You forgot the GM that puts HIS character into the story, and he adventures with the party, and is the coolest guy ever, and the party gets to hold his treasure and gawk as he defeats every enemy with ease.
With permission I'd like to dub that as the "Gary Stu/Mary Sue" GM- And I *USED* to be one of those. It didn't last long. I know other GMs who are unabashedly guilty of this too.
yes dude, yes. a million times this. nothing makes me right off a campaign faster than a gm with a character. running npcs is their job, but running the godlike character... nope.
SondrianMusic I’ll have Gm PCs as mercenaries(in case someone can’t make it), but I keep them on the same level as the rest of the party. It’s no fun to have them just completely outclass the party.
No, it's a good sign. It's a sign that while there may be some things for you to improve on (after almost 25 years, I'm still improving), you have a player that thinks highly enough of you as a friend to want to help instead of just not play with you. That's a sign of a nurturing brotherly-love kind of friend, and those are rare :) Unless they are an asshole... then it's probably not very nice lol.
I once had a GM that would make me roll on everything. My character had a drink of water, i rolled a 1, my character drowned while trying to drink the glass of water :/
It was an interesting game. One of the other pc's decided to jump over some broken glass, rolled a 1 and then the glass sliced his foot off. I had a great DM :/
That's good then. My group had a session where one guy was trying to lift up a door and kept failing the roll check. He then grew frustrated and tried to headbutt the door. Another guy in the group was going to help him out. But when the first guy rolled a 1, our DM had the second guy roll a strength check. It ended up that the second guy instead of helping lift the door ended up pushing the first guy through the door. The door was trapped and a poisoned arrow shot out of the wall. Had they opened the door by lifting, one would have been shot. With how the rolls turned out, the first guy got pushed out of the way and no one was hit. Our DM used the crit fails to actually save the character in a hilarious way.
That sounds awesome! My DM (at that time) probably would have had the guy who rolled a 1 fall on the handle and suffer a head injury and very possibly the character would have died or lost an eye or something
I used to play with a GM that would introduce new players with a half-hour long backstory about their character's life up to that point, narrating all the decisions in their life and how they got to the point of the game, what their motives were, etc. I think this is a "Limelight" kind of issue, but I also thought it really took away agency from players. I remember I got into a campaign late, so he made me play a 1st level character when everyone was level 7 or so. AND he decided I had to start without my sword or any equipment whatsoever, so two sessions were basically me just annoying peasants in a tiny village with absolutely no shops to find a way to find at least some cutlery or something to stick into baddies (no luck). So, a lot of "No GM"-ing there, I suppose... He would have peasants get angry because I didn't specifically roleplay how fantasy medieval peasant etiquette worked, and shot me down whenever I said OOC "well, obviously I (the player) don't know that, but wouldn't the character know that doing X is rude?". And I mean stuff like knocking on doors unsolicited or trying to talk people in a kitchen, or in general try to engage in roleplaying. Later he had us fight a bunch of wendigos, which are basically cannibal bigfoots vampires. At that point I was really bored, because I had nothing to contribute to the fight. One of the players, the one that invited me to the group said something like "look, this DM is cool, if you do something cool I'm sure it will help despite the rules." So I said I was going to use acrobatics to basically swing up to this huge monster's head and stab it in the eye. Got really good rolls too, and the DM was like, "ok, you hit him. It does no damage." Rules said so, I guess, no magic weapon, no damage. "Rules DM" it is, I suppoe. BTW the Wendigos ate everyone and I escaped, both the encounter, and soon enough, the gaming table.
It wasn't for me. It was me just hearing him narrate for 30+ minutes about stuff my character didn't have any choice in, that was completely non-interactive, that just dragged the game on. And he did that on other games too: I made a fighter/rogue, and he decided that my backstory was that I was a merchant, that I was going into town because I was dragging some shipment, and that it got stolen. After that, since I decided to play along with it, asking about my shipment, or finding justification for doing the quests in that maybe that way I could get my stuff back, he told me I had been roleplaying a greedy bastard and had everyone react negatively, even punishing him in the afterlife after he got killed.
Sergio Le Roux I always have my players introduce themselves indepth at the beginning, and then if new people come into it, I'll have them do the same and say to them, "you turn to see a..." and then provide a two-sentence synopsis of previously-introduced people. If they want to elaborate they can, if not, my little murderhobos get to murder on.
Liam Torun All that sounds very sensible, even if a GM is anti-murderhobo, requiring them to narrate their life story in mid campaign right between the cart chase along the rooftops and blowing up the reactor inside the dragon would really break pacing. I was more annoyed about the GM really wanting us to just sit there and listen to super...long...narration all the time. Player intro was just the most annoying because they're supposed to be our characters and backstories, not his. He actually did this all the time, he prepared 5-page long intros to everything, campaigns, quests, and they were really written like he was pitching a novel to us.
Sergio Le Roux Yeah, that's just a bad deal. If anything I encourage my players to describe only their appearance and relevant stuff in their intro, and leave backstory revelation for later when they talk to each other or an NPC. Also works great for a storyline where someone's secret seedy past comes back to bite the party - the revelation when they come across a secret sigil or a wickedly curved dagger, and suddenly the rogue knows what's going on, is just delicious to play out.
If the player cannot jump the gap by the rules, then a good DM tells them it will not work before they jump, and be cooperative with them in finding another way.
Or, alternatively if they keep insisting on trying, lets them do it and has them suffer the appropriate consequences. Hey, if your players are going to insist on being chaotic stupid, you might as well let them and have them deal with the consequences of their actions.
"you see the canyon in front of you and just know, that you will not be able to land on the other side. You have jumped over gaps, but this one is about twice as large as the furthest you have jumped." would be my answer, even if he has requested to jump allready. then i would make him do a will-check, against his slefpreserving instincts so to speak.
I did that with my players I have a monster that hides in holes in the ground because it can't be out during the morning so what do they do as soon as they escape a prison in forest hide in a random hide hole out of no where in a forest. when if they just climbed a tree there would have most likely been no encounter. the monsters where a CR 1/2 and they where successful but I felt they could of thought of something better. I did ask if they where sure and they said yes
our GM sometimes bends rules a bit, for lols. for example: i was turned into stone, and our dwarf, who loves speaking to stones, tried to stonetalk to me. normally that's not possible, but for the sake of lols the dwarf got three questions. which my character answered angrily.
I've been lucky enough to only ever encounter a single bad GM since I started playing PnP RPGs. It's my first time playing any game like this and was D&D 3.5 Edition and its 2005. GM had this odd character creation method. You would pick your race, then you would row for each of your attributes with 4d6, removing the lowest amount rolled. You don't pick where the results go, you just go down the line. I played a lot of Warcraft (The strategy games, hadn't touched the MMO yet) and I'm a huge fan of the Horde, so I picked Half-Orc as my race. My stats wound up being 12 str, 6 dex, 14 con, 8 int, 14 wis and 16 cha. The result was the birth of Durak the Redeemer, the half-orc paladin of the Triad (Tyr, Torm and Ilmater). Campaign went fine until we reached 5th level. Everyone was asleep by Durak and Arathyen, an elf sorcerer (dragon blood). They were discussing their most recent escapades, which involved Durak stopping an ogre from pillaging a pig farm. Instead, Durak helped the farmer teach the ogre how to work the farm itself, peacefully ending things without blood shed and proving, once again, that monstrous creatures can be taught to be good, or at least neutral, instead of evil. Well, the GM suddenly had our characters ambushed. Someone a group of slavers managed to avoid triggering the Alarm spell, which Arathyen had placed at the front of the cave about 30 minutes before in game time. The slavers attack us. All of their attack dealt 6d20 damage, even a nat 20 couldn't get through their AC and we couldn't run because the GM said we couldn't and never told us why. We get sold to a gladiator arena. Magic is made useless by collars put around the necks of Arathyen, Eris (A Human Cleric of Amatra)and Durak lose the majority of their abilities because of this. While Eris and Durak are fine, due to being capable combatants, Arathyen is kinda fucked. We're then sent through round after round of fights, all against various monsters and animals. Then, we were told we had to fight the arena champions. There were four in total, a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Rogue and a Monk. Each one was described as being convicted killers, sent to the arena as punishment for their crimes. In this land we were in, convicted killers who manage to slay 100 monsters and/or people in the arenas are released. This goes for everyone who fights in the arenas. Anyways, it's a fight to the death. We win if we kill the champions, champions win if they kill us. Cue fight. By now, we're roughly 7th level and Arathyen had taken two levels in rogue so he could at least do something to help us. We manage to barely win and a few lucky 20's from Arathyen and Seabo (A gnome rogue) more or less saved our lives in the fight. The GM smiles slowly and turns to look me in the eyes then. "You have committed murder. You are now Chaotic Evil. You lose all of your Paladin powers. Your gods turn their backs on you and will no longer listen to your prayers and will even ignore any attempts at redemption. No matter what you do, you will never be able to regain your lost powers or take new levels in Paladin." I get pissed off. We argue for roughly an hour. To be fair, I got really pissed off. To the point where Arathyen's player had to force everyone to take a time out because he realized I was very close to getting physically violent with the GM. We all break from the game for an hour so I can calm down. When we return, the GM has us all in our separate cells. He then has the guard allowed six friends of the former champions into Durak's cell. I was fully expecting my character to get jumped or beaten to near death. Instead, the GM goes into a heavily detailed narrative explaining how these six guys rape Durak. I told him I don't want that to happen to my character, that he can't force such a thing onto my character. He replied; "Well, if you have a problem with it, then you shouldn't question my judgement anymore. Next time, it wont be creatures the size of your character." I leave the game. I just left. The only other person to leave with me was Arathyen's player. Everyone else stayed for whatever reason. It nearly ruined PnP RPGs for me, to the point I didn't touch them again until I got the Pathfinder beginner box as a present in 2012. I started GMing then, simply because my brothers and their friends wanted to play and I didn't feel up to trusting anyone else to GM. Wouldn't be until about two months ago that I started actively playing in a campaign, Fantasy Flight's Star Wars RPG, GM'd by someone else.
That GM fails on several accounts. 1: That's not murder, it's life or death and Redemption spells exist for a reason. And unless it's truly abhorrent one act wouldn't shift alignment. 2: shutting down characters abilities to the extent a player was forced to take a whole other class to survive. 3: Not know where the limit is. Rape and things of that level of discomfort. (Child abuse/mutilation begin another example) is not something that should be put in a game unless players are cool with it, let alone DESCRIBING it and NEVER to a PC. The whole group needs to have fun, not just fulfil a failure of a GMs sadistic kinks. I'd have probably torn up my sheet and throw it at him or thrown my drink on his notes and told him he's clearly not qualified to GM. While I'm certain I've made mistakes I hope I've never put my players in a position of feeling like that.
It wasn't a great experience for me at all, since it was my first time playing a PnP RPG in the first place and nearly turned me off them as a whole forever. It took a lot of talking to before I decided to sit down at a table with someone else as the DM/GM.
A quick roundup : Never have a solution as a GM. If you have solutions, then play. If you do a favor to a player, they will all want the same treatment, so set your standard. "computer says no", GM says "let's try". Kick players from your table, not at your table. Let the dice be the luck, not your feelings, or they will get hurt at one point. If players can't roleplay then just record your session on audible. (I disagree on the bored part, i had a campaign that my players loved, but i could not continue cause i was bored, it was so hard to prepare at one point... but i get the point) As a GM, never say you are beaten ! You can always turn it around ! As a summary, be a nice person and a good human being, listen to feedback, and don't get cocky !
The first one would gain to be reworded as "never have one solution as a GM". You should still try to anticipate solutions, so that you can offer leads if your players can't find an idea by themselves. If you haven't thought about it, you might end up in a case where you have to improvise something, and it's not always great.
Elouj : Google it. Basically major audio book provider Darkprosper : You have to anticipate players, based on your problem, and not the other way around. Don't start with "I want my players to be badass while making jumps above steep cliffs" but with "I want my players to get down this steep cliff. I anticipate them to jump so i'll use some spare time preparing falling damage or slipping on snow". Or something like that. This shift in mindset, if done right, is really game changing. (BTW snow is a great thing for any gm!) Nexi : Exactly what i meant ! All : Thanks ^^ and happy playing, as they say
"Well, you can't roll a natural 30 on a twenty side dice, so unfortunately no. No, no..." had me rolling... Delivery reminds me of Ricky Gervais, almost. Love it
I was turned into a woman a few months back in my friday game because of some weird magic stuff. GM made a table and everything, but nobody drank the sketchy water, so he got a little mad that he wasted his time making the table and forced it on us via a water elemental fight. Ruled that the water got in our mouths. Then when I tried to have the groups crafting guy make me an "Elixer of Sex Shifting" he said that this very cheap item was not something the crafter would have been taught how to make. Artificially extending the time that I had to stay as a woman, because it was a crafting DC that the crafter could not fail. That's how easy it was to make, at level 6 he could not fail it. I was pretty uncomfortable with being turned into a woman overall, but then he got mad at me because I didn't like it. Would you say he was a dick?
Yes would say yes because the GM "job" to help craft a story with the players based off how they play. Forcing something is just dick move. A good GM once seeing you wore not into being a female character wouldn't go out of their way to prevent you from find a way to shift you back.
I did eventually get turned back into a man, but he didn't believe I should have disliked it because he personally was fine with it, so he couldn't understand how someone could dislike it.
Generally it's a dick move yes. I had my players find a random ring while traveling through the woods. The ranger put it on and the next morning he was a beautiful she. The player had fun with it, even roleplayed out his characters panic, and another PC (woman) offered to teach the now "she" about womanly issues. All in all good fun. But the player made it clear after the game he'd really rather not be a woman. So I gave him an out shortly after. It wasn't permanent but it was a really funny episode in the game. Things shouldn't be forced on a player except in rare circumstances.
Anyone who puts someone in a position they are uncomfortable is a dick. I'd say multiple offences are here though: forcing the game to go your way; punishing the players and characters for not getting the outcome you wanted; extending the time for no reason. Characters are allowed to be uncomfortable, they can squirm and be embarrassed or upset or whatever... but not players. If the player isn't enjoying the game then something's gone wrong
Most tabletop games are like 50-75% improv because as a GM you cannot possibly predict everything the players will do. Good improv is always “yes, and” within reason.
I'd add one: The Preaching Dick. Someone who has a point to make, and will bend the game to make sure their point gets made. It's a bit of Limelight. It's a bit of No or Yes, depending on whether your chosen action fits their point. It can easily become Vindictive if you are threatening to disprove their point.
