Annoying trends among newbie DMs...

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In a recent campaign I took part in as a PC, I noticed one annoying habit my DM had. Firstly, he was an unscrupulous powergamer/muchkin. A thousand times worse than me. That would not be so bad if he did not have a wizard fixation.

He believes that Wizards are the supreme class, and goes out his way to prove it time and time again. His Drow fetish makes me sick too. I've lost count of the number of Drow wizards my party had to fight.
Worse, all his Drow wizards have at least 7 levels in the Fighter class. So my party's half-orc barbarian typically gets blasted with spells from far, and then slashed to pieces with the Wizard's awesome hand to hand combat skills. Drow Longsword + 5? Eyrgh.

Now let me get on with the most prominent part of his annoying habit. Using a campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, my party is bossed around by the likes of Alustriel, the high level wizard!! It's always Alustriel says do this, she says do that. And characters like the Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Barbarian and Neutral Rogue in my party are severly punished for not obeying her. The story starts to center on Alustriel, not the PCs. We become the supporting cast in an adventure that stars his favorite wizard NPC. That pisses me off no end.

In the end, I gave up my Rogue and started a Wizard Slayer, with his permission. Confident in the absolute superiority of the Wizard, he consented quite cockily. His smug attitude lasted until my Level 9 Wizard Slayer was taking out his Level 12 Wizard/6 Fighter Drow NPCs. My wizard slayer would disable the drow's spell-casting abilties and the half-orc barbarian would eviscerate him. Note that the Wizard Slayer class I used was a fighter variation that I adapted from BG2 rules.

Eventually, between the party's Cleric, Barbarian and my Wizard-Slayer, we killed the party's paladin and the two arcane spell casters ( a wizard and sorcerer) and then proceeded to defeat Alustriel. We had the half-orc violate her before scattering her mutilated body parts all over Silverymoon. The Dm got very pissed. He eventually abandoned his campaign when we went on a murderous rampage in Silverymoon, the cleric healing, the barbarian taking out all the soldiers and my Wizard-Slayer killing all the arcane spell casters in Silverymoon.

I think I'll change my most despised class to Wizard from now on.




tell me about such worthless DMs...

 

Dislike anybody who equates good DMing/roleplaying with a high bodycount.

 

Hmmm...doesn't sound like my idea of fun. After about a half-hour of that, I would've walked out. And if enough people in the group are sick of it, either the DM needs to change, or ditch them (at least as DM)and someone else should DM.

Can't say that I've ever really played with a DM like that though. I'm almost always the DM...and..ummm...hey...I hope I'm not that bad Anyways, I have played with some people (when I was much, *much* younger) who just didn't know how to be a DM.

The worst DM I ever had wasn't really a bad person who was out to get the party (like your DM obviously was), but he wasn't really into being the DM: basically a player who got stuck DMing for a little while. He just couldn't get the hang of letting the players have choices, and tried to railroad us into doing what he wanted for the storyline. And didn't catch on to the fact that it really isn't fun to keep running into NPCs that are supremely powerful, and whom you have no choice but to obey. He also had a bad habit of making the whole thing into a completely ridiculous joke. But, he was much more at ease as a player

What I've had a lot of experience with are players who seem to want to ruin the game for everyone else. Now thats annoying. People who take jokes too far, or go around trying to kill everything and everyone, etc.

 

Ye gods! Shura, I think the guy we kicked out of our game came and found you. (See this thread to see what I'm talking about) Not only that, but someone let him DM! If you're DM's name is Dan, please give him a swift kick to the buttocks, for me.

On topic: I hate when DM's just throw things in a game for no reason, and with no backstory. It totally lacks imagination.

This example is a real event:

DM: Up ahead you see what looks like the ruins of a tower.

Me: Well, since my ranger has been living in these woods since she was 2, I'm sure she knows all about them.

DM: No, she's never seen them before.

Me: But they're half a day's walk from her hut! They peek over the treeline! No way she would have not known about them.

DM: Nope. You'd better go explore them.

Me: Were they magically teleported there last night while we were sleeping?

DM: No, they're ruins, they've been there forever.

Me: No way, my ranger would've been all over them, repeatedly, just to make sure nothing unsavory starts living in them. I assure you that there's nothing in those ruins.

DM: But it's in the book! It's part of the campaign, you have to go look in there. Please just go check them out.

Me: Should I act suprised when a band of kobolds jump us, too?


So that's my gripe. DM's with no imagination.

 

Hmmmm . . . perhaps I shouldn't be should so sad I have no one to play DnD with.

