Are all DM's control freaks?

[SgtCarnage92]

To answer the control freak question. Yes and no. The GM has to be something of a control freak, however a lot of newer GMs run into problems regarding "rule 0" and end up using the game as if they are the god of their own little world, instead of just focusing on creating an awesome experience. Good GMs will grow out of this trap, hopefully sooner rather than later. The best GMs are the ones who make an experience that's good enough that it doesn't require a bunch of house rules to run smoothly and if they do have house rules, they're agreed upon by the group as a whole.

-Telling players what color / style of dice to use and how to roll them.

I understand this one, which is why I now make a point of only getting easy to read dice (if I intend to play with them). I don't actively enforce it with my players but they know that I like readable dice and they're generally pretty good about it. I also only accept rolls made in the open.

-Dinging XP for showing up late or talking OOC

Both common problems that have better solutions. OOC talking is a really hard one but can be solved with taking steps to increase engagement with everyone at the table. Being late isn't a problem unless it's chronic and then it's handled on a case by case basis.

-Insisting all dialogue by IC and refusing to let players use mechanical terms

Idealistic and impossible. IC conversation should avoid systemic information (AC, BAB, ect) for good rollplaying, but mechanical terms should be allowed at the "game" level but not character level (if that makes sense).

-Refusing to let players look at the on other player's character sheets (or describe their own to other players except in in character terms)

Can be fun if the party agrees to it but ultimately it's up to them how open they want to be with their sheets. This one I leave purely to player preference either as an individual or group.

-Refusing to let players take their character sheets home

Players are responsible for their sheets. However I ask them to give me an up-to-date copy that I can use as a personal reference when creating things. If they lose a sheet the character is considered "retired" unless we can recover it otherwise. I always offer to keep sheets if players don't want to risk losing them.

-Refusing to let players add up the numbers on their own character sheets

I have enough math I have to do as a GM, I don't need more. I'll do a quick once over during character approval and when they level up just to make sure they're no errors. I let players police themselves with HP and spells.

-Refusing to let the players look at the rule books (even their own) without permission

A good player shouldn't need to look at their book during a meet unless they're leveling or preparing spells, but as an enforced rule it seems a little extreme. Offering advice for character bookkeeping is a better solution once you identify why they're always using the book.

-Telling players where to sit

Some people are great players but can't sit next to each other or they just feed off of each other and make things worse. I won't demand they don't sit together but I will ask them politely to move if they're being disruptive. Otherwise, sit where you're comfy and can see the table.

-Not letting players check their phones

If the phone isn't a constant distraction for you or another player then I don't particularly care. I do ask that you step away to take phone calls however.

-Arbitrarily banning basic character options without explanation

If you can't explain it then you shouldn't be doing it, and it should be discussed with the party as a whole as to why a particular option isn't allowed. Having strong lines of communication before the campaign even starts can save a lot of these headaches.

-Arbitrarily changing the rules mid game without explanation

Abusing "rule 0" shall not be tolerated.

-Making players take actions without clearly specifying them first each time, for example insisting a player say "I full attack with my long sword and five levels of power attack" every turn despite them doing that consistently for the entire battle and even making players announce passive abilities like Sneak Attack.

I assume everything is it's most basic unless told otherwise. If someone says they attack, I assume it's a normal attack unless specified otherwise. If you do something every round (ie power attack), I'll usually ask a confirmation question just to make sure.


Most of these guys sound like new GMs or GMs who have never been a player. It's a collaborative experience and should be treated as such. Social agreements between friends are much more effective than house rules anyway.

[The Insanity]

So is he right?

No.

It must have something to do with the place you live in, because it's kinda messed up how many issues you have with RPG gamers, Talakeal.

[Curbstomp]

Something in the water.

[Sith_Happens]

The amount of stuff you've had to put up with, Tal...
*shakes head in disbelief*

No.

It must have something to do with the place you live in, because it's kinda messed up how many issues you have with RPG gamers, Talakeal.

Something in the water.

Note to self: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to play tabletop games in New Mexico.

[Talakeal]

Note to self: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to play tabletop games in New Mexico.

To be fair, the vast majority of my bad gaming experiances happened over a thousand miles from here.

[Sith_Happens]

To be fair, the vast majority of my bad gaming experiances happened over a thousand miles from here.