One facade of the No! Dick GM that's very subtle but also very frustrating is the "No, you must battle" GM. In a 3.5 table I had a GM take away the chace of the bard to negotiate a non-battle way of resolving a group of orcs attack to our party. We were level 4 or 5 and the bard had +16 to his diplomacy rolls and, on top of it all, scored a nat 20 on the test. The orc (a mage orc, not just some barbarous orc) just went "Nah, we are going to keep attacking you." without any contesting roll or anything (at least that we had seen). Now, not to be a rules lawyer, I saw later in some part of the books that turning an aggressive attitude from an NPC to neutral was DC 30, so, by the rules, the bard killed that DC. If not by the rules, COME ONE HE SCORED A NAT 20 ON HIS SPECIALTY! Not only he had a total disregard for the absurd number that came off, he simply didn't care for any other way of us dealing with the orcs.
Yeah, I'm kinda guilty of this. I'm not sure if I can get a pass since I'm new to being a DM, but I kinda did this with my group. I had planned a Roc encounter and didn't really have much else afterwards written out so I really pushed for my players to go fight it. But I guess to make up for it, in my first session I had planned for a encounter that the Ranger managed to persuade the creatures into knowing that the group didn't come to attack so the actual fight never happened. Now I wouldn't be that much of a dick as your previous DM was, just kinda of a learning lesson that I need to plan more in case my group completely avoids an encounter.
ugh when I first started DM'ing I was guilty of being the NO dm. then I felt bad and became the YES dm. now after more experience I've finally found a good equilibrium lol
Rule lawyers in D&D are the biggest oxymoron I can think of. In the rules it literally says you can mess with the rules. If you don’t/don’t allow your GM to be flexible with the rules then you yourself are technically breaking a rule.
The problem many such players have, including myself oftentimes, is that when we sat down and agreed to play D&D 5e, we expect to use the rules of 5e. The rules are important because they frame our actions in our imaginary world in a way that is consistent, if not fair. The death of many a Gamist’s investment in a game is inconsistency. When a rule that applies in a situation is ignored, it creates the feeling that other rules are also irrelevant and suddenly we are not playing 5e anymore which is not what we agreed to. Far too often I see GMs just respond with “no, it’s my table we do what I say” which has always been a great way to lose players. On the other hand, when I GM and my resident rules lawyer(a game designer, so to be expected) corrects me I appreciate it, and decide either to say “okay, then it works like that” or “I don’t agree with how that works, so we’ll use this way from now on” and then I let them know afterwards that I’ll think more on it out of game and come to a full decision that can THEN be applied consistently to the rest of the campaign. And sure, there are extremists who will interrupt you every 2 sentences to correct you instead of waiting ‘til you’ve finished talking, continue to argue even after you’ve told them and explained your decision, and perhaps become sullen when you tell them no, but in the same regard there are GMs who arbitrarily change rules mid game, remove player agency by altering their abilities during play, becoming obstinate and petulant about “my game, my rules”. It is not my game. It is not your game. It is OUR game. Let’s play it together.
Depends. If the DM changes rules, he should say so beforehand. It's a bit disconcerting if you suddenly find out in combat that your Paladingdong can't actually use his spell slots for smiting because your DM feels that ability is op.
Its perfectly managable to listen to someone for more than 10 minutes at a time and genuinely enjoing it at the same time. These guides and the quality of your voice is a testament to it!
The No Dick (snerk) GM just has not enough evil in him to be GM. "I want to tie a rope to a tree and get down over the edge of this cliff!" "There are no trees, only sickly looking bushes" "I want to tie a rope to a bush and get down over the edge of this cliff!" "They don't look very reliable..." "I tie it real tight!" "...ok, if you're sure..." "So what do I see?" "You don't see much. But it feels like you're sliding down." "Wait, what?" "It seems the bush got uprooted under your weight. You're falling down. What do you do?"
I had a GM once who made a Saga Ed Star Wars games that was centered around Jedi, only he didn’t tell anyone he just said make what you want, only one player had a Jedi and he was mad at the rest of us for ruining his game, it took a few weeks for me to figure it out and when I tried to privately speak to him about it he refused to admit there was a problem then at the game the next week he screamed at me for being a bad sport and poor player and imperiously demanded I leave the game and I did.
Makes no sense: You've spent weeks holed up in a town, looking for a deed to a building to set up a base. Suddenly, new villain shows up, and everyone gets transported to a whole other world. Yeah, it made no sense.
I started GMing for the first time last week with a few family members and a friend. I have learned so much from your channel and am trying my best to never be a GM dick. I had a player ask me to do something last week and I said "No" when it totally should have been acceptable to do. I just had an idea in my mind of how it should be, and her idea wasn't it. I'm going to apologize to her and make sure I don't do it again. Thanks :)
...I know a Vindictive Limelight Bored Dick... His games tend to favor tanky melee characters. If you set up a ranged combatant, like an archer or mage, or worse, a support character like a healer or Bard, prepare to get charged by the melee monsters that ignore the tanks... :/ Obviously, I don't play in his campaigns these days... I've been accused of being a That Doesn't Make Sense Dick, though. That accusation lasted about half a session, when I half-reluctantly advanced the intended Big Reveal to the current session, tying up all the scattered and seemingly incomprehensible plot threads into a nice bow. :D Come to think of it, the complaining player WAS the Vindictive Limelight Bored Dick... O.o
Sounds like they were doing the universal rule of MMOs: "Cripple the frontline fighters by taking out their support networks - ranged attackers, healers, etc." The GM was being a biased dick by singling out the players using a support/ranged role. It seemed like they wanted a drawn-out melee slugfest.
“Whose running the bloody game is it you or is it the rules? If it’s the rules put the book in front of the table, it will probably do a better job than you!” ... I’ve tried that but then all the players complained constantly to the book about not enough happening in its game sessions. 😛
For my group it is less about boredom, but more that a lot of our group enjoys playing more than DMing, so when a DM is getting bored of DMing or starting to burn out and wants to be a player, we switch to a different player's campaign. We have 2 campaigns right now and we rotate between them every few months to give DMs a break. It also is nice because it helps me plan stuff ahead for a while. We love it because it allows us to explore different things and when the DM comes back from the break to the campaign they are always at their best because they had the break.
I've had a no/rules lawyer combo... he would say no to certain rules but wouldn't tell us about the change until AFTER we made our characters... really disheartening when you find out your noble paladin isn't actually a noble at all or that our ranger couldn't use the feat he had picked in the usual way cause the GM didn't like it. We all sent in our character sheets ahead of time but we still didn't find out till the day.... very disheartening
I was running a game of Spycraft. At one point of the game a car chase started. The NPC's were escaping until the tech guy decided to hack the car. The car crashed horribly and the NPC's died. Whilst that wasn't supposed to happen, it was just so entertaining and unexpected, I actually said yes. It was far more interesting than the car chase that would have happened. A lovely little surprise. One that a "No" game master would never have allowed.
Out of all of these I think my worst offense is Boring Dick. I got *soooo* burned out on D&D. That I started doing one shots of various different systems for a year just to test the waters until I found one that clicked with me that I could work with the theme of to tell the kinds of stories I excell in with.
I find the biggest issue is the game you want to play is not always the game they want to play, GM or player. Some want a hack/slash dungeon smash, others want a detailed story, others want a sandbox/minecraft build and explore game. I always find groups don't talk about what game they want and each is assuming the game will go one way or another based on their desires. So sometimes being the dick is simply a failure to communicate what the game is all about in the beginning and no one bothers to bring it up. Just talk about it and bring it up.
That's what I have found, that the very most important thing over everything is to spend a great deal of time before the game begins making sure that the players and gm both want the same type of game. If you do that then I have found the rest will work out. Rules dicks work fine if everyone wants a by the rules game, limelight dicks are fine if players want a heavy story with simple character choices, and so on.
I like running sandbox games the amount of improve is fun but still have plenty of quests available for players if they feel like doing any of them. lol actually have a dual sandbox game running with both an evil group and good group of players that are currently trying to get the same thing and screwing each other over lol.
7th Sea put forth an excellent suggestion for this. Give each of the players a sheet with the different styles of play on it, and 100 points each to assign between them. This gives the players the ability to say what sort of game it is that they're actually looking for, and not just a main type, but about what they want second, third, and fourth. I've been using that system now for years, to help me write up my campaigns.
Your videos get me through rough days. As weird as that may be, hearing someone talk about a hobby I have when I dont have a chance to play it kinda just keeps my mind off life.
The GM Player Character Star of The Show Dick - Where the DMs favourite NPC (or worse yet, DM PC) gets all the cool limelight and best magic items, always Crits and never dies. Ugh. Worst ever GM Dick.
When i started playing in 1984, my gm had all the flaws you listed , plus he even didn't read the rules. At this time the red box was only available in my country. The other players and i loved the game but hated this gm who introduced us to D&D. So we all buy the red box and we became gms too if needed. As for our first gm? We never invited him as player, his only good deed was to make us play the best game of the world for the 1st time. Now i m 51 and i still play D&D.Greeting from France.Thank you for your Channel.
I'm kind of a limelight dick but not by choice, my players don't like to actually roleplay that much, they like to play and like the game, but they expect me to tell them a story and don't really want to "work" for it. It's usually "I hit him with my sword, make it interesting" or "I tell him I don't like him, make my character say something funny" Now I'm lucky enough that they usually like what I make their character say (god that sounds so sad ...) But when they don't like it, it's my fault for not making it funny enough. (Of course they sometimes have great ideas by themselves and I enjoy those rare and beautiful occasion)
congrats to you, but thats pretty sad that they make you do that. If they can't be funny then they aren't.... if you are playing npc then you can make a joke tell a story etc.... but at least the characters should react to that. if you like that kudos to you, but I expect some amount of participation in the story.
Oh I expect it too, but I leaned long ago that with that group I won't get much participation. But it's probably my fault, when they started every fight was "I hit him ... I hit him again" without description or storytelling at all, so I started to do it for them to avoid getting bored to death, and now that they know I can do it for them why would they ever do it themselves. We're starting a new campaign at the end of the month, I'm gonna try to make they participate or just leave, but I know if they don't I'll just go back to doing everything because if they leave I don't have a game anymore.
One of my players posted this in our group. I am very glad he did as I find your series amazing and very well done, after having watched some videos. I would have to say of all the examples I would suffer from being the Bored GM as I tend to get bored with story lines and want something new and exciting at times. Thank you for another great gaming channel for me to watch and learn from (15 years this fall I have been DM-ing for the same group, basically) as I always like to get new ideas, perspectives and information on gaming.
So as far as being vindictive... I once had a game where all the players were investigating an apparent undead apocalypse outside a city whose citizens were oblivious to what was going on. All of the players were working toward investigating this except one, a Gnome Warlock, who had an absolute obsession with trying to build an army of squirrels. It was funny the first time he brought it up, but he had started dragging the party out of their way to find things such as acorns to attempt to tame squirrels. At this point the party was getting rather frustrated with him, so when they reached one of the outlying farming villages, when he charges through a farm house's boarded-up door in search of seeds (which, by the way, there were none because it was spring and they were all in the ground), I killed his character by placing a terrified farmer with a pitchfork behind the door, rolling a critical as the Gnome barreled through and impaled himself by the head on the farmer's pitchfork. Would you say this was too far? The players and myself were all rather relieved that his character was dead, and he stopped trying to do stupid shit like raise an army of squirrels, so I think it was a good move, but what do you guys think?
I don't think you were unjustified per say but I don't think it was the right thing to do, mainly because you intentionally placed the farmer there to punish him by the way you phrased it. It would have been far more appropriate to just talk to him and tell him to chill on the squirrel thing because it's detracting from the game for both you and the players. Or you could have helped him out in a small, fair way that contributes to his narrative, so long as you are willing to do the same for the other characters. I'm not saying give him what he wants but maybe, even if it did crit him, let him survive and the farmer as an apology asks if there's something he can give him or do for him, the player asks for acorns/seeds and the farmer either gives him some, or points him to where he can find some, than talk to the player and say dude chill with the squirrels. Point is talking to your player is always better than killing him, especially if he's attached to the character it could turn ugly if you outright kill him
I run into this kind of player a lot. They make a joke character and method-act the shit out of it. It's fine if all the other PCs are just as gonzo, and the GM wants to run that kind of campaign. But if not, it ruins everyone else's fun. Some of this can be fixed at Session Zero, if you are very clear about what kind of game you want to run and what is or is not appropriate. As far as you being vindictive, I think terrified farmers with pitchforks are a logical consequence of breaking into farmhouses. If you rolled the critical fair and square and didn't cheat, no harm, no foul. You could have had a private conversation with the player, but those conversations are very difficult, and it sounds like everything worked out.
I am the chronic campaign restarter/system changer - but I have gotten better and now tell my players to call me out and do my best to commit to finishing a campaign properly
I am a tad of a vindictive dick. However I often do this to a single player who always cheats... I know he is cheating, he doesn't. So I ignore his cheating and punish hi like there is no tomorrow. His death monk is still alive...
Awesome advisory! Been RPG'ing since the 1st ed. of D+D. Ran into just about all of these at one time or another. One of the best things my players have enjoyed during a campaign was asking them, at the end of each session, what they liked/didn't like. What they wanted to see more/less of and their favorite and least liked moments in that session. Really helps me out and they are part of what we are creating together.
Hi! This is basically my first ever UA-cam comment. I love your insightful videos as I've watched almost all of them! Let me ask you a big question: How do you DM and do prep work for cities? I DM a game and my party went to Waterdeep. I'm very nervous as next session they'll be in this big city. How do I handle big and busy settings like cities where the players could/should find anything? I don't want to be a Dick Master. Thanks!
Ok i'll try to help. ^^ Cities are really overwelming as a GM. Too many NPCs, too many unknown. You are talking about Waterdeep so at least you have some kind of reference to start on if you want. First make a plan. Not a detailed one. Not a pretty one. Not a accurate one. But practical. Have the points of interest, the main section of the cities and what they are. You don't need to have every dark alley. So have your docks, castle, rich part, poor part, enterance, market, millitia, temple, guild, whatever you want. Just settle it. It will limit the players options, and in creating this, you also come along with ideas. Then, remember one thing : Although there is everything in that massive city, it's not that easy to find what you are looking for. If you don't have an adress of some sort, things can get tricky. Give adresses to the players for what they need, and have the rest be very generic. Give them the feeling that everything in this town is so busy and intense, and that as an outsider, you are just not in your habitat. But let the players wonder around, be fascinated by the city... but yet never understand the way people living here do. Get them lost, show them this is hostile territory if they try black market or something. Cities are about getting lost and overwelmed. They do demand some improvisation so prepare some generic NPCs if you want a safety net ;) If you have more specific questions don't bother, i hope this helps !
City Map generator: inkwellideas.com/worldbuilding/roleplaying-city-map-generator/ Random shop generator: inkwellideas.com/free-tools/magic-item-shop-random-generator/ Random name generator: www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dnd-human-names.php
Om Lo Cities of that size tends to break down into burroughs, or Wards in the case of Waterdeep. Places like Castle Ward, that make it easier for you. Think of it like New York City: Manhattan and Queens have completely different feels to them, but are both a part of the same overall city. if you can find it, there's a lovely book called Volo's Guide to Waterdeep (So of the information is intentionally wrong in the book, since its an in-character guide to the city, but there's tons of good stuff there to help flesh things out).
