Worst DM you've had.

[atemu1234]

I have a few stories that I'll share once I get access to the desktop site.

[Threadnaught]

I'm pretty sure Red Fel getting put in a chokehold at least ties that.

For the first session. Not the harassment that followed, the impersonator or the stabbing.


Sorry Fel, you've gotta put up with a lot more if you wanna top TLB. Wait, what am I apologising for? That's a good thing.
If anything, you should be thanking those who have listed themselves that you're not in their game. Especially MetaMyconid and his sucky internet. Crossroads is awesome and I wanna play it.

[Rakoa]

For the first session. Not the harassment that followed, the impersonator or the stabbing.


Sorry Fel, you've gotta put up with a lot more if you wanna top TLB. Wait, what am I apologising for? That's a good thing.
If anything, you should be thanking those who have listed themselves that you're not in their game. Especially MetaMyconid and his sucky internet. Crossroads is awesome and I wanna play it.

Can anyone point me to where I can read about Red Fel getting choked out? Not that I WANT to read it, because I love Red Fel. I really do. I just want to read the story.

Red Fel, if you're reading this, will you marry me?

[Seto]

Can anyone point me to where I can read about Red Fel getting choked out?

That's at the beginning of the previous page. Besides, you've said his name three times, so he's probably on his way. :)

[atomicwaffle]

One of my friends, let's call him Kyle...because that's his name. His name is Kyle. Had a campaign I was briefly in. Semi-Serious, I was playing a (PF) Dhampir Gunslinger (insert hellsing reference).

Anyways...this guy, Kyle, is a nice guy. But as a DM, he has a few things I take issue with. First off, his campaign is like 9 PCs, its big. And we're all seasoned except for about 3. Anyways, these people (3 in particular) are flaky and inconsistent about showing up. So, a party of 9 becomes a party of 5 or 6, consistently. BUT...he scales all our encounters for a 9 player party. Since its scaled for 9 PCs but only 6 (including myself) actually show up, EACH AND EVERY MOTHERHUMPING FIGHT FEELS LIKE A CAMPAIGN CLIMAX ENCOUNTER. It also makes me resent the players that DON'T show up (which is awkward because they ARE my friends). This similar issue happened with a campaign where I was a druid.

Secondly. He likes using overpowered DMPCs. Example: When I was a druid, I wild shaped into a mouse to try and follow someone I suspected was tailing us. It was just a goblin. A goblin with 8 levels in slayer. Before the class was released. Party was level four. Yeah. Fair.

Finally. His obsession with cursed items. Every other item was cursed, in both campaigns. I was afraid to pick up anything. In 3 sessions he killed 2 characters with cursed items and nearly killed me. Needless to say I stopped attending sessions.

Kyle, you are a killer DM. I love you as a friend, but please...let up.

I've devoted my DMing to being a dungeonmeister. It's like a dungeon master except 20% cooler.

[Rakoa]

That's at the beginning of the previous page. Besides, you've said his name three times, so he's probably on his way. :)

Oh, I just assumed that is was a legend from sometime in the past. Kinda like That Lanky Bugger. Serves me right for not reading the whole thread.

[atemu1234]

Okay, so my favorite story about a bad DM of mine involves the basis for a few rules of my tables.

1) No knives
and
2) Most definitely no guns.

I think the rest of you can figure this one out on your own, without my help.

[Arbane]

Okay, so my favorite story about a bad DM of mine involves the basis for a few rules of my tables.

1) No knives
and
2) Most definitely no guns.

I think the rest of you can figure this one out on your own, without my help.

Yes, but that doesn't mean we don't WANT to hear it from you!

[Azoth]

Okay, so my favorite story about a bad DM of mine involves the basis for a few rules of my tables.

1) No knives
and
2) Most definitely no guns.

I think the rest of you can figure this one out on your own, without my help.