Ah. Well, if you could be more specific I'll modify my note accordingly.

[Delusion]

The only rule regarding dice that I have is that if the dice rolls of the table you reroll it.

[NichG]

Talakeal, have you considered that maybe there's something to what they're doing? You've had very bad luck with players acting out, and it sounds like you have a very low tolerance for people exerting control over the social dynamic of the game from the DM chair. But that kind of thing is often done to keep problem players in check - that cellphone rule is likely because the DM has had games fall apart or just generally suck due to a few people getting distracted and then everyone getting bored with things taking forever. The dice rule may be because one player was cheating and the DM made it a blanket rule for the sake of fairness and to not obviously single out the one player. The rule about pedantically stating each detail of an action might have been because a player was constantly taking things back 'oh, its got a power that destroys the weapon used to attack it? well I never said I was using my sword.'

So maybe this is actually something to learn from, especially if you find that all these DMs are successfully running games without the kinds of problems you've run into.

[emeraldstreak]

The only rule regarding dice that I have is that if the dice rolls of the table you reroll it.

No natural 20s under the sofa? Harsh.

[Reathin]

You've had...quite the list of DMs, it would seem. While every one is different and has varying strengths and weaknesses, in my experience, no, your results are not typical of DMs. Every DM I've ever played with (as well as the games I've DMed myself) has been very relaxed about just about everything you wrote there (though we were doing our best to be consistent) and we've had great stories come out of it. Only one DM (actaully ST, since it was an Exalted game) was anywhere near this bad and that was mostly due to a number of enormous misconceptions about the mechanical balance of the game and a degree of sheer stubbornness. Wasn't personal there though, so I try to cut a bit of slack.

You'll find control freaks among DMs just as much as any position with more authority than a kindergardener, but that's life. There are better ones out there.

[Mastikator]

-Telling players what color / style of dice to use and how to roll them. Seems fine, I don't know how many times I've seen someone roll dice so it falls under the sofa, now we all have to stand up and move the sofa to reach it
-Dinging XP for showing up late or talking OOC If you show up so late that you had less play time, then less exp is reasonable, if you give Roleplay exp then talking OOC means you get less roleplay exp. Both are fine imo
-Insisting all dialogue by IC and refusing to let players use mechanical terms Sounds like he wants a highest (outside of larping) level of roleplay immersion, which is a matter of taste. If there's a strong clash in taste then that's a problem, but it doesn't mean that anyone is wrong or right.
-Refusing to let players look at the on other player's character sheets (or describe their own to other players except in in character terms) Same as above
-Refusing to let players take their character sheets home Reasonable, players might lose the sheet or forget to bring it, it's not uncommon
-Refusing to let players add up the numbers on their own character sheets Seems weird, the DM could just double check anything. He might have had problems with cheaters I suppose
-Refusing to let the players look at the rule books (even their own) without permission Not wanting players to metagame is a matter of taste
-Telling players where to sit ok that's weird
-Not letting players check their phones Good. It's rude to check your phone
-Arbitrarily banning basic character options without explanation Withholding the reason why an option is banned seems weird
-Arbitrarily changing the rules mid game without explanation That's outright bad DMing, players deserve consistency from their DM.
-Making players take actions without clearly specifying them first each time, for example insisting a player say "I full attack with my long sword and five levels of power attack" every turn despite them doing that consistently for the entire battle and even making players announce passive abilities like Sneak Attack. Asking players to say what they do in full is not asking much

Seriously, I feel like any day now I am going to find a DM who makes me raise my hand to ask a question or get a hall pass to use the bathroom.

When I asked one of my friends about this he simply told me that the only people who would ever put forth the effort to actually run a long term game are people who are starved for attention / control in their life and therefore use the gaming table as a place to get as much of those things as possible.
I protested and said that I am very lax when it comes to structure. I put up with behavior that would get people shot in the old west, as anyone who has followed my threads for a long time probably knows, and was told that I am a special case as, since I primarily play homebrew systems I wrote myself, I get plenty of attention and control simply through the act of having players performing an activity I created and therefore don't need to grasp for power.

So is he right? If not what is up with these GMs? Is this normal, or am I merely getting a bad run of GMs like I have gotten a bad run of players in the past. Let me know what you think?