Always start with Economy and Ecology. I find with that in hand the rest fills itself in. Example. Kingdom exports master craftsman furniture. You will need logs, leather, feathers, lacquers and stains. What is imported what is made here. This leads to logging towns, lots of axes, cows and ranchers, chickens or ducks raised for feathers, wagons and horses and guards to protect the expensive exports. Ect. Then everyone will be part of the operation in some way. In this kingdom you will not find much magic or master weapon and armor makers. But master carpenters, tinkerers, and leather workers. Furniture is a family business so family will be important. Also even the poor will have nice furniture as it will be cheap and plentiful.
Well of course "no!" when what the players want doesn't fit with context and environment at all. There won't be wood if they are on a rocky plateau for instance. The "no!" is only asshole-ish when it could be plausible in the context (and with what was already established) but the GM goes beyond the reasonable to prevent any other solutions than his own. Sometimes i even change the meta-plot and accept their solution to the story if they won't come up with my pre-idea, but there are borders to that. If they don't even come near a plausible solution they simply fail till they come up with something better. No game without the possibility in failing, even outside of combat.
I think I'm pretty good at ironing out the first three. I counter "no" by giving characters bonuses for creativity in combat, yes by having hard dice mods, and rules by keeping the flow loose, and using off the cuff measurements. I try to make it take less than a minute to describe the difficulty of a player action. a goblin threw a dagger at my a rogue, goblin rolled a 3. the same rogue wanted catch the dagger and throw it back. perception check -5 to spot the dagger, behind himself, during combat. reflex check to dodge the goblin's attack, dex check to catch. dex + strength -6 for throwing something you just caught, and 1d4 damage. he got a 17 on his throw against the goblins reflexes, pegged him in the eye, killed him instantly. nobody at the table got bored during the sequence, the dice ramped up the tension while keeping everything fair, and when the strike hit, the whole table cheered.
If you guys want to hear a story of some bad GMing type in Children of the Sandler. It starts kinda okay but whole shit does spiral out of control, cause the GM does all of this. I sure first episode it might seem kind justified, But it keeps getting worst in a morbid way.
Thanks for the vid. Currently struggling DMing for my first module and have bounced through a few of these DM types. I tend to always forget that the players are the stars, not my story.
I usually try to run games with a fairly open plot so players feels free to have their PCs do things they want, like... "You enter a city..." and someone always wants to find a magic shop and go on a spending spree. Another always wants to start a bar fight. There's a guy who plays a paladin that insists on visiting the temple of his god when he goes to whatever city, and he seeks to set up a shrine if there's no temple... You have to make a little time for this stuff. But there's this one player who used to be in our group. He didn't have any agenda other than to fuck my game as hard as he could. Meet the town's mayor, he'd punch him without any reason, so quest is postponed while he's jailed, and no one wanted to rescue him because they'd caught him stealing from them multiple times. Re-roll a new character? Sure! His thief has like a hundred identical twins since he simply rolled up new stats with the same personality. The real trick is how to kick a _friend_ out of the group because everyone else just wants to play? If he was playing, I ultimately stated I wouldn't DM. I really didn't even know how anymore. He's the kinda player that needed solo adventures all the time. I could never quite get the hang of balancing a crazy character like that with the rest of the game. I even ran one game centered all around his character, and he had his thief take a nap. That was the game when I decided I wasn't DM'ing for him anymore.
Thanks Drew. That's actually not a bad idea. I also liked taking every opportunity I could to have party members find their stolen things among his chatacter's possessions or on his person. Loss of limb was considered on more than one occasion. I got trouble DM'ing lately. Like some kind of wacky writer's block. But if/when the mojo returns, I'll definitely apply your advice!
Have the mayors also be low key mob bosses and instead of imprisoning him let him "get away with it" and have him hunted by enemies for the rest of the game so his character is never able to take rests. Have goblins or something steal his boots while he's asleep and then send the party to a snowy mountain and make him roll against frostbite and make him make movement checks with disadvantage while in the snow. If decide neither of those and imprison him have his fingers cut off as "bail". Make him draw Balance from the DOMT so he has to be lawful good. You could give these mayors and such "hellish rebuke" and fuck his world 😂, Have a bard follow him around singing of how awful he is giving him a -1d6 to his rolls, he could punch someone for no reason who is a lich in disguise and is cursed to never sleep being able to sleep again slowly building up exhaustion counters and driving his pc to insanity(seeing hallucinations, mumbling to self) put a bounty on him and let the other players turn him in for gold where he'll be tortured and have various body parts cut off for his misdeeds
This video is a great learning tool both for players as well as GMs. Players can learn how to recognize behavior that might suggest they aren't in the right group, and GMs can use this as a wonderful self-evaluation tool.
When I was 16 my first ever dm was the brother of my best friend. He and my older brother were best friends. Both of them were very into D&D, and they both helped me build a character. I wanted to be the son of a man who ran a knightly order(like teutonic knights or something) so my personal quest was to earn a spot in that order. I think it was 2nd edition or 3rd,and I didn't roll stats particularly well, I think I barely rolled high enough to be a cleric. The DM(my best friend's brother) on our first session, our first encounter, threw a hell steed at my brother and I. We couldn't hit it, so with some very lucky rolls we managed to squeak by and run away... Right into some 12 foot tall demon knight who permanently crippled my character on the first hit, removing the 3 str necessary to be able to wield my father's 2handed sword(or a similar ruling of his) and then it cursed my character. He didn't like who I wanted to play as, so in the first hour he made sure I couldn't play the way I wanted to. He then in the second session threw 30-40 goblins at us, we had to run into an portal that took us to fighting 8 or 9 golems of some kind, and he killed my character. That colored my perception of the game so negatively I didn't even want to give it a try for the next 10 years. tl;dr bad dick DM ruined the game for me and I didn't give it a shot for another 10 years it put such a bad taste in my mouth
not all hero's wear capes. these videos are great just to keep the skills sharp. I have been trying new things and challenging experienced players to let go of there "normal" and I love to watch these kinds of video just to keep myself in balance. thank you for all u do
Question: I'm a generally insecure person and I don't know all the dnd rules off by heart, so a lot of times I let my players get away with some things that aren't consistent with the rules. This became problematic since the one player is a very manipulative player and takes advantage of this. And roleplaying's also an issue when it comes with that. And I always think it'll go better in my head. I am passionate about the game, but my shyness gets in the way. There any hope for a naturally insecure person to become a good gm?
You don't have to know all the rules. You don't have to be your players' door mat either. If they want to do something, ask yourself if it sounds reasonable. If they reference the rules, read the bit they show you and rule according to your understanding of them...
I am also a bit of a wallflower so one of the most difficult things I had to learn, amd one of the most important things I learned as a DM was how and when to say "NO". Brush up on the rules and if you aren't sure of what the rule is in the moment, look it up if it doesnt take too long. Or just make a call that feels right in the moment and say that you will discuss it and look in depth before the next game. Another good lesson for me is that your players are far more accepting than you think. Your players won't quit or hate you for setting ground rules. Quite the opposite, they will respect you for it and enjoy when you don't allow someone to do some meta gaming piwer gaming nonsense because that person is manipulating the rules. That person ruins everyone's fun. Talk to your players and you will be fine.
I know this comment is very late, but thank you so much for making these videos! Some of the most helpful videos you have made (in my opinion) are the more...ranting type. I listen and note these things so that I KNOW what not to do. I find the videos of "How to make a good story" for example are indeed helpful, but when someone instead tells me "DO NOT shoe favouritism" or "DO NOT just say yes or no to everything" helps me know what not to do because if I can avoid doing all these terrible things then my players are far more likely to have a good time. I'll be running my very first game soon and am looking forward to it! Once again thank you so so much for making these videos!
Yeah, I suffer from being a Limelight Dick on occasion. It's something I try to work on to prevent. I love telling stories and writing them down isn't as satisfying as getting the live feedback from others. As such, it's alluring and sadly, addictive. So, yes: I really do need to work on this one! Sadly, I also (at times) suffer from being a "Bored Dick". That's really rather rare, but I know it's happened a couple times... Something else to work on.
Here is the solution to that. Make all your NPCs speak only when required, and only write the beginning of your story. You may have all the stats of the final Big Bad, but that doesn't mean you have any idea when, where, or how your party will choose to meet him/her.
Is that the solution for the "Bored Dick" issue? For me, I pre-prepare very much in excess. Maps, notes, NPCs, monsters, etc... Mind you, I'm also fond of improvising but I do recognize that sometimes my over-preparation can lead to personal boredom.
Overpreparing is fine, so long as you're not preparing what will happen. On a macro level "and then they will meet the king, and the king will get them to save the princess, and the princess will turn out to be..." is tolerable, and often expected for most style of plays. But on the micro level "and then the blacksmith will notice the ring, and offer them this reward for it, and tell them the story of the ring, and tell the story of the quest, and of the five encounters they must experience on their way no matter which way they travel..." then you might be pushing it a bit.
David Rust for "Bored Dick" I have a suggestion, They pc's join a mercenary guild. Missions are a spread of whatever peaks your interest and the party gets the freedom of choice.. (works well for me so far) different missions changing or disappearing after returning back adds life to your world as the party aren't the only mercs and situations can get worse.... but really it's just your bored bandits and want ghosts or pirate cultists to have a shot, you feel that the gnolls are under powered and need to eat a village to get its numbers up, or one of your big bads has a chance to become relevant again.
It is nice creating large stories with plenty of lore for all sorts of different places they may come across but you have to remember a few things. If you are like me and enjoy creating lots of lore then you have to accept that most of it won't get seen and what lore does get to your players should come via show rather than tell. Secondly remember that at the table they are your group not your subordinates. Lastly know how to combine and cut and stick your favourite stuff with the changing circumstances of your game. If your players do something you didn't expect and go down a completely different story line don't force them down the path you want them to go but if you're careful you can seamlessly work elements from the plot and lore that you planned to explore you created into the arc. Work that lore into the background and needs of your players. If the character ideas and your lore contradict each other compromise where possible and know when to back down when it isn't important.
When I first started playing D&D many many years ago with my friends, we had no DM so I volunteered because I like writing and it seemed to me at the time that the point of playing was to tell a story. So I wrote a little story out almost completely with all the plot points and twists that assumed all the player's behavior and player shaped holes in the story for them to fill. I thought they would be excited to be the main characters in a cool story, so when we sat down and I started describing stuff there was a big wake up call when one of them that had played D&D before immediately started interrupting me and being a dick saying he didn't want to listen to all that shit I had to say. This was a really complicated experience for me, because I realize I was being a limelight dick but it wasn't in arrogance, it was out of a misunderstanding of the point of the game. I had never been a player or even seen people play the game before, I was just guessing at why people did this tabletop thing and trying to do something fun with my friends that we all thought would be cool. I ended up getting mad at my friend who was interrupting me because he didn't try to explain anything or help me understand, he just wanted to be a dick and needle me over him not enjoying what I had put so much misguided work into. I just gave up and said I wouldn't DM and the rest of them could just figure out what they wanted to do about it. No one else stepped up to DM and the night ended awkwardly. Fast forward years later to today where I understand the game and am playing with some of the same people that were there that night and we all have fun regularly taking turns being DM and running campaigns that last a long time in a variety of rulesets and settings. That friend that was a dick to me doesn't get invited because he's always a dick. It was such a sour start for me but it's become much better over time. I guess my message is, if you think your DM is being a dick, maybe they don't know any better. Try to teach them what the game is about and see if they can't straighten up. That's what this video is all about, right? Not just being angry, but about helping those DMs fix their behavior for everyone's sake. I technically was one and all I wanted to know was how to do it right. So thanks for this video, 10 years too late, ha.
I like the rules, because they make the game of "make believe" consistent. Otherwise we would all grow wings, and shoot everything with their tail ultralasers, winning the game.
The air around you is sucked out causing a vacuum and you can't get lift, here comes a group of storm troopers with laser reflecting armor.... should not have angered the king with that wedgie.
I recently decided to take my first foray into the world of GMing and I've found your videos to be incredibly useful. I look forward to putting a lot of this advice into action! Thank you very much.
Yea my current campaign the group wanted to play with a crit and crit fail table. It won on a 4-2 vote without (me) the dm voting. About 6 sessions in and a kobold just upfront kills the parties fighter with a lucky bolt (Boromir style). The party was a bit down for the rest of the fight, which is normal. The thing I thought weird the fighter didn't want his character revived (sent to me in a text). So he made up a new character 1 level lower and is having a blast playing a monk now. Death isn't the end in DnD :)
I really appreciate this. I've been perusing most of your vids in prep for a new group that asked me to GM for them. I've only met one of them, and all I know is that they are all significantly older than me (between 5 and 10 years), and two of the four have never played. I am scared shitless of mucking up their idea of how D&D is supposed to be, but I'm going to do my best. I've never played outside my home group, where I was the oldest and most experienced player/GM. I am accustomed to off-the-cuff style because I had two....let's call them creative souls, who liked to break games. They were sad for sessions to end, so I'm hoping that means I'm not all bad. This particular video is really helpful, because it's a reminder of what to avoid with your average group, and even not so average group. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do if my players are well-behaved. But truly, your videos are such a boon. Thank you so much.
I've once been driven to be a bit of a vindictive dick in my Dark Heresy campaign there's this one player who is always, always a massive min maxer/munchkin. He'd never RP just play to fight and would always make every fight a walk over for him, he was obsessed with perfection, the only reason why he hated the villain wasn't because he manipulated them and screwed them over no he just hated him because he made him get a few insanity points (boohoo) He also got all sulky because I made him pay a bit more for auto cannon rounds compared to normal solid projectile rounds. Due to a bad mistake the players made the enemies now had shapeshifting/powerful infiltrators on their side. They were sent to investigate the signs of them in a city, but little did they know the arbites officer helping them was one of those shapeshifters. In co-operation with the Magistratum (Arbites are kinda like the FBI the Magistratum beat cops) They secured this building the PCs and the Arbites from the roof down, Magistratum from the bottom floor up. They met with the woman leading the Magistratum in the middle floor, I knew the Min Maker wouldn't bother taking part in the conversation would stay near the door and so did the shapeshifter so the shapeshifter grew a blade from his arm and attacked the min maxer. The other players saw this and managed to warn him so he could dodge the first attack, but the shapeshifter had swift attack allowing it to attack twice in one turn and most players can only dodge once a turn, so the second hit him, it didn't kill him but injured him really bad, forcing the character out of the session in the hospital. The other players killed it after it lost surprise. It was rather vindictive but it was the only time I indulged in it (Through again manipulation) Felt good I must admit MWAHAHAHA!
