#Bad DM

[deanturtle]

Games night in two hours and I suddenly realise, I haven’t prepped for if the players abandon their current quest line when everything goes wrong at the beginning of the session.

Awful oversight given their track history!

Like I have a temple to a dark goddess, a bullywug king who collects honourifics, a lost NPC who they made friends with. But no plan for the players turning around to rest!

[nobleelfwarrior]

If you like dnd and are on the lfg Reddit do not join a game with wartimeblues/jediblues.

As a DM he introduces triggering content with no warning, is heavy on the railroads (and not in a good way), is vindictive and petty when he thinks the players are wrong, and far to liberal with “no”. I felt like I was playing with a child that would tell me if I had my doll say the wrong thing. A lot of play time is wasted in him waiting for you to say something when you thought your words were sufficient. He does not listen or compromise or attempt to problem solve.

If you want specific examples, I can provide them.

[brawlite]

god bless the ao3 users with public bookmarks who have the same taste as you and who read/bookmark often. love getting lost in someone's bountiful bookmarks for days, you're rly doing a public service

[devils-your-minion]

Luke Brandon Field did NOT put his all into playing young Daniel as the most horny, desperate, pathetic, limp wristed, whimpering bisexual loser who looked up at that vampire with the wettest most submissive eyes and melted into him as he accepted the loving embrace of death just for people to say that Daniel Molloy is some kind of dom top.

Don’t worry Mr. Brandon Field, I saw your masochistic vision.

[sky-traveler]

What You Should Not Do As A DM

For some context, I am pretty much a forever DM who was finally able to play as a player in my very first game a couple years ago.  The person running the game was a first-time DM and had been a player in one of my games before, so I thought I had a good idea of who they were as a person and I trusted them to respect me and my boundaries.  Unfortunately, the power went to their head and they decided that being the DM meant they had a free pass to do whatever they wanted to their players.  This is roughly what happened:

Me: I’m designing a warlock character, but I want her to have a good relationship with her patron.

DM: Ok

Me: She’s basically a PhD student trying to finish writing her thesis and her archfey patron is the only person she’s found who can be a primary source for her topic.

DM: Ok

Me: She’s not interested in money or power, only knowledge.  She’s not exactly a pacifist, but she will exhaust all diplomatic routes before she tries fighting people.  She’s going to be very opposed to killing people.

DM: Ok

Me: I’m establishing that she will only respect the law and authority figures if they are morally just.  If anyone tries to force her to do something that she finds morally questionable, especially if it involves harming innocents, she will find some way to stop it regardless of the personal cost to herself.

DM: Ok

Me: Do you have a problem with any of this?

DM: No

*game starts*

DM: What if I forced your warlock character to make a deal with an evil archfey in exchange for her life?  Yeah, I know I didn’t tell you I was going to do this beforehand and you’re flipping out about how I’m going to have your patron react to this, but it was pretty funny watching your character almost die because you didn’t want her to betray her ideals, lol

DM: Oh, and everyone hates your character and thinks she’s up to no good because other fey-affiliated individuals are committing crimes.  She’s completely unable to convince them otherwise and some of them will attack her on sight.

DM: My best friend (who is not you) wants to be a murder-hobo and I’m going to do everything in my power to enable them.  I’m going to make it nearly impossible for your character to succeed at a diplomatic route in any given encounter.

DM: Oh, you didn’t like that I forced your character to make a deal with an evil archfey and you broke the deal in keeping with your character’s alignment?  What if I gave my best friend a lot of reasons to bully your character (and you) for that decision?  What do you mean you don’t like it?  That’s called facing the consequences of your actions!

DM: Remember when I said your character’s deal with her patron involved finding artifacts for her?  What if I made every mission high-stakes and with a time limit?  And then I made them impossible for you to do alone and forced you to wait multiple sessions before you’re able to complete even one step of finding an artifact?  Hope this doesn’t stress you out too much -- you still have to do the high-stakes time-intensive main quest, too!

DM: Yeah, I know my best friend is being cruel to you at every opportunity and is incredibly manipulative, but have you ever considered simply doing everything she wants without question?  Yeah, that includes killing potentially innocent people, even though that runs completely contrary to your character’s ideals and alignment.  No, I’m not going to talk to her about it.  This is a ‘you’ problem.

DM: I know I’m doing a lot of very stressful things to you without your consent or even notifying you and you have explicitly told me that you are not okay with it, but you know what?  I don’t care!  It’s my game and I can do what I want!

