. Perhaps this was a mistake on my point, but I figure that he was getting the four people in the inn to a point where the three outside could walk in on them.

This apparently was NOT the plan, as the four inside were then given a quest which I barely overheard and were leaving to go meet with someone. I start getting concerned, as I have no idea who this person is. I get the idea that we'll meet in this lady's employ, and ask the DM about yanno, getting us into the city. The DM just offhandedly says we were in the bar the entire time. Nevermind that nothing got us from the walls to the bar, and the DM never caught the fact that were were not responding at all to anything happening. Okay, large group, I can forgive this. I have no idea what is going on, but my character can adapt, we're golden.

We get some interaction with an NPC I think was evil (Everyone else was afraid of him, he wore a black hooded cloak, spoke in a deep voice, etc.) but since he repaired my set of drums, I decided that my character didn't really care. Perhaps that was a bit trolly, but I wasn't sure if expecting that character to be evil was the worse gaming sin, honestly. Oh, and I broke my ONLY instrument with a roll of 1...Which is why I am not fond of critical failures on certain skill rolls. At the time, I figured it was just adding to a silly tone as it got repaired quickly. To this day, I am not actually sure what sort of tone this NPC was supposed to be enforcing, honestly.

We get hired to escort this person that the others met (in an already large game, mind you) to deal with some bandits. Did I mention this character was a cleric 10 levels above us? She was. We have 1 encounter where only 2 people got to go before she killed everything. That's...Weird, but maybe she'll die or turn on us. Or something. Or we get some sweet loot for helping her. I can tolerate this for a few sessions after all, maybe we can get some roleplay in. So far, all I have done is break my own drums, but we're just getting started!

We start to explore the watch tower that encounter apparently cleared out. This part as I remember was fun, and a high strength character got to break things as we make sure no nasty surprises were here. I was excited, as our merry band could fortify this place and we could have a neato base! But...No. In the morning we wake up to her already having moved her things in and taking it over. I admit, I was...Feeling kinda useless here, and I think another player was upset we couldn't fix up the place for ourselves and patrol the road. But never mind, we keep going to encounter the bandit camp, maybe that wasn't the DM's intention.

We get another combat there with rather predictable results. Another player playing a Warden or a Fighter (4th edition DnD if anyone cares) had less to do. Then we speak with the bandits, who are upset about a famine. Okay, we promise to help with this and start making plans on getting them settled and able to feed themselves before dealing with the famine. Not combat heavy, but that's fine by me! I figure that myself and a few other high charisma characters can speak with them to work out a deal. I thought this was an interesting idea, and was thinking of ways for all of us to work this angle at once. I was again, excited.

NOPE! Guess who does! That's right, the cleric. Who, by the way, is using this new workforce to aid her position in the clergy and the town by getting them to work cheap. Her, not our, standing. We're just her hirelings. I don't even get to roll my diplomacy and neither do any of the other characters. I could have forgiven it if some other player had. But no. I think we were even expected to simply leave the bandits/refugees in her care, without further interaction with them.

At this point, I probably become the worst player and say that either this DMPC dies, or I leave. This wasn't mature, but after two sessions of no loot, no combat no...Nothing, I lost it, I admit. The DM decided to end the game at that point. I am sorry that my outburst ended it for the others for what it is worth.

This guy was a creep, but myself and my best friend didn't know it at the time. Its been a while, but I remember some points.

Spoiler: The Adventure of I sucked at Roleplaying at First

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I was pretty new to 3.5 DnD, and I loved the look of the Dragon Disciple. So I decided on a sorcerer to enter into the prestige class. The DM house ruled that I could continue spell casting progression as well. I was excited! Of course I only took fire based spells to go with the theme. And I got Improved Familiar, so I got myself a nice little Fire Elemental to go with my theme as the DM said I could not have a dragon.

The first thing that happens? An army of elves has appeared and is readying to kill my character. Why? Because I have set the forest on fire with my elemental. Apparently, my character did not know this might happen and could not have prevented it in the slightest. My character was not descended from the brightest gold dragon! This being my second game, I panic.

DM graciously allows me to select an earth elemental to avoid death by elven army. The earth elemental proceeds to whine about how it was not my first choice, despite that never happening and being retconned. I proceed to threaten to beat it with itself because I am pissed at the DM. I know, I know, I shouldn't have, but this was annoying. I got absolutely no warning and the first thing described to me in the game is how the forest is on fire.

Moving on, we meet the rest of the party and go to defeat a monster terrorizing the city, I think. I cannot remember it, but I believe it was fairly rushed. There was a combat in which I could have effectively use the familiar at least. Yay! Sadly, we got joined by a DMPC who was a dragon. This dragon expected me to worship it and I think tried to get my money by exclaiming that since I respected dragons, I should be glad to give it money after having to dodge pies thrown by it. I believe I threatened to beat it too once I had enough of hiiiiiiilarious comments about how awesome it was and how I should obey it. I think I threatened it with my familiar? Oh, and it threw pies in combat, and was surprisingly effective with this.