 

It's not all bad I've been playing D&D off and on for about 20 years now, and the good times (and people) far out weigh the bad ones. The key is to find a group of people you like to play with. As a kid, there were two good groups that I played with most: one in which I was the DM, and another in which I was a player. Recently I was looking to get back into playing, but I didn't know anyone who played D&D. So I found people here at Sorcerers and we play online - it's a great group, and I'm thoroughly enjoying playing with them.

 

How would one play online? I'd certainly be interested in playing DnD with some of the people here in SP.

EDIT: My humble apologies for deviating from the topic. Sorry.

[This message has been edited by C'Jakob (edited March 18, 2002).]

 

I'm deviating too, but, I'll rp, online, depending on the method.

 

DM-stering is all about flair and imagination and preperation.... And everything else. But it takes good and most importantly willing players too.

Shura, either this DM is a complete imbecil or else you have *forgotten* to tell him what you think. Either way

 

ArchAngel has a point. The players also have to be init or the DM's going to do stuff like that to get back at the players. I should know, I have done it It's really the only way we can get the players to think or say, "Wait a minute! Thats not right! What are you tring to pull on me?!" If they say that then I know that their are paying attention to the plot but if they say other things or go along with it I know that their not paying attention to the plot and drop hints. I stoped being the DM of my lastest campain because only 2 or 3 out of the 5 would ever post something. One took up to 4 weeks to post. Players must be into the adventur as much as the DM or the DM is going to put stuipd things in their.

 

Unorganized Dungeon Masters are a real pain.

 

I'm starting to play in my first campaign on Monday, I'm also going to begin DMing, I hope my DM/I am/is not like all these posts suggest...

 

I've never played with a truly awful DM in my 20+ years of gaming, but I have played with a few that weren't all that good. The most common problem was they often identified too much with their game world and not enough with the players. That tended to make it kind of boring as a player. Over time, most gamers seem to split into 'player' and 'DM' and rarely do the opposite.

Prior to this game I'm in with Gnolyn, the last time I was a player instead of a DM was in 1990. Its a nice change of pace, but I doubt I could go back to being a permanent player. DMing is just too much fun.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Hey Vormaerin!

Always a pleasure to meet a more exprienced DMs. Recently I bought the dragon magazines in a CD-set. It is exhaustive reading on a screen. I was just wondering if there was anything in particular you've found extremely exciting to implement or something you've had a lot of fun with? I have a DM session tomorrow and everything is ready. But a little "Dragon's magazine flair" would be sugar on the top.

I know it is a long shot to ask instead of reading, but 250 issues in two days. Whoa!

 

Well, this reply is likely too late, but I'm not gonna be much help with that particular topic anyway. I haven't read Dragon magazine much since the 1980s. I pretty much skipped the whole 2nd edition era of D&D. Ars Magica has been my main gaming system for most of the last decade.

The comics were always the best part of Dragon magazine, IMHO ("Phil and Dixie" and "Wormy" were pretty damn funny).

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

I had a DM once who seemed like he was just making it up as we went along, he also had an NPC Cleric who gave orders all the time.

 

I hate Dm's who laugh at, or tell you your ideas are dumb.

 

Why should he ever do that? Whack him in the head with his DM-guide from me. He should let the players experience Why the idea was "dumb", instead of just telling them. Roleplaying is about having fun and be thrilled and fascinated. Spooked and pleased. Not about who is smarter than who. On second thought. Whack him with his monstrous manual. It is heavier.

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MR.Furious. I would have abandoned the NPC cleric if he was bullying our party around. Sneaked away in the darkness. If I was Lawfull Good and he was still bullying me around, I would imidiately judge his motives and his doings against evil.
Mounting a rebellion againt a grim NPC cleric would certainly have made your DM's imagination work overtime. Hopefully teaching him to prepare better the next.

[This message has been edited by ArchAngel (edited April 22, 2002).]

 

I hate DM's who are stupid!

I once trade my piece of coal for 6 horses! I mean people are stupid, but not that stupid! (Whel actualy I liked it, but it wasn't very realistic )

Another thing I hate are those seen it done it things: Bridges garded by trolls cabins in the woods with witches or monks rings in caves (LOST, my precious is Lost!) i mean it can be fun, but not in a serious adventure, pu-lease!

Yi-haaaaaaaaa!

[This message has been edited by SleepleSS (edited April 25, 2002).]

 

It would be a great roleplaying achievement to convince the salesman that the piece of coal is actually very valuable. it would take quite a setup and trickery deceit.
If the coal was just handed over for the horses, then it is plain lame. I agree