I usually never hear any of us talk about mistakes while DMing.
I look forward to getting details wrong in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I think I'm gonna get details pretty wrong and characters factions incorrect. Accents will go missing from time to time. Sometimes I'll forget rules. And maybe even forget to prepare monsters for certain encounters.
Does anyone else mess up while running published adventures?
I usually mess up rules application. My first session, I completely screwed up the movement per round, believing that you lose half your movement range if you attack. I also had a wizard cast magic missile and since there was no info on if it was a ranged attack or a dex save, I assumed it was a ranged attack. I am also guilty of applying auto fails to 1’s or auto successes on 20’s when it comes to skill checks. Additionally, I’m guilty of not verbalizing my DC checks and mentally pass/fail skill checks based on what’s being done.
I make mistakes all the time - even with my own material :p
Two sessions ago, I judged the "bad guys" would make another revenge attack on the Party. I also thought that the "benefactor faction" would be monitoring, and would come to the Party's aid if the attack was in force. That sounded great! I could open up a possibility to overtly introduce the Benefactors ( they've been really covert until now ), build some closer ties between the Benefactors and the Party, and add another layer to the evolving plot; a great opportunity!
Except when we got into the heat of the combat, I completely forgot to have the Cavalry arrive :p The Party polished off the attack handily, but I completely forgot to add the Benefactors! :p
A good skill to have is not an iron clad ability to avoid mistakes ( impossible ), but to be able to roll with them, and incorporate them into the story. I was able to find a different way and reason to bring the Benefactors into the story last session.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
It's impossible to remember ALL of the rules in every situation, that's what DM screens are for, as well as copious notes and preparation. Even then...no plan survives first contact with the players, so there's always a chance it goes a bit sideways. I remember struggling to remember the drowning rules vs death saves when a PC was being whelmed by a water elemental. With no time to find out, I probably got it wrong in that moment - but it meant I went and looked up the rules later to try to make sure I'm aware for next time.
The simple advice is to accept that you will make some mistakes. Try to fix what you think you can in the moment, otherwise just learn from the experience.
I was running the villa in Chapter 3 of Dragon Heist and the session ended on a little bit of a cliff-hanger. The next day, I had to ret-con how I had narrated the scene so the PCs weren't absolutely screwed the next session.
I do all of those above things, not often, but it happens.
I was running the villa in Chapter 3 of Dragon Heist and the session ended on a little bit of a cliff-hanger. The next day, I had to ret-con how I had narrated the scene so the PCs weren't absolutely screwed the next session.
I do all of those above things, not often, but it happens.
I found a way to actually cheat on this front :) I do the last session re-cap, not the Players. This allows me to subtly stress things in my re-cap that I fear the Players are losing track of ( but that the Characters would know ), re-state NPC names and relationships, etc. It also allows me to do a little bit of subtle re-conning, if needs be.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Mistakes happen. All the time. I make them on a game by game basis! Usually I'm not bothered by them as long as I'm able to work around it, or it's small, or it's inconsequential. And 95% of the time it is.
But every so often it's not, and those are the moments I regret.
Recently I ran a game where I'd set up several shop owners who only wanted to barter, they were not interested in coin. I thought it'd be an opportunity for my party to offload some of the random junk they've been carrying around forever and have some RP fun while getting some more useful items. And it started that way, and could have continued that way! But I made some bad decisions about what the shopkeeps were interested in bartering for, and didn't do a good job of conveying that information, and my players just got frustrated and bored. Fortunately we've played long enough, are good enough friends, and very good about communication. My players let me know what was going on, I apologized for making decisions that were not fun, and we moved on.
The moral of the story is mistakes can be overcome as long as you remember that it's just a game, take a moment to talk to your players, and listen to what they say. I still feel bad about that session failing, but hopefully I can learn and do better in the next one!
I recall a mistake a made recently that, because I was streaming, I had to eat crow when it was pointed out. The party had finished a major story arc and I was using my DMPC to give some information and open up a few routes for the players to take. I explained, in character, that I was going to head North to the capitol city and deal and look into a problem while I was there. We took our break and somehow that slipped my mind. When we started up I, again in character, went on to say I was heading East and I was leaving that night. The players were legitimately confused and told me I had misspoken. Of course I'm the DM so I never make mistakes. I simply kept to my story of heading East and corrected my players, saying they probably misheard me. Later I reviewed the stream and much to my amusement, I made the mistake and had to text my friends to let them know that I'd messed up.
In another game I forgot the limitations on my College of Etymology subclass and it turned out to be a funny moment that we just let slide. There is an ability to cast spells from any school at the cost of Bardic Inspiration. The player who's play testing the subclass used a spell that was too high of a level at the time and teleported into the king's castle. I let the event happen, there was a bit of panic from the guards, and there was a lot of amusement when it was explained who these intruders actually were. I realized after I resolved the spell and the immediate responses of the guards that this spell shouldn't have worked. Instead of saying, "nope none of that worked you're back outside" I just rolled with it and gave the player a point of exhaustion and called it good.