But your friend is wrong though. It can be very disheartening to be asked to pour your soul into DMing and then have the players treat it like toiletpaper. Demanding that the players treat the game with respect is not being a control freak, even if it feels like it from a players perspective.

[Talakeal]

Why would people need to ''put up with it''? It is not such a big deal. A normal person can be just fine without having or using their phone for five hours. Most players are fine with the rule as they want to play too.

And explain what behavior? The ''arbitrary '' stuff? What exactly is to explain there? I''l ban stuff I don't like, no big deal there. Do you feel you need an explanation for ''I don't like''? I guess we could waste time talking about it. You'd say you like it, I'd say I don't and we'd just be wasting time.

And ''arbitrary'' rule changes, well we could fill threads with this stuff. I go with ''the DM's say is final'', if you don't like it leave. I'll never understand the type of game like the DM says ''the arrow misses'' and then the player demands to know why rules-wise. You'd spend more time second guessing the DM then playing the game, so why bother?

Its easy for most people to go five hours without using their phone, heck I go most days without looking at it save for the clock. However, if someone is trying to get ahold of me during an emergency then yes, going five hours without my phone is going to be a huge deal.

But mostly, it is just about treating fellow human beings with some level of respect. I am not going to allow my property to be confiscated and dismantled by someone as a tax for entering their house, nor do I think it reasonable to put my own fun above everyone else's. I am curious, do you actually game with people who are your friends outside of the game? And do you always host the game? How would you function if you had to play in someone else's house where you couldn't just banish people who don't go along?

Talakeal, have you considered that maybe there's something to what they're doing? You've had very bad luck with players acting out, and it sounds like you have a very low tolerance for people exerting control over the social dynamic of the game from the DM chair. But that kind of thing is often done to keep problem players in check - that cellphone rule is likely because the DM has had games fall apart or just generally suck due to a few people getting distracted and then everyone getting bored with things taking forever. The dice rule may be because one player was cheating and the DM made it a blanket rule for the sake of fairness and to not obviously single out the one player. The rule about pedantically stating each detail of an action might have been because a player was constantly taking things back 'oh, its got a power that destroys the weapon used to attack it? well I never said I was using my sword.'

So maybe this is actually something to learn from, especially if you find that all these DMs are successfully running games without the kinds of problems you've run into.

Yes, I have thought about it. The thing is, the behaviors that are actually problems in my game are not the kind of things that rules like this would solve.
It saddens me to think that the only way to get people to behave like adults is to treat them like children. I remember a quote from an authoritarian manual of some sort that states "It is important to ruthlessly enforce pointless rules so that people become conditioned not to break the important ones." And while it may work, that is not the sort of systemic psychological conditioning I would want to impose on my friends for the sake of a game.
Frankly, I can't imagine they wouldn't just leave / kick me out of the group if I tried at this point. The only reason I put up with a lot of the stuff on my list is because I am an outsider coming into an established group and feel that it isn't my place to try and get a bunch of strangers to change their ways on my account.

[Sartharina]

I wonder how many of his former players would consider Talakeal as a Control Freak DM.

[Raine_Sage]

As a big long list that certainly looks incredibly excessive. As rules spread out across several different DMs it seems a little more manageable. Especially when you consider the experiences they may have had that created those rules. While your problem players are worse than most, they're definitely not the only problem players out there. And while you enacting rules may not have helped your specific situation, milder problem players often respond well to a little more structure in the game.

Hell I recently had to enact a rule like these myself in an EP game. Namely I have one player who will not stop modifying his character before game start. Like 10 or 20 different revisions, always manages to turn whatever concept he has into a hyper aggressive gun nut. And it was bothering my other players because they usually try and figure out backstory together and suddenly they have to rewrite all of /their/ characters to account for one person's constant changes.

So I set down a blanket rule. You get two free redos for character creation. Any further changes have to be gm approved. And to prevent the problem player from having their feelings hurt about being "singled out" I had to extend this rule to the rest of the table as well. It seems like such a small thing and no one had a problem with it when I announced it. Because they all know me and trust me not to be a **** about it. I can see how someone coming in totally new to the game and who did not know me personally might chafe a little, but trust kind of goes both ways you know? If they can trust me not to be an ******* gm then I can generally trust them not to be an ******* player.

