Red Flags for DMs?

[icefractal]

I consider myself at least a somewhat clever person, and it's not unusual for me to put together incoming reveals. But if I have access to metagame information, it's hard to determine when I would have put 2 and 2 together naturally, and most systems don't have a roll to "anticipate plot."

Likewise. That's why I don't usually want to know info that's an IC secret, because then:
A) I miss out on the opportunity to figure it out myself, which can be fun.
B) If I act on it, that's general considered metagaming, even if it's something pretty obvious that I likely would have figured out and acted on otherwise.

[Sun Elemental]

Spoiler

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Omnipotence.

Spoiler

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His hair is parted the same. He's acting like a villain, but isn't Depp. Our first shot of Depp is the back of his head, same as the first shot of Not-Depp. General plot twisting expectations.

[Buufreak]

Spoiler

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His hair is parted the same. He's acting like a villain, but isn't Depp. Our first shot of Depp is the back of his head, same as the first shot of Not-Depp. General plot twisting expectations.

Now here is someone who gets it!

[Mordaedil]

I find it literally impossible not to meta-game when I have information my PC wouldn't. And I am using "literally" accurately.

If I use the information I have but my PC does not, I'm metagaming in the obvious way. But when I try NOT to use it, I am in that weird situation of having to figure out if my PC would "guess" the right solution or not. Even flipping a coin is metagaming over what I could do to analyze the situation with a "clean" slate of knowledge. It's a similar situation, actually, to the one I face when social "mechanics" are non-existent except to say such-and-such NPC is generally persuasive. Well, is my PC persuaded? I'm not dealing with that NPC, personally; I'm dealing with the GM, who may or may not be all that persuasive. I'm also not my PC; if I'm playing, for instance, a promiscuous bard, is he automatically tempted by the succubus, or is he less likely to be because he gets plenty of action, or what?

I'm not saying it's impossible to simulate ignorance, but it's a lot HARDER to do than when you share your PC's ignorance.

I don't think it's that hard, but to be fair I phrase the question a bit differently.

"How would I know that?" instead of figuring out if my PC could even guess at it. For him to guess at it, a big hint would be needed, but if he simply can piece the information together based on what he has seen and heard prior, it's fairly straight-forward. For something like specific information about something worldly, I'd just ask the DM if I can make a check for the information.

I also have a list of monsters encountered so that I can make educated guesses later about their relative weaknesses if necessary (or even polymorph into them)

[Toro]

My biggest red flag is when the game begins like this:

[Segev]

My biggest red flag is when the game begins like this:

When the game begins with Dungeon Master having taken a potion of youth?

[Zanos]

Eh, I don't mind the tavern cliche too much. We spend way too much time trying to figure out how PCs meet each other as it is.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Besides, sometimes ya gotta respect the classics.

[ComaVision]

Besides, sometimes ya gotta respect the classics.

Absolutely. One of the games I'm running right now is an oldschool hexcrawl and it just wouldn't be right if a tavern wasn't the central hub.

[atemu1234]

Eh, I don't mind the tavern cliche too much. We spend way too much time trying to figure out how PCs meet each other as it is.

I mean, I usually have the players' first mission begin in a tavern. It's difficult to come up with some other reason for them all to meet.

[Barstro]

I mean, I usually have the players' first mission begin in a tavern. It's difficult to come up with some other reason for them all to meet.

Tell them to come up with a cohesive team ahead of time that includes a short backstory for why they are together? I know, I know; that would hurt one player's feelings because he really wants to be CN and steal from the team.

I have no problems with a tavern either. Its often better than whatever ham-fisted plan the DM would otherwise have.

[Mikemical]

What are some red flags for you that will make you think someone is a 'bad' DM?

"The setting is based on a novel I'm writing..." = Brace yourself for a railroaded snorefest where you'll play second fiddle to a bunch of DMPCs until either you provoke a scratch and/or get removed from the game.

"I made a totally balanced homebrew race that look like cat-girls/anthropomorphic animals/[insert fetish here]..." = This should be fairly obvious. Expect them to be named something that would make the latin language writhe in its grave or something vaguely japanese-sounding. Homebrew classes might sometimes fall in this territory.

