Bad DM Trends

[Keltest]

I had a GM who LOVED to introduce new players or characters as as imprisoned and have the group rescue them. It happened EVERY time. Even when it made no sense whatsoever he would just lay on level after level of BS till we where in the position he wanted us in.

Spoiler

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GM Okay Maque, You where walking down the road, when you are taken by surprise and nocked unconcious!

Me: uhm... how? I have this diviniation power on, I shouldn't be surprised.

GM: Well... you where overwhelmed. You are now tied up in the corner.

Me: I wait till they are distracted and make a run for it. I have freedome of Movement from the freedom domain

GM: You are also in a cell.

Me: Can I pick the lock?

GM: Your items where stolen

Me: even my secret stash of lock picks?

GM: You are naked

-other players come into room-

Me: Can I roll initiative? I want to help

GM: You don't have your holy symbol

Me: I have a spell with no material components.

GM: There is also silence on the cage. you can hear but can't talk.

Me: oookay. whatever, just tell me when I can play.

My party uses a magic bag of inactive-character-storing, for when players cant make it. It also has a habit of spontaneously generating new characters who were actually there all along.

Sometimes I will try to integrate a new character into the party, but unless the character is especially cool (for example, a stone giant seeking help), theyre just as likely to pop out of the magic bag.

[JCAll]

I had a GM who LOVED to introduce new players or characters as as imprisoned and have the group rescue them. It happened EVERY time. Even when it made no sense whatsoever he would just lay on level after level of BS till we where in the position he wanted us in.

Spoiler

Show

GM Okay Maque, You where walking down the road, when you are taken by surprise and nocked unconcious!

Me: uhm... how? I have this diviniation power on, I shouldn't be surprised.

GM: Well... you where overwhelmed. You are now tied up in the corner.

Me: I wait till they are distracted and make a run for it. I have freedome of Movement from the freedom domain

GM: You are also in a cell.

Me: Can I pick the lock?

GM: Your items where stolen

Me: even my secret stash of lock picks?

GM: You are naked

-other players come into room-

Me: Can I roll initiative? I want to help

GM: You don't have your holy symbol

Me: I have a spell with no material components.

GM: There is also silence on the cage. you can hear but can't talk.

Me: oookay. whatever, just tell me when I can play.

That cage was probably worth a fair few gold. I hope you remembered loot it.

[Sith_Happens]

GM Okay Maque, You where walking down the road, when you are taken by surprise and nocked unconcious!

Me: uhm... how? I have this diviniation power on, I shouldn't be surprised.

GM: Well... you where overwhelmed. You are now tied up in the corner.

This is the weird part. Usually when you're going to start a character off in a cell, you start them off in the cell. How they got there is to be exposited later.

GM: Your items where stolen

Me: even my secret stash of lock picks?

GM: You are naked

Proper response: "But did they find my secret stash of lock picks?"

My party uses a magic bag of inactive-character-storing, for when players cant make it. It also has a habit of spontaneously generating new characters who were actually there all along.

Sometimes I will try to integrate a new character into the party, but unless the character is especially cool (for example, a stone giant seeking help), theyre just as likely to pop out of the magic bag.

This idea, I like it.

[JAL_1138]

My party uses a magic bag of inactive-character-storing, for when players cant make it. It also has a habit of spontaneously generating new characters who were actually there all along.

Sometimes I will try to integrate a new character into the party, but unless the character is especially cool (for example, a stone giant seeking help), theyre just as likely to pop out of the magic bag.

Back in AD&D, the DM was running a Gygax-level-of-deadly homebrew campaign, and naturally we died like flies, so we used a version of the Dark Sun "character tree" idea of having backup characters who kept pace with level and who could be swapped in and out. We'd swap them or replace dead characters at a hub town that amounted to a D&D version of Mos Eisley or Tortuga; basically just a place to go to carouse or hire a crew. Worked out pretty well.

[Hypername]

Suddenly the face skills and RP of the 20 Cha face of the party are not working against anyone and the 7 Cha damage dealer who RPs him like a Cha based character, can convince anyone without any skill check. AKA favouritism.

[Amphetryon]

Suddenly the face skills and RP of the 20 Cha face of the party are not working against anyone and the 7 Cha damage dealer who RPs him like a Cha based character, can convince anyone without any skill check. AKA favouritism.

This could be favoritism, or it could be a DM who requires that you 'accurately roleplay your mental stats,' AKA "the quiet guy with the lisp isn't allowed to pretend to be charismatic."

