So a new-ish DM here. I've ran maybe 30 sessions total, with half of those being one shots and the other half being a campaign that failed due to work schedules.
I'm trying to start a new one that I was super excited by the premise and ready to go with it but just during character creation ive had several players fight me on every little thing or completely ignored instructions.
A couple examples: I told the players we start at lvl 3 and to use normal starting equipment and a common magic item like the dmg states, plus an extra 50 gold. One player wanted to add in custom weapons and craft everything for half gold so they could essentially double the amount of gold they start with. I told them no, everyone was starting with the same equipment rules so we didn't have any issues and everyone is on the same playing field, continued to fight and pout.
Another completely disregarded when I said we are using stuff from only books I have so I at least can look up the info easily (Tasha, xanathars, phb) they proceded to pick a race and subclass specifically not in those books.
In addition they like to fight me on my rulings based on the one shots we did.
I agree with Xalthu. Kick the antagonists and enjoy the game with who is left. If you are getting frustrated, the ones not being a pain are probably frustrated too. Life is too short to play miserable D&D.
Unfortunately that's 2 of the players and one of them is married to a third so id only have 2 players left. :/ that's why I say cancel. At least until I can find other players who don't seem to go out of there way to be difficult.
If you're going to DM, you have to get used to saying "no". Setting boundaries is a healthy skill to know. And the first lesson is to not take it personally when someone asks for something that you say no to.
Players will always be advocating for their characters. And some of the things they ask are a "yes", some are a "roll a d20", and some are a "no". Its the dms job to make those calls. And its the players job to ask. If making those calls upsets you, then dm'ing is going to be tough.
Ive got a party of great players, but even then sometimes people misunderstand something i said, or forget to do a thing i asked. So you have to be able to bring them back into the fold without upsetting yourself or them.
If you assume they just didnt hear you or didnt read the text message, then it might be easier to not take it personally than if you come from the notion that they are specifically trying to drive you mad.
I have everyone on my campaugn on dndbeyond. It has a place to pist all homebrew rules for thr campaign so everyone can re read thrm. Anf i als9 have everyone on my campaign in dndbeyond so i can check everyones charavter, class, species, spells, etc. And sometimes i bump into something and send them a private message to remind them of things like "just a reminder, silvery barbs is on the campaiggn home rules page as banned".
If al your homerules are on the page up front, then you can point to them when reminders are needed.
Get them all in the same room. Tell them that these are the ground rules (repeat 1st post (sort of)), one shots are one shots and have no bearing on this new campaign. Tell them your rule for crafting (the comment will come up again). Based on their input, reiterate the starting character rules. Then state either they abide by your rules as the DM, or they can not join this campaign.
Once you lay down that edict you have to live with the results. If only one or 2 people remain, play with them. If the others want to get back in, let them under your rules.
Basically if they feel that they can ignore your starting player rules, they will continue to push and exceed your boundaries through the campaign. That is a reason for DM burn out.
The rule of thumb, and really the social contract, is that you have to be a good DM and they have to be good players. If either of those is not true, you have a problem with the social contract, which means...
Either the social contract is not clear, or the players and/or DM don't care about the social contract. In both cases, you are absolutely screwed.
Clarity, fairness, and decisiveness are the DM's responsibility; it's how you know you're being a good DM. Listening and accepting the DM's decisions is how a good player behaves. Now you're pinning this whole thing on the players, and you may very well be right, but in my experience, most of the time these sorts of issues stem from a DM who faulters, shows uncertainty and/or is unclear.
You have to be very firm with players as a DM, and it's not like "god mode" control; it's about establishing clarity and fairness in the game. If you let one player have more gold in some roundabout way, you will end up with an imbalance right out of the game and it's hard enough to keep 5e in check as it is, you don't want to kick things off on the right foot.
Don't kick anyone out, don't cancel, just drop the decision, and don't do it in private; be very vocal in front of everyone. It's super simple. You gave a set of instrction and it's a hard no on everything that isn't within those guidelines, no exceptions. Period.
