Just wanted to hear about other people's experiences and lessons learned from bad experiences. I feel like playing with bad players/DMs serve as a great lesson of what not to do.
My personal one is crit fumble tables. I'll never use these at any of my tables and I'll probably leave any table that I play at that tries to use them. I've never had an experience where they're fun. Probably one of the worst examples I've with them was during a game in which my character was using a crowbar to lift up a grate in the ground. Another player was helping me (The DM made him roll as well instead of just giving me advantage, which is stupid but DM's discretion I guess) and I managed to https://xender.vip/https://omegle****/ roll a 1. He then told me my character messed up so bad that I managed to hurt myself and made me roll a d6. Since I rolled 6, my character ended up also breaking his arm all because he was trying to pry open a grate. This also meant that the average person would have died attempting to do what I did.
Well, that's my bad example. I'm looking forward to see more and hopefully learn how to improve from some of your experiences.
Not a lesson or a situation of a "bad" group, but definitely have the DM roll death saves. It adds more suspense. Or, you could have the player roll death saves but they're not allowed to show or tell anyone what they rolled. Also, just general advice, let your players do what they want. Obviously their character needs a motive and it needs to be physically possible, but instead of saying "No", ask "How?".
I feel that everything is personal, and that most things can have people that enjoy playing with them. (Even things that don't appeal to the majority such as Crit Fumbles or Negative AS on races), that said, here are my lessons that made some of the most frustrating D&D sessions I have ever had the displeasure of playing:
- Never let a player waiting 3 hours of a session to introduce their character when they are joining an existing group. If that is going to be the case, just postpone the player introduction - I once tried to join a group and the DM decided that I was going to be in prison at the end of a dungeon that the characters were still not at. I had to wait the whole session to be found just to have the session end just as the players met me. It was VERY frustrating to watch people play in a story that I had no context of (The DM didn't do any pre-sessions with me to help ease me into to the game as well, which made things even more confusing) and in the end, I didn't even got to play that day.
- Don't ask for unnecessary rolls and, for god sake, don't punish players for failing in things they are not suppose to fail. - I once had a DM that made a player roll a DEX save for shaving to, and I quote, "See if they cut themselves badly doing so". If I can do it in real life without cutting myself badly every day, my character should as well.
- As a player, don't critique nor give unwanted advice on other players character's choices - More than once I had players saying: "Oh, but this is not a Nature Cleric concept, this is a Tempest cleric, you should change" or "We need a healer, you should play a Cleric" or "Drow are suppose to be evil, you can't play a Drow"
- Always present House Rules before the game begins - I had DMs that presented house rules on the middle of a session, without any warning. A DM had us roll on the Madness table every time our characters went to 0 hit points and were healed, which led us to a TPK on session 1 of Curse of Strahd against a pack of wolves on the road, even with two healers, since our healing words were useless. I had many others, but I think this was the worse one.
- Don't take away your players agency and skills because you want something to happen on your story, be creative and find ways to move your story forward without making your players feel like they have no power over what's happening. - I had a very good DM that was very focused on the story, and he weaved really good stories, but he was so focused on it that sometimes made the players spectators. We had a player that was charmed by a powerful magic item, after several sessions the party ends up finding out, but in order to not mess with the story, the DM makes so that certain abilities simply did not work - e.g: The paladin aura was shut off, so that it would fail a saving throw, the same goes for the artificer Flash of Genius. - It felt as though the players were just there watching things unfold, instead of actually participating on the story.
- This one is personal and I know some people might disagree, but don't fudge dice against the players (I personally prefer to roll everything in the open and never fudge, but if you want to fudge, at least do it in favor of players and not against them) - I had DMs that never had their main bad guys fail any saving throw. It got so bad that the players shifted to only using spells and abilities that were triggered by attack rolls, one of the players decided to have its wizard killed to make a character that was not relying on saving throws.
- You don't need to break the rules of the game to make it challenging - If all your enemies need to have infinite reactions, have uncounterable spells, 30 AC... you are doing something wrong. The amount of DMs that feel that they need to throw away the game structure so that they can have a "difficult fight" is just impressive. I had games where DMs were like: My archer has +8 to hit? My goblins will have 30 AC now. My Paladin is obliterating my mobs? I will have my mobs have infinite reactions that redirect the attack back to his allies based on saving throw (This is the same guy that let me wait for 3 hours, by the way...). Having DMed more than played at this point, I know it can be challenging to build encounters, but you don't need to obliterate to rules to make it hard. In reality, breaking the rules can make the players feel like the game isn't a game anymore, but just people rolling dice until the DM say it's time to stop.
