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

[Dimers]

Yeah, that's more like "What was your worst host ever?" Sure, it'd be nice to act all serene an' Buddhist an' $#!+, but I'd be really pissed too if somebody had offered to host an event and then:

• Forgot it was even happening;
• Had to be herded into doing it once reminded, showing even more distinctly that they didn't care;
• Didn't clean the space to be used, either beforehand or as soon as they arrived;
• Broke agreed-upon rules about how the space is to be used;
• Gave no justification for breaking said rules;
• Damaged my valuable materials by their negligence and rule-breaking in their home without offer of recompense.

[illyahr]

Spoiler

Show

I'm not sure if this counts as horrible DM, but I do feel bad about it (I was the DM, actually, Story Teller in this case). This happened around this time last year. The oWoD anniversary edition line of books had come out, and I'd spent (what is to me) a small fortune getting everything needed to play a game. We'd run several one shots to warm up, and had one fun multi-session game. My players: my best friend, his wife, his step daughter (14), and two of my brothers (15 & 17).

Now, my brothers were only visiting for the summer, and this incident took place on the very last day that we could possibly have a game. For the game, with input from my players, I had come up with a one shot where they would play low generation Sabbat 'trouble shooters', working for the 'True Black Hand'. I'd cleared all clans, and gave them freebie points befitting elders. Sure, not original, but my players thought it would be fun. I'd planned several 'missions' that tied together, that we should have been able to play through at a fast pace. Then some things happened that destroyed my mood (I was really looking forward to one final game), and I threw a fit . I am not proud of it, and apologized later, but I probably qualified as a terrible ST at the time. Here's the long of it:

1. I'd gotten off work, raced home to grab my gaming materials and my siblings, got some snacks, and picked up Starbucks for all of my players. I arrived at my BF's house in record time... to discover that my BF and his family were not home. After some texting back and forth, I was informed that they had forgotten about the game (I have no idea how, as we'd been discussing it over the phone and in person all week) and would be back soon. It took them about an hour

2. When they got there, everyone just piddled around for another hour or so. I had to corral them into the dining room (largest table in the house) one-by-one. A small nit-pick, the table was filthy, and I was the only one working on cleaning it.

3. Several weeks prior, my BF's step daughter had knocked over a full glass of milk while we were playing a game. My friend's book and some character sheets were ruined. As a result we had all agreed on a rule: No liquids on the table, place your drinks on the floor (linoleum). Since I had cleaned the table, I knew that there were no threatening beverages present. I laid out the character sheets and assorted materials, then left the room to see what was keeping my friend from joining us (turned out he was fixing his mother in-law's printer). I'd only been gone a few minutes, when I hear shouting from the dining room. My friend's step daughter had knocked over her glass of soda, and it went all over the table. Luckily, only the materials which I had printed (character sheets, character creation guides, etc.) had been ruined, and she was frantically cleaning up. I was miffed at this, but kids screw up. Then the girl's mother stated that she'd known the glass was there, but decided against reminding her kid of the 'no liquids' rule... 'because'. WTF? That got me mad. Kids make mistakes and forget things, but parents should remind them when they do. At any rate, I swallowed my anger because they were cleaning things up.

4. I went back to help my friend with the printer (as we now needed it for new character sheets). This took a good 20 minutes. Finally everything is ready, and I head back to the dining room. Where I discovered that my BF's wife and her daughter had given up on cleaning. I noticed a trail of soda coming off the table and onto my chair... where my bag of books was sitting. I quickly checked the bag (made of cloth), and sure enough, it had absorbed a lot of fluid. That’s when I lost it. I told my brothers to pack up their stuff, and we left. On our way out, my BF’s wife starts yelling at me, saying it’s not a big deal, and it’s bull crap that I decided to leave because of an accident. I then spent the rest of my night cleaning and drying my books.
Later, after I calmed down, I explained to my friend that I don’t make very much money, and I tried to explain that replacing books which I should not have purchased in the first place (used my credit card) was a big deal for me. I also tried to explain that it was not the accident, but the failure to correct the accident that had damaged my books, and that’s what pissed me off.

Totally justified. Even to someone who makes a decent amount of money, a full set of oWoD books is not cheap. Not only that, they reacted as if it wasn't a big deal that a significant time/cash investment was ruined by sheer apathy.

[Visivicous]

Wow, thanks for the support. I usually don't get angry about such things, so I still feel guilty about losing my cool. In their defense, they also have two toddlers, so things can get hectic fairly quickly.

After actually writing this up, I realized that what upset me the most, was not the damage to my books. It was that they forgot about a game that I was really looking forward to. If it had not been for that, the rest would have just been an annoyance.

In retrospect, I wish that I had been able to let go of it, forgive and forget then and there. Odds are, if I had done that, we would have had a fun game.

I still go over to their house often, to watch movies or play video games, but the worst part is, we have not had an RPG or even MTG night since.