If the game is going to fall apart or have a failed start, let it be because the players choose it not because you choose it.
I would argue, however the problem is to a point the game itself. The main issue with modern D&D is that there is just waaaay too many options, character creation selection, and focus on builds. The result is this problem, where the assumption is "everything that was ever released for this edition of the game is in, and if you restrict that as a DM, you have to explain why and defend that decision".
There are three ways to keep this under control.
1. Always start at 1st level. You get into these "I want extra stuff" discussions because players assume "oh were are 3rd level, we should have extra stuff by now". So an easy solution is, we are starting at 1st level, no rules exceptions, the rules in the books are the rules you will follow. This way they have clear confines of what is and isn't allowed, its in the book, pick stuff from it. Don't be afraid to let them use books you don't have, most of the D&D 5e books are fairly reasonable and at 1st level you can count on the "reasonable" level of balance of the game itself.
2. If someone demands something that isn't in the rules, require approval by all players. Hold a literal vote and make your position known. "Hey I think this will unbalance the game, my vote is no, but you guys will have to live with it, so let's have a vote". Players are much harsher than DM's in protecting the balance of the game so this has a way of working itself out. And if the players don't care about an unbalance, not sure why you would? I mean, you're the DM, your perspective on balance isn't fairness between the players, its balance of encounters etc.. so if they start complaining about X players, at least it wasn't your call.
3. Never let anyone ask you for anything in private. If you want it, present it to the group. Players don't like the publicity, force it.
Thanks for all the responses. I'll take them into consideration for the future. I did put the campaign on hiatus though. There were more things going on than just what I listed and there were blatant kind of "screw you, I'll do whatever I want DM" that was going on. I have enough battles to fight on other aspects of life right now. I don't need my hobby to be one of them. Thanks again!
Thanks for all the responses. I'll take them into consideration for the future. I did put the campaign on hiatus though. There were more things going on than just what I listed and there were blatant kind of "screw you, I'll do whatever I want DM" that was going on. I have enough battles to fight on other aspects of life right now. I don't need my hobby to be one of them. Thanks again!
I’m sure it was a hard choice, but it was almost certainly the right one. Good luck in the future.
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So a new-ish DM here. I've ran maybe 30 sessions total, with half of those being one shots and the other half being a campaign that failed due to work schedules.
I'm trying to start a new one that I was super excited by the premise and ready to go with it but just during character creation ive had several players fight me on every little thing or completely ignored instructions.
A couple examples: I told the players we start at lvl 3 and to use normal starting equipment and a common magic item like the dmg states, plus an extra 50 gold. One player wanted to add in custom weapons and craft everything for half gold so they could essentially double the amount of gold they start with. I told them no, everyone was starting with the same equipment rules so we didn't have any issues and everyone is on the same playing field, continued to fight and pout.
Another completely disregarded when I said we are using stuff from only books I have so I at least can look up the info easily (Tasha, xanathars, phb) they proceded to pick a race and subclass specifically not in those books.
In addition they like to fight me on my rulings based on the one shots we did.
Should I just cancel before we even get started?
I don’t know about cancelling, but you should kick those players and find new ones.
I agree with Xalthu. Kick the antagonists and enjoy the game with who is left. If you are getting frustrated, the ones not being a pain are probably frustrated too. Life is too short to play miserable D&D.
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Unfortunately that's 2 of the players and one of them is married to a third so id only have 2 players left. :/ that's why I say cancel. At least until I can find other players who don't seem to go out of there way to be difficult.
If you're going to DM, you have to get used to saying "no". Setting boundaries is a healthy skill to know. And the first lesson is to not take it personally when someone asks for something that you say no to.
Players will always be advocating for their characters. And some of the things they ask are a "yes", some are a "roll a d20", and some are a "no". Its the dms job to make those calls. And its the players job to ask. If making those calls upsets you, then dm'ing is going to be tough.
Ive got a party of great players, but even then sometimes people misunderstand something i said, or forget to do a thing i asked. So you have to be able to bring them back into the fold without upsetting yourself or them.