[TheThan]

I ''ask'' that if someone comes to my house to play D&D, that they.......come to my house and play D&D. If they want to do anything else, I'll just tell them to leave.

This is a perfectly reasonable perspective.

If someone doesn’t want to play, they shouldn’t show up to play. If you can spend that much time on your phone, you call or text and simply say that your not feeling like dnd that day and that you’re not going to show and be a distraction to the others.

If someone is having a problem with not being interested in what’s happening at the table, either he should bring up the issue with the DM, or the Dm should have perception enough notice and bring it up with the player. either way, the Dm and the player should be working together to solve the problem and make things work out better for both of them.

[Talakeal]

This is a perfectly reasonable perspective.

If someone doesn’t want to play, they shouldn’t show up to play. If you can spend that much time on your phone, you call or text and simply say that your not feeling like dnd that day and that you’re not going to show and be a distraction to the others.

If someone is having a problem with not being interested in what’s happening at the table, either he should bring up the issue with the DM, or the Dm should have perception enough notice and bring it up with the player. either way, the Dm and the player should be working together to solve the problem and make things work out better for both of them.

I agree that someone should not be talking or texting during the game, and if someone is doing it I am going to firmly request they stop, and I have never had anyone refuse to comply in the past.

What I don't agree with is that I have the right to order around my friends or demand they leave if they don't cater to my demands. Likewise, I don't see anything wrong with taking a few seconds to answer a call or check a message to see if it is urgent, as that is no more disruptive than getting a drink of water or using the bathroom, which (I hope) no DMs demand their players refrain from.

[icefractal]

With the phone thing, it's not the "not making phone calls" that's the problem. I don't think I've ever fiddled with my phone during a game, and normal messages can wait until afterwards to reply. It's the "not being able to receive messages, including important ones" that's the problem. If anyone thinks I'd even consider placing their game above a family/friend emergency, they are completely delusional.

A lot of these also have a very authoritarian stance, which is completely alien to the groups I've been in. We're friends engaging in a leisure activity, there is no "boss" there. The GM has a different role than the players have, absolutely. That doesn't extend outside actual gameplay.

I wonder if the fact that, in my groups, the GM and Host are seldom the same person is a factor. The host can make rules about many aspects of behavior (although abusing this will generally result in not having guests any more). It seems like some of the people Talakeal's played with have had both designations and maybe got a bit "drunk with power".

[Bulhakov]

I'm guessing you've just had a bad run of DMs, but my experience might be skewed because I've always played with close friends and never tried a pick-up group arranged online or at a game shop. Possibly people who decide to DM for groups like that have some other character traits.

As for my own level of control as a DM:

- I've never had a player take out their phone during game time (but we do take frequent breaks from the game for bathroom/phone/internet/kitchen use). If one did, I'd probably ask them to hold off till the next break or propose taking a break now.

- I've never collected character sheets, but I do keep copies (as I've had players lose/forget them a few times)

- All houserules/limitations are discussed before playing and always unanimously agreed upon (usually a short explanation suffices).

[Stella]

I haven't DMed in a while, but when I did I had some basic rules which touched on several of your points below. All of them were developed over time and were intended to be solutions to problems which were disruptive to gameplay in some degree, small or large, and were not intended as any kind of means of exerting "control freak" levels of power over the players themselves.

[...] here is a list of some examples I am talking about:

-Telling players what color / style of dice to use and how to roll them.

I use a battle mat and miniatures. Dice are rolled in a small box. I used the top of an old Champions box, it is the same size as a DND book and has fairly shallow sides. This prevented the dice from knocking around the minis and costing time to reset them and the possibility of not being able to reset them accurately.

I do insist on dice with easily readable faces. I don't care for the tie-dye die with the cutouts for numbers which are not colored in, or are colored in with the same color as one of the tie-die colors. Or the teeny tiny D6 which can't be read unless you lean over and squint. This speeds play as I don't need to ask what was rolled, I can just see it. And although the players I play with are all mature and cheating has never been an issue, if the other player can see the die rolls it helps to keep them engaged a bit even when it isn't their turn to act.

I also ask that the entire table uses the same conventions for dice. I'm not going to be forced to remember that player 1 uses red, yellow, and green for their iterative attacks, while player 2 wants to use green, yellow, and red. This again saves time.