We're all human, we're all going to make mistakes. I've had mistakes break a game into a 30 minute long debate over a ruling, I've had moments where a mistake cost a group their DM (the DM quit), and I've had moment where mistakes made for fun memories. The biggest part is both rolling with it and allowing yourself to be able to admit a mistake if it affects the game in any serious way.
The biggest mistake I think I made was when there were two conflicting sources of the frightened condition. One was due to madness, the other due to a Mace of Terror. The madness said they had to use their action to move away from the source of the fear. They kept trying to use their aasimar ability to fly away. I ruled it as not a move, so they couldn't do it. It caused a HUGE fuss and debate. Looking back, I would have ruled that the madness fear was the stronger source, and that would have cancelled the MoT fear, for simplicity's sake.
I've also overlooked some small text that would have killed a PC, such as "When this reduces a creature to 0 hit point, their body disintegrates into ash." I didn't want to have to player start a new character due to my mistake, so they didn't die.
Shit happens. Just vow to do better in the future.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Always go with the flow, and just play to find out what happens next. Sometimes we mess up the rules, but that's only natural!
One time I was using the random encounters table in Xanathar's Guide to determine what creatures attacked the party as they traveled through a marshland. I didn't realize until the end of the session that I had been rolling on the tier 1 mountain encounters table when I should have been rolling on the tier 2 swamp table... Oops.
Also, my recent campaign uses milestone leveling -- I keep forgetting to tell the players when their characters level up... My bad.
Pretty sure I make a lot of mistakes every session.
I like employing the "rule of fun" and trying to adapt my style to the group's. I find if you focus on that it is your player's characters' stories are what is important, it's easy to go from there. You create the world, they make the story.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Just made one that had a pretty big impact on how an encounter played out. I am running a concession of a 1e module. One of the adversaries cast Silence on a pebble and threw it into the party's room so as prevent spell casting and to cover the noise of an ambush. One of the players was on guard and watching the door. When he saw the pebble come in, and everything went silent, he grabbed the pebble and threw it out taking the Silence with it. This allowed the party wizard to eve the odds with a well cast Sleep spell. It was only after the session that I read the 5e Silence spell, which is now cast on a location, not an object. As we had already moved on quite a ways in the adventure I decided to let it stand rather than going back and re-runnig the encounter with the "right" rules. I've been DMing 40 years and I still screw up.
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I usually never hear any of us talk about mistakes while DMing.
I look forward to getting details wrong in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I think I'm gonna get details pretty wrong and characters factions incorrect. Accents will go missing from time to time. Sometimes I'll forget rules. And maybe even forget to prepare monsters for certain encounters.
Does anyone else mess up while running published adventures?
"All I'm hearing is words... DO SOMETHING!"
I usually mess up rules application. My first session, I completely screwed up the movement per round, believing that you lose half your movement range if you attack. I also had a wizard cast magic missile and since there was no info on if it was a ranged attack or a dex save, I assumed it was a ranged attack. I am also guilty of applying auto fails to 1’s or auto successes on 20’s when it comes to skill checks. Additionally, I’m guilty of not verbalizing my DC checks and mentally pass/fail skill checks based on what’s being done.
Mistakes happen all the time.
Sure. When running dungeons I'll usually forget at least one scripted event, trap or encounter.
What the players don't know won't hurt them.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I make mistakes all the time - even with my own material :p
Two sessions ago, I judged the "bad guys" would make another revenge attack on the Party. I also thought that the "benefactor faction" would be monitoring, and would come to the Party's aid if the attack was in force. That sounded great! I could open up a possibility to overtly introduce the Benefactors ( they've been really covert until now ), build some closer ties between the Benefactors and the Party, and add another layer to the evolving plot; a great opportunity!
Except when we got into the heat of the combat, I completely forgot to have the Cavalry arrive :p The Party polished off the attack handily, but I completely forgot to add the Benefactors! :p
A good skill to have is not an iron clad ability to avoid mistakes ( impossible ), but to be able to roll with them, and incorporate them into the story. I was able to find a different way and reason to bring the Benefactors into the story last session.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
It's impossible to remember ALL of the rules in every situation, that's what DM screens are for, as well as copious notes and preparation. Even then...no plan survives first contact with the players, so there's always a chance it goes a bit sideways. I remember struggling to remember the drowning rules vs death saves when a PC was being whelmed by a water elemental. With no time to find out, I probably got it wrong in that moment - but it meant I went and looked up the rules later to try to make sure I'm aware for next time.
The simple advice is to accept that you will make some mistakes. Try to fix what you think you can in the moment, otherwise just learn from the experience.
I was running the villa in Chapter 3 of Dragon Heist and the session ended on a little bit of a cliff-hanger. The next day, I had to ret-con how I had narrated the scene so the PCs weren't absolutely screwed the next session.
I do all of those above things, not often, but it happens.