If you assume they just didnt hear you or didnt read the text message, then it might be easier to not take it personally than if you come from the notion that they are specifically trying to drive you mad.
I have everyone on my campaugn on dndbeyond. It has a place to pist all homebrew rules for thr campaign so everyone can re read thrm. Anf i als9 have everyone on my campaign in dndbeyond so i can check everyones charavter, class, species, spells, etc. And sometimes i bump into something and send them a private message to remind them of things like "just a reminder, silvery barbs is on the campaiggn home rules page as banned".
If al your homerules are on the page up front, then you can point to them when reminders are needed.
Along with the above writing.
Get them all in the same room. Tell them that these are the ground rules (repeat 1st post (sort of)), one shots are one shots and have no bearing on this new campaign. Tell them your rule for crafting (the comment will come up again). Based on their input, reiterate the starting character rules. Then state either they abide by your rules as the DM, or they can not join this campaign.
Once you lay down that edict you have to live with the results. If only one or 2 people remain, play with them. If the others want to get back in, let them under your rules.
Basically if they feel that they can ignore your starting player rules, they will continue to push and exceed your boundaries through the campaign. That is a reason for DM burn out.
The rule of thumb, and really the social contract, is that you have to be a good DM and they have to be good players. If either of those is not true, you have a problem with the social contract, which means...
Either the social contract is not clear, or the players and/or DM don't care about the social contract. In both cases, you are absolutely screwed.
Clarity, fairness, and decisiveness are the DM's responsibility; it's how you know you're being a good DM. Listening and accepting the DM's decisions is how a good player behaves. Now you're pinning this whole thing on the players, and you may very well be right, but in my experience, most of the time these sorts of issues stem from a DM who faulters, shows uncertainty and/or is unclear.
You have to be very firm with players as a DM, and it's not like "god mode" control; it's about establishing clarity and fairness in the game. If you let one player have more gold in some roundabout way, you will end up with an imbalance right out of the game and it's hard enough to keep 5e in check as it is, you don't want to kick things off on the right foot.
Don't kick anyone out, don't cancel, just drop the decision, and don't do it in private; be very vocal in front of everyone. It's super simple. You gave a set of instrction and it's a hard no on everything that isn't within those guidelines, no exceptions. Period.
If the game is going to fall apart or have a failed start, let it be because the players choose it not because you choose it.
I would argue, however the problem is to a point the game itself. The main issue with modern D&D is that there is just waaaay too many options, character creation selection, and focus on builds. The result is this problem, where the assumption is "everything that was ever released for this edition of the game is in, and if you restrict that as a DM, you have to explain why and defend that decision".
There are three ways to keep this under control.
1. Always start at 1st level. You get into these "I want extra stuff" discussions because players assume "oh were are 3rd level, we should have extra stuff by now". So an easy solution is, we are starting at 1st level, no rules exceptions, the rules in the books are the rules you will follow. This way they have clear confines of what is and isn't allowed, its in the book, pick stuff from it. Don't be afraid to let them use books you don't have, most of the D&D 5e books are fairly reasonable and at 1st level you can count on the "reasonable" level of balance of the game itself.
2. If someone demands something that isn't in the rules, require approval by all players. Hold a literal vote and make your position known. "Hey I think this will unbalance the game, my vote is no, but you guys will have to live with it, so let's have a vote". Players are much harsher than DM's in protecting the balance of the game so this has a way of working itself out. And if the players don't care about an unbalance, not sure why you would? I mean, you're the DM, your perspective on balance isn't fairness between the players, its balance of encounters etc.. so if they start complaining about X players, at least it wasn't your call.
3. Never let anyone ask you for anything in private. If you want it, present it to the group. Players don't like the publicity, force it.
Thanks for all the responses. I'll take them into consideration for the future. I did put the campaign on hiatus though. There were more things going on than just what I listed and there were blatant kind of "screw you, I'll do whatever I want DM" that was going on. I have enough battles to fight on other aspects of life right now. I don't need my hobby to be one of them. Thanks again!
I’m sure it was a hard choice, but it was almost certainly the right one. Good luck in the future.