- Communicate, don't be a jerk, we're just trying to have fun together. It's not all about you. - The amount of people that just don't understand the simple premises of the social contract, both from the DM and Player perspective... is just baffling. I have too many examples to share, but you guys can get the point.
Honestly, I think I have tons of other lessons, but those are the ones that probably bothered me the most and those are the ones that usually make me want to leave a group.
A really good lesson I think a lot of us learn early in DMing is to narrow the scope of how far you think the players will go.
They're not going to wander off map without a reason
They're not going to get quite as far into the plot as you think
And they aren't going to have this matching schedule forever.
I learned this the hard way doing Storm Kings Thunder, got through two giant plots and kept pulling the endgame out of my players reach... Till we couldn't meet anymore to finish. If I'd just followed the book instead of extending the scope then they'd have concluded the story, but instead it lingers unfinished
1. Ensure that the players each have their own books with them that they need for their character. This ensures that they can readily reference anything they need to and save time for the other players at the table.
2. With newer players their are 3 things I advise against incorporating: Evil, insanity and homosexuality since for a lot of people they don't have a good frame of reference for it and come across as incredibly tropey at best and actively detrimental to the party (or other players who IRL have to deal with this) at worst.
3. As a GM I try to work with my players individually so that they can have a better Idea of what I want from them for the campaign I'm going to run and to see how best I can incorporate their backstories into the campaign.
4. Get your players to write you something about their character, that way they can solidify their character beyond being a vehicle for campaign interaction and combat.
5. As a GM remeber that your satisfaction needs to be a priority over any given player (or multiple players even) since if you aren't enjoying the campaign then you are going to burn out super fast.
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Just wanted to hear about other people's experiences and lessons learned from bad experiences. I feel like playing with bad players/DMs serve as a great lesson of what not to do.
My personal one is crit fumble tables. I'll never use these at any of my tables and I'll probably leave any table that I play at that tries to use them. I've never had an experience where they're fun. Probably one of the worst examples I've with them was during a game in which my character was using a crowbar to lift up a grate in the ground. Another player was helping me (The DM made him roll as well instead of just giving me advantage, which is stupid but DM's discretion I guess) and I managed to https://xender.vip/ https://omegle****/ roll a 1. He then told me my character messed up so bad that I managed to hurt myself and made me roll a d6. Since I rolled 6, my character ended up also breaking his arm all because he was trying to pry open a grate. This also meant that the average person would have died attempting to do what I did.
Well, that's my bad example. I'm looking forward to see more and hopefully learn how to improve from some of your experiences.
Not a lesson or a situation of a "bad" group, but definitely have the DM roll death saves. It adds more suspense. Or, you could have the player roll death saves but they're not allowed to show or tell anyone what they rolled. Also, just general advice, let your players do what they want. Obviously their character needs a motive and it needs to be physically possible, but instead of saying "No", ask "How?".
If anybody would like my GMing playlists
battles: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2mRp57MBAz9ZsVpw895IzZ?si=243bee43442a4703
exploration: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qk0aKm5yI4K6VrlcaKrDj?si=81057bef509043f3
town/tavern: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/49JSv1kK0bUyQ9LVpKmZlr?si=a88b1dd9bab54111
character deaths: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6k7WhylJEjSqWC0pBuAtFD?si=3e897fa2a2dd469e
After you ask them a question, wait.
Wait.
Give people a little bit longer than you might want to answer or to describe what they do. People need time to think.
I feel that everything is personal, and that most things can have people that enjoy playing with them. (Even things that don't appeal to the majority such as Crit Fumbles or Negative AS on races), that said, here are my lessons that made some of the most frustrating D&D sessions I have ever had the displeasure of playing:
- Never let a player waiting 3 hours of a session to introduce their character when they are joining an existing group. If that is going to be the case, just postpone the player introduction - I once tried to join a group and the DM decided that I was going to be in prison at the end of a dungeon that the characters were still not at. I had to wait the whole session to be found just to have the session end just as the players met me. It was VERY frustrating to watch people play in a story that I had no context of (The DM didn't do any pre-sessions with me to help ease me into to the game as well, which made things even more confusing) and in the end, I didn't even got to play that day.