[Keltest]

This could be favoritism, or it could be a DM who requires that you 'accurately roleplay your mental stats,' AKA "the quiet guy with the lisp isn't allowed to pretend to be charismatic."

Indeed. Both bad, but different trends altogether.

[daemonaetea]

For those with examples of positive DMPCs in this thread, to my mind what you've been posting haven't actually been positive DMPCs, but rather helpful NPCs. Not all characters that follow around and help the PCs are DMPCs. The dividing line is whether the person following you is the Dungeon Masters Player Character - that is, if the DM is actually using that character to interact with his own game world. An NPC exists to bounce off of the characters to make things happen. A PC exists to interact with the world and make things happen. The danger of the DMPC is that he's now interacting directly with his own world. That means that instead of the PC talking to the king, the DMPC does so. Instead of the PC discovering and revealing information about the world, the DMPC now does so. The characters you've been talking about are closer to hirelings, people you bring along for specialist skills but are otherwise not really active.

In general, I think most people don't have a problem with what you described, but they also wouldn't think of those as a DMPC. (I'll admit there's a slight twinge here of "it wasn't awful, so it wasn't really a DMPC". Your mileage, of course, may vary.)

[Hypername]

This could be favoritism, or it could be a DM who requires that you 'accurately roleplay your mental stats,' AKA "the quiet guy with the lisp isn't allowed to pretend to be charismatic."

Well when 2 out of 3 players had the same complain, I'd name it favouritism.

[Padoodle]

-Every NPC, from the lowliest peasant to the highest king, always has a biting wit and insults the PCs at every opportunity. Be they friend or foe, they will always make a fool of the PCs, and can never be made a fool of, because if you do manage they'll just shrug it off and walk away laughing at your feeble attempts, because they're too cool to be insulted by lowly PCs.

-Every NPC, from the lowliest peasant to the highest king, is a master of negotiating in their favor, and immune to coercion, haggling, attempts to reason, friendly gestures, etc...

-"Your illusion didn't really work, I only pretended and let you pass because I felt bad for you. I knew what you were trying, but let's keep it between us because man I'm just so cool. *wink*" - 7 intelligence muscle guy that rolls a 3 against your illusion, which you cast from maximum range, at night, with cover, while invisible.

-Clairvoyant NPCs that always know what the PCs are thinking and foil them or plan ahead for it.

-Related to the above, when PCs take every precaution, every defense to make something like a scheme work, or protect a location or a hidden item. And then that one teeny weeny thing you forgot is what the NPC with no way of knowing used to foil it. Or if you really covered every base, well turns out some random dude on the other side of the world was scrying on the PCs at the right time, and knows exactly what he needs to do to foil them.

-PCs can never own anything, and nothing ever works out in their favor. Bought a house? Expect it to be struck by lightning while you're out adventuring. Better save all your gold for potions and magic items, because all investments and mundane possessions are doomed to failure.

-Every noble is a snooty jerk that would rather insult the PCs than actually cooperate.

-PCs are the center of the universe and the rest of the world is lifeless when they're not around. Although, on the other extreme, PCs are worthless, and no matter how powerful they get, the random town guards, elderly farmers, or DM's pet NPCs will always be powerful enough to slap them aside like jokes.

-Adventures are always back to back and there's never time to mingle with the world.

Things I hate when a GM does:

• Getting too hung up on keeping things "Realistic" in the historical sense.
• Making things "Dark" or "Gritty", at least in excess.
• Not giving me downtime to explore the more mundane parts of the setting or do community service.
• Consistently makes authority figures unreasonable or have shady motives.
• Writes adventures in a way that tends to punish giving people the benefit of the doubt, or asking questions first before shooting.
• Never gives me a chance use negotiation or comprise as a means of dealing with conflict.
• Mandating elaborate back stories before starting the game, I almost never a get a solid feel for who a character "is" before I play them a few sessions.

Agree with these, but the first one really verbs my nouns. It's a fantasy game played to have fun with friends. I think we'll live if we don't get every single detail of medieval Europe down perfectly.

This could be favoritism, or it could be a DM who requires that you 'accurately roleplay your mental stats,' AKA "the quiet guy with the lisp isn't allowed to pretend to be charismatic."

As someone terribly shy, opposite of charismatic, I really hate this.

[BayardSPSR]

-Every NPC, from the lowliest peasant to the highest king, always has a biting wit and insults the PCs at every opportunity. Be they friend or foe, they will always make a fool of the PCs, and can never be made a fool of, because if you do manage they'll just shrug it off and walk away laughing at your feeble attempts, because they're too cool to be insulted by lowly PCs.