I couldn't be at your table. My group has a running joke that I can fabricate knives out of thin air. It mainly started when I was absent mindedly rolling one between my knuckles while thinking. Its a habit I have had since I was a teen. Anyway, my roommate snatched it from me claiming I was going to hurt someone...only to see a second knife already rolling between my fingers.I always carry two knives because at work someone is bound to borrow one and then I find myself needing my knife before they return it.

[Roga]

Here's one I've mentioned in threads like this for over half a decade now. I'm not bitter or anything....

Spoiler: The DM who loves Kender.

Show

Now I've heard that it's possible to play a Kender "Right" but I have never ever seen it. Ever experience I've had has been player or DM encouraging the Chaotic Stupid HairPullingOutFrustating little prankster thieves. They always seem to have a ridiculous amount of Deus Ex Machina on their side.
The final time I ever played in a game with one:

Spoiler: The Oozemaster and the Kender

Show

Situation: Party has your stereotypical Klepto Kender, which I despise. I'm been in 5 games with them and they've always been the reason the game collapsed. I was determined to Kender-proof my character.

My Solution: I'm playing an Oozemaster, and had commissioned a Special Bag of holding that was a Small Iron flask. The nozzle was 1 inch across so I could squeeze anything I wanted in there from a Canoe to a potion using Malleability. So I was the only person who could get things out of it. I paid for it, and it's cap, to be immune to Acid. And I would swallow it when I didn't need it, and could reach in and pull it out as a full round action. I would sleep myself in a larger Urn (also immune to acid) and coated myself in my Con damaging slime.

GM Response: I wake up in my urn and find that despite my defenses the Kender had unintentionally stolen my flask. To compound the issue, he had put a note in it and threw it in the ocean to see if anyone would ever read his message. I hate kenders, that's the game that made me refuse to ever play in a game with one again.


ME: How exactly did he "accidentally" Open my Urn, reach down my throat without taking at least 1d6 Con, and pull out my flask?
DM: He's a Kender
ME: But explain how, I put a lot of investment into protecting myself. You knew my intentions when I commissioned those items.
DM: I already said, He's a Kender.
ME: *Incomprehensible Rage*

[frogglesmash]

Here's one I've mentioned in threads like this for over half a decade now. I'm not bitter or anything....

Spoiler: The DM who loves Kender.

Show

Now I've heard that it's possible to play a Kender "Right" but I have never ever seen it. Ever experience I've had has been player or DM encouraging the Chaotic Stupid HairPullingOutFrustating little prankster thieves. They always seem to have a ridiculous amount of Deus Ex Machina on their side.
The final time I ever played in a game with one:

Spoiler: The Oozemaster and the Kender

Show

Situation: Party has your stereotypical Klepto Kender, which I despise. I'm been in 5 games with them and they've always been the reason the game collapsed. I was determined to Kender-proof my character.

My Solution: I'm playing an Oozemaster, and had commissioned a Special Bag of holding that was a Small Iron flask. The nozzle was 1 inch across so I could squeeze anything I wanted in there from a Canoe to a potion using Malleability. So I was the only person who could get things out of it. I paid for it, and it's cap, to be immune to Acid. And I would swallow it when I didn't need it, and could reach in and pull it out as a full round action. I would sleep myself in a larger Urn (also immune to acid) and coated myself in my Con damaging slime.

GM Response: I wake up in my urn and find that despite my defenses the Kender had unintentionally stolen my flask. To compound the issue, he had put a note in it and threw it in the ocean to see if anyone would ever read his message. I hate kenders, that's the game that made me refuse to ever play in a game with one again.


ME: How exactly did he "accidentally" Open my Urn, reach down my throat without taking at least 1d6 Con, and pull out my flask?
DM: He's a Kender
ME: But explain how, I put a lot of investment into protecting myself. You knew my intentions when I commissioned those items.
DM: I already said, He's a Kender.
ME: *Incomprehensible Rage*

This is one of my all time favourite d&d stories.

[Larkas]

For the first session. Not the harassment that followed, the impersonator or the stabbing.