[aberratio ictus]

So, I guess I'll share one of my own, then.

I was playing a paladin. An old, battle-hardened veteran, very calm and thoughtful.

To the GM's credit, the world was very nicely crafted and quite awesome (even though he liked to change information he gave us on the fly once he noticed we could eventually use the background of his world to our advantage)

Mostly, things went well, the group was awesome. I hadn't planned on becoming the party leader, but ended up as one anyways, since the other characters naturally turned to mine for advice and planning.

Things started to go downhill when I found a holy chalice of my order, which had since been disbanded. Unbeknownst to me, the chalice had been cursed, which made me kill the old hermit who had been holding it in a bloodrage once I touched it. No save, no nothing. Doesn't sound too bad to you? To me it didn't either, back then. I thought it was probably going to be an awesome story element, and carrying around an old, if cursed, holy relic wasn't too bad in itself.
Later on I found out the GM only had my paladin fall because he thought the group felt too confident with my healing abilities in play. Ah, well.

I spent the rest of the game as a fighter without bonus feats (this wasn't dnd, so my character actually was able to contribute quite a bit, but still...)

Slowly but surely, over the course of a campaign, incidents started showing up that showed the DM and I had vastly different opinions about how a paladin was meant to be played. The problem was, actually, the DM thought there was only one way a paladin could be played appropriately.

Once, we met a young priestess, who needed help clearing out a holy monastery. Of course, we helped dislodging the evil cult that had used the monastery for their own ends. In the end, we succeded, and the priestess went on to perform a holy ritual to cleanse the place. She (seemingly) succeded.

When we were back on the road, the GM started scolding me for not performing the ritual myself. Myself? As a fallen paladin without any holy powers? I had had no idea I even knew how to perform such a ritual, and I had no reason to do it myself when there was a priestess here who was planning to do it herself from the beginning.
The GM replied with my ranks in knowledge (religion) (of which I had a lot), I would of course know how to do the ritual, and I should have noticed the priestess was too young and inexperienced to do it (she acted very confident, and the rest of the group agreed with my impression).
In the end, it was my fault that the priestess had been tainted by the evil influence of the place (and she would later reappear in the campaign as an evil necromancer).

Later on, we helped a baron to defend his castle agains foreign invaders. We won, and the baron was planning on torturing the captive footsoldiers in order to find out if they were demonically tainted. When I spoke out against the torture, the GM simply replied: "Your god is fine with torture." My jaw dropped. (remember the ranks in knowledge (religion)?) He's supposed to be lawful good, I said. True, the GM replied, but he's fine with torture anyways. How would you get information from evildoers if not through torture? I had a few suggestions, but they somehow failed to convince the DM. In the end, I said I wouldn't follow this god if he was fine with torture. So, my character's inner religious struggle began, in his early fifties, and with a background of a studied theologian. (Of course, my character still was true to his values and managed to convince the baron through diplomacy. Which was, of course, a triumph for evil that day)

There was also that time my GM wanted me to strike a deal with a demon in order to save a village and the group, and when I refused, he got angry, accused my paladin of selfishness and me of bringing him to use GM fiat to save the group without need.

There's been a lot of such stories over the campaign, and it's probably futile to tell them all.

In the end, the GM obviously had enough. He brought in an old friend of his, who was playing another paladin, who was, as I was told later, only in the game to "show me how to act like a proper paladin". Which is, to me, pretty insulting in and for itself.

He was playing the most vain, self-righteous over the top holier-than-thou prick I have ever seen. Naturally, the group hated him.
The player stopped showing up after a few sessions, but the GM ran him as a DMPC afterwards.

Some time later, the holy relic of the order was stolen from the hands of one of my character's friends, and the DMPC paladin decided I had failed all that is good and holy one times to many, and proceeded to try and smite me.

Of course, the part of the group who was at the same place at that time came to my aid, but the other paladin managed to incapacitate them without any problems, since he was a far higher level than we were. In the end, he smote my fallen paladin in a dirty backalley, where he bled to death.

The rest of the players, of course, were horrified and about as angry as me, especially once the GM said if it hadn't been the paladin, he would have sent an epic level demon to kill my character, as he was fed up with my paladin disrupting the game and he had hoped things would get back to normal once I made a new character.

The game died that night, the GM of course blaming the other player's strange inability to meaningfully continue after one of their number had died.

[Cronocke]

I had said my piece and wanted to just sit back and watch from then on, but...

...he liked to change information he gave us on the fly once he noticed we could eventually use the background of his world to our advantage...

Strike one! The whole point of giving your players setting information is so they can learn how to roleplay a character who lives there. Changing the setting so they cannot do that is a sign that the GM is bad.