I put my Dark Heresy munchkin up against anything and everything. He prevails most of the time. Other times his Space Wolf scout (I don't know what I was thinking okaying that) needs to be put on a leash (or crammed into a Chimera that has the sudden inexplicable ability to turn into a pile of crates with the characters inside but unhurt)
Scruffy Looking Brantforder in Dark Heresy where you're supposedly RPing a "normal" person it's quite easy to exploit the system to make OP as fuck characters especially if one plays a psyker *cough!* fearful aura *cough* psychic blade *cough* I lost count how many skirmishes were ended in in complete routes by the Sanctioned Psyker driving the enemy insane. So I had to make them fearless lol
Thank you for this. I certainly come here for these videos so I can be more introspective and look for meaningful ways to improve. My two biggest fears as a DM are my players having a bad time followed by unintentional TPKs.
i disagree with your observation of the rules-dick. not because of your conclusion but because of the way you explain it: in my opinion it is less the fact that some GMs overemphasize the rules-as-written (like your cliffjumping example showed), rather than the fact that some GMs are unable to write their adventures in a way that incorporate the rules in a meaningful and sensible way. in other words i believe (based on my own mistakes and experiences) that some GMs use the rules as a crutch for bad writing or a shield against criticism ("nono, totally not my fault the adventure sucks, it's the gamerules that are at fault!").
I always saw the rules as a framework. Something that allow you to build a good, sturdy story upon them. When working out my villains, I ask myself, "How can the rules allow this?" So say I want the villain to have a powerful magical artifact that the PCs must destroy, lest it destroy the world. I look at the rules on lesser, and greater artifacts, and make sure to build something that is both actually going to be able to destroy the world, but at the same time, that it plays within the rules. Maybe it has an Ego, that pushes the wielder to enact its own agenda, something similar, or maybe it triggers a particular effect that could bring hordes of demons into the world or something, but I keep it within the rules. Same with villain loadouts. If the villain escapes, it's because of an effect. If he does something he shouldn't normally be able to do, it's because of a rules-compliant reason, so that when my rules lawyer goes, HE CAN'T DO THAT! I can look back, and go, "You're exactly correct, sir! He SHOULDN'T be able to do that!"
Thanks for letting me blow myself up as we played today, Guy! I love that you allowed my character to have enough rope to take everyone out as he blew up!
I respect you, and have greatly valued your advice, but I think you went astray with this video. Some video-makers have an 'angry' shtick, but it just does not suit you, or your audience. Clearly this is an emotional subject for you, but we come to your channel for intelligent, in-depth, rational suggestions, not emotional outbursts. Demanding that certain people abandon their hobbies, personal insults, and especially the inexplicable jab at actors for waiting tables, are all departures from your normally excellent content.
You have described a few DMs I have had in the past, and I got to say, as a player, the worst I encountered was the yes GM. Because at that point we're no longer playing the game, it's just ego stroking.
One simple to state principle, which I find surprisingly hard to consistently apply, I got from improv theater: YES, AND ... In other words, accept and use what your players give you and add to that.
No, you can't be vindictive. You can, however, be realistic. If a player tries to have their character do something Mary Sue-ish, don't just hand them a Mary Sue-ish outcome of guaranteed success (whether they've artificially optimized for it or are trying to talk you into it, or however they're lobbying to make it happen). Let them face realistic obstacles and odds against succeeding at improbable tasks, and realistic consequences for failing. Simply enforcing realism and common sense where appropriate is usually enough to break Mary Sue's lock on being the narrative driver to the exclusion of giving other characters a chance to be meaningfully involved, without going overboard in the opposite direction and singling her out for vindictive or punitive special treatment (which is very coarse behavior as a GM because it fails to treat everyone consistently).
I find myself having very mixed feelings about this fellow. Certainly some of these are examples of bad incidents. But the "rules dick" was a ridiculous example. If a player says they are going to jump a 30 foot canyon, I'll absolutely let them, and I'll absolutely punish them for having only a +3 in jump and being incapable of getting even close to pulling it off. If you don't follow the rules what is the point of them being there? Why bother with a character constructed according to systems where you assign skill points if you are going to ignore the system in practice? Then there is the story dick. I don't like that you assume that all games need to be serious dramas with great narrative consistency. Admittedly that is what I try to do with my current groups but in the past I have run with far more chaotic parties who enjoyed nothing more than a string of loosely connected but vaguely epic short stories that at best, tied up with an overarching super villain at the centre of all their troubles, if even that. My issue with this channel in general boils down to his assumption that all groups must run the same as his, and any that don't are dicks who ruin the game. There are different kinds of groups and the trick to being a great GM is to either tailor your game to your players, or pick your players according to the game you want to run. If you players want to consistently do the ridiculous, to swing on a chandelier and cut off the heads of dozens of guards in a turn in a ridiculous power fantasy, why shouldn't they so long as everyone is having fun with it? If you have a group of serious roleplayers who want to get all the details of a political drama and so question an NPC at length and seem to enjoy a vivid description of the world around them in order to properly assess the mood and get in character, that is perfectly fine. What you have described in this video in short isn't that all these behaviours are terrible. Merely that the specific game style you like to run doesn't work with these practices.
I feel like you're missing the point. I get the sense this guy would agree that player enjoyment is the ultimate goal, and he doesn't say these principles aren't adaptable. The real underlying problem here is: Do you place the rules higher in importance than player enjoyment? Do you place one player's enjoyment over the other players? Do you place your own enjoyment over the players? So it is all about that: these are just issues that COMMONLY (not always) interfere with a group enjoying the game.
If that was his thesis then it was terribly conveyed. Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you, like I said, I am my group's GM and I probably play the kind of game that this fellow does. But I dislike disparaging GMs for following the rules. I'm not going to say I don't have my own homebrew systems where I dislike the rules in the book or need to fill in a gap. But that is different to taking an example of a skill challenge, a player trying to pass it when they lack the level of skill needed, and the implication he gave is that you should let them pass anyway. It is the very thing he was complaining about earlier with the "Yes Dick". My philosophy is run a fair game. I'm relaying the world to my players, and while I like them to succeed, I want to be impartial and not go out of my way to make them suceed if they shouldn't. Failure is part of the fun of playing an RPG, so if you try a risky solution to a problem, sometimes you will fail and pay the price. I' not going to bail out the player for their own decision unless it is reasonable in the context of the situation they are in that one of the NPCs or the environment will do that.
Well, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that seems to be a common thread in his videos. You are right though, he doesn't outright say it here.
I've watched a few of his videos, and most seem to be about pushing game masters and players into a specific type. I reiterate that it is close to my preferred style of GM and player, one that takes the game relatively seriously and tries to convey a relatively serious, if narratively more interesting world. But the pushy, one true Scotsman way he conveys the message just annoys me, that is all I'm trying to say I think.
The message I got was "don't be the guy who spends five minutes looking at tables and rules just to say no." If you're going to say "no, doesn't seem physically plausible" then you should make the gap especially large, the lock especially strong. But don't waste everyones time with calculations just to say "no". There's often tables for long jumping in games and it calculates off a variable of your running speed or strength in a lot of cases. If you're going to set this challenge, learn the rule before you issue it, know the rule, ask your characters their stats. If i made a long gap and my characters didn't run fast enough I'd say "no, sorry you can't jump that far." If the monk then said "i can use my wind step and run five times as fast" i'd be like. "okay, sure, you make it across, you're alone, now what do?"
i have a homebrew attribute I use called 'Luck.' It's a percentile the player rolls for his/her character during creation and is, only, used to help say yes or no to random ideas the character has during adventure. Example "I want to use my rope and tie off to a large boulder at the edge of the cliff and climb down." me: "roll luck..." if the luck roll is lower than their character's luck; there is a boulder large/heavy enough, if not... "think of something else." This is never to be used in a way that affects an actual skill or attack check. I average this value between all party-members present during the situation. If used it to check for locked or unlocked door in alleys when running from thugs, see if car has keys in the visor, see if someone left the house keys under the potted plant outside the door, check if the blacksmith has anymore of those really sweet pieces of armor left from his/her booth at the market, etc... It's worked for me, so far, and none of my players are against it. It lets them be fairly creative in adding local description to the game and means I don't have to actually create a professional engineering design/blueprint of the room/building they are in.... Let fate decide.
Was any of this overly aggressive rant actually any use to anyone out there? I only ask as to me the purpose of this video seemed to be nothing more than someone being negative for nearly 18 minutes. There was literally nothing constructive here. No advice about how a gm might evolve past certain negative traits with their roleplay to become a better storyteller. You just rant and get super awkwardly angry with your own thoughts on the topic. What was the intended purpose of this particular video? Because I am not certain the message is getting put across very clearly.
Nope, I just came across this series of videos on my main UA-cam page whilst searching Roleplay related stuff. A series entitled "How to be a Great Game Master" seemed like a good find, within my own Rp group I have recently begun to think about maybe stepping up and running a session or two as a new GM so I figured "Hey let's look online for advice"... There was no advice here, just some guy who clearly gets angry at his own mental images, there was nothing constructive here, just a chap with a very narrow vision about what is allowed to be considered an acceptable game master style.
Ignus Pyre this one is situated on identifying negative traits that many GMs fall into the trap of. There are other videos that are more helpful. What tips are you looking for, if I might ask?
Kind of agree. I've seen several of these, and he's usually quite polite. Turned this on for something to listen to during a shower and was kind of startled that I spent the whole fifteen minutes being berated with no real advice to speak of.
This is all terrible advice. There's only 1 kind of bad GM, the GM that doesn't know what their players want to play and runs a campaign that doesn't interest them. Yes GMs are great for a wacky adventure. No GMs are great for puzzle adventures. Rules GMs are great for survival/realism adventures. Vindictive GMs are great for a hardcore adventure. The Bored GM is merely an extension of a bad matchup. Point is that you need to enforce a playstyle that matches your players first before you even start to play.
There are good puzzle adventures. Sure, it may not appease the murderhobos, but there are adventures where you do investigating, put the pieces together, etc.
No, it isn't terrible advice. Yes GMs inevitably end up GMing something other than a wacky adventure, No GMs inevitably end up running something than a puzzle adventure, rules GMs forget that the point of the game is to have fun no matter what you're doing, and vindictive GMs usually aren't doing it for the sake of specifically running vindictive characters, they're doing it just for the sake of being an asshole to their players. A GM who says yes a lot in a wacky adventure isn't necessarily a yes GM, a GM who says no often where puzzles are concerned isn't a No GM, etc. You're looking at this from the wrong angle. He's not talking about saying yes or no too often, or using the rules when they're used appropriately. He's talking about being this way REGARDLESS of flavor, campaign setting, player interest, and atmosphere. Of course you're going to lean heavy on the rules and let players die if you're playing Dark Suns or something, and of course you're going to say Yes a lot if you're playing a game of TOON. Don't make the mistake of criticizing good general advice just because there are exceptions. Do point out those exceptions, if you feel it adds to the discussion, but don't instantly knee-jerk and say that the general advice is wrong.
For our DM, a natural 1 isin't a miss, it's a "you miss, and your battleaxe goes flying into the wizard on 10hp, roll 1d12 for damage and add your str"
Thank you, because of this I now know where I went wrong. I have another session in a couple of days and I'm going to apologize to my players. I will get better now that I know what the problems are. Thank you.
I've come close to the "Yes..." example on occasion. I want so much to avoid the "NO!" paradigm and give my players all the agency they could desire, and that comes dangerously close to, "You do everything phenomenal because Reasons." Thankfully my mistakes are either small/infrequent or just my overblown perception.
So I just played through a bit of the Curse of Strahd where I had a DM who did the “no”, “limelight”, “favoritism” and “that makes no sense” versions... they were really trying, but I think they just got stuck trying to replicate the results from D&D shows and didn’t realize the kind of preparation that goes into DMing a game that would be fun for players. It was almost like their vision of what a game should end up looking like was such a huge focus, that they just didn’t really realize how different storytelling vs DMing is.
You forgot the GM that puts HIS character into the story, and he adventures with the party, and is the coolest guy ever, and the party gets to hold his treasure and gawk as he defeats every enemy with ease.
With permission I'd like to dub that as the "Gary Stu/Mary Sue" GM- And I *USED* to be one of those. It didn't last long. I know other GMs who are unabashedly guilty of this too.
when you can't even spit on the bartender as he drags you out of the tavern because he bruce lee's his way from your spittle bomb, no rolls either.
yes dude, yes. a million times this. nothing makes me right off a campaign faster than a gm with a character. running npcs is their job, but running the godlike character... nope.
And also gets a girl that wants to cling on him at all times.
SondrianMusic I’ll have Gm PCs as mercenaries(in case someone can’t make it), but I keep them on the same level as the rest of the party. It’s no fun to have them just completely outclass the party.
I watched this man talk for 20 minutes unedited.
Subscribed.
Not a great sign that a player linked this to meLol
time for some reflection?
Had a player link this to me as well. Hmm....
Actually, it kinda IS a great sign. Now you can improve!
No, it's a good sign. It's a sign that while there may be some things for you to improve on (after almost 25 years, I'm still improving), you have a player that thinks highly enough of you as a friend to want to help instead of just not play with you. That's a sign of a nurturing brotherly-love kind of friend, and those are rare :)
Unless they are an asshole... then it's probably not very nice lol.
Well, my friends are assholes. But I think they care.
I once had a GM that would make me roll on everything. My character had a drink of water, i rolled a 1, my character drowned while trying to drink the glass of water :/
Your character crit failed and died? Ouch. That would not have been fun
It was an interesting game. One of the other pc's decided to jump over some broken glass, rolled a 1 and then the glass sliced his foot off. I had a great DM :/
That's good then. My group had a session where one guy was trying to lift up a door and kept failing the roll check. He then grew frustrated and tried to headbutt the door. Another guy in the group was going to help him out. But when the first guy rolled a 1, our DM had the second guy roll a strength check. It ended up that the second guy instead of helping lift the door ended up pushing the first guy through the door. The door was trapped and a poisoned arrow shot out of the wall. Had they opened the door by lifting, one would have been shot. With how the rolls turned out, the first guy got pushed out of the way and no one was hit. Our DM used the crit fails to actually save the character in a hilarious way.
That sounds awesome! My DM (at that time) probably would have had the guy who rolled a 1 fall on the handle and suffer a head injury and very possibly the character would have died or lost an eye or something
OMG What a dick!
"Spread the evil to all your players...like a good GM."
haha as soon as he said that I was like "TO THE COMMENTS!"
I used to play with a GM that would introduce new players with a half-hour long backstory about their character's life up to that point, narrating all the decisions in their life and how they got to the point of the game, what their motives were, etc. I think this is a "Limelight" kind of issue, but I also thought it really took away agency from players.
I remember I got into a campaign late, so he made me play a 1st level character when everyone was level 7 or so. AND he decided I had to start without my sword or any equipment whatsoever, so two sessions were basically me just annoying peasants in a tiny village with absolutely no shops to find a way to find at least some cutlery or something to stick into baddies (no luck). So, a lot of "No GM"-ing there, I suppose...