"The campaign is set after the events of a campaign my character took part of..." = Most of the time, this is product of the "DM" leaving the previous campaign for reasons better not dwelled upon. At best, his character died and he didn't feel like rolling a new character and left. At worst, a restriction order was filed.
Note: Not that good capaigns cannot derive from a previous one. I played two generations of adventurers set in the same world with one story picking up where the other one ended and it was pretty neat to see our previous characters after their story had finished.

"The campaign is based around political intrigue..." = You'll be sitting for hours listening to someone trying to explain how Socialism/Communism could totally work because it works in his fantasy world with fantasy currency. Expect some racism to be buried under a thin layer of "lore".

"I set up this campaign to get my SO/GF/BF to play D&D/WoD..." = Much like the novelist mentioned above, you'll be playing second-fiddle to backup dancer to a DMPC.

[Firechanter]

I don't mind the Tavern Meeting. It may not be terribly original, but it generally works.
What I do mind, and what is very much a Red Flag for me, if the other "classic", the "You wake up in a prison cell and all your stuff is gone", and variations thereof.

Also, in reference to Mikemical, when I smell any kind of Mary Sue NPC or race that definitely also is a Red Flag.

"The campaign is based around political intrigue..." = You'll be sitting for hours listening to someone trying to explain how Socialism/Communism could totally work because it works in his fantasy world with fantasy currency. Expect some racism to be buried under a thin layer of "lore".

I also have an aversion to "political intrigue" games, but for totally different reasons. I've never experienced what you described. However, when a DM announced "intrigue", in most cases this translated to "you will be used as pawns by one or more competing factions, and the whole time you will not have a single clue what is going on".

(Also, don't you live in a socialist country with fantasy currency? )

[Honest Tiefling]

I don't mind the Tavern Meeting. It may not be terribly original, but it generally works.
What I do mind, and what is very much a Red Flag for me, if the other "classic", the "You wake up in a prison cell and all your stuff is gone", and variations thereof.

Pesonally, I don't mind this...If the DM telegraphs it before hand, such as dropping hints that you shouldn't get too used to your gear. Letting the players decide how they got there is also a nice touch.

Also, in reference to Mikemical, when I smell any kind of Mary Sue NPC or race that definitely also is a Red Flag.

ELVES.

I also have an aversion to "political intrigue" games, but for totally different reasons. I've never experienced what you described. However, when a DM announced "intrigue", in most cases this translated to "you will be used as pawns by one or more competing factions, and the whole time you will not have a single clue what is going on".

Political intrigue usually devolves into arson/murder/kidnapping/brainwashing at some point in the games I have seen. But many games devolve into that...Well, not the last one.

[kuhaica]

Part 1
Part Deux
Part the Third

This is my DM. Litterly it's like reading what I've experienced for a year but in mutiple settings with a new and cool system.

I have a feeling if I ever showed my old DM the Sue system, they'd think it's the best thing since slice bread... how can there be more then one?

[danielxcutter]

This is my DM. Litterly it's like reading what I've experienced for a year but in mutiple settings with a new and cool system.

I have a feeling if I ever showed my old DM the Sue system, they'd think it's the best thing since slice bread... how can there be more then one?

No way. Seriously?

[Svata]

This is my DM. Litterly it's like reading what I've experienced for a year but in mutiple settings with a new and cool system.

I have a feeling if I ever showed my old DM the Sue system, they'd think it's the best thing since slice bread... how can there be more then one?

Oh god, I'm so sorry.

So, so sorry. My only advice, find another DM.

[danielxcutter]

Oh god, I'm so sorry.

So, so sorry. My only advice, find another DM.

Seconded - run. Run like the f*cking goddamned wind.

[kuhaica]

No way. Seriously?

Yup.

Spoiler: Rant

Show

Playing Star wars Saga edition. Half way through completely diffrent rules. At first we are OK with them. They keep getting changed to benifit the enemy. HP is removed only threshold, all the enemies have 30+ threshold. If you don't beat the threshold no damage. If you beat it. You get an injury. Double it 3 injuries. Triple your critical. One guy who's hp should read 112 had 12 threshold. Almost always dies. Then the DM makes armor useless. Says the DR is the same as the armor HP so my DR 20 armor can only absorb 20 Damage in total. Rather then 60 damage in total if I remember the correct rules. And mind you. Only rare Armors and expensive metals had DR. My armor cost 33,000 per set. If I was lucky. As "black market everything is higher" I generally spent 80-200 thousand credits on armor. After every encounter. It got better when Armor no longer added to your AC and was only used for DR