Things started to go downhill when I found a holy chalice of my order, which had since been disbanded. Unbeknownst to me, the chalice had been cursed, which made me kill the old hermit who had been holding it in a bloodrage once I touched it. No save, no nothing. Doesn't sound too bad to you? To me it didn't either, back then. I thought it was probably going to be an awesome story element, and carrying around an old, if cursed, holy relic wasn't too bad in itself.
Later on I found out the GM only had my paladin fall because he thought the group felt too confident with my healing abilities in play. Ah, well.

I spent the rest of the game as a fighter without bonus feats (this wasn't dnd, so my character actually was able to contribute quite a bit, but still...)

Strike two! You always allow a save against a mind affecting effect, and you never cause a caster of any type to lose their powers just because you're unhappy with how cleverly they use it. Raise the stakes, or make healing less important compared to the other things that need doing. (Do I heal my party member right now, or do I get the innocent child out of the battle area first?)

Once, we met a young priestess, who needed help clearing out a holy monastery. Of course, we helped dislodging the evil cult that had used the monastery for their own ends. In the end, we succeded, and the priestess went on to perform a holy ritual to cleanse the place. She (seemingly) succeded.

When we were back on the road, the GM started scolding me for not performing the ritual myself. Myself? As a fallen paladin without any holy powers? I had had no idea I even knew how to perform such a ritual, and I had no reason to do it myself when there was a priestess here who was planning to do it herself from the beginning.
The GM replied with my ranks in knowledge (religion) (of which I had a lot), I would of course know how to do the ritual, and I should have noticed the priestess was too young and inexperienced to do it (she acted very confident, and the rest of the group agreed with my impression).
In the end, it was my fault that the priestess had been tainted by the evil influence of the place (and she would later reappear in the campaign as an evil necromancer).

Strike three! As a fallen paladin (and especially one the GM has no intention of restoring his powers to), it is neither your place nor your business to attempt to perform a holy ritual. Your god has abandoned you - your job is to atone, not to vaingloriously call down his power as if you have the right. Furthermore, even if you're expected to be the one to do this, the GM should prompt you to make rolls to notice things - her inexperience, her insecurity, anything other than your own pride and arrogance as a motivator.

Later on, we helped a baron to defend his castle agains foreign invaders. We won, and the baron was planning on torturing the captive footsoldiers in order to find out if they were demonically tainted. When I spoke out against the torture, the GM simply replied: "Your god is fine with torture." My jaw dropped. (remember the ranks in knowledge (religion)?) He's supposed to be lawful good, I said. True, the GM replied, but he's fine with torture anyways. How would you get information from evildoers if not through torture? I had a few suggestions, but they somehow failed to convince the DM. In the end, I said I wouldn't follow this god if he was fine with torture. So, my character's inner religious struggle began, in his early fifties, and with a background of a studied theologian. (Of course, my character still was true to his values and managed to convince the baron through diplomacy. Which was, of course, a triumph for evil that day)

Someone watched a little too much 24. *sigh, smh*

There was also that time my GM wanted me to strike a deal with a demon in order to save a village and the group, and when I refused, he got angry, accused my paladin of selfishness and me of bringing him to use GM fiat to save the group without need.

Anyone who believes a lawful good character should make deals with demons and remain lawful good is literally insane! Paladins doubly so!

In the end, the GM obviously had enough. He brought in an old friend of his, who was playing another paladin, who was, as I was told later, only in the game to "show me how to act like a proper paladin". Which is, to me, pretty insulting in and for itself.

He was playing the most vain, self-righteous over the top holier-than-thou prick I have ever seen. Naturally, the group hated him.
The player stopped showing up after a few sessions, but the GM ran him as a DMPC afterwards.

Did he also keep trying to sell the rest of the party/random NPCs his miraculous holy water, in bottles with his face on the label, as a cure-all? (For the low, low price of $givemeallyourmoney!)

Some time later, the holy relic of the order was stolen from the hands of one of my character's friends, and the DMPC paladin decided I had failed all that is good and holy one times to many, and proceeded to try and smite me.

Of course, the part of the group who was at the same place at that time came to my aid, but the other paladin managed to incapacitate them without any problems, since he was a far higher level than we were. In the end, he smote my fallen paladin in a dirty backalley, where he bled to death.

Lawful good means cold-blooded murder in an alley because your god would have wanted it. Sadly there are people who think that way in real life...

The game died that night, the GM of course blaming the other player's strange inability to meaningfully continue after one of their number had died.

Tell me you're not still friends with this person. This sort of person is someone you never want to game with if you can avoid it.

[Kalmageddon]

Spoiler: Paladin story

Show

So, I guess I'll share one of my own, then.

I was playing a paladin. An old, battle-hardened veteran, very calm and thoughtful.

To the GM's credit, the world was very nicely crafted and quite awesome (even though he liked to change information he gave us on the fly once he noticed we could eventually use the background of his world to our advantage)

Mostly, things went well, the group was awesome. I hadn't planned on becoming the party leader, but ended up as one anyways, since the other characters naturally turned to mine for advice and planning.

