Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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"So the goal of a "good" DM shouldn't always be to entirely "fair", but to be willing to listen and to adapt, "
Yeah, the last bit of my original post says: "Some people enjoy paying money to play blackjack knowing blackjack isnt fair. Try to make your dnd enjoyable."
Fair isnt entirely possible.
And part of being enjoyable is finding a game you want to play, which means dms need to know what kind of game theyre running and communicate that ahead of time so everyone isnt wasting everyones time.
The dm who counted ammunition, didnt mention that until my ranger was three sessions into a dungeon and six session into me joining the campaign.
The dm who started banning random spells didnt mention it until i cast one he didnt like and then he banned a dozen on the spot.
First step to finding a game and dm that you like is finding a dm who knows their own dm style and can communicate it up front, so you can find a good fit for you. If you just ban stuff on the fly all the time, its going to suck for your players.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
First one sounds like miscommunication, don’t see how it could screw everything up. Maybe ask him if you could create your own ammo or scavenge it?
That’s a bad dm, considering most who ban random spells do it as a gut reaction instead of actually having a reason. Forcing them to write a manifesto won’t help if they only react to spells when someone casts them, not when they come up with the campaign.
"First one sounds like miscommunication, don’t see how it could screw everything up. Maybe ask him if you could create your own ammo or scavenge it?"
If it was a miscommunication, it was the dm who failed. And it screwed me over because i had taken wood carvers tool.proficiency(usually do for any archer charavter), but there was little to no usable wood in the dungeons and.caves we were in, according to the dm. Basically, i always had limited ammo, and would use a scimitar more than anything. After 4 sessions of that nonsense, i quit.
"most who ban random spells do it as a gut reaction instead of actually having a reason. Forcing them to write a manifesto won’t help"
Well, first of all, its a brochure, not a manifesto. Second of all, i think it would have helped in this situation because if most dms had brochures, this guy was so seat-of-the-pants on everything, he would have nothing, and that would have been a red flag.
Certainly ive had dms where a brochure wont help because sometimes people suck and they dont even know it. I was in a party where the DM's girlfriend was also in the party. Eesh. Every encounter was designed for the girlfriend. The magic items were generally whatever the girlfriend wanted at the time. All the npcs talked to the girlfriend. The things we explored were things the girlfriend was interested in. That was probably 3 months wasted before j gave up. Now, whenever i meet a new group i generally ask how everyone knows everyone else, just to look for any interrelationships that might make thinks wonky.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
This is exactly what I've been saying. I've literally mentioned that it the whole point of Session 0 is to make sure everyone understands what is going to happen in the game. And then I said that being unwilling to communicate and resolve is what marks a "bad" DM. I'm not disagreeing that those DMs messed up, but you yourself are now saying that it was because they didn't communicate with you.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"
Why did it take you 3 months to realize the DM was favouring their girlfriend? That's usually something people can pick up in the couple of sessions, or even in the pre-game interview. If you ask the DM about the party and they talk at length about one character and not at all about the others, that's a red flag. If the DM doesn't seem interested in helping you make your character or how you fit into the game, that's a red flag. If the DM spend hours and hours telling you a list of rules, that's a red flag. If the DM doesn't seem interested in you as a human being - what your past history with D&D is, what your availability is, what do you or why you are interested in their game, that's a red flag.
Seems to me you really need to get better at reading other people. Nothing you do or say on the internet or in real life will do anything to reduce the number of jerks in the world. Your only hope is to get better at spotting them.