He would have peasants get angry because I didn't specifically roleplay how fantasy medieval peasant etiquette worked, and shot me down whenever I said OOC "well, obviously I (the player) don't know that, but wouldn't the character know that doing X is rude?". And I mean stuff like knocking on doors unsolicited or trying to talk people in a kitchen, or in general try to engage in roleplaying.
Later he had us fight a bunch of wendigos, which are basically cannibal bigfoots vampires. At that point I was really bored, because I had nothing to contribute to the fight. One of the players, the one that invited me to the group said something like "look, this DM is cool, if you do something cool I'm sure it will help despite the rules." So I said I was going to use acrobatics to basically swing up to this huge monster's head and stab it in the eye. Got really good rolls too, and the DM was like, "ok, you hit him. It does no damage." Rules said so, I guess, no magic weapon, no damage. "Rules DM" it is, I suppoe.
BTW the Wendigos ate everyone and I escaped, both the encounter, and soon enough, the gaming table.
The very first part is actually pretty cool, if they follow some sort of backstory given to the DM by the players.
It wasn't for me. It was me just hearing him narrate for 30+ minutes about stuff my character didn't have any choice in, that was completely non-interactive, that just dragged the game on. And he did that on other games too: I made a fighter/rogue, and he decided that my backstory was that I was a merchant, that I was going into town because I was dragging some shipment, and that it got stolen.
After that, since I decided to play along with it, asking about my shipment, or finding justification for doing the quests in that maybe that way I could get my stuff back, he told me I had been roleplaying a greedy bastard and had everyone react negatively, even punishing him in the afterlife after he got killed.
Sergio Le Roux I always have my players introduce themselves indepth at the beginning, and then if new people come into it, I'll have them do the same and say to them, "you turn to see a..." and then provide a two-sentence synopsis of previously-introduced people. If they want to elaborate they can, if not, my little murderhobos get to murder on.
Liam Torun All that sounds very sensible, even if a GM is anti-murderhobo, requiring them to narrate their life story in mid campaign right between the cart chase along the rooftops and blowing up the reactor inside the dragon would really break pacing. I was more annoyed about the GM really wanting us to just sit there and listen to super...long...narration all the time. Player intro was just the most annoying because they're supposed to be our characters and backstories, not his. He actually did this all the time, he prepared 5-page long intros to everything, campaigns, quests, and they were really written like he was pitching a novel to us.
Sergio Le Roux Yeah, that's just a bad deal. If anything I encourage my players to describe only their appearance and relevant stuff in their intro, and leave backstory revelation for later when they talk to each other or an NPC. Also works great for a storyline where someone's secret seedy past comes back to bite the party - the revelation when they come across a secret sigil or a wickedly curved dagger, and suddenly the rogue knows what's going on, is just delicious to play out.
If the player cannot jump the gap by the rules, then a good DM tells them it will not work before they jump, and be cooperative with them in finding another way.
Or, alternatively if they keep insisting on trying, lets them do it and has them suffer the appropriate consequences. Hey, if your players are going to insist on being chaotic stupid, you might as well let them and have them deal with the consequences of their actions.
"you see the canyon in front of you and just know, that you will not be able to land on the other side. You have jumped over gaps, but this one is about twice as large as the furthest you have jumped." would be my answer, even if he has requested to jump allready. then i would make him do a will-check, against his slefpreserving instincts so to speak.
A good GM allows them to fail in an amazing manner. While the other characters watch in awe stunned silence.
Sometimes players are so single-minded to do something they can't work out that it is impossible and try again, even after the epic fail.
I did that with my players I have a monster that hides in holes in the ground because it can't be out during the morning so what do they do as soon as they escape a prison in forest hide in a random hide hole out of no where in a forest. when if they just climbed a tree there would have most likely been no encounter. the monsters where a CR 1/2 and they where successful but I felt they could of thought of something better. I did ask if they where sure and they said yes
our GM sometimes bends rules a bit, for lols. for example: i was turned into stone, and our dwarf, who loves speaking to stones, tried to stonetalk to me. normally that's not possible, but for the sake of lols the dwarf got three questions. which my character answered angrily.
Seems legit. Didn't break any rules. You were stone, he could speak to stones. You had to answer honestly right? lmao
@@davidbeppler3032I mean yeah you were stone why wouldnt stone speak work
@@davidbeppler3032 sounds amuse and fun just like DnD should be
I am bjort and i speak to the trees. The trees say your a bitch
@@epicface1199
LOL! 😂
Thanks for that.
I've been lucky enough to only ever encounter a single bad GM since I started playing PnP RPGs.
It's my first time playing any game like this and was D&D 3.5 Edition and its 2005. GM had this odd character creation method. You would pick your race, then you would row for each of your attributes with 4d6, removing the lowest amount rolled. You don't pick where the results go, you just go down the line. I played a lot of Warcraft (The strategy games, hadn't touched the MMO yet) and I'm a huge fan of the Horde, so I picked Half-Orc as my race. My stats wound up being 12 str, 6 dex, 14 con, 8 int, 14 wis and 16 cha. The result was the birth of Durak the Redeemer, the half-orc paladin of the Triad (Tyr, Torm and Ilmater).
Campaign went fine until we reached 5th level. Everyone was asleep by Durak and Arathyen, an elf sorcerer (dragon blood). They were discussing their most recent escapades, which involved Durak stopping an ogre from pillaging a pig farm. Instead, Durak helped the farmer teach the ogre how to work the farm itself, peacefully ending things without blood shed and proving, once again, that monstrous creatures can be taught to be good, or at least neutral, instead of evil.
Well, the GM suddenly had our characters ambushed. Someone a group of slavers managed to avoid triggering the Alarm spell, which Arathyen had placed at the front of the cave about 30 minutes before in game time. The slavers attack us. All of their attack dealt 6d20 damage, even a nat 20 couldn't get through their AC and we couldn't run because the GM said we couldn't and never told us why.
We get sold to a gladiator arena. Magic is made useless by collars put around the necks of Arathyen, Eris (A Human Cleric of Amatra)and Durak lose the majority of their abilities because of this. While Eris and Durak are fine, due to being capable combatants, Arathyen is kinda fucked. We're then sent through round after round of fights, all against various monsters and animals. Then, we were told we had to fight the arena champions.
There were four in total, a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Rogue and a Monk. Each one was described as being convicted killers, sent to the arena as punishment for their crimes. In this land we were in, convicted killers who manage to slay 100 monsters and/or people in the arenas are released. This goes for everyone who fights in the arenas. Anyways, it's a fight to the death. We win if we kill the champions, champions win if they kill us. Cue fight. By now, we're roughly 7th level and Arathyen had taken two levels in rogue so he could at least do something to help us. We manage to barely win and a few lucky 20's from Arathyen and Seabo (A gnome rogue) more or less saved our lives in the fight.
The GM smiles slowly and turns to look me in the eyes then. "You have committed murder. You are now Chaotic Evil. You lose all of your Paladin powers. Your gods turn their backs on you and will no longer listen to your prayers and will even ignore any attempts at redemption. No matter what you do, you will never be able to regain your lost powers or take new levels in Paladin." I get pissed off. We argue for roughly an hour. To be fair, I got really pissed off. To the point where Arathyen's player had to force everyone to take a time out because he realized I was very close to getting physically violent with the GM. We all break from the game for an hour so I can calm down.
When we return, the GM has us all in our separate cells. He then has the guard allowed six friends of the former champions into Durak's cell. I was fully expecting my character to get jumped or beaten to near death. Instead, the GM goes into a heavily detailed narrative explaining how these six guys rape Durak. I told him I don't want that to happen to my character, that he can't force such a thing onto my character. He replied; "Well, if you have a problem with it, then you shouldn't question my judgement anymore. Next time, it wont be creatures the size of your character."
I leave the game. I just left. The only other person to leave with me was Arathyen's player. Everyone else stayed for whatever reason. It nearly ruined PnP RPGs for me, to the point I didn't touch them again until I got the Pathfinder beginner box as a present in 2012. I started GMing then, simply because my brothers and their friends wanted to play and I didn't feel up to trusting anyone else to GM. Wouldn't be until about two months ago that I started actively playing in a campaign, Fantasy Flight's Star Wars RPG, GM'd by someone else.
That GM fails on several accounts.
1: That's not murder, it's life or death and Redemption spells exist for a reason. And unless it's truly abhorrent one act wouldn't shift alignment.
2: shutting down characters abilities to the extent a player was forced to take a whole other class to survive.
3: Not know where the limit is. Rape and things of that level of discomfort. (Child abuse/mutilation begin another example) is not something that should be put in a game unless players are cool with it, let alone DESCRIBING it and NEVER to a PC. The whole group needs to have fun, not just fulfil a failure of a GMs sadistic kinks.
I'd have probably torn up my sheet and throw it at him or thrown my drink on his notes and told him he's clearly not qualified to GM.
While I'm certain I've made mistakes I hope I've never put my players in a position of feeling like that.
It wasn't a great experience for me at all, since it was my first time playing a PnP RPG in the first place and nearly turned me off them as a whole forever. It took a lot of talking to before I decided to sit down at a table with someone else as the DM/GM.
TimmyTheNerd Jesus the Christ.
Hope you're in good company in this new campaign.
I am. The GM actually got me a job working with him in making gaming terrain and cosplay/LARPing props.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
The NO GM is more a graphical adventure game developer, "you should have just combined the fish with the table leg, and used it on the door"...
A quick roundup :
Never have a solution as a GM. If you have solutions, then play.
If you do a favor to a player, they will all want the same treatment, so set your standard.
"computer says no", GM says "let's try".
Kick players from your table, not at your table.
Let the dice be the luck, not your feelings, or they will get hurt at one point.
If players can't roleplay then just record your session on audible.
(I disagree on the bored part, i had a campaign that my players loved, but i could not continue cause i was bored, it was so hard to prepare at one point... but i get the point)
As a GM, never say you are beaten ! You can always turn it around !
As a summary, be a nice person and a good human being, listen to feedback, and don't get cocky !
Great advice for any prospective GM!
What on earth does audible one mean?
The first one would gain to be reworded as "never have one solution as a GM". You should still try to anticipate solutions, so that you can offer leads if your players can't find an idea by themselves. If you haven't thought about it, you might end up in a case where you have to improvise something, and it's not always great.
Elouj Time Reaver i think what OP meant was something like "if you don't let your players do anything with your story, just make a book"
Elouj : Google it. Basically major audio book provider
Darkprosper : You have to anticipate players, based on your problem, and not the other way around. Don't start with "I want my players to be badass while making jumps above steep cliffs" but with "I want my players to get down this steep cliff. I anticipate them to jump so i'll use some spare time preparing falling damage or slipping on snow". Or something like that. This shift in mindset, if done right, is really game changing. (BTW snow is a great thing for any gm!)
Nexi : Exactly what i meant !
All : Thanks ^^ and happy playing, as they say
"Well, you can't roll a natural 30 on a twenty side dice, so unfortunately no. No, no..." had me rolling...
Delivery reminds me of Ricky Gervais, almost. Love it
I was turned into a woman a few months back in my friday game because of some weird magic stuff. GM made a table and everything, but nobody drank the sketchy water, so he got a little mad that he wasted his time making the table and forced it on us via a water elemental fight. Ruled that the water got in our mouths.
Then when I tried to have the groups crafting guy make me an "Elixer of Sex Shifting" he said that this very cheap item was not something the crafter would have been taught how to make. Artificially extending the time that I had to stay as a woman, because it was a crafting DC that the crafter could not fail. That's how easy it was to make, at level 6 he could not fail it.
I was pretty uncomfortable with being turned into a woman overall, but then he got mad at me because I didn't like it. Would you say he was a dick?
Yes would say yes because the GM "job" to help craft a story with the players based off how they play. Forcing something is just dick move. A good GM once seeing you wore not into being a female character wouldn't go out of their way to prevent you from find a way to shift you back.
I did eventually get turned back into a man, but he didn't believe I should have disliked it because he personally was fine with it, so he couldn't understand how someone could dislike it.
Generally it's a dick move yes. I had my players find a random ring while traveling through the woods. The ranger put it on and the next morning he was a beautiful she. The player had fun with it, even roleplayed out his characters panic, and another PC (woman) offered to teach the now "she" about womanly issues. All in all good fun. But the player made it clear after the game he'd really rather not be a woman. So I gave him an out shortly after. It wasn't permanent but it was a really funny episode in the game. Things shouldn't be forced on a player except in rare circumstances.
The biggest dick move here is meta gaming overrule without reason.
Anyone who puts someone in a position they are uncomfortable is a dick. I'd say multiple offences are here though: forcing the game to go your way; punishing the players and characters for not getting the outcome you wanted; extending the time for no reason.
Characters are allowed to be uncomfortable, they can squirm and be embarrassed or upset or whatever... but not players. If the player isn't enjoying the game then something's gone wrong
"No, there's no wood."
Ahhh but can you not also make a bridge out of stone?
This comment deserves more likes
@@Volvandese haha thank you
You are you who is so wise in the ways of science?
A DUCK!
...Thank you for admitting your own flaws. It helps when someone gives advice, and admits their own mistakes.
Most tabletop games are like 50-75% improv because as a GM you cannot possibly predict everything the players will do. Good improv is always “yes, and” within reason.
That Naked burning barbarian is actually viable - but the town guards might not like it.
What are they going to do? Tackle and wrestle him into submission? :p
Most awesome DM advice video... ever...
Best take home point? "spread the Evil to all your players" ROFL
gotta say, you were scary angry in this video... after watching, I had to sleep with the lights on... great video! keep em coming!
Awww I am sorry. It's just sometimes... sometimes I get upset.
I'd add one: The Preaching Dick.
Someone who has a point to make, and will bend the game to make sure their point gets made. It's a bit of Limelight. It's a bit of No or Yes, depending on whether your chosen action fits their point. It can easily become Vindictive if you are threatening to disprove their point.
"Spread the *evil* to ALL the players, like a *GOOD GM*."
Spoken like a true GM...lol
One facade of the No! Dick GM that's very subtle but also very frustrating is the "No, you must battle" GM.
In a 3.5 table I had a GM take away the chace of the bard to negotiate a non-battle way of resolving a group of orcs attack to our party. We were level 4 or 5 and the bard had +16 to his diplomacy rolls and, on top of it all, scored a nat 20 on the test.
The orc (a mage orc, not just some barbarous orc) just went "Nah, we are going to keep attacking you." without any contesting roll or anything (at least that we had seen).
Now, not to be a rules lawyer, I saw later in some part of the books that turning an aggressive attitude from an NPC to neutral was DC 30, so, by the rules, the bard killed that DC.
If not by the rules, COME ONE HE SCORED A NAT 20 ON HIS SPECIALTY! Not only he had a total disregard for the absurd number that came off, he simply didn't care for any other way of us dealing with the orcs.