Eh. Last we heard of him, Lanky was asked to be in a polyamorous relationship with Tammy and Theresa, so it couldn't have been all that bad. Okay, so he declined and went into some deep **** trying to justify this decision to himself, but... Seriously now. I really wish all the best came to pass for that guy. He really deserved it.

[Debatra]

We began a 3.5e game on a ship. A ship we had to chip in to buy with our WBL. I didn't like that, but we went with it. So there are three players in this game, counting me, and our oh-so-wonderful DM told us that we gave up enough gold to buy a Dhow. Okay then, nice. So we start in the middle of the ocean.

Then the guy reveals that the three of us are completely alone on our Dhow, which requires a minimum of [I]five[I] people to sail. No crew, no NPCs, nothing. And this was after the guy heavily implied the ship would be have a full crew, as well as outright stating the boat wouldn't be any more important than we decided to make it. This lead to none of us taking any skills related to sailing. So we ended up stranded, drifting wherever the tides (read: the DM) decide to take us. I spent two hours OOC trying to explain to him why this is a terrible idea before we all just gave up.

---

There's also this little gem I found elsewhere on the internets. To emphasize, this story is told in first-person but is not by me:

Spoiler

Show

Backstory:

A few years ago my LGS started running D&D 4e and had a solid consistent 4 or 5 players. Then it caught on and started getting more and more people. Soon we had about 10 players and 2 DMs. One week, the second DM couldn't make it and so the 1st DM asked a few people if anyone had experience DMing. My friend said he did, which was only partially true. He had DMed 2 or 3 tragically awful sessions among my other circle of friends who hadn't ever played before. The 1st DM, not knowing this, told him he would be DMing the next session if needed and asked him to read up on a bit of the DMG and the come early to read the next part of the module. He does neither of these things.

The Players/Characters:

We had a party of 5.

I played a Wilden Druid with lycnathropy (werebear) and at this point I had been playing for a few months and was familiar with the game.

My gf played some sort of caster and was semi-familiar with the game.

A young kid, about 15 at the time, and notoriously impulsive with a tiny attention span (you know the kind), with some experience, played a rogue.

2 new guys with a lot of D&D experience, but had never been to this LGS played a slayer and a wizard.

The Story

So the session starts with a puzzle. First there is a circular room with an orb on a pedestal and some stone archways along the wall. I grab the orb and one archway opens up what looks like a portal to the woods. I put the orb down and the portal closes. I pick it back up and inspect the portal. The rogue says he attempts to steal the orb from my hand. Rolls thievery against my perception. Obviously, the rogue's thievery is higher than my perception. DM says I don't notice the orb is no longer in my hand.

Wat.

The Rogue then attempts to run through the portal with the orb, and gets shocked by the portal and falls down. I go along with the DM's ruling and tell him that I see the orb now in the Rogue's hand and deduce that it was stolen from me. I demand the orb be returned. The rogue says "No, i'm going to sell it." Being a werebear, I get pissed, transform and attempt to attack the rogue. DM says "No I won't allow PvP."

****ing wat.

Rogue attempts to run through the portal again, gets shocked again. Another party member takes the orb and we continue to the next room.

Now in a room with a bunch of statues holding bowls and a pool of water. There are some obvious religious runes around. The party brainstorms and tries a bunch of things with the orb to solve the puzzle. After about 20 minutes real-time, we get frustrated. DM finally says "roll a religion check." No one rolls higher than a 10. He says "Sorry, can't help ya." 25 more real-time minutes go by (by now the LGS owner is seeing this and getting furious, and the 1st DM's table is waaay past this point.)

The orb was never supposed to come off the pedestal.

One of the new guys starts getting angry and does things like "attempt to smash the statues." DM says it doesn't work. Other new guy says he wants to make another religion check. Dm says "go for it." He rolls a 6. Nothing. He rolls again. 12. Nothing. He keeps rolling religion checks back to back until he gets a high enough roll then the DM explains the religious significance of the statues and we solve the puzzle.

No one is having fun.