-Dinging XP for showing up late or talking OOC

I don't see anything wrong with this, as long as it isn't the culture of the entire group. One player should not share the same rewards as the others if they are either disruptive or semi-absentee.

-Insisting all dialogue by IC and refusing to let players use mechanical terms

IC talk should be encouraged, but this is a game with it's own language and terms, just like any other pursuit. Banning OOC talk regarding game terms cannot speed play.

-Refusing to let players look at the on other player's character sheets (or describe their own to other players except in in character terms)

I've never done this, but no player should be able to insist on seeing another players character sheet. Sharing this information is entirely voluntary.

-Refusing to let players take their character sheets home

I've never had an issue with people losing their character sheets, but I do ask for a copy for myself for planning purposes.

-Refusing to let players add up the numbers on their own character sheets

I'd be curious to hear just what rationale there could possibly be for this. I insist on the reverse: I should not have to know their character backwards and forwards. I want the player to look at their To Hit roll and tell me "A 12, plus my BAB and STR bonus of 6, minus 3 for my standard Power Attack, and plus 2 for the Bard's song. I hit AC 17." The same applies to skill use. I want the player to add in their Elven bonus to Listen, Search, and Spot checks. If they don't, they are going to lose that bonus, because I can't have the work of remembering the racial and skill point modifiers of the entire table of players placed on me. Knowing their character is the players job, and if anything the reverse is where I've had issues both as a DM and as a player, when a player has to ask what kind of die to roll and what kind of modifiers to apply over and over again.

This also plays to the use of game terms during play. If rolling To Hit or a skill check has to be entirely IC, then the player would have to roll and then the DM would have to do everything else. That cannot help but slow play down significantly.

-Refusing to let the players look at the rule books (even their own) without permission

I don't see any good reason for this. If a player was only using it to call out challenges to the DMs knowledge of the rules it could be disruptive, I suppose. Or if they were reading the book rather than concluding their character's action. My table rule when I DM is that play must go on, and that players can make a list of things they think I should be handling differently and that I'll look them over in between sessions. But I will adjust on the fly if a player points out something I've missed which I can agree with without having to make it a 10 minute pause to reference the rules.

-Telling players where to sit

I've never done this. But I had a DM once who thought that initiative rolls were unnecessary/a waste of time and used his own system (basically dex mod plus feat mods, dex decided ties, and I think he had some racial mods also) and asked players to sit in "initiative order" according to his house rules. It made play faster because he always knew who to go to first and then around the table from there.

-Not letting players check their phones

As others have said, no game is more important than being able to respond to a potential family or other emergency or urgent matter. So banning phone use is unreasonable. That said, checking who is calling you doesn't mean you need to answer it in most cases. Nor do you need to respond to the typical text until the game session is over.

-Arbitrarily banning basic character options without explanation

The "without explanation" part is a problem. If done in advance and communicated, this is fine. If done in the middle of a session, I personally hate this because it is almost always a knee jerk reaction with little real thought applied. If done in between sessions where some more time can be given to the decision, and especially if the DM involves the effected players in the process, this is ok.

-Arbitrarily changing the rules mid game without explanation

Again, the "without explanation" part is a problem. Mid session, or mid game/campaign? See above.

-Making players take actions without clearly specifying them first each time, for example insisting a player say "I full attack with my long sword and five levels of power attack" every turn despite them doing that consistently for the entire battle and even making players announce passive abilities like Sneak Attack.

It's not unreasonable to ask players to detail exactly what they are doing. That is a part of playing the game, knowing the game terms, and knowing your own character enough to assist the DM in resolving your character's actions. But if a player consistently uses the same amount of Power Attack, for example, I'm happy to let them set it as a "default" once I'm familiar enough with their play habits.

So is he right? If not what is up with these GMs? Is this normal, or am I merely getting a bad run of GMs like I have gotten a bad run of players in the past. Let me know what you think?

Context is everything, so what you've listed could be innocuous or outrageous, depending on the context. "Die rolls only count in the box. And please roll in such a way that they don't bounce out and hit the minis" is not exactly a dictatorial exercise of power, after all. Unless the box isn't placed conveniently or some other mitigating circumstance makes it more clear that it actually is, I guess.