The worst kind of "no" gm imo. The one who says 'no' just because he hasn't planned for talking with the orcs/etc
Yeah, I'm kinda guilty of this. I'm not sure if I can get a pass since I'm new to being a DM, but I kinda did this with my group. I had planned a Roc encounter and didn't really have much else afterwards written out so I really pushed for my players to go fight it. But I guess to make up for it, in my first session I had planned for a encounter that the Ranger managed to persuade the creatures into knowing that the group didn't come to attack so the actual fight never happened.
Now I wouldn't be that much of a dick as your previous DM was, just kinda of a learning lesson that I need to plan more in case my group completely avoids an encounter.
ugh when I first started DM'ing I was guilty of being the NO dm. then I felt bad and became the YES dm. now after more experience I've finally found a good equilibrium lol
I fly over the-
NO!
no, God! NO!
Rule lawyers in D&D are the biggest oxymoron I can think of. In the rules it literally says you can mess with the rules. If you don’t/don’t allow your GM to be flexible with the rules then you yourself are technically breaking a rule.
The problem many such players have, including myself oftentimes, is that when we sat down and agreed to play D&D 5e, we expect to use the rules of 5e. The rules are important because they frame our actions in our imaginary world in a way that is consistent, if not fair. The death of many a Gamist’s investment in a game is inconsistency. When a rule that applies in a situation is ignored, it creates the feeling that other rules are also irrelevant and suddenly we are not playing 5e anymore which is not what we agreed to. Far too often I see GMs just respond with “no, it’s my table we do what I say” which has always been a great way to lose players. On the other hand, when I GM and my resident rules lawyer(a game designer, so to be expected) corrects me I appreciate it, and decide either to say “okay, then it works like that” or “I don’t agree with how that works, so we’ll use this way from now on” and then I let them know afterwards that I’ll think more on it out of game and come to a full decision that can THEN be applied consistently to the rest of the campaign. And sure, there are extremists who will interrupt you every 2 sentences to correct you instead of waiting ‘til you’ve finished talking, continue to argue even after you’ve told them and explained your decision, and perhaps become sullen when you tell them no, but in the same regard there are GMs who arbitrarily change rules mid game, remove player agency by altering their abilities during play, becoming obstinate and petulant about “my game, my rules”.
It is not my game. It is not your game. It is OUR game. Let’s play it together.
Depends. If the DM changes rules, he should say so beforehand. It's a bit disconcerting if you suddenly find out in combat that your Paladingdong can't actually use his spell slots for smiting because your DM feels that ability is op.
Its perfectly managable to listen to someone for more than 10 minutes at a time and genuinely enjoing it at the same time. These guides and the quality of your voice is a testament to it!
To solve the problem with YES and NO DMs I'd like to quote the he great Matt Mercer: "you can certainly try."
That is a good attitude in general, but be prepared for the 20.
You have to give it to them then, no matter how ridiculus it might be
The No Dick (snerk) GM just has not enough evil in him to be GM.
"I want to tie a rope to a tree and get down over the edge of this cliff!"
"There are no trees, only sickly looking bushes"
"I want to tie a rope to a bush and get down over the edge of this cliff!"
"They don't look very reliable..."
"I tie it real tight!"
"...ok, if you're sure..."
"So what do I see?"
"You don't see much. But it feels like you're sliding down."
"Wait, what?"
"It seems the bush got uprooted under your weight. You're falling down. What do you do?"
This is why pitons and hammers are always a good purchase.
Joseph Stracener or just a burglars pack. It's why I love rogue in 5e
The correct answer;
"My character asks the gods 'what the hell is the solution mr wannabe novelist?'."
verily!!!!
MrRavellon to
I had a GM once who made a Saga Ed Star Wars games that was centered around Jedi, only he didn’t tell anyone he just said make what you want, only one player had a Jedi and he was mad at the rest of us for ruining his game, it took a few weeks for me to figure it out and when I tried to privately speak to him about it he refused to admit there was a problem then at the game the next week he screamed at me for being a bad sport and poor player and imperiously demanded I leave the game and I did.
a bullet dodged...
I love when he's mad because he's informative and funny.
Makes no sense: You've spent weeks holed up in a town, looking for a deed to a building to set up a base. Suddenly, new villain shows up, and everyone gets transported to a whole other world.
Yeah, it made no sense.
Player: "That makes no sense Richard"
Me: "It's called a Red Herring"
I started GMing for the first time last week with a few family members and a friend. I have learned so much from your channel and am trying my best to never be a GM dick. I had a player ask me to do something last week and I said "No" when it totally should have been acceptable to do. I just had an idea in my mind of how it should be, and her idea wasn't it. I'm going to apologize to her and make sure I don't do it again. Thanks :)
...I know a Vindictive Limelight Bored Dick...
His games tend to favor tanky melee characters. If you set up a ranged combatant, like an archer or mage, or worse, a support character like a healer or Bard, prepare to get charged by the melee monsters that ignore the tanks... :/
Obviously, I don't play in his campaigns these days...
I've been accused of being a That Doesn't Make Sense Dick, though. That accusation lasted about half a session, when I half-reluctantly advanced the intended Big Reveal to the current session, tying up all the scattered and seemingly incomprehensible plot threads into a nice bow. :D
Come to think of it, the complaining player WAS the Vindictive Limelight Bored Dick... O.o
Sounds like they were doing the universal rule of MMOs: "Cripple the frontline fighters by taking out their support networks - ranged attackers, healers, etc." The GM was being a biased dick by singling out the players using a support/ranged role. It seemed like they wanted a drawn-out melee slugfest.
“Whose running the bloody game is it you or is it the rules? If it’s the rules put the book in front of the table, it will probably do a better job than you!”
... I’ve tried that but then all the players complained constantly to the book about not enough happening in its game sessions. 😛
For my group it is less about boredom, but more that a lot of our group enjoys playing more than DMing, so when a DM is getting bored of DMing or starting to burn out and wants to be a player, we switch to a different player's campaign. We have 2 campaigns right now and we rotate between them every few months to give DMs a break. It also is nice because it helps me plan stuff ahead for a while. We love it because it allows us to explore different things and when the DM comes back from the break to the campaign they are always at their best because they had the break.
"Rules GMs beware, I eat you!" That was the goddamn _strangest_ way to say you hate someone I've ever heard.
I've had a no/rules lawyer combo... he would say no to certain rules but wouldn't tell us about the change until AFTER we made our characters... really disheartening when you find out your noble paladin isn't actually a noble at all or that our ranger couldn't use the feat he had picked in the usual way cause the GM didn't like it. We all sent in our character sheets ahead of time but we still didn't find out till the day.... very disheartening
I was running a game of Spycraft.
At one point of the game a car chase started.
The NPC's were escaping until the tech guy decided to hack the car. The car crashed horribly and the NPC's died.
Whilst that wasn't supposed to happen, it was just so entertaining and unexpected, I actually said yes.
It was far more interesting than the car chase that would have happened. A lovely little surprise. One that a "No" game master would never have allowed.
Out of all of these I think my worst offense is Boring Dick.
I got *soooo* burned out on D&D. That I started doing one shots of various different systems for a year just to test the waters until I found one that clicked with me that I could work with the theme of to tell the kinds of stories I excell in with.
I'm building a one-shot for my first DMing experience, it's a lot of fun so far and I think one-shots are a good approach to experimenting. =)
“Who’s running the game? you or the rules.” I like
I find the biggest issue is the game you want to play is not always the game they want to play, GM or player. Some want a hack/slash dungeon smash, others want a detailed story, others want a sandbox/minecraft build and explore game. I always find groups don't talk about what game they want and each is assuming the game will go one way or another based on their desires. So sometimes being the dick is simply a failure to communicate what the game is all about in the beginning and no one bothers to bring it up. Just talk about it and bring it up.
That's what I have found, that the very most important thing over everything is to spend a great deal of time before the game begins making sure that the players and gm both want the same type of game. If you do that then I have found the rest will work out. Rules dicks work fine if everyone wants a by the rules game, limelight dicks are fine if players want a heavy story with simple character choices, and so on.
I like running sandbox games the amount of improve is fun but still have plenty of quests available for players if they feel like doing any of them. lol actually have a dual sandbox game running with both an evil group and good group of players that are currently trying to get the same thing and screwing each other over lol.
7th Sea put forth an excellent suggestion for this. Give each of the players a sheet with the different styles of play on it, and 100 points each to assign between them. This gives the players the ability to say what sort of game it is that they're actually looking for, and not just a main type, but about what they want second, third, and fourth. I've been using that system now for years, to help me write up my campaigns.
My answer: "you are welcome to try"
You can try anything you want in dnd. Just know that stupid and lethal are exponentially proportional.
'90s puzzle game designers should have watched this video
"Spread the evil to all your players! That's a good GM." Best advice in the whole video. :)
Your videos get me through rough days. As weird as that may be, hearing someone talk about a hobby I have when I dont have a chance to play it kinda just keeps my mind off life.
The GM Player Character Star of The Show Dick - Where the DMs favourite NPC (or worse yet, DM PC) gets all the cool limelight and best magic items, always Crits and never dies.
Ugh. Worst ever GM Dick.
When i started playing in 1984, my gm had all the flaws you listed , plus he even didn't read the rules. At this time the red box was only available in my country. The other players and i loved the game but hated this gm who introduced us to D&D. So we all buy the red box and we became gms too if needed. As for our first gm? We never invited him as player, his only good deed was to make us play the best game of the world for the 1st time. Now i m 51 and i still play D&D.Greeting from France.Thank you for your Channel.
I'm kind of a limelight dick but not by choice, my players don't like to actually roleplay that much, they like to play and like the game, but they expect me to tell them a story and don't really want to "work" for it.
It's usually "I hit him with my sword, make it interesting" or "I tell him I don't like him, make my character say something funny"
Now I'm lucky enough that they usually like what I make their character say (god that sounds so sad ...) But when they don't like it, it's my fault for not making it funny enough.
(Of course they sometimes have great ideas by themselves and I enjoy those rare and beautiful occasion)
congrats to you, but thats pretty sad that they make you do that. If they can't be funny then they aren't.... if you are playing npc then you can make a joke tell a story etc.... but at least the characters should react to that. if you like that kudos to you, but I expect some amount of participation in the story.
Oh I expect it too, but I leaned long ago that with that group I won't get much participation. But it's probably my fault, when they started every fight was "I hit him ... I hit him again" without description or storytelling at all, so I started to do it for them to avoid getting bored to death, and now that they know I can do it for them why would they ever do it themselves.
We're starting a new campaign at the end of the month, I'm gonna try to make they participate or just leave, but I know if they don't I'll just go back to doing everything because if they leave I don't have a game anymore.
@@Gr2enProd Well.... perhaps you're the "enabling" GM. You can find better players, can't you?
One of my players posted this in our group. I am very glad he did as I find your series amazing and very well done, after having watched some videos.
I would have to say of all the examples I would suffer from being the Bored GM as I tend to get bored with story lines and want something new and exciting at times.
Thank you for another great gaming channel for me to watch and learn from (15 years this fall I have been DM-ing for the same group, basically) as I always like to get new ideas, perspectives and information on gaming.
So as far as being vindictive...
I once had a game where all the players were investigating an apparent undead apocalypse outside a city whose citizens were oblivious to what was going on. All of the players were working toward investigating this except one, a Gnome Warlock, who had an absolute obsession with trying to build an army of squirrels. It was funny the first time he brought it up, but he had started dragging the party out of their way to find things such as acorns to attempt to tame squirrels. At this point the party was getting rather frustrated with him, so when they reached one of the outlying farming villages, when he charges through a farm house's boarded-up door in search of seeds (which, by the way, there were none because it was spring and they were all in the ground), I killed his character by placing a terrified farmer with a pitchfork behind the door, rolling a critical as the Gnome barreled through and impaled himself by the head on the farmer's pitchfork.
Would you say this was too far? The players and myself were all rather relieved that his character was dead, and he stopped trying to do stupid shit like raise an army of squirrels, so I think it was a good move, but what do you guys think?
If it was actively harming everyone else's experience, and he literally did not look before he leapt... well.... no. I think you're justified tbh.
I don't think you were unjustified per say but I don't think it was the right thing to do, mainly because you intentionally placed the farmer there to punish him by the way you phrased it. It would have been far more appropriate to just talk to him and tell him to chill on the squirrel thing because it's detracting from the game for both you and the players.
Or you could have helped him out in a small, fair way that contributes to his narrative, so long as you are willing to do the same for the other characters. I'm not saying give him what he wants but maybe, even if it did crit him, let him survive and the farmer as an apology asks if there's something he can give him or do for him, the player asks for acorns/seeds and the farmer either gives him some, or points him to where he can find some, than talk to the player and say dude chill with the squirrels. Point is talking to your player is always better than killing him, especially if he's attached to the character it could turn ugly if you outright kill him
the only thing you did wrong was that you should have gotten squirrels to attack him.
Yes, that was rocks fall levels of lazy
I run into this kind of player a lot. They make a joke character and method-act the shit out of it. It's fine if all the other PCs are just as gonzo, and the GM wants to run that kind of campaign. But if not, it ruins everyone else's fun. Some of this can be fixed at Session Zero, if you are very clear about what kind of game you want to run and what is or is not appropriate.
As far as you being vindictive, I think terrified farmers with pitchforks are a logical consequence of breaking into farmhouses. If you rolled the critical fair and square and didn't cheat, no harm, no foul. You could have had a private conversation with the player, but those conversations are very difficult, and it sounds like everything worked out.
I am the chronic campaign restarter/system changer - but I have gotten better and now tell my players to call me out and do my best to commit to finishing a campaign properly
I am a tad of a vindictive dick. However I often do this to a single player who always cheats... I know he is cheating, he doesn't. So I ignore his cheating and punish hi like there is no tomorrow.
His death monk is still alive...
Awesome advisory! Been RPG'ing since the 1st ed. of D+D. Ran into just about all of these at one time or another. One of the best things my players have enjoyed during a campaign was asking them, at the end of each session, what they liked/didn't like. What they wanted to see more/less of and their favorite and least liked moments in that session. Really helps me out and they are part of what we are creating together.
Hi! This is basically my first ever UA-cam comment. I love your insightful videos as I've watched almost all of them!
Let me ask you a big question: How do you DM and do prep work for cities? I DM a game and my party went to Waterdeep. I'm very nervous as next session they'll be in this big city. How do I handle big and busy settings like cities where the players could/should find anything? I don't want to be a Dick Master. Thanks!
Ok i'll try to help. ^^
Cities are really overwelming as a GM. Too many NPCs, too many unknown. You are talking about Waterdeep so at least you have some kind of reference to start on if you want.
First make a plan. Not a detailed one. Not a pretty one. Not a accurate one. But practical. Have the points of interest, the main section of the cities and what they are. You don't need to have every dark alley. So have your docks, castle, rich part, poor part, enterance, market, millitia, temple, guild, whatever you want. Just settle it. It will limit the players options, and in creating this, you also come along with ideas.