Next room, there is a huge pit in the center of a wide hall and some statues at the other side. I attempt to throw the rogue into the pit, and roll a 21 to attack against the rogue's AC of about 15. DM says "You can't do that. What do you guys do?" The rogue says he walks around the pit. I tell him he can't because he's now in a pit. Rogue and DM both ignore me. I tell him again that I threw the rogue into the pit. DM pretends I'm not even there and asks the party again "What do you do?"

I say "I leave the party," I pick up my ****, and I go to burger king. My gf does the same. Players at the other table and the 1st DM give me weird as looks as I walk past.

I cool off at the BK Lounge for about an hour talking about how that was some real life hoe ****, then go back to the LGS.

Turns out the DM TPK'd the rest of the party by barraging them with arrows from the animated statues and not giving them an escape of hiding place. Turns out, there is not supposed to be a way to walk around the pit, and the statues leave after some damage.

DM reportedly stood up when the last player died, raised his hands and said "I win!"

Conclusion:

2 new guys never came back to the LGS.

DM doesn't understand why I was so mad. Doesn't know what he did wrong.

1st DM and LGS owner were livid that they just lost 2 potential customers and players.

LGS owner said my gf and I were credited for the next sessions table fee.

That session and that DM are still a running joke at the LGS.

TL;DR: Stand-in DM lied about DMing before, didn't read DMG or module, pissed off and/or killed entire party.

Well I mean, I do need some playtesting done soon...

...You have my attention. 3.5e?

---

EDIT: And another thing. You know how the Playground likes to joke about DMs smacking people with various books in return for breaking the game? Does anyone remember/have the thread with the story of that actually happening?

[MesiDoomstalker]

EDIT: And another thing. You know how the Playground likes to joke about DMs smacking people with various books in return for breaking the game? Does anyone remember/have the thread with the story of that actually happening?

Not for breaking the game, no. Playing with my best friend, his older brother and his father. The older brother made a snide comment about my Best Friend's girlfriend, who grabbed the nearest source book and gave him a firm smack on the upper arm. No sooner did the sound of hardcover smacking flesh stopped, their dad had slapped both them across the head. It was rather humorous to be honest.

[Aliek]

Since I've DM'd all my campaigns(all 3 of them! None lasted over a couple months tho) I guess I'm the worst DM.

I don't think I'm that bad per se - I'm usually fine with some moderate cheese, got decent/good system mastery, love creating many quirky characters and unfolding a story. But I just can't keep people hooked into it.

Maybe it's a bit of shyness or somesuch, but as much as I try, most of the time we aren't in combat, people are just looking forward to the next combat. Maybe I should look for a DM handbook

[AGCIAS]

Now that I think, I've seen quite a few bad DMs, mostly running games I was interested in joining until I saw the game. An example is the one I sat in on for about five minutes. The conversation between player and DM went like this: "Is my Vorpal battleaxe ready?" "No, it will be five more weeks." The group was third level. Mind, I an not sure I would even allow this at the penultimate levels. Admittedly, I have been spoiled by an exceptional series of incredibly good DMs and players.

Spoiler: Not, by far, the Worst DM ever.

Show

But the DM who takes the cut-glass flyswatter for me was one I ran into at college. He had expounded on his views of gaming, but a friend and I decided to give him a try anyway when he was looking for players. He belonged to an un-named major religion which mandated that good always triumph over evil. This lead to our group of five 1st level characters killing a young adult green dragon as a random encounter. Somehow, I think the DM suggested it, someone decided to cut it's stomach open to look for treasure. We found a +1 longsword. Later (don't insult the DM in front of players) I mentioned to my friend that the only way a sword could get in a dragon's stomach is if a fighter PUT it there. Then, in the dungeon, we were fighting a group of orcs. I had a potatomasher -- 4 pints of oil tied around the head of a torch and lit. The DM's response? "Make a dexterity save." NOW I remembered that he had mentioned that he didn't like flaming oil as a weapon. I had suggested several ways to prevent its use, including the only source of oil being something like the oily petrel; leading to parties wandering the dungeon holding dried birds with wicks shoved down their throats as illumination. He chose another ... path. I made three saves and shanked the fourth. The oil exploded over the heads of the party, all in front of me, just as I released it. Oh, ****, I thought, I've killed us all. But the sheet of flaming oil flew over their heads, 25 feet, to do d4 damage to the front rank of orcs. Cudoes to the DM for not flaming us all but I guess that runs with the "good always triumphs" theme. We finished the game, thanked the DM and didn't go back. Later he decided that gaming was too evil and burned all his D&D books. While our group applauded his choice to never again DM, we were all sad that he hadn't offered any of us the chance to buy his books.