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I found a way to actually cheat on this front :) I do the last session re-cap, not the Players. This allows me to subtly stress things in my re-cap that I fear the Players are losing track of ( but that the Characters would know ), re-state NPC names and relationships, etc. It also allows me to do a little bit of subtle re-conning, if needs be.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
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InsiderMistakes happen. All the time. I make them on a game by game basis! Usually I'm not bothered by them as long as I'm able to work around it, or it's small, or it's inconsequential. And 95% of the time it is.
But every so often it's not, and those are the moments I regret.
Recently I ran a game where I'd set up several shop owners who only wanted to barter, they were not interested in coin. I thought it'd be an opportunity for my party to offload some of the random junk they've been carrying around forever and have some RP fun while getting some more useful items. And it started that way, and could have continued that way! But I made some bad decisions about what the shopkeeps were interested in bartering for, and didn't do a good job of conveying that information, and my players just got frustrated and bored. Fortunately we've played long enough, are good enough friends, and very good about communication. My players let me know what was going on, I apologized for making decisions that were not fun, and we moved on.
The moral of the story is mistakes can be overcome as long as you remember that it's just a game, take a moment to talk to your players, and listen to what they say. I still feel bad about that session failing, but hopefully I can learn and do better in the next one!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Oh, Im da parfict DeeEm!
I recall a mistake a made recently that, because I was streaming, I had to eat crow when it was pointed out. The party had finished a major story arc and I was using my DMPC to give some information and open up a few routes for the players to take. I explained, in character, that I was going to head North to the capitol city and deal and look into a problem while I was there. We took our break and somehow that slipped my mind. When we started up I, again in character, went on to say I was heading East and I was leaving that night. The players were legitimately confused and told me I had misspoken. Of course I'm the DM so I never make mistakes. I simply kept to my story of heading East and corrected my players, saying they probably misheard me. Later I reviewed the stream and much to my amusement, I made the mistake and had to text my friends to let them know that I'd messed up.
In another game I forgot the limitations on my College of Etymology subclass and it turned out to be a funny moment that we just let slide. There is an ability to cast spells from any school at the cost of Bardic Inspiration. The player who's play testing the subclass used a spell that was too high of a level at the time and teleported into the king's castle. I let the event happen, there was a bit of panic from the guards, and there was a lot of amusement when it was explained who these intruders actually were. I realized after I resolved the spell and the immediate responses of the guards that this spell shouldn't have worked. Instead of saying, "nope none of that worked you're back outside" I just rolled with it and gave the player a point of exhaustion and called it good.
We're all human, we're all going to make mistakes. I've had mistakes break a game into a 30 minute long debate over a ruling, I've had moments where a mistake cost a group their DM (the DM quit), and I've had moment where mistakes made for fun memories. The biggest part is both rolling with it and allowing yourself to be able to admit a mistake if it affects the game in any serious way.
The biggest mistake I think I made was when there were two conflicting sources of the frightened condition. One was due to madness, the other due to a Mace of Terror. The madness said they had to use their action to move away from the source of the fear. They kept trying to use their aasimar ability to fly away. I ruled it as not a move, so they couldn't do it. It caused a HUGE fuss and debate. Looking back, I would have ruled that the madness fear was the stronger source, and that would have cancelled the MoT fear, for simplicity's sake.
I've also overlooked some small text that would have killed a PC, such as "When this reduces a creature to 0 hit point, their body disintegrates into ash." I didn't want to have to player start a new character due to my mistake, so they didn't die.
Shit happens. Just vow to do better in the future.
And DMThac0 can back that up - go check out his Twitch channel - watch him DM on Video-on-Demand, or even live! :D
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
All. The. Time.
We usually laugh it off and carry on.
There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.
Always go with the flow, and just play to find out what happens next. Sometimes we mess up the rules, but that's only natural!
One time I was using the random encounters table in Xanathar's Guide to determine what creatures attacked the party as they traveled through a marshland. I didn't realize until the end of the session that I had been rolling on the tier 1 mountain encounters table when I should have been rolling on the tier 2 swamp table... Oops.
Also, my recent campaign uses milestone leveling -- I keep forgetting to tell the players when their characters level up... My bad.
Pretty sure I make a lot of mistakes every session.
I like employing the "rule of fun" and trying to adapt my style to the group's. I find if you focus on that it is your player's characters' stories are what is important, it's easy to go from there. You create the world, they make the story.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Just made one that had a pretty big impact on how an encounter played out. I am running a concession of a 1e module. One of the adversaries cast Silence on a pebble and threw it into the party's room so as prevent spell casting and to cover the noise of an ambush. One of the players was on guard and watching the door. When he saw the pebble come in, and everything went silent, he grabbed the pebble and threw it out taking the Silence with it. This allowed the party wizard to eve the odds with a well cast Sleep spell. It was only after the session that I read the 5e Silence spell, which is now cast on a location, not an object. As we had already moved on quite a ways in the adventure I decided to let it stand rather than going back and re-runnig the encounter with the "right" rules. I've been DMing 40 years and I still screw up.