The monster, by the way, is a Red Dragon. As in, something immune to every single one of my spells. Of a character the DM helped me build. Oh, and I believe it was an adult or older, given how big it was. I didn't take a single non-fire based spell because I didn't want to ruin my theme of gold dragon blood, and it killed my familiar with one blow (good riddance). The Red Dragon for some reason, decided to give my character a chance to join him if I killed an NPC that was tied up. So I tried to bluff the Red Dragon as I was out of options. I remember failing, but the other party members dispatched it. At least the session ended on a good note as we got access to hot springs?

Later I learned that the dragon became a demigod of pies and trickery in the DM's campaign setting. I still want to beat that dragon with whiny timeline-distorting earth elementals.

[Dimers]

The DM decided to end the game at that point. I am sorry that my outburst ended it for the others for what it is worth.

You did nothing to be sorry for. If you were in a party with a level-plus-10 DMPC preventing all player agency, I imagine you actually earned some thanks for saying what had to be other some fellow players' minds.

[Milodiah]

Because I have set the forest on fire with my elemental. Apparently, my character did not know this might happen and could not have prevented it in the slightest.

How exactly did it happen, out of curiosity? Did you employ it aggressively in a forest, or did it just "happen" as soon as you selected it because the DM was a turd? The first one I have done to my players, because forest fires are a thing that happens (didn't include the "army of pissed-off elves" part, which was still a rude move I'd say). But if it was the second one, that's literally just the DM building an express line from Character-Build City straight to Fiatvania, stopping only to change cars at Retconville.

[Honest Tiefling]

The second. As in, the first in-character description I get of the world is that of a raging inferno. I didn't even get a chance to talk to the fire elemental, (Or fireproof it to avoid this) nor was I intending to attack anyone as my PC was either LG or NG (Moving to Lawful Pissy). Just BAM, forest fire and angry elves. I didn't even know where the village where everyone else was yet.

Hopefully that clears up why I threatened to beat the Earth Elemental so often. Admittedly, I was much younger.

[Milodiah]

...did you ever encounter another fire elemental in-game? Because I'd rather like to know if the DM was at least consistent with his absurdity, or if it was just an improbably rude way of saying "no you can't have that".

[Honest Tiefling]

No, but I have no idea why an earth elemental was fine, but a fire elemental basically caused fires the instant my PC started play. I guess I should have been glad that the earth elemental did not cause earthquakes and an army of angry dwarves. I hope people understand why I got pretty annoyed with the second story.

[Dycize]

Oh I know the feel on the "game where nothing happens". And you had the unluck of not knowing what to expect so you stuck with it.
I had a similar situation with my old DM... Who was both my best and worst DM. Sometimes he just dropped the ball and let some really unsavory sides of himself get the best of his brain.

Spoiler: Of horny teens and D&D

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As you might guess from this box-name, mature content got involved.

It was a small party on a large scope game, DM had made a big map with lots of land, players of various groups did stuff in various places with the overall goal of adventures and conquests! Since it was instant messaging and everyone in their late teens, all the free time made this work actually pretty well!
The party was me, playing a female human wilder, adopted daughter of an elf lord (another player's character) and a hired female elf rogue. You might have noticed that both characters are female. For the most part, this actually did not affect anything, until the DM's hormones kicked in when our party arrived in a city. The city had a bit of a werewolf problem (and the local queen was one so matters were kinda complicated). My friend's rogue actually ended up suffering from lycanthropy, which was fine. I don't remember how everything happened, but essentially, we solved the problem and got invited to stay over at the queen's castle.
And that's where things got weird.
We basically got visited by a naked servant. Our 1st reaction was to laugh and send him away. Then he came back and the DM started talking about giving XP rewards. We still drove him out and locked the door. Then he climbed up the windows and my character may have pushed him over and he may have ended up a bloody mess on the ground (did I mention this was fairly early in my D&D life? I didn't know how to react to this).
Then our characters went to sleep and uh...
Next scene, our characters woke up, the castle was in ruins and we meet a demon who clearly had a thing or two in common with our problem. This the part where we also learned our characters also received a demonic night time visit. Let's just say that me and my friend were pretty close to leaving that game forever when we learned our characters actually became pregnant. Strangely enough, because we read stuff in the BoEF (which was mostly for the laughs) I actually pointed out to the DM that the book mentionned how our characters were gonna die in child-birth.
And that's the part where the game became good again, somehow, as our characters were now rushing to find mundane/magic/divine help with the situation (which was entirely unplanned, the DM wasn't aware that this would kill our characters). And find a solution we did! In fact, I even got to solution the rogue's werewolf issues (our characters had become pretty close, and the alignment shift was becoming really noticeable) along with it. So yay for running with it and turning it around! After that, the game went on and our characters had cool adventures.
...Until his urges came back about 3 adventures later. This time, he was pretty much going all out with trying to have our characters earn bonus XP. My friend ended up caving in but I adamantly refused and left the game. The DM reinvited me multiple times until I made -him- cave in and allow my character to have a normal night's rest. His attempts to make me cave in even included... Giving me "control" of a level 20 DMPC who's name was my username at the time. Yeah that one was just weird. Still, it allowed me to actually get out of this situation unharmed...
And after that night, the game went back on normal tracks. It's just weird how he got like that sometimes... At least me and my friend, for a while, joked about how our psychic-half-demon and half-elf-half-demon-natural-werewolf kids would have been OP.