[Threadnaught]

Spoiler: Not, by far, the Worst DM ever

Show

Later he decided that gaming was too evil and burned all his D&D books. While our group applauded his choice to never again DM, we were all sad that he hadn't offered any of us the chance to buy his books.

Great cosmic force to which this DM's worship is given, please mildly inconvenience him in anything text based for a single year.

[RingofThorns]

I had a dm that literally tried to turn everything into dnd porn. We had to get info for a quest from this one lady, bard talks to her gets rufied and chained to a bed in her basement getting violated for three days. When we finally find him. she tries to roofie the whole party, my wendigo character (the race from bastards and bloodlines) shrugs it off and kills her. DM goes nuts and demands to know why I did it, I explain that I didnt want to get pulp fictioned and he just gets steamed and throws a fit. Later we are in a jungle like area and a bunch of 'amazon' ambush us using blowguns with knock out darts. The party gets dropped except for me do to a high fortitude save, well they try and seduce me and fail, then try to fight me and fail, so the dm just tells me "you get shot through both hands, fore arms, and shoulders. You cant hold your sword and you cant fight with your arms." When I get annoyed that he just deus ex machinia'ed that he pretty much just insta nukes my character with a fireball from the gods......I was upset....but got even with my next character.

[Sliver]

I was rather new at the time and the DM decided that my character was too boring, so he had it charmed, raped and then brainwashed into being evil, soon separating me from the party and having me animate dead for some big bad. When I was a sorcerer. He just gave me the spells to do whatever was needed, but with no freedom to do anything but cast the spells for the bad, or RP with anything.

His game offered no interaction of NPCs, and almost all encounters were of the "so overpowering that you will be saved by his favorite angelic DMPC" nature, so the only fun we had was interacting with each other, and he took it away from us.

By the time my character was rescued and the DM started describing the super awesome ritual that his NPCs were doing to undo the brainwashing, I was so tired of this that I asked if we can skip it. I haven't stayed for much longer and the game crumbled shortly after that.

[Arbane]

(Bad porn game snipped)
I was upset....but got even with my next character.

O_o

Should I ask, and will it belong in the 'worst players' thread?

[Debatra]

I was upset....but got even with my next character.

Come now; don't even bother to pretend you think you can get away with not continuing the story on this forum.

[ekarney]

Now I know I already nominated myself. But stay with me here, because today I did something horrible.

Spoiler: The horrible story.

Show

The events that lead up to today started several months ago when I first started DMing this campaign. I had a player join, for the sake of privacy I'll call him Sprite, who joined my existing players Coke and Sunkist. Coke had been playing a heroic type martial character, Sunkist was an artificer at that point. Sprite joined in as a Water Orc barbarian. Sprite's character was a bit dull and bland but he got things done, he arranged a meeting with the towns local guilds and started some investigation style quests while Coke worked on building relations with some of the guilds and Sunkist just did his thing.

Eventually, Sprite ended up on a quest to stop some sort of messenger of the old gods (Preemptively,everyone was level 1), and to investigate the presence of gods within the town. These quests didn't get too far since Sprite decided he wanted to play a more interesting character and rolled up a Bard, since the party had no face as Sunkist had left at this point. In this, Sprite and Coke started on a politically charged misadventure that ended up with them fighting a proxy war against each other, politically. Sprite ended up winning and had Coke convicted of treason against the regent and he was imprisoned in Suzail's dungeon. Sprite decided to reroll (again) as did Coke.