Things started to go downhill when I found a holy chalice of my order, which had since been disbanded. Unbeknownst to me, the chalice had been cursed, which made me kill the old hermit who had been holding it in a bloodrage once I touched it. No save, no nothing. Doesn't sound too bad to you? To me it didn't either, back then. I thought it was probably going to be an awesome story element, and carrying around an old, if cursed, holy relic wasn't too bad in itself.
Later on I found out the GM only had my paladin fall because he thought the group felt too confident with my healing abilities in play. Ah, well.

I spent the rest of the game as a fighter without bonus feats (this wasn't dnd, so my character actually was able to contribute quite a bit, but still...)

Slowly but surely, over the course of a campaign, incidents started showing up that showed the DM and I had vastly different opinions about how a paladin was meant to be played. The problem was, actually, the DM thought there was only one way a paladin could be played appropriately.

Once, we met a young priestess, who needed help clearing out a holy monastery. Of course, we helped dislodging the evil cult that had used the monastery for their own ends. In the end, we succeded, and the priestess went on to perform a holy ritual to cleanse the place. She (seemingly) succeded.

When we were back on the road, the GM started scolding me for not performing the ritual myself. Myself? As a fallen paladin without any holy powers? I had had no idea I even knew how to perform such a ritual, and I had no reason to do it myself when there was a priestess here who was planning to do it herself from the beginning.
The GM replied with my ranks in knowledge (religion) (of which I had a lot), I would of course know how to do the ritual, and I should have noticed the priestess was too young and inexperienced to do it (she acted very confident, and the rest of the group agreed with my impression).
In the end, it was my fault that the priestess had been tainted by the evil influence of the place (and she would later reappear in the campaign as an evil necromancer).

Later on, we helped a baron to defend his castle agains foreign invaders. We won, and the baron was planning on torturing the captive footsoldiers in order to find out if they were demonically tainted. When I spoke out against the torture, the GM simply replied: "Your god is fine with torture." My jaw dropped. (remember the ranks in knowledge (religion)?) He's supposed to be lawful good, I said. True, the GM replied, but he's fine with torture anyways. How would you get information from evildoers if not through torture? I had a few suggestions, but they somehow failed to convince the DM. In the end, I said I wouldn't follow this god if he was fine with torture. So, my character's inner religious struggle began, in his early fifties, and with a background of a studied theologian. (Of course, my character still was true to his values and managed to convince the baron through diplomacy. Which was, of course, a triumph for evil that day)

There was also that time my GM wanted me to strike a deal with a demon in order to save a village and the group, and when I refused, he got angry, accused my paladin of selfishness and me of bringing him to use GM fiat to save the group without need.

There's been a lot of such stories over the campaign, and it's probably futile to tell them all.

In the end, the GM obviously had enough. He brought in an old friend of his, who was playing another paladin, who was, as I was told later, only in the game to "show me how to act like a proper paladin". Which is, to me, pretty insulting in and for itself.

He was playing the most vain, self-righteous over the top holier-than-thou prick I have ever seen. Naturally, the group hated him.
The player stopped showing up after a few sessions, but the GM ran him as a DMPC afterwards.

Some time later, the holy relic of the order was stolen from the hands of one of my character's friends, and the DMPC paladin decided I had failed all that is good and holy one times to many, and proceeded to try and smite me.

Of course, the part of the group who was at the same place at that time came to my aid, but the other paladin managed to incapacitate them without any problems, since he was a far higher level than we were. In the end, he smote my fallen paladin in a dirty backalley, where he bled to death.

The rest of the players, of course, were horrified and about as angry as me, especially once the GM said if it hadn't been the paladin, he would have sent an epic level demon to kill my character, as he was fed up with my paladin disrupting the game and he had hoped things would get back to normal once I made a new character.

The game died that night, the GM of course blaming the other player's strange inability to meaningfully continue after one of their number had died.

Textbook example on why you don't try to solve OOC problems with in-game events.

[DM Nate]

GM: "Behind the door there's a 60ft x 60ft room. In the room there's a pile of treasure - gems and coins and magic items."

Player: "Cool! I loot the treaure pile!"

GM: "The dragon attacks you." *rolls dice*

Players (all): "What dragon?"

GM: "There's a dragon in the room. It's his treasure. He's hit you for XYZ damage."

Player: "Was it invisible? Hiding?"

GM: "No, you just didn't ask."

There are two situations in which I will actually do this, as a DM:

1. None of the players bother to do Spot/Listen checks before barging in the room to loot.
2. A player interrupts my unfinished description of the room with "Cool! I loot stuff!"

[BRC]

There are two situations in which I will actually do this, as a DM:

1. None of the players bother to do Spot/Listen checks before barging in the room to loot.
2. A player interrupts my unfinished description of the room with "Cool! I loot stuff!"