The next story happened many years later, with the same DM and vastly different circumstances. I may have been a worst player that day... I still think I was mostly in the right (I could have been more subtle). But here it is.

Spoiler: Of Dungeons & Depression

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Years later, my DM, my old rogue friend and 2 other D&D friends that were made in-between and were regulars in most of our other games. We were playing in a long running planescape (Sigil based) game. It was mostly RP hijinks with the D&D 3.5 ruleset, but sometimes we also achieved stuff. The game had been weakening a bit over the last weeks and our DM was having some personal issues and an overall lack of inspiration, so we decided to call the game off until he could get back his game, we were more or less switching around with DMing anyway so it was okay if he took a break.
Days were going normally until not too long later, he got us together and we were going to continue the game and he looked like he was doing pretty fine! As it turned out that session though... He wasn't. I don't remember much from that game now, and even less of what happened during that session... But I do remember how we were mostly struggling along that session and no one was really having a lot of fun and then... Our characters' little struggle adventure ended with absolutely nothing getting done. Heck, I think we actually made negative progress there. But here it was, "complete". We had more or less solved the thing we were supposed to do, except with no reward, no plot hook and no fun. I got pretty angry at the DM and asked him what he was thinking, and he told me he thought that if he gave it a spin maybe it would get better... My reaction was not pretty but basically I told him that if he still wasn't feeling well he should have just waited instead of giving us a bland, lame and boring session. One of the other players got angry at me for being so harsh and the session ended there...
For a while, we did not play D&D a lot following this incident. Stuff eventually turned around, but it remains a sour memory all around.

Yeah, I wasn't very nice in that last one... But we had played D&D for so much time together and it was always great fun, even in our more short-lived campaigns. That session really hit a nerve that day...

And there is another story, which I told somewhere else... The PvP thread I think.
Long story short, it was a game my old DM found, with 2 people we didn't know, one of which was the DM. At some point, the party's ninja just switched from neutral good to whatever evil, killed the druid's animal companion and disappeared from the game because "there was no leader in the party". The fact that it all seemed natural to the DM and the player rubbed me the wrong way, but hey, at least he was gone... Then the DM tried railroading us to prison with infinite spawning town guards. I'm not kidding. My character quickly racked up a massive bodycount due to being a psion with a line power and the guards just coming at us through a corridor to get mindlessly slaughtered (until my power points ran out, more precisely). While we were investigating a crypt of some sort. And the guards never gave us any reason before resorting themselves to lethal force (that was before we started frying them, btw). Soon after that the session ended and I didn't come to the next one, my old DM still went, then later told me I missed nothing and he also left.

There was also that one time my old DM tried his hand at doing something grim, gritty and dark, which ended up with some sort of omniscient police state (still in D&D) and our characters getting tortured in prison (this one turned out hilariously due to me abusing autohypnosis to not let out a single word. then they realised my character couldn't talk/write/communicate properly anymore due to the stuff he went through). We all decided "yeah no, never again" and left it at that.

Ah, my old DM... Such a wide range of quality. Most sessions were so good... And then sometimes he slipped up, fell off a cliff, started spinning, dug into the ground and reached ever lower.

[(Un)Inspired]

My worst DM is actually an incredibly nice guy who is enormously fun to have as a player at a table dispute the fact that his problem solving skills can occasionally be lacking.

His trouble as a DM is that his story's are tremendously meandering and any time he reads about something cool he he will try to immediately fit it into the campaign regardless of it atmospheric appropriateness.

In one game he ran our party had to get to the top of a wizards tower to get some maguffin at the top of a near by town. At the base of the tower was a door that was locket by magic and the only way to open it was by presenting a rose that only grew on the plane of shadow. Then we had to find a ritual that would take us to the plane of shadow. Then we wandered blindly in the plane of shadow till we got to an abondoned shadow fort where we learned that one of the characters had backstory npcs that had worked at the fort years earlier. At this point it's been 6 months in real time since we were asked to climb the wizards tower and what little interest I had in fulfilling this fetch quest had completely dried up. A few weeks after we got to the fort everyone lost interest and the game died.

The next campaign he wanted to run was after he got all hopped up reading about the Al Qadeem dnd setting. He told us to prepare for a 1001 Arabian nights style adventure and everybody made rad desert dwellers while I made a T E Lawrence character to explore some fish out of water fun. We'll like 4 session into the campaign we got sent through a portal to Sigil and there we stayed for about 4 months of real time until everyone's interest petered out and the campaign broke up. It was a very abrupt thematic shift from Arabian desert bandit fights to fetch quests to curry favor with different planar faction that it felt like he had just flat out switched campaign notes with a different DM.