- Don't ask for unnecessary rolls and, for god sake, don't punish players for failing in things they are not suppose to fail. - I once had a DM that made a player roll a DEX save for shaving to, and I quote, "See if they cut themselves badly doing so". If I can do it in real life without cutting myself badly every day, my character should as well.
- As a player, don't critique nor give unwanted advice on other players character's choices - More than once I had players saying: "Oh, but this is not a Nature Cleric concept, this is a Tempest cleric, you should change" or "We need a healer, you should play a Cleric" or "Drow are suppose to be evil, you can't play a Drow"
- Always present House Rules before the game begins - I had DMs that presented house rules on the middle of a session, without any warning. A DM had us roll on the Madness table every time our characters went to 0 hit points and were healed, which led us to a TPK on session 1 of Curse of Strahd against a pack of wolves on the road, even with two healers, since our healing words were useless. I had many others, but I think this was the worse one.
- Don't take away your players agency and skills because you want something to happen on your story, be creative and find ways to move your story forward without making your players feel like they have no power over what's happening. - I had a very good DM that was very focused on the story, and he weaved really good stories, but he was so focused on it that sometimes made the players spectators. We had a player that was charmed by a powerful magic item, after several sessions the party ends up finding out, but in order to not mess with the story, the DM makes so that certain abilities simply did not work - e.g: The paladin aura was shut off, so that it would fail a saving throw, the same goes for the artificer Flash of Genius. - It felt as though the players were just there watching things unfold, instead of actually participating on the story.
- This one is personal and I know some people might disagree, but don't fudge dice against the players (I personally prefer to roll everything in the open and never fudge, but if you want to fudge, at least do it in favor of players and not against them) - I had DMs that never had their main bad guys fail any saving throw. It got so bad that the players shifted to only using spells and abilities that were triggered by attack rolls, one of the players decided to have its wizard killed to make a character that was not relying on saving throws.
- You don't need to break the rules of the game to make it challenging - If all your enemies need to have infinite reactions, have uncounterable spells, 30 AC... you are doing something wrong. The amount of DMs that feel that they need to throw away the game structure so that they can have a "difficult fight" is just impressive. I had games where DMs were like: My archer has +8 to hit? My goblins will have 30 AC now. My Paladin is obliterating my mobs? I will have my mobs have infinite reactions that redirect the attack back to his allies based on saving throw (This is the same guy that let me wait for 3 hours, by the way...). Having DMed more than played at this point, I know it can be challenging to build encounters, but you don't need to obliterate to rules to make it hard. In reality, breaking the rules can make the players feel like the game isn't a game anymore, but just people rolling dice until the DM say it's time to stop.
- Communicate, don't be a jerk, we're just trying to have fun together. It's not all about you. - The amount of people that just don't understand the simple premises of the social contract, both from the DM and Player perspective... is just baffling. I have too many examples to share, but you guys can get the point.
Honestly, I think I have tons of other lessons, but those are the ones that probably bothered me the most and those are the ones that usually make me want to leave a group.
A really good lesson I think a lot of us learn early in DMing is to narrow the scope of how far you think the players will go.
I learned this the hard way doing Storm Kings Thunder, got through two giant plots and kept pulling the endgame out of my players reach... Till we couldn't meet anymore to finish. If I'd just followed the book instead of extending the scope then they'd have concluded the story, but instead it lingers unfinished
know the difference between a NPC and a DM PC. DM PCs tend to hog the spot light. If the DM needs this then they need to be a player or write a book.
1. Ensure that the players each have their own books with them that they need for their character. This ensures that they can readily reference anything they need to and save time for the other players at the table.
2. With newer players their are 3 things I advise against incorporating: Evil, insanity and homosexuality since for a lot of people they don't have a good frame of reference for it and come across as incredibly tropey at best and actively detrimental to the party (or other players who IRL have to deal with this) at worst.
3. As a GM I try to work with my players individually so that they can have a better Idea of what I want from them for the campaign I'm going to run and to see how best I can incorporate their backstories into the campaign.
4. Get your players to write you something about their character, that way they can solidify their character beyond being a vehicle for campaign interaction and combat.
5. As a GM remeber that your satisfaction needs to be a priority over any given player (or multiple players even) since if you aren't enjoying the campaign then you are going to burn out super fast.