Then, remember one thing : Although there is everything in that massive city, it's not that easy to find what you are looking for. If you don't have an adress of some sort, things can get tricky. Give adresses to the players for what they need, and have the rest be very generic. Give them the feeling that everything in this town is so busy and intense, and that as an outsider, you are just not in your habitat.
But let the players wonder around, be fascinated by the city... but yet never understand the way people living here do. Get them lost, show them this is hostile territory if they try black market or something. Cities are about getting lost and overwelmed. They do demand some improvisation so prepare some generic NPCs if you want a safety net ;)
If you have more specific questions don't bother, i hope this helps !
Timo Guter
What do you mean exactly by empty space encounters? Just place them in a ready-to-insert void?
City Map generator: inkwellideas.com/worldbuilding/roleplaying-city-map-generator/
Random shop generator: inkwellideas.com/free-tools/magic-item-shop-random-generator/
Random name generator: www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dnd-human-names.php
Om Lo Cities of that size tends to break down into burroughs, or Wards in the case of Waterdeep. Places like Castle Ward, that make it easier for you. Think of it like New York City: Manhattan and Queens have completely different feels to them, but are both a part of the same overall city.
if you can find it, there's a lovely book called Volo's Guide to Waterdeep (So of the information is intentionally wrong in the book, since its an in-character guide to the city, but there's tons of good stuff there to help flesh things out).
Always start with Economy and Ecology. I find with that in hand the rest fills itself in. Example. Kingdom exports master craftsman furniture. You will need logs, leather, feathers, lacquers and stains. What is imported what is made here. This leads to logging towns, lots of axes, cows and ranchers, chickens or ducks raised for feathers, wagons and horses and guards to protect the expensive exports. Ect. Then everyone will be part of the operation in some way. In this kingdom you will not find much magic or master weapon and armor makers. But master carpenters, tinkerers, and leather workers. Furniture is a family business so family will be important. Also even the poor will have nice furniture as it will be cheap and plentiful.
I love how this video was uploaded on my birthday. I gotta watch it yearly on my birthday now. I'll start next year. I promise.
Well of course "no!" when what the players want doesn't fit with context and environment at all. There won't be wood if they are on a rocky plateau for instance. The "no!" is only asshole-ish when it could be plausible in the context (and with what was already established) but the GM goes beyond the reasonable to prevent any other solutions than his own. Sometimes i even change the meta-plot and accept their solution to the story if they won't come up with my pre-idea, but there are borders to that. If they don't even come near a plausible solution they simply fail till they come up with something better. No game without the possibility in failing, even outside of combat.
I think I'm pretty good at ironing out the first three. I counter "no" by giving characters bonuses for creativity in combat, yes by having hard dice mods, and rules by keeping the flow loose, and using off the cuff measurements. I try to make it take less than a minute to describe the difficulty of a player action. a goblin threw a dagger at my a rogue, goblin rolled a 3. the same rogue wanted catch the dagger and throw it back. perception check -5 to spot the dagger, behind himself, during combat. reflex check to dodge the goblin's attack, dex check to catch. dex + strength -6 for throwing something you just caught, and 1d4 damage. he got a 17 on his throw against the goblins reflexes, pegged him in the eye, killed him instantly. nobody at the table got bored during the sequence, the dice ramped up the tension while keeping everything fair, and when the strike hit, the whole table cheered.
If you guys want to hear a story of some bad GMing type in Children of the Sandler. It starts kinda okay but whole shit does spiral out of control, cause the GM does all of this. I sure first episode it might seem kind justified, But it keeps getting worst in a morbid way.
Thanks for the vid. Currently struggling DMing for my first module and have bounced through a few of these DM types. I tend to always forget that the players are the stars, not my story.
I usually try to run games with a fairly open plot so players feels free to have their PCs do things they want, like... "You enter a city..." and someone always wants to find a magic shop and go on a spending spree. Another always wants to start a bar fight. There's a guy who plays a paladin that insists on visiting the temple of his god when he goes to whatever city, and he seeks to set up a shrine if there's no temple... You have to make a little time for this stuff. But there's this one player who used to be in our group. He didn't have any agenda other than to fuck my game as hard as he could. Meet the town's mayor, he'd punch him without any reason, so quest is postponed while he's jailed, and no one wanted to rescue him because they'd caught him stealing from them multiple times. Re-roll a new character? Sure! His thief has like a hundred identical twins since he simply rolled up new stats with the same personality. The real trick is how to kick a _friend_ out of the group because everyone else just wants to play? If he was playing, I ultimately stated I wouldn't DM. I really didn't even know how anymore. He's the kinda player that needed solo adventures all the time. I could never quite get the hang of balancing a crazy character like that with the rest of the game. I even ran one game centered all around his character, and he had his thief take a nap. That was the game when I decided I wasn't DM'ing for him anymore.
I can be vindictive with players like that.. I won't purposefully kill their character, but there is a good chance they will start losing limbs.
Thanks Drew. That's actually not a bad idea. I also liked taking every opportunity I could to have party members find their stolen things among his chatacter's possessions or on his person. Loss of limb was considered on more than one occasion.
I got trouble DM'ing lately. Like some kind of wacky writer's block. But if/when the mojo returns, I'll definitely apply your advice!
Have the mayors also be low key mob bosses and instead of imprisoning him let him "get away with it" and have him hunted by enemies for the rest of the game so his character is never able to take rests. Have goblins or something steal his boots while he's asleep and then send the party to a snowy mountain and make him roll against frostbite and make him make movement checks with disadvantage while in the snow. If decide neither of those and imprison him have his fingers cut off as "bail". Make him draw Balance from the DOMT so he has to be lawful good. You could give these mayors and such "hellish rebuke" and fuck his world 😂, Have a bard follow him around singing of how awful he is giving him a -1d6 to his rolls, he could punch someone for no reason who is a lich in disguise and is cursed to never sleep being able to sleep again slowly building up exhaustion counters and driving his pc to insanity(seeing hallucinations, mumbling to self) put a bounty on him and let the other players turn him in for gold where he'll be tortured and have various body parts cut off for his misdeeds
This video is a great learning tool both for players as well as GMs. Players can learn how to recognize behavior that might suggest they aren't in the right group, and GMs can use this as a wonderful self-evaluation tool.
"Plot holes the size of episodes!"
ROFL
When I was 16 my first ever dm was the brother of my best friend. He and my older brother were best friends. Both of them were very into D&D, and they both helped me build a character. I wanted to be the son of a man who ran a knightly order(like teutonic knights or something) so my personal quest was to earn a spot in that order. I think it was 2nd edition or 3rd,and I didn't roll stats particularly well, I think I barely rolled high enough to be a cleric. The DM(my best friend's brother) on our first session, our first encounter, threw a hell steed at my brother and I. We couldn't hit it, so with some very lucky rolls we managed to squeak by and run away... Right into some 12 foot tall demon knight who permanently crippled my character on the first hit, removing the 3 str necessary to be able to wield my father's 2handed sword(or a similar ruling of his) and then it cursed my character. He didn't like who I wanted to play as, so in the first hour he made sure I couldn't play the way I wanted to. He then in the second session threw 30-40 goblins at us, we had to run into an portal that took us to fighting 8 or 9 golems of some kind, and he killed my character. That colored my perception of the game so negatively I didn't even want to give it a try for the next 10 years.
tl;dr bad dick DM ruined the game for me and I didn't give it a shot for another 10 years it put such a bad taste in my mouth
Excellent points as always. I'm gonna have to be careful not to be a 'Yes' Dick, because I'm Canadian :P
not all hero's wear capes. these videos are great just to keep the skills sharp. I have been trying new things and challenging experienced players to let go of there "normal" and I love to watch these kinds of video just to keep myself in balance. thank you for all u do
Question: I'm a generally insecure person and I don't know all the dnd rules off by heart, so a lot of times I let my players get away with some things that aren't consistent with the rules. This became problematic since the one player is a very manipulative player and takes advantage of this. And roleplaying's also an issue when it comes with that.
And I always think it'll go better in my head. I am passionate about the game, but my shyness gets in the way.
There any hope for a naturally insecure person to become a good gm?
You don't have to know all the rules. You don't have to be your players' door mat either.
If they want to do something, ask yourself if it sounds reasonable. If they reference the rules, read the bit they show you and rule according to your understanding of them...
I am also a bit of a wallflower so one of the most difficult things I had to learn, amd one of the most important things I learned as a DM was how and when to say "NO".
Brush up on the rules and if you aren't sure of what the rule is in the moment, look it up if it doesnt take too long. Or just make a call that feels right in the moment and say that you will discuss it and look in depth before the next game.
Another good lesson for me is that your players are far more accepting than you think. Your players won't quit or hate you for setting ground rules. Quite the opposite, they will respect you for it and enjoy when you don't allow someone to do some meta gaming piwer gaming nonsense because that person is manipulating the rules. That person ruins everyone's fun.
Talk to your players and you will be fine.
I know this comment is very late, but thank you so much for making these videos! Some of the most helpful videos you have made (in my opinion) are the more...ranting type. I listen and note these things so that I KNOW what not to do. I find the videos of "How to make a good story" for example are indeed helpful, but when someone instead tells me "DO NOT shoe favouritism" or "DO NOT just say yes or no to everything" helps me know what not to do because if I can avoid doing all these terrible things then my players are far more likely to have a good time. I'll be running my very first game soon and am looking forward to it! Once again thank you so so much for making these videos!
Yeah, I suffer from being a Limelight Dick on occasion. It's something I try to work on to prevent. I love telling stories and writing them down isn't as satisfying as getting the live feedback from others. As such, it's alluring and sadly, addictive.
So, yes: I really do need to work on this one!
Sadly, I also (at times) suffer from being a "Bored Dick". That's really rather rare, but I know it's happened a couple times...
Something else to work on.
Here is the solution to that. Make all your NPCs speak only when required, and only write the beginning of your story. You may have all the stats of the final Big Bad, but that doesn't mean you have any idea when, where, or how your party will choose to meet him/her.
Is that the solution for the "Bored Dick" issue?
For me, I pre-prepare very much in excess. Maps, notes, NPCs, monsters, etc... Mind you, I'm also fond of improvising but I do recognize that sometimes my over-preparation can lead to personal boredom.
Overpreparing is fine, so long as you're not preparing what will happen. On a macro level "and then they will meet the king, and the king will get them to save the princess, and the princess will turn out to be..." is tolerable, and often expected for most style of plays. But on the micro level "and then the blacksmith will notice the ring, and offer them this reward for it, and tell them the story of the ring, and tell the story of the quest, and of the five encounters they must experience on their way no matter which way they travel..." then you might be pushing it a bit.
David Rust for "Bored Dick" I have a suggestion, They pc's join a mercenary guild. Missions are a spread of whatever peaks your interest and the party gets the freedom of choice.. (works well for me so far) different missions changing or disappearing after returning back adds life to your world as the party aren't the only mercs and situations can get worse.... but really it's just your bored bandits and want ghosts or pirate cultists to have a shot, you feel that the gnolls are under powered and need to eat a village to get its numbers up, or one of your big bads has a chance to become relevant again.
It is nice creating large stories with plenty of lore for all sorts of different places they may come across but you have to remember a few things. If you are like me and enjoy creating lots of lore then you have to accept that most of it won't get seen and what lore does get to your players should come via show rather than tell. Secondly remember that at the table they are your group not your subordinates. Lastly know how to combine and cut and stick your favourite stuff with the changing circumstances of your game. If your players do something you didn't expect and go down a completely different story line don't force them down the path you want them to go but if you're careful you can seamlessly work elements from the plot and lore that you planned to explore you created into the arc. Work that lore into the background and needs of your players. If the character ideas and your lore contradict each other compromise where possible and know when to back down when it isn't important.
When I first started playing D&D many many years ago with my friends, we had no DM so I volunteered because I like writing and it seemed to me at the time that the point of playing was to tell a story.
So I wrote a little story out almost completely with all the plot points and twists that assumed all the player's behavior and player shaped holes in the story for them to fill.
I thought they would be excited to be the main characters in a cool story, so when we sat down and I started describing stuff there was a big wake up call when one of them that had played D&D before immediately started interrupting me and being a dick saying he didn't want to listen to all that shit I had to say.
This was a really complicated experience for me, because I realize I was being a limelight dick but it wasn't in arrogance, it was out of a misunderstanding of the point of the game. I had never been a player or even seen people play the game before, I was just guessing at why people did this tabletop thing and trying to do something fun with my friends that we all thought would be cool.
I ended up getting mad at my friend who was interrupting me because he didn't try to explain anything or help me understand, he just wanted to be a dick and needle me over him not enjoying what I had put so much misguided work into. I just gave up and said I wouldn't DM and the rest of them could just figure out what they wanted to do about it. No one else stepped up to DM and the night ended awkwardly.
Fast forward years later to today where I understand the game and am playing with some of the same people that were there that night and we all have fun regularly taking turns being DM and running campaigns that last a long time in a variety of rulesets and settings. That friend that was a dick to me doesn't get invited because he's always a dick. It was such a sour start for me but it's become much better over time.
I guess my message is, if you think your DM is being a dick, maybe they don't know any better. Try to teach them what the game is about and see if they can't straighten up. That's what this video is all about, right? Not just being angry, but about helping those DMs fix their behavior for everyone's sake. I technically was one and all I wanted to know was how to do it right. So thanks for this video, 10 years too late, ha.
I like the rules, because they make the game of "make believe" consistent. Otherwise we would all grow wings, and shoot everything with their tail ultralasers, winning the game.
The air around you is sucked out causing a vacuum and you can't get lift, here comes a group of storm troopers with laser reflecting armor.... should not have angered the king with that wedgie.
I recently decided to take my first foray into the world of GMing and I've found your videos to be incredibly useful. I look forward to putting a lot of this advice into action! Thank you very much.
Well I one-shotted the cleric with dragon breath last night. They're staying so I consider that a compliment. :)
Yea my current campaign the group wanted to play with a crit and crit fail table. It won on a 4-2 vote without (me) the dm voting. About 6 sessions in and a kobold just upfront kills the parties fighter with a lucky bolt (Boromir style). The party was a bit down for the rest of the fight, which is normal. The thing I thought weird the fighter didn't want his character revived (sent to me in a text). So he made up a new character 1 level lower and is having a blast playing a monk now. Death isn't the end in DnD :)
I really appreciate this. I've been perusing most of your vids in prep for a new group that asked me to GM for them. I've only met one of them, and all I know is that they are all significantly older than me (between 5 and 10 years), and two of the four have never played. I am scared shitless of mucking up their idea of how D&D is supposed to be, but I'm going to do my best. I've never played outside my home group, where I was the oldest and most experienced player/GM. I am accustomed to off-the-cuff style because I had two....let's call them creative souls, who liked to break games. They were sad for sessions to end, so I'm hoping that means I'm not all bad.
This particular video is really helpful, because it's a reminder of what to avoid with your average group, and even not so average group. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do if my players are well-behaved. But truly, your videos are such a boon. Thank you so much.