This created an arms race. But it gets better. We are rail roaded to fight the empire. Even though we hate the rebels cause they take our stuff. As its 'realistic' then the DM throws us in the Archology from Shadow Run. THE ARCHOLOGY the one that's the size of a city 300 and something floors contorted by an AI named Deus. But. They change everything. We spent 8 sessions in the damn place. Two players left. Then the DM pulls out there Marty Sue. A Biological Female Robot Force Users special snow flake DMPC which is super important and screws us over but we can't kill her because the AI will kill us instantly as it hacked the Holo net.

From there a new evil empire shows up. Beats up the old empire. One of the other players is used as the central plot as his previously killed father is the "Blood King" of the "Blood Kingdom" that uses rail guns. Every soilders is the best of the best (I did the math. Each soilder was level 7. All of them. We where level 11) and that happened to be several million. It's reasonable. So we are forced to fight them. We try to do little things. First mission we encounter a skeleton crew of 100 guys in a old fashion recon station. Which is so old fashion nothing we use to hack works. We do 300 damage to one guy due to the DM giving someone a sniper which deals I think to be 7d12 + 50. And the player Crit it. The enemy survived. We nearly all got killed, as every enemy has 40+ threshold which means that if we don't do 41 damage, well it's just a scratch.

And as I read through this Sue Universe. It's as if I'm reading what happend to me. But on a larger scale. It's insane. And sorry for the rant. This just make me in awe. The fact that more then one DM like this exists

Oh god, I'm so sorry.

So, so sorry. My only advice, find another DM.

We did... I and a friend are the DMs. It's two DMs doing 2 games. It kinda works as we are both to busy... but it's with the same group... and the old DM is in it... and they want to try out this new system that they made...

[martixy]

My biggest red flag is when the game begins like this:

Spoiler: You meet in a tavern; Also DMs taking youth potions

Show

I would not consider it a red flag, more of a... how do I put it... a yellow incompatibility.

I myself am tired of these starts and would push for a better one(also, not a prison or ship).

As far as DMing, it tells me that story is not likely to feature prominently. I like story.

I've found that once you get a couple of characters with a solid backstory, intersection points tend to arise naturally, and they're very rarely at the tavern.

[EldritchWeaver]

I would not consider it a red flag, more of a... how do I put it... a yellow incompatibility.

I myself am tired of these starts and would push for a better one(also, not a prison or ship).

As far as DMing, it tells me that story is not likely to feature prominently. I like story.

I've found that once you get a couple of characters with a solid backstory, intersection points tend to arise naturally, and they're very rarely at the tavern.

I've used in my campaign for the first set of characters the adventure school background. Classmates form up squads for the final test, which is the first adventure. Then I due to some player and player character attrition I had some new PCs join in the tavern the current party happened to be in. For story reasons some more PCs joined up after a staged recruitment drive (Basically the PCs' benefactor wanted to smuggle in some of their people into the group without the main opponent knowing. The players/PCs were all informed about this ploy.), which happened at another inn. So the tavern idea can be made interesting or at least unobtrusive.

[ErebusVonMori]

I mean, I usually have the players' first mission begin in a tavern. It's difficult to come up with some other reason for them all to meet.

Currently in a game where we didn't all met in the tavern, but we're all from different walks of life so now we start every session in a tavern as it's the only 'neutral' meeting point in the town the campaign is based around. It's a classic for a reason I guess.

[weckar]

Yup.

Spoiler: Rant

Show

Playing Star wars Saga edition. Half way through completely diffrent rules. At first we are OK with them. They keep getting changed to benifit the enemy. HP is removed only threshold, all the enemies have 30+ threshold. If you don't beat the threshold no damage. If you beat it. You get an injury. Double it 3 injuries. Triple your critical. One guy who's hp should read 112 had 12 threshold. Almost always dies. Then the DM makes armor useless. Says the DR is the same as the armor HP so my DR 20 armor can only absorb 20 Damage in total. Rather then 60 damage in total if I remember the correct rules. And mind you. Only rare Armors and expensive metals had DR. My armor cost 33,000 per set. If I was lucky. As "black market everything is higher" I generally spent 80-200 thousand credits on armor. After every encounter. It got better when Armor no longer added to your AC and was only used for DR

This created an arms race. But it gets better. We are rail roaded to fight the empire. Even though we hate the rebels cause they take our stuff. As its 'realistic' then the DM throws us in the Archology from Shadow Run. THE ARCHOLOGY the one that's the size of a city 300 and something floors contorted by an AI named Deus. But. They change everything. We spent 8 sessions in the damn place. Two players left. Then the DM pulls out there Marty Sue. A Biological Female Robot Force Users special snow flake DMPC which is super important and screws us over but we can't kill her because the AI will kill us instantly as it hacked the Holo net.