-Every NPC, from the lowliest peasant to the highest king, is a master of negotiating in their favor, and immune to coercion, haggling, attempts to reason, friendly gestures, etc...

-"Your illusion didn't really work, I only pretended and let you pass because I felt bad for you. I knew what you were trying, but let's keep it between us because man I'm just so cool. *wink*" - 7 intelligence muscle guy that rolls a 3 against your illusion, which you cast from maximum range, at night, with cover, while invisible.

-Clairvoyant NPCs that always know what the PCs are thinking and foil them or plan ahead for it.

-Related to the above, when PCs take every precaution, every defense to make something like a scheme work, or protect a location or a hidden item. And then that one teeny weeny thing you forgot is what the NPC with no way of knowing used to foil it. Or if you really covered every base, well turns out some random dude on the other side of the world was scrying on the PCs at the right time, and knows exactly what he needs to do to foil them.

-Every noble is a snooty jerk that would rather insult the PCs than actually cooperate.

It's like a world where all the NPCs are Mary Sues... What on earth do they do to each other when the PCs aren't present?

Also, it sounds like all of these came from the same person, which must have been a terrible game to be in except for having stories of The Terrible Game.

As someone terribly shy, opposite of charismatic, I really hate this.

It's like asking the person playing the fighter to accurately roleplay their attacks, and making them miss every time because they aren't an experienced martial artist. Never mind the wizard...

[YossarianLives]

While this isn't to bad, I hate it when every, single npc is completely devoid of personality and always speaks in a completely monotone voice.

[VoxRationis]

Speaking of NPC difficulties, one of my pet peeves is when the government and setting are clearly medieval, but everyone talks, both in their manner of speech and in the content of their speech, like it's modern day America. The first is somewhat inevitable, since it's tough speaking like Gandalf or Hamlet for 6 hours spontaneously, but the second clashes with the fantasy feel.

[Nerjin]

"Sup man, me an' the bae were gonna go over to the forest for like things man... But then this gnarly troll came up and was all like 'Nah brah, I got this' and then he stole my doritos. He's a jerk. Can y'all go ice him or som'in for me brah? I'll give ya sixty smackeroos."

[Keltest]

"Sup man, me an' the bae were gonna go over to the forest for like things man... But then this gnarly troll came up and was all like 'Nah brah, I got this' and then he stole my doritos. He's a jerk. Can y'all go ice him or som'in for me brah? I'll give ya sixty smackeroos."

I think anyone capable of understanding that without giving it a hard think deserves to be spoken to like that.

[CombatBunny]

1) Each time you encounter on the road an old man, a naive children or some other curious and apparently inoffensive character on your way to the nearest village or city, you can bet all of your treasure that this NPC is a super-powerful epic character or has an extremely important role on the adventure (The chosen one, the heir of the ancients, the one who has a special gift etc.).


2) Following the same line of the first trend, if the GM has a PC (mainly because the GM is rotated each certain time), be sure that his PC will be kidnapped or somehow will be the key to the GM’s adventure or campaign, even when as PC he never played any relevant role.


3) The villains of the GM will always work as a perfectly coordinated unity; they all will act like one single mind. Example, if the PC’s try to penetrate a fortress, all of the guards will be alert at all times, no one will be prone to be corrupted, they all are highly engaged with the goal of their master, no one will show signs of discomfort for the pay or how does his master treats him, none of them will be lazy, sick or have any negative trait that could work in favour of the PCs.

[JAL_1138]

1) Each time you encounter on the road an old man, a naive children or some other curious and apparently inoffensive character on your way to the nearest village or city, you can bet all of your treasure that this NPC is a super-powerful epic character or has an extremely important role on the adventure (The chosen one, the heir of the ancients, the one who has a special gift etc.).

Aaaarrrrrrggghhh I hate that one. Can't the random old dude just be a random old dude just once? Can't he just be "Farmer Whatshisname, from up the road a ways" instead of #%$&ing Eleminster or Fizban every single time?

[Necroticplague]

Aaaarrrrrrggghhh I hate that one. Can't the random old dude just be a random old dude just once? Can't he just be "Farmer Whatshisname, from up the road a ways" instead of #%$&ing Eleminster or Fizban every single time?

Especially annoying subset I've enountered: Every single NPC met on the road is some manner of disguised demon, thief, bait for bandits, or a demonic thief being used as bait for the bandits. This goes double if he complains when the PCs notice the pattern and simply start killing anyone who approaches them while they're traveling.