Do you mean explicitly make spot checks? As in saying "I make a spot check!"
Maybe if the Dragon was hiding, you could justify that, but you don't need to make spot checks to look around the room and see a dragon sitting on a pile of gold.

[DM Nate]

Do you mean explicitly make spot checks? As in saying "I make a spot check!"
Maybe if the Dragon was hiding, you could justify that, but you don't need to make spot checks to look around the room and see a dragon sitting on a pile of gold.

If he's sitting on the pile of gold, yeah, he'll automatically be in the description.
If the pile of gold fills most of the 60x60 room, however, he could have plenty of places to hide. In that case, yeah, I expect someone to not rush in blindly.

[Yora]

The guy who insisted that our characters would go to the Tomb of Horror in Pathfinder.

I don't think there's anything else I could say to illustrate how he ran games.

[Segev]

To the DM-who-hated-the-paladin, he really should have been, at a minimum, asking you to roll K:Religion to let you know things your character SHOULD know BEFORE you act out of ignorance of that knowledge.

[illyahr]

Spoiler

Show

So, I guess I'll share one of my own, then.

I was playing a paladin. An old, battle-hardened veteran, very calm and thoughtful.

To the GM's credit, the world was very nicely crafted and quite awesome (even though he liked to change information he gave us on the fly once he noticed we could eventually use the background of his world to our advantage)

Mostly, things went well, the group was awesome. I hadn't planned on becoming the party leader, but ended up as one anyways, since the other characters naturally turned to mine for advice and planning.

Things started to go downhill when I found a holy chalice of my order, which had since been disbanded. Unbeknownst to me, the chalice had been cursed, which made me kill the old hermit who had been holding it in a bloodrage once I touched it. No save, no nothing. Doesn't sound too bad to you? To me it didn't either, back then. I thought it was probably going to be an awesome story element, and carrying around an old, if cursed, holy relic wasn't too bad in itself.
Later on I found out the GM only had my paladin fall because he thought the group felt too confident with my healing abilities in play. Ah, well.

I spent the rest of the game as a fighter without bonus feats (this wasn't dnd, so my character actually was able to contribute quite a bit, but still...)

Slowly but surely, over the course of a campaign, incidents started showing up that showed the DM and I had vastly different opinions about how a paladin was meant to be played. The problem was, actually, the DM thought there was only one way a paladin could be played appropriately.

Once, we met a young priestess, who needed help clearing out a holy monastery. Of course, we helped dislodging the evil cult that had used the monastery for their own ends. In the end, we succeded, and the priestess went on to perform a holy ritual to cleanse the place. She (seemingly) succeded.

When we were back on the road, the GM started scolding me for not performing the ritual myself. Myself? As a fallen paladin without any holy powers? I had had no idea I even knew how to perform such a ritual, and I had no reason to do it myself when there was a priestess here who was planning to do it herself from the beginning.
The GM replied with my ranks in knowledge (religion) (of which I had a lot), I would of course know how to do the ritual, and I should have noticed the priestess was too young and inexperienced to do it (she acted very confident, and the rest of the group agreed with my impression).
In the end, it was my fault that the priestess had been tainted by the evil influence of the place (and she would later reappear in the campaign as an evil necromancer).

Later on, we helped a baron to defend his castle agains foreign invaders. We won, and the baron was planning on torturing the captive footsoldiers in order to find out if they were demonically tainted. When I spoke out against the torture, the GM simply replied: "Your god is fine with torture." My jaw dropped. (remember the ranks in knowledge (religion)?) He's supposed to be lawful good, I said. True, the GM replied, but he's fine with torture anyways. How would you get information from evildoers if not through torture? I had a few suggestions, but they somehow failed to convince the DM. In the end, I said I wouldn't follow this god if he was fine with torture. So, my character's inner religious struggle began, in his early fifties, and with a background of a studied theologian. (Of course, my character still was true to his values and managed to convince the baron through diplomacy. Which was, of course, a triumph for evil that day)

There was also that time my GM wanted me to strike a deal with a demon in order to save a village and the group, and when I refused, he got angry, accused my paladin of selfishness and me of bringing him to use GM fiat to save the group without need.

There's been a lot of such stories over the campaign, and it's probably futile to tell them all.

In the end, the GM obviously had enough. He brought in an old friend of his, who was playing another paladin, who was, as I was told later, only in the game to "show me how to act like a proper paladin". Which is, to me, pretty insulting in and for itself.

He was playing the most vain, self-righteous over the top holier-than-thou prick I have ever seen. Naturally, the group hated him.
The player stopped showing up after a few sessions, but the GM ran him as a DMPC afterwards.

Some time later, the holy relic of the order was stolen from the hands of one of my character's friends, and the DMPC paladin decided I had failed all that is good and holy one times to many, and proceeded to try and smite me.