Coke came back as a Dragonborn Dragon Shaman, Sprite as a Neanderthal Dead Horse (A ranger mixed with binder in terms of play that I home-brewed) in addition, we now have 7up, who's a Kobold Artificer. Quite an interesting mix, and I sent them on a horror based bit, at which point after coming to almost every session for a year straight Coke had to lower his attendance rate because of his job which is fair enough, but it left just Coke and 7up who are both the two most eccentric players I ever had.

I managed to creep the bones out of them with the first session and toned it down a bit on the second, where I had them, now level 5 fighting dekanter goblins with Vril and Drow allies. Where at this point, Sprite asked about some of those unfished quests I'd left with his first character and I told him I can bring those back which was cool cause now I had a storyline. Anyway, they crept over to the Dekanter camp levelled the place with explosives. No drow or vrill help needed. Destroying 160hd of dekanter goblins, warranting them 20,000 exp. Taking them up to level 8. I'd made the mistake of assuming they'd do something conventional like defend the drow camp. However, the Drow offered them a reward in the form of political pull in the town they were travelling to. On their way to the town Sprite and 7up discovered a certain dagger and a certain cloak. What they didn't know is both were artefacts of Lolth. The Dagger can even be used to create a portal to bring Lolth out of the demonweb (This campaign is set during an extended silence of Lolth, caused by different reasons). So they set forth and reach the town, the Drow leader (Head of one the guilds, I mentioned earlier) named Melani, who is a devout follower of Lolth, very promptly request that the cloak be given to her, as it had been in her families possession for quite some time. She said they can hold onto the dagger for now. We also made a joke about Sprite's Bard currently being in possession of lewd paintings of Melani. It was funny and didn't particularly affect the campaign so I said it could be canon if they wanted.

They go off and do various quests or whatever nothing of real importance until they decide to get this dagger checked out, and they asked Melani's second in command about it who was more than willing to oblige since he's really not too fussed about these things. He advised they return the dagger though, since being one of the few good-aligned Drow to ever exist the prospect of summoning Lolth in a relatively innocent town is not one he's too fond of.

But you know what they did? They jokingly said "I roll to cut reality and summon Lolth"

Never before have I wanted to slap a natural 20 so badly. They freaked out a little over it and I said. "Look, you could summon her with this, I advise you to use this metagame knowledge, and since I don't do this often for the love of Pepsi (Not an alias, I just like Pepsi a lot) listen to me. I'll let this summon Lolth if you want, however there's a chance she'll horribly destroy and mutilate you."

Sprite said go for it. 7up, against his better judgement also went along. I again had 2 Incatatrix's pop in (Extremely unorthodox for me by the way, allowing Incantatrix's to pop up like that but I really wanted to give them another chance) they offered an in game option to stop the portal, to which my players again denied.

So, Lolth came in, revealing herself to be Melani, killed the Incantatrix's, took the dagger, and left through her portal.

And that's the story of how I let my players summon Lolth with no negative consequences whatsoever.
Now they're going on an adventure to the Dragon Coast while I figure out what on earth I'm going to do.


tl;dr. I let my level 8 players summon lolth and now they're doing a quest for an English guard captain with a big 'stasche.

[Draco_Lord]

Well I can't say I'm the worst DM, I am have some very bad habits as a DM. So, this is more of a question really. But as a DM, how do you stop yourself from getting upset when your players curb stomp your boss battles?

I just hate it when my bosses feel less imposing because the wizard used a suck or save spell on the first round. 4th round, I can handle. But early on upsets me.

[Nerd-o-rama]

All my bad DMs have been pretty tame. Incessant railroading, incessant railroading with a stark tendency to mumble so I never know which NPC I'm talking to, incessant railroading again...

Actually even though I mention it three times, two of those DMs run exclusively out of pre-written modules so they at least have an excuse. The first long-term face-to-face 3.5 DM I had though was one of those "I'm just gonna guide my players through this novel I'm writing" types. Bonus points for declaring an Evil game and asking for Evil PCs and then not allowing us to do anything evil and forcing us to save the world. It wasn't even like a Suicide Squad situation, we just never had any opportunities, and if we tried to make them, they weren't addressed.