I've once been driven to be a bit of a vindictive dick in my Dark Heresy campaign there's this one player who is always, always a massive min maxer/munchkin. He'd never RP just play to fight and would always make every fight a walk over for him, he was obsessed with perfection, the only reason why he hated the villain wasn't because he manipulated them and screwed them over no he just hated him because he made him get a few insanity points (boohoo) He also got all sulky because I made him pay a bit more for auto cannon rounds compared to normal solid projectile rounds. Due to a bad mistake the players made the enemies now had shapeshifting/powerful infiltrators on their side. They were sent to investigate the signs of them in a city, but little did they know the arbites officer helping them was one of those shapeshifters. In co-operation with the Magistratum (Arbites are kinda like the FBI the Magistratum beat cops) They secured this building the PCs and the Arbites from the roof down, Magistratum from the bottom floor up. They met with the woman leading the Magistratum in the middle floor, I knew the Min Maker wouldn't bother taking part in the conversation would stay near the door and so did the shapeshifter so the shapeshifter grew a blade from his arm and attacked the min maxer. The other players saw this and managed to warn him so he could dodge the first attack, but the shapeshifter had swift attack allowing it to attack twice in one turn and most players can only dodge once a turn, so the second hit him, it didn't kill him but injured him really bad, forcing the character out of the session in the hospital. The other players killed it after it lost surprise. It was rather vindictive but it was the only time I indulged in it (Through again manipulation) Felt good I must admit MWAHAHAHA!
If he is such a perfectionist, sounds like he would be easy prey to Slaneesh
KKDragonLord XD
I put my Dark Heresy munchkin up against anything and everything. He prevails most of the time.
Other times his Space Wolf scout (I don't know what I was thinking okaying that) needs to be put on a leash (or crammed into a Chimera that has the sudden inexplicable ability to turn into a pile of crates with the characters inside but unhurt)
Scruffy Looking Brantforder in Dark Heresy where you're supposedly RPing a "normal" person it's quite easy to exploit the system to make OP as fuck characters especially if one plays a psyker *cough!* fearful aura *cough* psychic blade *cough* I lost count how many skirmishes were ended in in complete routes by the Sanctioned Psyker driving the enemy insane. So I had to make them fearless lol
He said he'd do it on my comment and he did it pretty punctually. Kudos on you good sir. You have my sincerest thanks.
"favouritisssssssssssmingiming" :P
Thank you for this. I certainly come here for these videos so I can be more introspective and look for meaningful ways to improve. My two biggest fears as a DM are my players having a bad time followed by unintentional TPKs.
"But the rules say..."
Its called the Dungeon Master's GUIDE, not rulebook.
Players Handbook (which has most rules)
I'm just learning to GM, I had my third session a few days ago. I'm scared to death of being all these things.
You, sir, may have a click of the subscribe button.
Ditto.
I saw myself in a couple of these... I'll be sure to fix that. Thanks for helping me learn how to improve my campaigns.
i disagree with your observation of the rules-dick. not because of your conclusion but because of the way you explain it: in my opinion it is less the fact that some GMs overemphasize the rules-as-written (like your cliffjumping example showed), rather than the fact that some GMs are unable to write their adventures in a way that incorporate the rules in a meaningful and sensible way. in other words i believe (based on my own mistakes and experiences) that some GMs use the rules as a crutch for bad writing or a shield against criticism ("nono, totally not my fault the adventure sucks, it's the gamerules that are at fault!").
I always saw the rules as a framework. Something that allow you to build a good, sturdy story upon them. When working out my villains, I ask myself, "How can the rules allow this?" So say I want the villain to have a powerful magical artifact that the PCs must destroy, lest it destroy the world. I look at the rules on lesser, and greater artifacts, and make sure to build something that is both actually going to be able to destroy the world, but at the same time, that it plays within the rules. Maybe it has an Ego, that pushes the wielder to enact its own agenda, something similar, or maybe it triggers a particular effect that could bring hordes of demons into the world or something, but I keep it within the rules.
Same with villain loadouts. If the villain escapes, it's because of an effect. If he does something he shouldn't normally be able to do, it's because of a rules-compliant reason, so that when my rules lawyer goes, HE CAN'T DO THAT! I can look back, and go, "You're exactly correct, sir! He SHOULDN'T be able to do that!"
Thanks for letting me blow myself up as we played today, Guy!
I love that you allowed my character to have enough rope to take everyone out as he blew up!
I respect you, and have greatly valued your advice, but I think you went astray with this video. Some video-makers have an 'angry' shtick, but it just does not suit you, or your audience. Clearly this is an emotional subject for you, but we come to your channel for intelligent, in-depth, rational suggestions, not emotional outbursts. Demanding that certain people abandon their hobbies, personal insults, and especially the inexplicable jab at actors for waiting tables, are all departures from your normally excellent content.
You have described a few DMs I have had in the past, and I got to say, as a player, the worst I encountered was the yes GM. Because at that point we're no longer playing the game, it's just ego stroking.
When my girlfriend plays I just pick on her for shits and giggles. Anti-favoritism.
Lost 2 wolves lol... question do you sleep on the couch a lot?
I do the same thing. No she sleeps on the couch. The bed is mine.
Same. I've seen so many SO favoritism that I get paranoid that I'll be that person so I over compensate ever so slightly against my SO in games?
One simple to state principle, which I find surprisingly hard to consistently apply, I got from improv theater:
YES, AND ...
In other words, accept and use what your players give you and add to that.
can i be vindictive if they are being a total sally/marry sue?
No, you can't be vindictive.
You can, however, be realistic. If a player tries to have their character do something Mary Sue-ish, don't just hand them a Mary Sue-ish outcome of guaranteed success (whether they've artificially optimized for it or are trying to talk you into it, or however they're lobbying to make it happen). Let them face realistic obstacles and odds against succeeding at improbable tasks, and realistic consequences for failing.
Simply enforcing realism and common sense where appropriate is usually enough to break Mary Sue's lock on being the narrative driver to the exclusion of giving other characters a chance to be meaningfully involved, without going overboard in the opposite direction and singling her out for vindictive or punitive special treatment (which is very coarse behavior as a GM because it fails to treat everyone consistently).
The charisma on this man, I tell you
Great video and worth more subs than he gets
I find myself having very mixed feelings about this fellow. Certainly some of these are examples of bad incidents. But the "rules dick" was a ridiculous example. If a player says they are going to jump a 30 foot canyon, I'll absolutely let them, and I'll absolutely punish them for having only a +3 in jump and being incapable of getting even close to pulling it off. If you don't follow the rules what is the point of them being there? Why bother with a character constructed according to systems where you assign skill points if you are going to ignore the system in practice?
Then there is the story dick. I don't like that you assume that all games need to be serious dramas with great narrative consistency. Admittedly that is what I try to do with my current groups but in the past I have run with far more chaotic parties who enjoyed nothing more than a string of loosely connected but vaguely epic short stories that at best, tied up with an overarching super villain at the centre of all their troubles, if even that.
My issue with this channel in general boils down to his assumption that all groups must run the same as his, and any that don't are dicks who ruin the game. There are different kinds of groups and the trick to being a great GM is to either tailor your game to your players, or pick your players according to the game you want to run. If you players want to consistently do the ridiculous, to swing on a chandelier and cut off the heads of dozens of guards in a turn in a ridiculous power fantasy, why shouldn't they so long as everyone is having fun with it? If you have a group of serious roleplayers who want to get all the details of a political drama and so question an NPC at length and seem to enjoy a vivid description of the world around them in order to properly assess the mood and get in character, that is perfectly fine. What you have described in this video in short isn't that all these behaviours are terrible. Merely that the specific game style you like to run doesn't work with these practices.
I feel like you're missing the point. I get the sense this guy would agree that player enjoyment is the ultimate goal, and he doesn't say these principles aren't adaptable. The real underlying problem here is: Do you place the rules higher in importance than player enjoyment? Do you place one player's enjoyment over the other players? Do you place your own enjoyment over the players? So it is all about that: these are just issues that COMMONLY (not always) interfere with a group enjoying the game.
If that was his thesis then it was terribly conveyed. Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you, like I said, I am my group's GM and I probably play the kind of game that this fellow does. But I dislike disparaging GMs for following the rules. I'm not going to say I don't have my own homebrew systems where I dislike the rules in the book or need to fill in a gap. But that is different to taking an example of a skill challenge, a player trying to pass it when they lack the level of skill needed, and the implication he gave is that you should let them pass anyway. It is the very thing he was complaining about earlier with the "Yes Dick".
My philosophy is run a fair game. I'm relaying the world to my players, and while I like them to succeed, I want to be impartial and not go out of my way to make them suceed if they shouldn't. Failure is part of the fun of playing an RPG, so if you try a risky solution to a problem, sometimes you will fail and pay the price. I' not going to bail out the player for their own decision unless it is reasonable in the context of the situation they are in that one of the NPCs or the environment will do that.
Well, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that seems to be a common thread in his videos. You are right though, he doesn't outright say it here.
I've watched a few of his videos, and most seem to be about pushing game masters and players into a specific type. I reiterate that it is close to my preferred style of GM and player, one that takes the game relatively seriously and tries to convey a relatively serious, if narratively more interesting world. But the pushy, one true Scotsman way he conveys the message just annoys me, that is all I'm trying to say I think.
The message I got was "don't be the guy who spends five minutes looking at tables and rules just to say no." If you're going to say "no, doesn't seem physically plausible" then you should make the gap especially large, the lock especially strong. But don't waste everyones time with calculations just to say "no". There's often tables for long jumping in games and it calculates off a variable of your running speed or strength in a lot of cases. If you're going to set this challenge, learn the rule before you issue it, know the rule, ask your characters their stats. If i made a long gap and my characters didn't run fast enough I'd say "no, sorry you can't jump that far." If the monk then said "i can use my wind step and run five times as fast" i'd be like. "okay, sure, you make it across, you're alone, now what do?"
i have a homebrew attribute I use called 'Luck.' It's a percentile the player rolls for his/her character during creation and is, only, used to help say yes or no to random ideas the character has during adventure. Example "I want to use my rope and tie off to a large boulder at the edge of the cliff and climb down." me: "roll luck..." if the luck roll is lower than their character's luck; there is a boulder large/heavy enough, if not... "think of something else." This is never to be used in a way that affects an actual skill or attack check. I average this value between all party-members present during the situation.
If used it to check for locked or unlocked door in alleys when running from thugs, see if car has keys in the visor, see if someone left the house keys under the potted plant outside the door, check if the blacksmith has anymore of those really sweet pieces of armor left from his/her booth at the market, etc... It's worked for me, so far, and none of my players are against it. It lets them be fairly creative in adding local description to the game and means I don't have to actually create a professional engineering design/blueprint of the room/building they are in.... Let fate decide.
Was any of this overly aggressive rant actually any use to anyone out there?
I only ask as to me the purpose of this video seemed to be nothing more than someone being negative for nearly 18 minutes.
There was literally nothing constructive here. No advice about how a gm might evolve past certain negative traits with their roleplay to become a better storyteller. You just rant and get super awkwardly angry with your own thoughts on the topic.
What was the intended purpose of this particular video? Because I am not certain the message is getting put across very clearly.
Nope, I just came across this series of videos on my main UA-cam page whilst searching Roleplay related stuff. A series entitled "How to be a Great Game Master" seemed like a good find, within my own Rp group I have recently begun to think about maybe stepping up and running a session or two as a new GM so I figured "Hey let's look online for advice"... There was no advice here, just some guy who clearly gets angry at his own mental images, there was nothing constructive here, just a chap with a very narrow vision about what is allowed to be considered an acceptable game master style.
Ignus Pyre this one is situated on identifying negative traits that many GMs fall into the trap of. There are other videos that are more helpful. What tips are you looking for, if I might ask?
Ignus Pyre this is a video about certain traps GM's run into and how to avoid them, how is that not helpful?
This video is like a gun safety course. It teaches you what not to do.
Kind of agree. I've seen several of these, and he's usually quite polite. Turned this on for something to listen to during a shower and was kind of startled that I spent the whole fifteen minutes being berated with no real advice to speak of.
This is the first video I have seen from you, but It was enough to make me subscribe. You sir are hilarious and as a GM myself, you nailed it.
This is all terrible advice. There's only 1 kind of bad GM, the GM that doesn't know what their players want to play and runs a campaign that doesn't interest them. Yes GMs are great for a wacky adventure. No GMs are great for puzzle adventures. Rules GMs are great for survival/realism adventures. Vindictive GMs are great for a hardcore adventure. The Bored GM is merely an extension of a bad matchup. Point is that you need to enforce a playstyle that matches your players first before you even start to play.
There are good puzzle adventures. Sure, it may not appease the murderhobos, but there are adventures where you do investigating, put the pieces together, etc.
Drunken Whaler you didnt understand him. He said that the type of GM who always says "no" is good for Puzzle adventures.
No, it isn't terrible advice. Yes GMs inevitably end up GMing something other than a wacky adventure, No GMs inevitably end up running something than a puzzle adventure, rules GMs forget that the point of the game is to have fun no matter what you're doing, and vindictive GMs usually aren't doing it for the sake of specifically running vindictive characters, they're doing it just for the sake of being an asshole to their players. A GM who says yes a lot in a wacky adventure isn't necessarily a yes GM, a GM who says no often where puzzles are concerned isn't a No GM, etc. You're looking at this from the wrong angle. He's not talking about saying yes or no too often, or using the rules when they're used appropriately. He's talking about being this way REGARDLESS of flavor, campaign setting, player interest, and atmosphere. Of course you're going to lean heavy on the rules and let players die if you're playing Dark Suns or something, and of course you're going to say Yes a lot if you're playing a game of TOON. Don't make the mistake of criticizing good general advice just because there are exceptions. Do point out those exceptions, if you feel it adds to the discussion, but don't instantly knee-jerk and say that the general advice is wrong.
note4note I disagree
What a performance! I love the energy and the heart you put in your video; I can hear the fire roaring from within!
For our DM, a natural 1 isin't a miss, it's a "you miss, and your battleaxe goes flying into the wizard on 10hp, roll 1d12 for damage and add your str"
Thank you, because of this I now know where I went wrong. I have another session in a couple of days and I'm going to apologize to my players. I will get better now that I know what the problems are. Thank you.
I've come close to the "Yes..." example on occasion. I want so much to avoid the "NO!" paradigm and give my players all the agency they could desire, and that comes dangerously close to, "You do everything phenomenal because Reasons." Thankfully my mistakes are either small/infrequent or just my overblown perception.
So I just played through a bit of the Curse of Strahd where I had a DM who did the “no”, “limelight”, “favoritism” and “that makes no sense” versions... they were really trying, but I think they just got stuck trying to replicate the results from D&D shows and didn’t realize the kind of preparation that goes into DMing a game that would be fun for players. It was almost like their vision of what a game should end up looking like was such a huge focus, that they just didn’t really realize how different storytelling vs DMing is.