Of course, the part of the group who was at the same place at that time came to my aid, but the other paladin managed to incapacitate them without any problems, since he was a far higher level than we were. In the end, he smote my fallen paladin in a dirty backalley, where he bled to death.

The rest of the players, of course, were horrified and about as angry as me, especially once the GM said if it hadn't been the paladin, he would have sent an epic level demon to kill my character, as he was fed up with my paladin disrupting the game and he had hoped things would get back to normal once I made a new character.

The game died that night, the GM of course blaming the other player's strange inability to meaningfully continue after one of their number had died.

I agree with above posters. This guy was running a train wreck from the beginning. This wasn't a game to be played, this was the DM proving he was better than you. It stopped being a game the moment he told you what your character was supposed to do.

[Sartharina]

<-snip->

This sort of story makes me wish wasn't so vilified, since you practically ended up in her shoes. (Sans murdering geriatric rulers and coming up with crazy conspiracy theories. Then again, you were acting against the way the world saw Good)

[Arbane]

This sort of story makes me wish wasn't so vilified, since you practically ended up in her shoes. (Sans murdering geriatric rulers and coming up with crazy conspiracy theories. Then again, you were acting against the way the world saw Good)

Miko sounds more like the DMPC Paladin, only this time the writer was on her side.

[Sartharina]

Miko sounds more like the DMPC Paladin, only this time the writer was on her side.

Nah. Miko and DMPC paladin are on opposite sides of the spectrum (Though people keep mis-projecting DMPC paladin onto her, because DMPC Paladin is the only "Bad" paladin they know). If the Non-DMPC Paladin were more like Miko, he might have been able to smite the fallen DMPC-paladin down, by recognizing that he never actually fell.

[Arbane]

Nah. Miko and DMPC paladin are on opposite sides of the spectrum (Though people keep mis-projecting DMPC paladin onto her, because DMPC Paladin is the only "Bad" paladin they know). If the Non-DMPC Paladin were more like Miko, he might have been able to smite the fallen DMPC-paladin down, by recognizing that he never actually fell.

Smiting by the sheer power of delusion? DM says he fell, he fell. The fact that the DM is completely full of cheese is, sadly, irrelevant to the state of affairs in the game.

[aberratio ictus]

Tell me you're not still friends with this person. This sort of person is someone you never want to game with if you can avoid it.

No, I'm not longer friends with that GM. It didn't help that he blatantly cheated in PbP games we ran (He allegedly killed 10 Knights in full plate all by himself with an unarmoured rogue armed with a dagger, in a system where even being outnumbered three to one is a possibly deadly problem even for an armoured combatant, and where a dagger can only go through full plate if you roll max damage. Yes, he really thought we'd believe he was that lucky) and that he (which was a lot more grave for me personally) tried to "subtly" sabotage the friendship between me and a mutual friend, because he couldn't stand her being friends with me as well.


To your points: It got aggravating really fast with the background thing. Another player was playing some kind of diplomat, so when the time came to take back a city overrun by demonic troops, she tried to contact her coalition for help. GMs response: The coalition? *laughs* you're the only member of the coalition! Which was quite weird, since the GM had told her she had to buy the highest possible noble rank at character creation to be even considered as a diplomat for the coalition, an alliance of noble houses still standing strong against the demonic influence. When confronted with that, the GM only shrugged and wanted to move on.

I kind of agree with you on the saving throw thing, but on the other hand, as I said, it seemed like he was planning on having some sort of redemption sideplot planned, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt back then.

Of course, he wasn't completely happy with how I played a fallen paladin. He kept on E-mailing me descriptions of some homebrew blackguard class he'd made between sessions, and was overall dissappointed I didn't do the usual "My god has forsaken me! He's not worthy of my service!" stick and turn sinister and ethically ambiguous.

My paladin took his fall very humbly, saw the fault in his inner subtle seed of evil, and of course sought to attone. In essence, most of the play, he kept behaving like a paladin, something the GM couldn't stand. One of his frequent criticisms of my character was that "he is too sure about himself being one of the good guys".

So indeed, he would have deemed it inappropriate, offensive to his god and conceited to do a holy ritual as a fallen.

The prickadin didn't try to sell miraculous holy water. He was far above that. That was another weird thing about how the GM and his friend saw paladins - my paladin was born a bastard between a minor noble and a chambermaid, had gotten basic knightly training by his father and had then be send to the order as not to tarnish his reputation any more. He'd always been more a paladin of the common people, protecting and healing the sick and injured in villages and slums.

For a "proper" paladin, so the GM, the only people that mattered were the nobility. Peasants were a renewable resource. Of course, when my character and the prickadin got into arguments about this, I was swiftly informed that my god was a god of nobility (which wasn't in the books btw and of which I hadn't been informed beforehand) so the other guy was, of course, right.

Essentially my paladin was a heretic, by then. That's also the reason I now refuse to play paladins directly associated with a certain deity, because, usually, gods are awful, awful individuals in my experience.