Well I can't say I'm the worst DM, I am have some very bad habits as a DM. So, this is more of a question really. But as a DM, how do you stop yourself from getting upset when your players curb stomp your boss battles?

I just hate it when my bosses feel less imposing because the wizard used a suck or save spell on the first round. 4th round, I can handle. But early on upsets me.

Personally, I just try to get more emotionally invested in the PCs my players make than the NPCs I make. "You roflstomped my boss? Good job, I'm so proud of you!" (having a kid helps me here).

That and I've been fortunate enough not to run a D&D game with a full-classed Wizard.

[warper]

Spoiler: My story

Show

So my group had been having trouble getting our players to DM and continue their campaign for more than 2 sessions and so we decided to do a round robin campaign. The agreement started that it would shift between me and two other guys. (Because we knew the rest were exceptionally bad at dming). Somewhere along the way that was deemed unnecessary and another member starts the session. He is already known among the group for giving practically no freedom in solutions. So the group goes chasing after some guy into his mansion, and into his basement (Dungeon) and it acts as some sort of maze spell (no save). My character is a homebrew treefolk like druid. I wander through the halls checking every door for literally over an hour finding absolutely nothing, empty rooms and empty halls. Not even furniture. Eventually the DM decides the point of our futility has gotten across and scene modes us forward and out of the dungeon. We leave town. There are like 6 level 12's in the party. The DM determines our challenge rating warrants a random encounter from a CR 18 monster that we didn't see until apparently 200ft away and immediately role initiative. Now, I knew this would happen and my character had prepared some pretty douchey spells and won initiative. So I cast some weather like spell (I forget) and ruin the monster on the first turn. He claims it's unfair but I argue that if I don't we are all screwed. He ignores my spell and goes next. Charges, gaze immediately kills one character and damage from charge puts another to like 3 hp. Then he agrees to let me do something to save the party.

Note: I made that character to save the party from those situations and had less "effective" spells prepared for normal encounters.

[Dusk Eclipse]

My worst DM was actually my first DM, and in all honestly it wasn't that he was bad, he was great at weaving stories and improvising on the spot, his mastery of the rules wasn't bad, but he did tend to rule 0 a lot, which on itself wasn't bad per say. The problem wasn't even that he favoured some players (his sons) over the rest of the group. In all honestly I am kinda thankful that he did that, because that is why I got involved with optimizing and how I got my system mastery. Since he favoured his sons in game I had to make stronger characters on my own to keep up.

No the problem was that since the majority of the group lived with him, he tended to go on sidequest and side-games on a dime with them. It wouldn't be a problem if they didn't affect the main game, but they did and once after summer vacations I came with my level 4 rogue to a game, and what do you know since they played a lot during the summer the other characters were already level 7-8ish. Thankfully he let me level up my character to match them, but it was still pretty annoying.

[SimonMoon6]

Maybe not the worst, but here's a new story:

First, the game involves three of my pet peeves: (a) a module, (b) a straightforward dungeon, and (c) lots of undead. Those always strike me as lazy DM choices, but I know that that's par for the course in a lot of games; I'm just used to better. So, that's not automatically a "worst DM" thing, just a "run of the mill, mediocre, ho-hum, bleah" DM.

For me, the part that was bad was that he was barely prepared at all. Like, maybe he had skimmed the module. So, like in a fight, he'd be constantly asking "How does this spell work?" or "How does this ability work?" etc etc. He hadn't looked at the stat blocks and analyzed what the monsters could do in advance; he just tried to wing it. He had no thoughts on strategy or anything like that because he didn't even know what the monsters *could* do, much less what they *should* do.