It was only after few years that I pressed him about it and it turns out that he had just read a book set in Sigil and was really excited to have some adventures there. It was like our campaign was a road trip from California to New York and on the second day of driving, without telling anyone, he took a surprise turn south cause he realized he really wanted to see Texas. Maybe Sigil/ Texas is cool but it's a bit jarring if it happens without warning. Especially if the DM doesn't actually have an important overall plan for incorporating the trip into the narrative.

[Inevitability]

I don't think I've ever seen someone compare sigil to texas.

[Raphite1]

A warning about this story: The GM was pretty terrible, but we were kind of jerks in reaction to it. Blame gets spread around evenly in this story, we were all monsters. But some of us were more entertaining monsters, so those will be presented as the heroes.

Spoiler

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My brother and I had taken turns for years being GM for our circle of friends, and we were looking to actually be players in the same game for once. So we signed up for some D&D at the FLGS.

Turns out, the GM was quite a bit younger than us, and pretty inexperienced. But his campaign sounded interesting, so we went in expecting things to be kind of sloppy, no problem. We're Story-oriented more than System-oriented players, so if his grasp of the rules sucked, we were prepared to just roll with it.

Party consisted of:
- Klart the Kobold Sorcerer, fast-talking acolyte of the Secret Apocryphal Dragon God who didn't actually exist, whose Cult he was trying to establish purely for financial gain, played by me.
- Halfling Paladin, who was in love with a human noblewoman and took his paladin oaths to prove to her that he was a worthy suitor, played by my brother.
- Goblin thief/demolitions guy, whose player vanished after that session and we never saw again, which was a shame, because he was hilarious. We still lament the loss of Goblin Guy years later.
- Generic Dwarf Fighter A, played by a guy whose only trait I can recall is an odor that was oppressive even by comic shop standards.
- Generic Dwarf Fighter B, played by the guy who insisted he had sold his homebrew Star Trek RPG to Paramount and was just waiting for his lawyers to finish some things before the check came in and he could stop living in his van (he'll get his own awful DM story later).
- Mysterious cloaked stranger with butterfly wings and Charisma 24, played by the GM's girlfriend.

So we start out in a bar, which we are told is also the major hub for the local Adventurer's Guild. We are given no other information about the city. When we ask, we're told "you know, city... buildings... people in the buildings... magic weapon shop. City." But it's cool, we don't want to be jerks, he's a brand new GM. We figure we can help draw details out of him later without being aggressive about it. He's not forthcoming with any other details though, so we just start brainstorming among ourselves why we're here and what we might get up to.

My brother and I, and Goblin Guy, decide that we already know each other from the "Size Category: Small" luncheon at the Adventurer's Guild. Generic Dwarf B gets mad because we've crafted our extremely silly backstory without including him. I suggest that maybe his Dwarf was our first client, as a registered group of Small Adventurers? Or perhaps we did a job where Team Small Humanoids was matched by the guild with Team Identical Dwarves? He's upset now that I suggested that Dwarf B and Dwarf A are the same, until Goblin Guy points out that they actually appear to have literally identical stats listed on their sheets. But Dwarf A uses a Battle Axe and Shield, while Dwarf B uses a Battle Axe and Mace. Generic Dwarf B is now visibly angry, getting red in the face, but Generic Dwarf A is oblivious to it, and suggests that maybe they're actually twins?

The GM decides it's time to intervene. "You all take 4 points of damage."

What? From what source? Are we under attack? Is it magic?

"No, it's just 'wasting time' damage. Better start doing something quick, if you don't want more."

Obviously, I don't want more, because Klart the Kobold is now at 1 HP. So I declare helpfully that Klart is looking around to see if there are any obvious-looking sources of quests. Shady guys drinking alone, watching us thoughtfully. Bulletin boards with general "PLEASE KILL THESE RATS IN MY BASEMENT" requests. Whatever. He tells me that, no, we are the only ones inside the bar. I say that I'd like to go outside of the bar then, and Goblin Guy says he follows me. Generic Dwarf A interprets this to mean that there's no bartender, so he stays at the bar and starts trying to drink everything, which is a wholly appropriate plan of action for a Generic Dwarf. The GM gets a pained look on his face, and starts flashing sign language at his girlfriend (who has said nothing so far). Neither of them are hearing impaired, they just learned ASL so they could talk behind teacher's backs in school. Then he says "No, you can't leave. Please, don't split up the party. Just... just don't."

My brother and I look at each other and shrug. I declare that Klart is suddenly very interested in these human beverages as well, and he is joining Generic Dwarf A to drink. My brother's halfling attempts to rally everyone to go outside and see if there's anything to do... outside, but rolls poorly on his motivating speech. Dwarf B is still seething, but hasn't said anything since receiving his 4 points of Mercurial Fiat damage. But he pipes up now to stonewall the Halfling's attempt to get the party moving as a unit, declares that he's not going anywhere, and starts rambling about his deep backstory that makes him totally unlike any other dwarf. But it's apparent that he either doesn't remember it correctly, or hes making it all up on the spot, because it's complete nonsense, and he keeps having to backtrack to revise it.