I agree with above posters. This guy was running a train wreck from the beginning. This wasn't a game to be played, this was the DM proving he was better than you. It stopped being a game the moment he told you what your character was supposed to do.

Well, to the GM's credit, the game was fairly awesome in the beginning. That's why we all clinged onto it for so long.
At first, our group was essentially refugees, since everything on the continent had been overrun by demons and their tainted vassals. It was a bleak setting, very well-fleshed out (until he changed things again, of course), but not without hope. My character was the last paladin left on the continent, after most orders set sails for other continents to regroup. The other players had very interesting characters, and roleplay was awesome.
Once we ran into remnants of (good) civilization things started to go downhill.
But you are right in one thing - some of the other players and I agree, when it comes down to it, all the GM wanted to do was write a book by playing. He hid the rails well, usually, but he was a railroader, and if one of us didn't behave as he expected, he'd get angry.

edit: @ Sartharina

I'm not sure if I acted against how the world saw good, but I definitely acted against how the world saw paladins.. my position might be comparable to Miko's situation when I think about it, although the character really was nothing like her.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Textbook example on why you don't try to solve OOC problems with in-game events.

My first exposure to D&D was a guy who told the Paladin that no matter what she should always use Detect Evil. And if she did detect evil she would have to cleanse it.

This back fired in two ways.

1. The evil altar of a tentacle demon. The player saw it and said we are not strong enough. DM said you have to cast detect evil. Once she did he said she had to go in. And she proceeded to get grappled by the creature.

2. The MYsterious temple. In the same building there was another altar that looked Good. So the Paladin instinctively cast detect evil. There was no evil detected. In response the priest by the altar turned into a demon after we talked to him. Turns out he had a lead sheet. >:(

[Kalmageddon]

My first exposure to D&D was a guy who told the Paladin that no matter what she should always use Detect Evil. And if she did detect evil she would have to cleanse it.

This back fired in two ways.

1. The evil altar of a tentacle demon. The player saw it and said we are not strong enough. DM said you have to cast detect evil. Once she did he said she had to go in. And she proceeded to get grappled by the creature.

You know, with all the terribile stories I've read here, I half expected this one to end with a tentacle hentai. I'm glad the monster just "grappled" her, that's some classy GMing right there.

[Kid Jake]

You know, with all the terribile stories I've read here, I half expected this one to end with a tentacle hentai. I'm glad the monster just "grappled" her, that's some classy GMing right there.

I just assumed the hentaiing was implied.

[Sith_Happens]

I just assumed the hentaiing was implied.

When is it not implied?

[CommandTortoise]

2. The MYsterious temple. In the same building there was another altar that looked Good. So the Paladin instinctively cast detect evil. There was no evil detected. In response the priest by the altar turned into a demon after we talked to him. Turns out he had a lead sheet. >:(

Wait, how did that work? Paladin comes in, he senses that she was a Paladin and whips out the lead sheet he happened to have on him before she manages to look at him, has this go completely unnoticed and drops before anyone sees the sheet but after the Paladin has finished detecting?

[The Oni]

Dave! The Taco Bell DM. He worked closing at Taco Bell, and as soon as he was done, he'd run a game. So from 1am to 5am he'd run a D&D game in the dinning area of Taco Bell.

This guy sounds like a terrible DM but a hilarious person

[Vinyl Scratch]

My first 3.5 game. Took place in Meatspace at Our Local Game Store (Really two towns over for me). Several years ago, 4th was a new thing.

Homebrewed setting that's supposedly been through several campaigns in every edition up to third. So many house rules. So many problems.

I should note that at the time I was just too young to drive on my own, so often I could only stick around for half the session, so a lot of my experience is in non-sequitur. Still, I stuck around for 1 or 2 years until the group split.

The first grievance was the amount of people involved. In any one week, there was around 10 characters in the party, ruled by around 7-8 players. Several of them had two from when there was less people, but were allowed to keep having two despite there no longer being a drought, why not. Obviously, rounds took forever and everything was done in individual rounds, regardless of actual combat.

The second grievance was the utter lack of planning. There was only a vague meta-plot going on, with the party just wandering, doing whatever. Sometimes we would get pushed into some event or dungeon, but that's about it. Even that fell apart after I stole a Spelljammer (Long Story). All encounters were rolled randomly, off of some franken-table of all the monster books and a ton of homebrew and converted beasts. Took bloody forever just for an encounter to begin, easily a good quarter of the session. This is every fight, every dungeon room.

Speaking of encounters, the trees are considered creatures with full stats. All the trees. They have psionics or some crap.

Which brings me to the biggest problem: House Rules. Now, not all house rules are evil, but I'd say most of these are insane and numerous.