[Talakeal]

Most of these guys sound like new GMs or GMs who have never been a player. It's a collaborative experience and should be treated as such. Social agreements between friends are much more effective than house rules anyway.

Actually in my experience it is the older crowd who are the worst. Maybe it is because there is a bigger age difference between them and the players so they feel they need to be an "adult" around the children, or because they learned to play in the old school days of "the DM is all powerful and the rules are just a crutch for the weak!" Whether or not this era ever actually existed I can't say, but there do seem to be a lot of older game masters who act like Weird Pete from Knights of the Dinner Table.

I wonder how many of his former players would consider Talakeal as a Control Freak DM.

My very first real campaign was played after school in 7th grade and the DM was one of our teachers. He frequently had to act like a bit of a disciplinarian and didn't treat us with too much more leeway than when we his students in class. When I first tried DMing on my own I tried being the same way, handing out demerits and docking XP for complaining or being disruptive, but it never really worked. Normally players would just call my bluff, give me the finger, or walk out of the game when I tried it and I quickly re-evaluated the situation. We are all friends playing a game, these people are equals, they are not my subordinates, students, or subjects, and I should not treat them like they are.

[Sartharina]

[QUOTE=icefractal;18178180My very first real campaign was played after school in 7th grade and the DM was one of our teachers. He frequently had to act like a bit of a disciplinarian and didn't treat us with too much more leeway than when we his students in class. When I first tried DMing on my own I tried being the same way, handing out demerits and docking XP for complaining or being disruptive, but it never really worked. Normally players would just call my bluff, give me the finger, or walk out of the game when I tried it and I quickly re-evaluated the situation. We are all friends playing a game, these people are equals, they are not my subordinates, students, or subjects, and I should not treat them like they are.[/QUOTE]

You are the same person on this board who's problems with players is absolutely legendary now, with most questions having been "Why are you still playing with this group?" (Until it ultimately disbanded), right?

[valadil]

GMs are the host and the referee. They present the rules and they tell the story. Of course the GM is going to be the authority figure at the table as well as the person whose motivation is to keep the game running. Managing the game table is the GM's responsibility and doing so requires behavior akin to that of a control freak.

I don't think all GMs have control freak as a personality trait though. Plenty of us are laid back and apathetic when we're away from the game table.

I would assert though that a gamer who is a control freak by nature would prefer to GM than to play.

[Diurnan_McKlugh]

Its funny how many DM's actually have on-table rules like your list. My only rule is the "5 second" rule. Dice must be on the table after a roll, flat, not edging any lines, paper or books and allowed to sit for 5 seconds, enough time for 2 other players or myself to verify the roll. Otherwise its automatic failed roll.

Most cheaters at my table quit the game or quit cheating after one session.

Oh, there is another rule. The book rules stand unless you ask for an exemption. Chances of getting exemption are 100% with a decent reasoning. Some rules just stink...like healing surges...don't allow those either. Cast a spell you lazy cleric!

[Kaun]

-Telling players what color / style of dice to use and how to roll them.

I have done this one. No tiny dice, no dice that are barely legible. And all dice must land in the "rolling box" to be counted. I implemented these rules years ago to curb the behavior of one particular player. I implemented it across the board rather then singling them out.

-Dinging XP for showing up late or talking OOC

Ehhh. I give bonus xp for letting me know in advance whether or not your turning up to a session and also for turning up on time. I find players are like dogs; They learn more from being rewarded over punished.

-Insisting all dialogue by IC and refusing to let players use mechanical terms
-Refusing to let players look at the on other player's character sheets (or describe their own to other players except in in character terms)

These to are a little nuts.

-Refusing to let players take their character sheets home

While i don't do this, there is a couple players i would have liked to do this with. Never wanted to leave their character sheets with me, forgot to bring them to 75% of session.

-Refusing to let players add up the numbers on their own character sheets
-Refusing to let the players look at the rule books (even their own) without permission

wut?

-Telling players where to sit
-Not letting players check their phones

I have asked players to move some what so i can see them. I have also told people to quit browsing the web or f'n about on there phones on occasions.

-Arbitrarily banning basic character options without explanation

I have done this a lot with little more explanation then "it doesn't fit the game/i don't want it in the game." I find if that isn't enough of a reason for the player then its just going to end up in an argument anyway.