Through all of this, GM and GM's girlfriend have been signing at each other and ignoring us. We are extremely limited in our ability to make things happen ourselves, but he's not providing any action at all either. His worldbuilding so far has been limited to:
- You are all in a bar.
- That bar is in a city.
- There is apparently a Magic Weapons Shop somewhere.
- You take 4 damage.
- No one else is in the bar.

But if another similarly-sized burst of Angry GM Damage flashes through the bar, Goblin Guy and I are dead, which is unforgivable, because our characters are clearly amazing (to us at least), and deserve to shine.

So Goblin Guy looks at the options, and decides to pick Mysterious Butterfly-Winged Stranger's pockets. Might as well go out with style. GM's girlfriend is now frantically signing at the GM. But, again, hasn't said one word since we sat down at the table, while she was quite the chatterbox before. Goblin Guy's pickpocket bonus is insane, and he rolls well on top of it, but the GM tells him that the mysterious stranger has nothing in her pockets.

"But she does, in fact, have pockets?" says Goblin Guy.

"Yes!" says GM's girlfriend emphatically, breaking her vow of silence at last.

"Good. I plant an Alchemist's Flask with a lit fuse." says Goblin Guy, who deserves to have statues built of him.

The DM stares at him blankly. My brother suggests that maybe Butterfly Winged Girl should roll Spot vs. Goblin Guy's Sleight of Hand? In fact, maybe everyone should roll spot, because... well... all apologies to Goblin Guy, but Halfling Paladin would probably object to that sort of thing, if he saw it. GM shrugs and goes "whatever", and we all roll Spot checks.

Only Klart succeeds, and responds by kicking over a table and ducking behind it.

The flask bursts, Butterfly Winged Girl's cloak is blasted off, and she describes in excruciating detail that she's dressed with the extravagance of royal wealth below. And she's immune to fire, the GM angrily declares.

Generic Dwarf A tentatively asks "Are you some kind of queen?"

"YES!" declares butterfly wing girl. "I AM THE QUEEN OF THIS CITY, AND YOU WILL ALL BE EXECUTED AS ASSASSINS! GUARDS!!"

The bewildered GM looks as blindsided by this as the rest of us, but declares that guards start pouring into the bar and arrest us all, and throw us all in jail. No rolls needed.

At this point, I should specify, about an hour and a half has gone by. My brother and I have texted each other indicating that 1.) we aren't trying to be helpful pals to the new GM any more, and 2.) we haven't got anything better to do, so why not be as obnoxious as possible until it kills us. Goblin Guy has shown us the way.

So Halfling Paladin and Generic Dwarf A are in one jail cell, Klart the Kobold and Generic Dwarf B are in another cell, and Goblin Guy is chained up, hanging upside down from the roof in the middle of the room. We're pretty excited, because this is the most detail the GM has offered up to this point. Generic Dwarf B has wandered off at this point to play Hero Clix on the other side of the comic shop, and he's ignoring us when we shout that it's his turn, so I commandeer his character, have him strip naked, and all of his equipment belongs to Klart now. Generic Dwarf B spends the rest of the adventure shivering in the jail cell.

"I... should have said the guards took all your weapons..." the GM shakily begins.

"NOPE TOO LATE NO TAKE BACKS", I shout, scribbling down the stats for Klart's new Battle Axe, Mace and Chain Shirt. The DM does not contest this. Goblin Guy gives me a high five, but then immediately goes back to pretending his arms are chained to his side and he's upside down.

Generic Dwarf A says that if he has his Axe still, he starts hacking at the cell door. He just starts rolling and declaring damage, while the GM stares blankly at him. Hobbit Paladin declares that, since these jail cells are emblems of an oppressive totalitarian regime, he can obviously Smite Evil at them, and he rolls as well. Just as they tell the GM that they've done enough damage to force the door open, the GM declares that a bunch of guards have come down, to escort us to the Queen, who will give us an opportunity to be forgiven if we provide her our services as adventurers. Too bad his attempt to provide a Plot hadn't actually taken place two hours earlier.

So Goblin Guy declares, suspended from the roof, that he is pickpocketing the Guard Captain. Before the GM can say anything, such as "You fail because your arms are chained to your sides", Goblin Guy has rolled. And he has rolled a Natural 20. Every terrible D&D player in the universe knows, 5% of the times that you roll, a Genie will erupt from your d20 and make your dreams come true. There's no denying the power of the Natural 20. None. No logic can thwart it.

So Goblin Guy now has the keys to the jail in his teeth. He swings around a bit and throws them to Klart, who lets himself out and casts Expeditious Retreat, then dashes like crazy past the guards and up the stairs. Sorry, rest of the team, but Klart's highest priority is shooting Queen Girlfriend in the face with Melf's Acid Arrow.