From there a new evil empire shows up. Beats up the old empire. One of the other players is used as the central plot as his previously killed father is the "Blood King" of the "Blood Kingdom" that uses rail guns. Every soilders is the best of the best (I did the math. Each soilder was level 7. All of them. We where level 11) and that happened to be several million. It's reasonable. So we are forced to fight them. We try to do little things. First mission we encounter a skeleton crew of 100 guys in a old fashion recon station. Which is so old fashion nothing we use to hack works. We do 300 damage to one guy due to the DM giving someone a sniper which deals I think to be 7d12 + 50. And the player Crit it. The enemy survived. We nearly all got killed, as every enemy has 40+ threshold which means that if we don't do 41 damage, well it's just a scratch.

And as I read through this Sue Universe. It's as if I'm reading what happend to me. But on a larger scale. It's insane. And sorry for the rant. This just make me in awe. The fact that more then one DM like this exists

Are you sure this wasn't a wild long fever dream?

[Mikemical]

(Also, don't you live in a socialist country with fantasy currency? )

That was uncalled for. But yes, Monopoly money is actually worth more than our regular paper money. But you try explaining that to any SJW in the US and they'll put on their tinfoil hats and say that "THE GLOBAL ELITE IS TO BLAME FOR SOCIALISM'S SHORTCOMINGS".

@Honest Tiefling, I too, have a deep rooted prejudice against elves, as anyone else should.

Spoiler

Show

Also, these ones are fairly obvious Red Flags:

- They've played F.A.T.A.L. and believe it's a good system. (It's not.)

- They've been caught reading The Book of Erotic Fantasy.

- They've tried getting you to read The Book of Erotic Fantasy.

- They're really insistent that you should try Ironclaw/Jadeclaw.

- They think some filthy Xenos could be potential allies of the Imperium of Man as infiltrators/moles. (This is Heresy and should be met with Standard Issue Exterminatus)

[Zanos]

- They think some filthy Xenos could be potential allies of the Imperium of Man as infiltrators/moles. (This is Heresy and should be met with Standard Issue Exterminatus)

B-b-b-but my half tau fire-caste half eldar waifu with space marine implants is super hot!

[atemu1234]

"The campaign is based around political intrigue..." = You'll be sitting for hours listening to someone trying to explain how Socialism/Communism could totally work because it works in his fantasy world with fantasy currency. Expect some racism to be buried under a thin layer of "lore".

Weird, because from an economic standpoint Socialism works actually less in D&D than it does in real life; the expectation of certain types of economy is hard-baked into the system.

[dehro]

I see many complain about what jerks might do to screw the pooch, the game, the rules or their fellow gamers, so I can't help myself but wonder...
why play with jerks? or, in a world of scarcity, why allow jerks to behave like jerks rather than curtailing their antics?

on a different note:
I don't see why a DM should justify why they are banning a class or race and why "I don't like'em" should not be considered a valid enough reason. If you really insist on playing that race or class, it's on you to find someone who will accept them in their game.
with so many alternatives at your disposal, you should be able to find something else you like playing.
Case in point, as a player, I dislike the notion of monks in a "classic" fantasy setting, because they're styled after shaolin monks, which is such a well defined trope that to me it just feels out of place with the rest of the setting.
Moreover, this is true mechanically as well, since they introduce limitations and powers based on ki, traditional martial arts styles and a few of the weapons that come with... now, if we were playing a wuxia setting, I'd be all for it; but we usually are not, so I completely agree with my DM banning them.
Likewise, I've personally always associated psionic powers with science fiction rather than with fantasy.
Yes, you can refluff all you like, but I often take inspiration from the fluff to determine the background, motivation and identity of my characters.. also, it's one thing to refluff, one to have to also adapt the game mechanics of psionics to make them mesh with whatever the setting dictates.
Put simply, it's a pointless complication of things, that is predicated on your mage and/or cleric somewhat forcibly ignoring that the very existence of a psionicist doesn't fit with how he "knows" the world to be put together..