[CombatBunny]

Aaaarrrrrrggghhh I hate that one. Can't the random old dude just be a random old dude just once? Can't he just be "Farmer Whatshisname, from up the road a ways" instead of #%$&ing Eleminster or Fizban every single time?

Thank you very much n.n I feel flattered.

BTW I remember another one that gets me on my nerves, let's see if you feel identified.

4) If your character has a secret identity, is a vampire, has a curse, made a pact with a demon, lost his soul or has any other trait that he wants to keep concealed; no matter how hard he tries to keep a low profile and go unnoticed, wherever he goes there will always be at least one NPC that can see through his deception and know his true nature with a mere sight. It’s very common as well that this NPC doesn’t has to make any roll to see through the deception “for reasons that de GM will reveal later as the story progresses”.

[Amphetryon]

Thank you very much n.n I feel flattered.

BTW I remember another one that gets me on my nerves, let's see if you feel identified.

4) If your character has a secret identity, is a vampire, has a curse, made a pact with a demon, lost his soul or has any other trait that he wants to keep concealed; no matter how hard he tries to keep a low profile and go unnoticed, wherever he goes there will always be at least one NPC that can see through his deception and know his true nature with a mere sight. It’s very common as well that this NPC doesn’t has to make any roll to see through the deception “for reasons that de GM will reveal later as the story progresses”.

To be fair, a secret which never, under any circumstances, comes out is frankly boring. This sounds more like adherence to the Trope that 'a gun that appears in Act 1 must be fired in Act 3' than any egregious DM sin.

[CombatBunny]

To be fair, a secret which never, under any circumstances, comes out is frankly boring. This sounds more like adherence to the Trope that 'a gun that appears in Act 1 must be fired in Act 3' than any egregious DM sin.

Oh no no, I don't mind that my PC's secret gets revealed.

My inconvenience comes when each single town, village or place that I arrive, there is at least one special NPC that can spot it on sight. Every single place that I arrive without failing.

[Keltest]

Oh no no, I don't mind that my PC's secret gets revealed.

My inconvenience comes when each single town, village or place that I arrive, there is at least one special NPC that can spot it on sight. Every single place that I arrive without failing.

I think the obvious solution is to curse the party sneak in an identical manner and send them in first, then have them assassinate whoever spots them.

[Hypername]

Yeah omniscient NPCs and almost robot-like enemies are pretty annoying as well.

Another one that annoyed me greatly while I was playing Kingmaker:
We had Garress as our warden and because our GM liked him, each and every soldier in our army was absolutely loyal to him and didn't give a damn about the General's or the Marshall's orders.
Also apparently the Ruler has no power in the kingdom and is just a pretty face sitting on the throne, the other NPC leaders (even the High Priest) have more power than him, and can freely disrespect the PC leaders (even the Ruler) without consequences. Also the GM suddenly deciding that our kingdom is an oligarchy without asking if we want to do it this way.

I also hate that every NPC are always ironic towards the PCs and insult them all the time.

[JAL_1138]

Especially annoying subset I've enountered: Every single NPC met on the road is some manner of disguised demon, thief, bait for bandits, or a demonic thief being used as bait for the bandits. This goes double if he complains when the PCs notice the pattern and simply start killing anyone who approaches them while they're traveling.

This happens far too often. There's even a Counter Monkey episode about the "every woman interested in one of the PCs is a succubus, assassin, or thief" version of this.

[BayardSPSR]

Speaking of NPC difficulties, one of my pet peeves is when the government and setting are clearly medieval, but everyone talks, both in their manner of speech and in the content of their speech, like it's modern day America. The first is somewhat inevitable, since it's tough speaking like Gandalf or Hamlet for 6 hours spontaneously, but the second clashes with the fantasy feel.

My frustration is the opposite: when everything looks and sounds like antiquated feudalism, but underneath the formal speech and peasant garb everyone acts like a 21st century middle-class American in a capitalist economy, down to having the things you want to buy available in the shop where they can be stolen (as opposed to almost everything being made to order), everyone living in nuclear families, everyone having cash on-hand like they just hit an ATM, people keeping military-grade weapons in their workplace to Defend Their Small Business and Family, police forces...

On the other hand, I like translating colloquial speech to colloquial speech. It makes it clearer when NPCs are comfortable in their surroundings, being overly formal or overly friendly, and so on. I'm not sure what you'd do otherwise.

Which of these makes more sense?

" 'Good e'en, milord,' and in-character you would recognize that he's being familiar and is happy to see you" or
" 'Hey! I haven't seen you around in ages, man! What have you been up to?' " which requires no explanation and makes it easy for the player to decide how to respond appropriately.