It turns out, they understand, and wish me Godspeed. Halfling Paladin and Generic Dwarf A crash out of their cell and engage the 30+ guards, while Goblin Guy thrashes around trying to bite people from above, and shake himself enough that his remaining explosives will fall out of his pockets onto someone. To the GM's credit, he treats the Guards as though they actually have combat stats this time, and the two with actual mobility manage a fairly credible defense from the door to their cell. Eventually though, they are overwhelmed, and die.

Meanwhile, Klart races through the castle towards the throne room. That's my only description of his direction - "Towards the throne room". The GM doesn't think to question how my Kobold knows the layout of the castle.

There, I find the Queen on her throne, surrounded by more guards. So Klart scream "HEATHENS AND UNBELIEVERS, COWER BEFORE THE MAJESTY OF THE SECRET APOCRYPHAL DRAGON GOD!" I cast my Acid Arrow, and make my Ranged Touch Attack.

Sometimes a Genie pops out of the dice and makes your dreams come true. And sometimes the Genie kicks you in the teeth. Exactly 5% of the time for each.

I declared that Klart's natural 1 meant he had misfired his Acid Arrow into his own mouth somehow, and that he exploded, showering the throne room in far more gore than should be able to fit inside of one Kobold.

Goblin Guy, as the last surviving party member (not counting Generic Dwarf B) declared that he bit down on the cyanide capsule that all Goblin Agents keep in a false tooth, and tore up his character sheet.

And then, we went down the street for late-night tacos, and made plans for a much better D&D game that sadly never came to pass.

That was incredibly entertaining to read, hahaha. I am genuinely curious about what the DM and his GF intended to have happen in that game, and how they expected the players to get there.

[comicshorse]

I don't think I've ever seen someone compare sigil to texas.

" If I owned Sigil and Texas I'd rent Texas and live in Sigil "

[Marlowe]

"I don't even know what street Texas is on".

[(Un)Inspired]

Texas and Sigil have many similarities. For instance they're both...

They both have...

They're both kinda like...

Hmmmmm

[Sith_Happens]

Why didn't the DM just switch around some of the items on the fly? So treasure becomes trap, trap becomes treasure? I mean not copying a video game in its entirety and then getting pissed that other people have also played that game would be a better move, but it's not like it has to be a game-ending problem.

Because then he wouldn't have earned his place in the thread (okay, maybe he still would have).

Texas and Sigil have many similarities. For instance they're both...

They both have...

They're both kinda like...

Hmmmmm

Anything and everything, if you know where to look. I think Texas is a bit bigger though.

[Madfellow]

That was incredibly entertaining to read, hahaha. I am genuinely curious about what the DM and his GF intended to have happen in that game, and how they expected the players to get there.

Clearly the railroad tracks were pointed directly toward Mary Sue-topia and Imightgetlaidtonightland.

[Sudokori]

Not really a bad dm, just he had no sense of balance when handing out magic items after a tough boss battle. We had to make sure we didn't break the system because we all knew what was too much and only used them sparringly. One time the Ranger got a +something bow that shot 1d4 arrows every shot, and if you rolled a 3 or 4 you rolled another d4 for how many arrows each of the first tier arrows split into. Adding in that the ranger took ranks in rouge and had 3d6 sneak attack damage it was really a one shot kill anything weapon for the first opponent. Then the +3 holy smite vorpal sword with pocket dimension storing for the fighter and the staff of wand power that can be used to activate up to 10 wands at the same time for the wizard. And then there was that magical steampunk electric crossbow that could enlarge on command and be used to shoot the gnome barbarian (cursed but still had the stats of a human barbarian) at enemies at Long range for a minor electric damage on the gnome.

Honestly we kept quiet until he tried to hand the party wizard a deck of many, many things (he found a deck of many things online that had a d10,000 results). So we reasoned with him a bit and we de-magicked our characters, not to the point of ruin, but til we were having a challenge taking on CR 1-3 levels above us. We had **** loads of fun along the way. Don't let that fact miss your read through of this.

[Solaris]

I've been the DM for pretty much every game I've been in since the turn of the century. For the last fourteen years, I have had three people DM for me, and only one in the last ten years. I can count the number of games I've been a player in with one hand. I'm not talking campaigns - sessions.

The one DM I've had in this decade, when I made the mistake of thinking I could actually enjoy a game as a player for once, had the audacity to insult and mock both me and my character. He was mocking me for being utterly ineffective due to bad dice rolls (an easy half were natural 1s, and I'm not exaggerating in the slightest)... despite the fact that the dice rolls I screwed the pooch on only resulted in my character taking falling damage for dropping 10 feet.
To add insult to injury, he uses a critical fumble rule. Each time it's come up, I've had to argue that skill checks don't have critical success or failure, generally by threatening to abuse my ranks in Diplomacy and critical successes with eligible princesses/queens, simply to avoid something like a broken leg or snapped lockpicks.

Didn't stop my third-level character from pretty much singlehandedly killing a mob of two dozen bandits through judicious use of fire in a wooden structure to prevent said bandits from attacking any of the other characters, and more fire to keep said bandits trapped inside. Only about a half-dozen actually made it out the windows alive.