-Arbitrarily changing the rules mid game without explanation

I have changed rules mid game but not with out explanation. Generally the changes are to speed things up or because a rule was jarring or counter productive to running and playing a fun game.

-Making players take actions without clearly specifying them first each time, for example insisting a player say "I full attack with my long sword and five levels of power attack" every turn despite them doing that consistently for the entire battle and even making players announce passive abilities like Sneak Attack.

wow... thats seen as harsh? Yes i make players state there action again each round. I mean i except them saying something like, "i am going to make another full power attack like last round." But... why is this one even an issue?

When I asked one of my friends about this he simply told me that the only people who would ever put forth the effort to actually run a long term game are people who are starved for attention / control in their life and therefore use the gaming table as a place to get as much of those things as possible.

Well sure, there are probably a few people who run games for reasons like this. As for me, i just love playing table top rpg's. And i was the DM by default for so long that i now get bored only being responsible for one character.

[Talakeal]

wow... thats seen as harsh? Yes i make players state there action again each round. I mean i except them saying something like, "i am going to make another full power attack like last round." But... why is this one even an issue?
.

Obviously it is a continuum. But in my current group a lot of the players keep losing massive DPS because they simply roll and forget to announce they are using default abilities like flurry of blows or sneak attack, and it seems to be an issue.

For example, I am playing in your game and have the spring attack feat. I move my model next to the enemy, roll a standard attack, and then move away. Would you really take an AoO if I didn't loudly state "I am using my spring attack feat!" at the start of the turn?



As for the dice thing, I personally let players roll any dice they like so long as they are real dice and have numbers printed upon them. One of my players actually gets mad at me for this though, as he has a pair of old dice with the paint worn off that can't be read by anyone else at the table and he thinks I am being "anal retentive" when I bought him new dice of the same type and asked him to use them.

I have another player who simply does not know how to roll dice and they fly everywhere knocking over models and rolling off the table, but I don't chew her out for it as there really isn't anything to be done without causing a heck of a lot of stress and drama.

On the other hand, my current DM insists that I roll all of the dice I am using in a turn simultaneously, and roll damage and attack together. It is extremely awkward for me as I have been rolling dice for decades and am not used to it, am not the most coordinated person, and have a bit of a visual processing disorder that means I take a seconds to get all those different dice colors sorted out in my head. Not a huge deal, but it is very annoying for me and the DM won't budge even a little on relaxing his restrictions.

[Kaun]

Obviously it is a continuum. But in my current group a lot of the players keep losing massive DPS because they simply roll and forget to announce they are using default abilities like flurry of blows or sneak attack, and it seems to be an issue.

For example, I am playing in your game and have the spring attack feat. I move my model next to the enemy, roll a standard attack, and then move away. Would you really take an AoO if I didn't loudly state "I am using my spring attack feat!" at the start of the turn?

Generally i would ask if that what they were doing, before rolling the AoO. I find giving players the benefit of the doubt is best in these situations. But for things that effect the attack roll, like power attack, yeah i think players should call it before they roll. In saying that, if a player stated that every attack roll they make will be a 2 point power attack unless stated otherwise i would be happy to use that as the default as well.

As for the dice thing, I personally let players roll any dice they like so long as they are real dice and have numbers printed upon them. One of my players actually gets mad at me for this though, as he has a pair of old dice with the paint worn off that can't be read by anyone else at the table and he thinks I am being "anal retentive" when I bought him new dice of the same type and asked him to use them.

Yeah thats pretty much the reasoning behind all my dice rules. The tiny dice were damn hard to read at all let alone at a distance. Or dice with weird symbols rather then numbers, or weird designs that make them difficult to read.

I have another player who simply does not know how to roll dice and they fly everywhere knocking over models and rolling off the table, but I don't chew her out for it as there really isn't anything to be done without causing a heck of a lot of stress and drama.

Yeah this is why i have the rolling box. It's currently the card board box lid from a touch pad i bought a year or two back. Its about A1 size with a 40mm lip. If the dice land in the box they count if they don't then they don't count. I got sick of the under the couch 20's and the stuff getting knocked over, the dice rolled quickly on a book in the players lap and then snatched up. The edge rolls that players counted if they were high but re rolled if they were low.

Now, its just if they are in the box they count. There is nothing in there for them to edge on.