Anyhoo, I'm just a player, and I realise by reading this thread that there are a number of things that my DMs do that I don't really like and wish could be done differently.
For instance: there's a lot of rolling for basic stuff.
"I'll tie the rope so that you can climb down it.."
"Roll for use rope."
seriously? how about after I tie the knot I try it out by pulling at it with all my weight and if it doesn't come lose, it won't come lose 30 seconds from now? I'm not in a hurry, I'm not trying to fashion a hammock or tying down a ship in a storm. It's a basic knot.
"I'm going to ask the innkeeper for directions..."
"Roll diplomacy."
Dude, I'm a 22th level cleric of Bahamut..I'm basically the right-hand man to the highest priest of Bahamut... we're in Celestia, why on earth should he not want to give me an answer?
"roll for diplomacy."

Then there's the fact that we never ever catch a break.
Every encounter is always likely to turn out to be a narrow thing at best (that includes usually 1 or 2 of us, the less tactically savvy, being revivified at least once).. or a near wipe. We never seem to fall upon a party of mooks or in a situation where we have any kind of tactical advantage... in fact, more often than not we're at disadvantage.
We're all between 21 and 23rd level.. we climb to the second level of celestia in order to gain access to a portal that's located there. guarding the gate to said level are 2 solars.. who just happen to have the skills/powers to know all about us, our intents, our allignment (2 of us are less than squeaky clean so had to basically not be there at all and find another way to the place we needed to go, because we just knew that fighting the solars was either going to be fatal or going to bite us in the ass half a session later).
We reach some other place where we have no declared enemy, the mooks guarding the gate aren't the least bit impressed by the sheer power emanating from a few of us, and treat us with contempt and warn us that any transgression will be met with letal force.
Dude, one of us is literally a legendary paladin of Tyr with the saint template pretty much written across his armor. What are we gonna do, pickpocket the locals?

Nothing, ever, comes easy and even our allies practically never give us any freebies... Dude, we're fighting to save the multiverse here; what do you mean "what's in it for me?".. you get to continue existing, for one, now give me the address of that portal, pretty please!
now.. these are all very reasonable things, in context.. but when you've been at it for a year or more and nothing has ever changed and nobody is giving you anything.. When you're epic level dogooders but can't even fashion yourself a safe refuge in order to rest and ready yourself for the next battle..When you have to do everything just right because the smallest blunder will likely result in yet another plane turning against you and not joining the alliance to save...everybody, it gets tiring.

Not only that. I don't know if it depends on the players in my group or on the DMs (a couple of them take turns running each their own campaign), but most interactions are either with people who are too strong for us to argue with effectively, or end up in a fight. It would be nice to occasionally just be able to convince an npc that it's in his best interest to side with us/not fight with us/be honest (accept a reasonable bribe.. or maybe even just forgive us for slipping up on something, without taking advantage of every little misstep... and not having to rely on a diceroll to do so.

The other thing that annoys me, but that's probably mostly a problem I have because of my nature:
I'm easily distracted and often forgetful of game mechanics, half the players AND the DMs seem to just be waiting to catch you out on a mistake.
A basic thing? I often forget to concentrate before casting a spell and therefore occasionally get a fistful of AoUs to the face.
On one hand, I understand it's frustrating for everybody to see me die stupidly for something avoidable.. on the other, when you know it's something I, the player, don't always check and when you know that tactical movement and strategic deployment of spells/resources just isn't something I'm very good at, would it kill you to remind me rather than to wring your hands at every opportunity and kill off my character yet again? I'm running out of things to play and ways to join the party in a believable fashion.
And this is true for the group in general, because half the players can't wait to see me put my foot in it again, the other half would help/remind me but are told by the DMs that they should let me make my mistakes... it annoys me that the character should die of a blunder that he wouldn't make if not for the idiotic player who pulls the strings (me) .
Yes, I realise that most of the DMs in this thread will be more sympatethic towards the DMs, in this regard, than with me.