But I was an ineffective buffoon. Somehow.

The next session was him and a new player, a friend of his, spending four hours RPing drunken debauchery with a group of dwarves while the rest of us had gone to the inn and tried to, y'know, move on to the point where we could actually do something. Nope. That was completely out of the question - we had to run through this nonsensical non-contribution, wasting everyone's time with the sort of thing that's much more fun in real life (unless you're a teetotaler, like myself). When we finally came to the point where the plot was moving forwards, I made the mistake of attempting to contribute by asking a pertinent question, and was smacked down by both DM and player because apparently there's no way my character would know what was going on right in front of him.

Did I mention that all of this was in my house, eating my food, using my miniatures and my dungeon terrain? Apparently, I'm supposed to just suck that kind of thing up and enjoy my fiancee's friends mocking me to my face while under my roof and enjoying my hospitality.
Yeah. That flew like a stone duck.

In other news, I'm looking for a new D&D group and my fiancee's not talking to me. Remember, kids, only bad people violate the Geek Social Law!

[UristMcRandom]

My first game was... interesting to say the least, and short. Our Sorcerer/Assassin searches a door for traps, and the entire party is asked to roll a Spot check. Apparently none of us rolled high enough to even see the DM, because we never saw him on that thread again.

He did turn up in another game I played as a player, posted a couple times and then vanished. Fortunately, this was before anything serious happened.

[Inevitability]

My first game was... interesting to say the least, and short. Our Sorcerer/Assassin searches a door for traps, and the entire party is asked to roll a Spot check. Apparently none of us rolled high enough to even see the DM, because we never saw him on that thread again.

He did turn up in another game I played as a player, posted a couple times and then vanished. Fortunately, this was before anything serious happened.

Sounds like the second post made in this thread.
The circle has been completed. Good, good. *evillaugh*

[The Hanged Man]

That was incredibly entertaining to read, hahaha. I am genuinely curious about what the DM and his GF intended to have happen in that game, and how they expected the players to get there.

I actually have an update! Although it's kind of sad.

Spoiler

Show

I was talking to my brother on Christmas, and brought this story up, reminiscing about the good ol' days of ruining PUGs at the local comic shop. He revealed to me that he gamed with that DM and his girlfriend a second time shortly after the saga of Goblin Guy, while I was out of town. He didn't tell me about it until asked, because it wasn't any better, and he didn't feel like having me berate him for giving them the second chance to fail.

Apparently, their secret plan was this: the girlfriend was the GM. But she had set up this elaborate misdirection, because she was afraid that a bunch of wizened old grognards wouldn't accept a female dungeon master. Also, the two of them were actually really terrible at sign language, so they left us floundering in the least-defined-ever campaign setting because they were struggling to communicate with each other at all. By the time she'd relay the answer to him for one of our questions, we'd moved on to three more questions. But they couldn't just tell us that was what they were doing, because then we'd know she was really the GM, and presumably crucify her on the front lawn for witchcraft.

My brother asked them why they didn't just text to each other, or pass written notes. They said that would be "too suspicious." Also, the setting details that had sounded interesting enough on the sign-up sheet to draw us in in the first place? Copied directly from the back cover of a 2nd Edition adventure module they'd bought for a dollar from the bargain bin, but never actually taken the time to read.

Seriously though, I have no doubt that being the girl in the game store can be pretty harrowing, among even the most welcoming and conscientious groups. So I feel bad about going "Grand Theft Auto freeplay" all over their game. On the other hand, my brother confirmed that the second game, where she tried DMing directly, was even worse.

That comic shop hosted a couple really skilled DMs who were legendary for their ability to improvise without a lot of campaign planning. Indeed, my brother is one of them, and when they opened up to him that having him sign up for their table kind of intimidated them, that's what convinced him to give them another shot. If this were a greek play, this would be the point where the masked chorus comes on stage and starts wailing about HUBRIS.

The problem with heavy improvisation is that when it's done very skillfully, it looks easy. That can convince newcomers to the hobby that freestyling it is the best way. Queen Girlfriend apparently thought that she had the Right Stuff. Sadly, she didn't even have the Wrong Stuff. She had No Stuff At All.

When she started to immediately fumble against the limits of her own wit and imagination, instead of calling for a recess to get her game together, she lashed out at the players. It was the inn scenario all over again - only the most bare-bones details about the starting environment, no details about any people, places or objects that could be interacted with, but petulant demands that the players "do SOMETHING", followed by flat denials when they tried to do something that wasn't the correct "SOMETHING" she was apparently imagining. And more Mercurial Fiat damage when this all failed to produce results.

Eventually, the players decided that, since they were trapped in this featureless limbo, they should duel each other to the death. My brother's new Half-Elf Sorcerer squared off against Generic Dwarf C, played by the former Generic Dwarf A. The other two players were the weird guy who lived on a couch in the basement of the comic shop after his wife kicked him out for being a jobless bum who spent all her paychecks on Warhammer stuff (see the Worst Players thread), and the former Decoy DM, boyfriend of the DM Behind the Curtain. It's a testament to how much things had deteriorated that Decoy DM was a willing participant in this battle royale. Although he did win, because they were all level 1, he was a cleric, and no one else had any healing.