There is also a standing rule about getting your dice out of the box after a roll.

The funny thing is, the amount of new players that laugh and ask "why do you need such a big box?" then proceed to miss the box or bounce the dice out on the first time they roll.

On the other hand, my current DM insists that I roll all of the dice I am using in a turn simultaneously, and roll damage and attack together. It is extremely awkward for me as I have been rolling dice for decades and am not used to it, am not the most coordinated person, and have a bit of a visual processing disorder that means I take a seconds to get all those different dice colors sorted out in my head. Not a huge deal, but it is very annoying for me and the DM won't budge even a little on relaxing his restrictions.

I have used this rule before in games with lots of players. Its surprising how much time it can shave off combat, especially when we were playing gamed like 4e DnD where combat can be a massive time sink.

[Talakeal]

Generally i would ask if that what they were doing, before rolling the AoO. I find giving players the benefit of the doubt is best in these situations. But for things that effect the attack roll, like power attack, yeah i think players should call it before they roll. In saying that, if a player stated that every attack roll they make will be a 2 point power attack unless stated otherwise i would be happy to use that as the default as well.

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I totally agree 100%, I would not like it at all if a player refused to call things with limited uses or downsides beforehand. That is not what I am talking about; I am referring to DM's who won't let players use abilities with unlimited uses and no downsides without explicitly calling them out, or who won't let a player make a statement like "assume I am doing X unless I say otherwise".

[Knaight]

Plenty of GMs aren't control freaks. I'm not at all - I favor a player driven game, I trust my players, and I simply do not care about things like dice colors. Heck, all of the character sheets for a current game are at a player's house, because he hosts the game and that makes sense (plus, I don't need them to prep, mostly because I'm way over on the improvisational GM side).

[sktarq]

I totally agree 100%, I would not like it at all if a player refused to call things with limited uses or downsides beforehand. That is not what I am talking about; I am referring to DM's who won't let players use abilities with unlimited uses and no downsides without explicitly calling them out, or who won't let a player make a statement like "assume I am doing X unless I say otherwise".

The first part I kinda get, if the DM is having trouble keeping up with his own duties (lots of monsters, lots of players, character turnover preventing familiarity, inexperience etc) a mentality of let the players worry about what ability they can use in a situation-I'll just run with what they say. . . And not wanting to deal with retconing a backstab etc. As a basic principle I could see it but application would be everything. If you not mentioning an ability use in anyway slows the game it doesn't happen would be in my mind harsh but not totally unreasonable but there would have to be quite a bit of give in the application.
As for not allowing a "default" to be set and noting down the adjusted numbers for himself that's mostly one of those points of bad execution I mentioned...

so yeah bad Dm on that-but may be more frazzeled than control freaky.

also several of these rules seem to be of a drive to get players to immerse themselves as possible with their character. He seems to be trying to drive immersion and suppress meta-gaming. Seems ham fisted to go about it that way but especially if that's what the DM sold as his idea ahead of time could work fine, but if he is trying to foist that style of play on people who don't want to use that style then it would be control freaky.

[Eldan]

A lot of these also have a very authoritarian stance, which is completely alien to the groups I've been in. We're friends engaging in a leisure activity, there is no "boss" there. The GM has a different role than the players have, absolutely. That doesn't extend outside actual gameplay.

I've had a player or two where it was just necessary. There's this guy we have here who just... sort of shows up whenever people are gaming. Theoretically a nice guy, but also the strongest case of hyperactive ADD I've ever seen. He will constantly fiddle with things and go off-topic to such a degree that he even annoys himself. So yes, I have, in the past, taken his phone away from him when he was using it to show others clips of that cool new TV series he discovered a few days ago. While we were in a political negotiation.

In general, I have an "everything off the table" philosophy. No books, no laptops, no phones, just sheets, dice, writing material. I find those all far too distracting for me.

I've also vetoed character concepts.

Edit: it's also customary in my current group that all character sheets are kept in a binder above the game table (with the shared game books). It just makes it a lot easier if we keep all our gaming materials in one place, so that everyone knows where everything is. It helps that we game pretty spontaneously, i.e. there's the local warhammer store and whenever five or more people are still around when the shop closes and we all have time in the evening, we move over to the gaming room and play.