The final fight was particularly sad/amusing. My character was already dead, but the party had rushed on to the final fight anyway because one of the PCs (whose player was absent) had been heavily buffed. And the DM kept having to ask how all the main boss's abilities worked... and then realized that he had a particularly potent attack that he could use as a swift action every round (and *had* to use a swift action every round or else he'd explode), something that did damage and paralyzing in an area of effect with a Reflex save... and of course, if you fail a save, you're paralyzed and paralyzed people can't make Reflex saves and get re-paralyzed).

And then, at some point, it become apparent that the DM was treading that line of "Oops, this guy's too tough, it's gonna be a TPK" and "I don't want it to be a TPK". So, there were times when coup de graces were not used (especially on that overly buffed PC-with-missing-player who he *really* should have finished off)... until the DM decided he had to house rule that the paralyzing effect couldn't affect someone twice. That still gave him time to kill two PCs (one with CdG that he felt comfortable using now that there was no state of constant paralysis, one with area of effect damage while paralyzed), but the PC-with-missing-player eventually finished him (with help from two other PCs).

[Khedrac]

and of course, if you fail a save, you're paralyzed and paralyzed people can't make Reflex saves and get re-paralyzed

A DM who doesn't know the rules is a pain, but if you were playing 3.5 then the rest of you didn't know the rules either. A paralyzed character has an effective Dex of 0 (for a -5 modifier) but can still make reflex saves (they can even use evasion).

[LoyalPaladin]

Here's one I've mentioned in threads like this for over half a decade now. I'm not bitter or anything....

Spoiler: The DM who loves Kender.

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Now I've heard that it's possible to play a Kender "Right" but I have never ever seen it. Ever experience I've had has been player or DM encouraging the Chaotic Stupid HairPullingOutFrustating little prankster thieves. They always seem to have a ridiculous amount of Deus Ex Machina on their side.
The final time I ever played in a game with one:

Spoiler: The Oozemaster and the Kender

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Situation: Party has your stereotypical Klepto Kender, which I despise. I'm been in 5 games with them and they've always been the reason the game collapsed. I was determined to Kender-proof my character.

My Solution: I'm playing an Oozemaster, and had commissioned a Special Bag of holding that was a Small Iron flask. The nozzle was 1 inch across so I could squeeze anything I wanted in there from a Canoe to a potion using Malleability. So I was the only person who could get things out of it. I paid for it, and it's cap, to be immune to Acid. And I would swallow it when I didn't need it, and could reach in and pull it out as a full round action. I would sleep myself in a larger Urn (also immune to acid) and coated myself in my Con damaging slime.

GM Response: I wake up in my urn and find that despite my defenses the Kender had unintentionally stolen my flask. To compound the issue, he had put a note in it and threw it in the ocean to see if anyone would ever read his message. I hate kenders, that's the game that made me refuse to ever play in a game with one again.


ME: How exactly did he "accidentally" Open my Urn, reach down my throat without taking at least 1d6 Con, and pull out my flask?
DM: He's a Kender
ME: But explain how, I put a lot of investment into protecting myself. You knew my intentions when I commissioned those items.
DM: I already said, He's a Kender.
ME: *Incomprehensible Rage*

I think this qualifies as evil. Trust me, I'm a paladin.

[SimonMoon6]

but if you were playing 3.5 then the rest of you didn't know the rules either. A paralyzed character has an effective Dex of 0 (for a -5 modifier) but can still make reflex saves (they can even use evasion).

It was Pathfinder, which is *just* different enough from 3.x, that I don't question any weird rules that anybody tells me (of *course* you can score critical hits against undead!). I have no system mastery for Pathfinder.

But even so, if someone was gonna fail a Reflex save the first time, then with a -5 (or worse, since they may have had a DEX more than 10), they don't have great chances of making it later... not if they're subjected to a paralyze effect every round with a duration of d10 rounds, If they're paralyzed for five rounds, they have to succeed at 5 Reflex saves in a row... and any failed save has a chance to reset the clock.

And I'm not sure how someone's supposed to dodge an attack if they're paralyzed, so that seems a reasonable house rule (they do have stranger house rules, like getting 2 +1 stat bonuses every 4 levels instead of just one).