[Milodiah]

...that sounds like something two drunk people would try!

"Hey man, I, like, don't think people will buy a, like, chick DM."

"...yuh?"

"So, why don't you pretend to, like, be the DM, but I tell you what to do with elab-eluber...complex sign language, and I pretend to be a player."

"...that's so stupid it might just work!"



Also, it's astounding to me that she'd rather obtain the reputation of being the weirdest, crappiest back-seat DM in town rather than face the possibility that one or two of her players might be a bit sexist...I mean, really. Who's going to flip the table because the DM is female? I'd be much more prone to flip the table after I find out about this Rube Goldberg setup built atop a vague accusation of me being sexist.

[AmewTheFox]

That's the first time I've ever heard of a puppet GM.

Also, while I have the floor, I want to say something about the OP.

Just use your abilities to break out.

I would have said, in that situation, "I literally have been doing that.", as that's my interpretation of those actions.

[Honest Tiefling]

And one story I forgot that was simple. I made a character for a game, and ran it by the DM. Essentially, she had enough social skills to intimidate decently, a whole lot of gun skills, and not much going on in the brains department other then how to hunt down and kill her enemies. She was very focused on killing monsters and justice, so my thinking was that she was very unlikely to injure other player characters because they weren't monsters and were also hunting down monsters. There was IIRC, no other combat focused character was in the party, so my thinking is that in her vendetta against monsters she'd protect some useful people by shooting things so she could shoot even more monsters in the future.

I don't know if this is a typical White Wolf thing, but the ST insisted on granting us experience points based on what we had learned. I was not aware of this rule when I made her, so her intelligence was...Bad. So of course, she never learned anything and I think I got a grand total of 1 EXP for several sessions while others were sometimes getting 2-3. I know the system isn't made for everyone to be equal, but I sure wish I had known that.

[Arbane]

I don't know if this is a typical White Wolf thing, but the ST insisted on granting us experience points based on what we had learned. I was not aware of this rule when I made her, so her intelligence was...Bad. So of course, she never learned anything and I think I got a grand total of 1 EXP for several sessions while others were sometimes getting 2-3. I know the system isn't made for everyone to be equal, but I sure wish I had known that.

Your int score shouldn't feature into that. Heck, come up with things like "I learned that pencils count as 'wooden stakes'" or "I learned to pull the fire alarm and run when threatened in a public building."

If the GM still stiffed you on XP, then they are bad and should feel bad.

[Milodiah]

And one story I forgot that was simple. I made a character for a game, and ran it by the DM. Essentially, she had enough social skills to intimidate decently, a whole lot of gun skills, and not much going on in the brains department other then how to hunt down and kill her enemies. She was very focused on killing monsters and justice, so my thinking was that she was very unlikely to injure other player characters because they weren't monsters and were also hunting down monsters. There was IIRC, no other combat focused character was in the party, so my thinking is that in her vendetta against monsters she'd protect some useful people by shooting things so she could shoot even more monsters in the future.

I don't know if this is a typical White Wolf thing, but the ST insisted on granting us experience points based on what we had learned. I was not aware of this rule when I made her, so her intelligence was...Bad. So of course, she never learned anything and I think I got a grand total of 1 EXP for several sessions while others were sometimes getting 2-3. I know the system isn't made for everyone to be equal, but I sure wish I had known that.

My ST's stance on White Wolf experience system is "look, I'm not touching that. You level up when you've done stuff.

Generally I don't track experience mathematically in games anyway, because it always ends up with something like this. If the system's XP is derived from killing stuff, the guy who doesn't kill stuff loses out. If it's based on "learning things", then yeah, the bodyguard is screwed, welcome to redshirting.

[Sidmen]

My ST's stance on White Wolf experience system is "look, I'm not touching that. You level up when you've done stuff.

Generally I don't track experience mathematically in games anyway, because it always ends up with something like this. If the system's XP is derived from killing stuff, the guy who doesn't kill stuff loses out. If it's based on "learning things", then yeah, the bodyguard is screwed, welcome to redshirting.

I...

What? You clearly haven't played any white wolf systems or are mixing them up with something else. If you told someone they leveled up in a White Wolf game, you'd only get blank stares because you level up by gaining and spending Experience Points. Typically at a rate of 2-3 per session.

[Milodiah]

I...

What? You clearly haven't played any white wolf systems or are mixing them up with something else. If you told someone they leveled up in a White Wolf game, you'd only get blank stares because you level up by gaining and spending Experience Points. Typically at a rate of 2-3 per session.

...what? I don't understand what you're saying here. There is leveling up in White Wolf games...so...what's the issue?

Also, I don't run White Wolf games, I've only played in about half a dozen or so. I'm not referring to them specifically in the second paragraph.