So, in short, tailored encounters are good, in general, because they make the fight challenging, and it's entirely my fault if despite being a badass cleric I still am the one most likely to need rescuing, but does it hurt you to occasionally throw in something that isn't necessarily lethal?

All considered, this thread discourages me from starting to work on my own campaign. I know for a fact, thanks to previous experiences in running other gaming contexts, that I'd be just fine with the narrative side of things and with keeping the story interesting and the options open.. but the numbers side of things scares the crap out of me.
I have no idea how to balance an encounter.
I'm crap at putting together my own characters, let alone running multiple npcs, and the players I'd be having are more of a rollplaying ilk than I am, which would play badly against my particular shortcomings.

[Mikemical]

Spoiler: tl;dr

Show

I see many complain about what jerks might do to screw the pooch, the game, the rules or their fellow gamers, so I can't help myself but wonder...
why play with jerks? or, in a world of scarcity, why allow jerks to behave like jerks rather than curtailing their antics?
on a different note:
I don't see why a DM should justify why they are banning a class or race and why "I don't like'em" should not be considered a valid enough reason. If you really insist on playing that race or class, it's on you to find someone who will accept them in their game.
with so many alternatives at your disposal, you should be able to find something else you like playing.
case in point, as a player, I dislike the notion of monks in a "classic" fantasy setting, because they're styled after shaolin monks, which is such a well defined trope that to me it just feels out of place with the rest of the setting. Moreover, this is true mechanically as well, since they introduce limitations and powers based on ki, traditional martial arts styles and a few of the weapons that come with... now, if we were playing a wuxia setting, I'd be all for it.. but we usually are not, so I completely agree with my DM banning them. likewise, I've personally always associated psionic powers with science fiction rather than with fantasy. yes, you can refluff all you like, but I often take inspiration from the fluff to determine the background, motivation and identity of my characters.. also, it's one thing to refluff, one to have to also adapt the game mechanics of psionics to make them mesh with whatever the setting dictates. Put simply, it's a pointless complication of things, that is predicated on your mage and/or cleric somewhat forcibly ignoring that the very existence of a psionicist doesn't fit with how he "knows" the world to be put together..
anyhoo, I'm just a gamer, and I realise by reading this thread that there are a number of things that my DMs do that I don't really like and wish could be done differently..
for instance: there's a lot of rolling for basic stuff. I'll tie the rope so that you can climb down it.. roll for use rope. seriously? how about after I tie the knot I try it out by pulling at it with all my weight and if it doesn't come lose, it won't come lose 30 seconds from now? I'm not in a hurry, I'm not trying to fashion a hammock or tying down a ship in a storm.
I'm going to ask the innkeeper for directions... roll diplomacy. dude, I'm a 22th level cleric of Bahamut..I'm basically the right-hand man to the highest priest of Bahamut... we're in Celestia, why on earth should he not want to give me an answer? roll for diplomacy.