[VoxRationis]

That's why I added "the content of their speech." I have that pet peeve too. As I said, talking like Americans is a little inevitable. Acting like them breaks immersion.

[Metahuman1]

Allied or friendly npcs who, in a twist everyone saw coming, betray the party. And people wonder where murderhobos come from, when really they're just playing the numbers on bad campaigns.

Adventures where you're literally saving the world. Way to signal we're not going off the rails, and we're not allowed to fail.

Surly, disrespectful tavern- and shop-keepers. Your average D&D party is dangerous, heavily armed, and has gold to burn. Putting on your gruff voice and throwing insults is not "roleplaying," it's a profound failure to understand the nature of tavern- and shop-keepers.



This, always. No, there are no exceptions. "But this one time it was really cool because..." No, it wasn't, your players just put up with it because they had no other options.

In defense of DMPC's. They can work under 2 conditions.

1: The DMPC is a crafter. He just stands at the back and turtles or gives Aid Another Actions. When not spewing the occasionally useful tidbit of plot info, and let's the PC's make all the decisions and do all the actual work, and during down time, he crafts nice and steeply discounted magic items for them/upgrades there items. Works best if the party has system mastery and this is being done to help balance the Fighter and Rogue with the Wizard and Cleric type situations by giving them awesomesauce gear.

2: The DMPC is a heal bot. It has 3 things it does in combat. It Turtles. It gives an Aid Another Action. Or it drops healing spells. Out of combat, it does chain persisting of Lesser Vigor on the party, it has a reserve feat or something so it can not use up daily resources to further expedite out of combat healing and get the party up to full after every fight, and it drops status effect fixers like the restoration line, cure disease, neutralize poison, things of that nature.




There very passive, and they free the party up to have and do all the really cool stuff with greater confidence.

[BayardSPSR]

That's why I added "the content of their speech." I have that pet peeve too. As I said, talking like Americans is a little inevitable. Acting like them breaks immersion.

Sorry, I didn't see that the first time. Makes sense now.

I'm now imagining a DM from elsewhere making every NPC in their world act like an American.

[TheIronGolem]

In defense of DMPC's. They can work under 2 conditions.

1: The DMPC is a crafter. He just stands at the back and turtles or gives Aid Another Actions. When not spewing the occasionally useful tidbit of plot info, and let's the PC's make all the decisions and do all the actual work, and during down time, he crafts nice and steeply discounted magic items for them/upgrades there items. Works best if the party has system mastery and this is being done to help balance the Fighter and Rogue with the Wizard and Cleric type situations by giving them awesomesauce gear.

2: The DMPC is a heal bot. It has 3 things it does in combat. It Turtles. It gives an Aid Another Action. Or it drops healing spells. Out of combat, it does chain persisting of Lesser Vigor on the party, it has a reserve feat or something so it can not use up daily resources to further expedite out of combat healing and get the party up to full after every fight, and it drops status effect fixers like the restoration line, cure disease, neutralize poison, things of that nature.




There very passive, and they free the party up to have and do all the really cool stuff with greater confidence.

DMPC's can participate meaningfully in combat without being the bad kind of DMPC. They just have to follow the same rules that the other PC's do, act in combat without the benefit of the GM's knowledge, and be built in accordance with the party's level (both character level and level of optimization).

It helps to hand off control of the DMPC to a player during combats; that will alleviate suspicions that you're favoring them in any way and ensure you don't use OOC knowledge to their advantage even unconsciously.

No, there are no exceptions. "But this one time it was really cool because..." No, it wasn't, your players just put up with it because they had no other options.

In my last campaign, I introduced a couple of DMPC's early on. They had a lot of good interactions with the party, to the point where I worried that they were getting too much face-time. I tried to gently phase them out. My players were having none of that; the party kept roping them back in no matter what excuses I came up with to keep them offstage. I even tried killing off one of them, and they responded by spending a significant chunk of their own resources getting him resurrected, with zero prompting from me or any in-game character or circumstance. When I mulled aloud about the possibility that the resurrection might not work, that went over like a lead balloon. They wanted him back, and they were damn well going to get him back.

So either my players - most of whom I have been friends with for decades and one of whom is my spouse - are all a bunch of very dedicated liars, or you are completely, utterly, breathtakingly wrong.

I think I know which is more likely.

[Pex]

When a player wants to do something that's not straight attacking or casting a spell the DM looks for a reason why it can't be done. If he can't think of a reason he asks the player to justify the action.