First of all, the magic dice. The big meta-plot I mentioned earlier was that somehow the setting was coming to an end. Thus, each in game week or so, everyone that's important (like the party) is given a magic die, both an in-game and out-of-game magic item. Magic dice could be used each round to substitute any of your rolls, one per die. Naturally, you rolled randomly to see what kind you would get. They were differentiated by how many sides (1d3 to 1d100) and the material (color) of the die. The material served as a modifier to the roll. Some were normal-ish, a plus or minus a few, then there were those materials. Mitheral squared your roll, while Adamantine cubed your roll. Meanwhile, Uranium (yes) would somehow square root the roll. Uranium was also uranium, one of my characters died by nuke.

Naturally, everyone had insane HP per level, and could nova out thousands of damage. Oh, and it wasn't even nice for melee, as 'rolling' higher than normal for your weapon could break it. No problems for archers or spell casters.

There was also a rule that if you died, you rolled for a chance to summon your patron deity over (No, not Orcus...). To give a revive + a wish. With the right magic dice, you may as well have him on speed-dial.

Saying a magic word in or out of character risked drawing attention of a evil diety.

Magic classes got free xp for casting spells. Not spell characters can screw it.

Somehow I played this for over a year, until the group split and I went to the saner half.

[The Random NPC]

Strike two! You always allow a save against a mind affecting effect, and you never cause a caster of any type to lose their powers just because you're unhappy with how cleverly they use it. Raise the stakes, or make healing less important compared to the other things that need doing. (Do I heal my party member right now, or do I get the innocent child out of the battle area first?)

Anyone who believes a lawful good character should make deals with demons and remain lawful good is literally insane! Paladins doubly so!

I generally agree with your statement, except for these two points.
First: I will admit that you should get a save in most cases, but if it will lead to an awesome story I say it's okay (I realize that paladins can have more plots that fall and atone, but it is an easy way to motivate the player).
Second: Malconvoker would like a word with you (though yes, the tendency would be towards evil, and probably chaotic).

[Cronocke]

I generally agree with your statement, except for these two points.
First: I will admit that you should get a save in most cases, but if it will lead to an awesome story I say it's okay (I realize that paladins can have more plots that fall and atone, but it is an easy way to motivate the player).

Even if you like this idea, you should get the player's permission first. "SURPRISE YOU'RE A FIGHTER BUT WORSE" is a **** move.

Second: Malconvoker would like a word with you (though yes, the tendency would be towards evil, and probably chaotic).

For all the hate the Book of Nine Swords gets, the Complete books are far worse in the sorts of nonsense they allow.

[The Random NPC]

Even if you like this idea, you should get the player's permission first. "SURPRISE YOU'RE A FIGHTER BUT WORSE" is a **** move.



For all the hate the Book of Nine Swords gets, the Complete books are far worse in the sorts of nonsense they allow.

I'll agree to that, and while I like the Complete books, there is some egregious nonsense in them.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Wait, how did that work? Paladin comes in, he senses that she was a Paladin and whips out the lead sheet he happened to have on him before she manages to look at him, has this go completely unnoticed and drops before anyone sees the sheet but after the Paladin has finished detecting?

Metaphorical Sheet. He just hand waved it. :(

Also the DM was pissed off that we rolled low for our perception checks. And that we didn't go over the room with a fine tooth comb.

Then was ticked off when we mapped out his maze dungeon completely because the maze was just a single room with a treasure chest in the center.

Moral of the story: don't yell at your players for not exploring every inch of the map and then complain when they do so.

[Visivicous]

Snip..horrible paladin hate

It seems to me that the fall should not have happened. I thought, in order to fall, a paladin had to be responsible for the act of evil. Mind control, possession, whatever, frees the paladin of liability. Add in the fact that no save was allowed, and it amounts to the same thing as this scenario:

DM: What are you doing?
Paladin: Eating some beans.
DM: Yeah... you fall. You've lost all paladin abilities.
Paladin: What!?! Why and how?
DM: The how is because I said. The why is, I don't like you. DM fiat, sucker.

I rechecked the description on the SRD, and this part "who willfully commits an evil act" would seem to indicate that compulsion/mind control/possession/curses that force an action, do not make a paladin fall. How can the Paladin 'willfully' do anything, if that will is usurped?

And if the fallen paladin continued to act in accordance with their original code of conduct, then their alignment would never have changed. How, then, did the DMPC paladin 'smite' the player paladin? I'd think the result would have been similar to Miko's smite attempt against Roy... fat lot of nothing. You cannot "Smite Evil" a lawful good-guy. If the attack went through, then clearly the DMPC was a Paladin of Tyranny or Slaughter.

Edit - Spelling.

[Ravens_cry]

I have a DM, the worst DM I have though we keep playing with him as he's always willing to run games, who was of a similar opinion for dominated Paladins, to which I had several, off table heated discussions about. His thought was 'you should have made the save', to which I replied 'Anyone can roll a 1'. In AD&D, not only were mind-controlled acts still fall worthy, they were the only kind that could be Atoned for.