then there's the fact that we never ever catch a break. every encounter is always likely to turn out to be a narrow thing at best (that includes usually 1 or 2 of us, the less tactically savvy, being revivified at least once).. or a near wipe. we never seem to fall upon a party of mooks or in a situation where we have any kind of tactical advantage...
we're all between 21 and 23rd level.. we climb to the second level of celestia in order to gain access to a portal that's located there. guarding the gate to said level are 2 solars.. who just happen to have the skills/powers to know all about us, our intents, our allignment (2 of us are less than squeaky clean so had to basically not be there at all and find another way to the place we needed to go, because we just knew that fighting the solars was either going to be fatal or going to bite us in the ass half a session later)..
we reach some other place where we have no declared enemy, the mooks guarding the gate aren't the least bit impressed by the sheer power emanating from a few of us, and treat us with contempt and warn us that any transgression will be met with letal force. dude, one of us is a legendary paladin of Tyr with the saint template pretty much written across his armor.. what are we gonna do, pickpocket the locals?
nothing, ever, comes easy and even our allies practically never give us any freebies... dude, we're fighting to save the multiverse here.. what do you mean "what's in it for me?".. you get to continue existing, for one, now give me the address of that portal, pretty please!
now.. these are all very reasonable things, in context.. but when you've been at it for a year or more and nothing has ever changed and nobody is giving you anything.. when you're epic level dogooders but can't even fashion yourself a safe refuge in order to rest and ready yourself for the next battle..when you have to do everything just right because the smallest blunder will likely result in yet another plane turning against you and not joining the alliance to save...everybody, it gets tiring.
Not only that. I don't know if it depends on the players in my group or on the DMs (a couple of them take turns running each their own campaign), but most interactions are either with people who are too strong for us to argue with effectively, or end up in a fight. It would be nice to occasionally just be able to convince an npc that it's in his best interest to side with us/not fight with us/be honest(accept a reasonable bribe.. or maybe even just forgive us for slipping up on something, without taking advantage of every little misstep... and not having to rely on a diceroll to do so.
The other thing that annoys me, but that's probably mostly a problem I have because of my nature, I'm easily distracted and often forgetful of game mechanics, half the players AND the DMs seem to just be waiting to catch you out on a mistake. a basic thing? I often forget to concentrate before casting a spell and therefore occasionally get a fistful of AoUs to the face. on one hand, I understand it's frustrating for everybody to see me die stupidly for something avoidable.. on the other, when you know it's something I don't always check and when you know that tactical movement and strategic deployment of spells/resources just isn't something I'm very good at, would it kill you to remind me rather than to wring your hands at every opportunity.
And this is true for the group in general, because half the players can't wait to see me put my foot in it again, the other half would help/remind me but are told by the DMs that they should let me make my mistakes... it annoys me that the character should die of a blunder that he wouldn't make if not for the idiotic player who pulls the strings (me) .
yes, I realise that most of the DMs in this thread will be more sympatethic towards the DMs, in this regard, than with me.

So, in short, tailored encounters are good, in general, because they make the fight challenging, and it's entirely my fault if despite being a badass cleric I still am the one most likely to need rescuing, but does it hurt you to occasionally throw in something that isn't necessarily lethal?

All considered, this thread discourages me from starting to work on my own campaign. I know for a fact, thanks to previous experiences in other gaming contexts, that I'd be just fine with the narrative side of things and with keeping the story interesting and the options open.. but the numbers side of things scares the crap out of me. I have no idea how to balance an encounter. I'm crap at putting together my own characters, let alone running multiple npcs, and the players I'd be having are more of a rollplaying ilk than I am, which would play badly against my particular shortcomings.

You uh, mind putting some spaces somewhere in there for us, bud? It's hard not to get lost in those walls of text.

[kuhaica]

Are you sure this wasn't a wild long fever dream?

I truly wish. But my Saga Edition character sheet says other wise... anyways I may as well contribute to the thread.


My Red Flags are as Follows
- Talking about how you've seen x done before and becsuse you like x everyone likes x
- Saying you've run the campaign before
- A 'Survival' 3.5 Edition starting at Level one with nothing
- Talking about your brand new cool NPC
- Talking about your old but super cool NPC
- Introducing Said NPC to take the spot light
- Argues about the concept of something for half an hour after everyone already stopped after 2 minutes
- Talking about how you got this idea from a book that only you've read and made the puzzle exactly like the book making it impossible for anyone who doesn't know about it to figure it out.
- Giving NPCS and DMPCs custom classes which only they have
- "What do you mean there's a challenge rating?" This is almost a walk away.
- Having your own Rule Set
- Changing the rules on the fly
- Banning Books for the Sake of banning them. Or because 'I don't like it' and then not explaining why. Some cases, I fully understand.
- Frequently gushing over ideas that get randomly thrown into a setting for no reason other then it's cool
- Being known as a lazy player
- Having the the 'Me vs them' mind set all the time. Sometimes it's fun. All the time isn't
- Telling players. "I'm not ready for you to get there yet. So you can't go"
- Penalizing 'Mundane' classes
- Saying DND Wiki is a good source
- Saying the 3.5 Official Traits and Flaws system isn't cool. But the DnDWiki ones are and there for are better and all of my NPCS have the super edgy flaws which are actully super awsome.
- Letting one player do something but not anouther.
- Punishing players for Roleplay

[Barstro]

why play with jerks? or, in a world of scarcity, why allow jerks to behave like jerks rather than curtailing their antics?

I take it you've never played organized sports. In a well-populated area, there might be a large enough supply of DMs to allow one to pick and choose. For the most part, though, you take what you can get and you are stuck with that jackass wide receiver who thinks he's a god. The adage "Bad DM < No DM" doesn't hold true for all people.