DM: By the way, I’m bored with your character’s good-aligned patron.  What if I changed your character’s patron to an evil-aligned one and concealed this fact from you until after I threw you out of the game because my best friend was upset that you asked her to stop being cruel to you?  Guess what -- your character was helping evil people all this time and everyone is justified for hating you!  Hooray!

DM: Oh, and I’m also rewriting your character as a selfish, power-hungry bastard to justify my best friend’s treatment of you while you’re not here to defend yourself.  Everyone is just going to have to accept it because I’m the DM and it’s my game.

DM: No one got sexually harassed in my game, so that means I’m a good DM and this is a good table to play at.

***

If you do this to your players, you’re a bad fucking DM.  I’ve DMed for all sorts of people over several years, including people I didn’t like personally, and I’ve never treated anyone like this.  Your players are people, too.  The things that happen in games can affect people outside the game, especially if you are pitting two or more players against each other within the game.

If there is abuse happening in your game, you need to take responsibility for it and end it.  If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be a DM.

If you can’t respect your player’s boundaries and aren’t capable of asking them for consent before you do potentially traumatizing things to them, you shouldn’t be a DM.

If you find yourself lying to your players about your intentions or withholding important information that your players need to know because you know they won’t like it, you shouldn’t be a DM.

If you are playing favorites to the point that the game is not fun for everyone else, you should not be a DM.

What makes a bad DM is not the quality of the storytelling nor poorly-balanced encounters nor excessive homebrewing.  This particular DM had a great story with mostly well-balanced encounters.  Unfortunately, this DM also had no respect for their players and destroyed the game because they abused their players’ trust and allowed a cruel person to run roughshod over everyone else in the game.  As long as you treat your players well and are honest with them to the best of your ability about the kind of game you are running, you are a good DM.  Everything beyond that is much less important than having basic respect for the people you are playing with, since they are relying on you to be honest and true to your word.

If you are reading this and the DM I just described sounds like you, you need to change how you run your game and how you treat your friends.  Start asking for consent, start being honest with your players, and start having consequences for any one of your players choosing to be abusive to someone else in the group, regardless of how you feel about them personally.  You might find that fewer people hate you this way.

[owlyjules]

"Hmm...Thats a weird dog."

Little fantasy illustration for myself before I go back into way too many projects.XD

(Maybe this guy will reappear...He might be a friend of a certain blue bird Monarch...👀👀👀)

[seasneeze]

Obsessed with the the part in senshi’s journal where he’s like it’s kind of messed up Laios and Marcille have this “child” (Chilchuck) working for them :/ I should talk to them about it and then he doesn’t ever. And he doesn’t know what Half-foots are until later, but its so funny that for most of the time he’s with them in the back of his head he’s like oh yeah huh when should I bring up the child labor and endangerment my two new friends are committing…?

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[natjennie]

shout out to laios for constantly being out of the fucking loop. most protagonists would pay attention to the things happening around them and pick up on themes and lore. not him baby. he is simply not listening to you tell him this important prophecy; he's thinking about lunch. and his fursona.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

while teen while goblin while aroace while injured while doing your best

[s0bk]

more Sebastian.... it will keep happening

[transgendz]

In the past threeish days my phone has been stolen, my roommate got a flat in our only form of transportation, and my other roommate got an infection in a minor skin-deep leg injury that is currently serious enough to have him struggling to walk. We may need to take him to the ER soon. Additionally, due to bad timing in needing to submit documents with work, I need to complete a two factor authentication to continue working.

I need to replace my phone before I lose my job. My phone hadn't been paid off, and I am totally at a loss at the ungodly cost of it. I am the main supporter for both of my disabled roommates. I cannot lose this job.

Please buy my art? @theartistrans Dm me for proof or details, and I'll put details in the tags

$174/$960

PP--V--$C--kofi

[findafight]

Robin and Steve playing a dnd character together because Steve said the only way he'd play is literally with Robin. They take turns each session for who speaks but always planning together. It's a teenage human, gangly and uncoordinated and a bit of a loner. Everyone sort of lets the "two people playing one character" issue slide, as they want to play a game with their friends.

Robin and Steve have wildly different character voices, and sometimes announce which way they are walking before stumbling in that direction, and also mutter to themself in character. when it's Steve's sessions to talk he flits with the NPCs Eddie plays, but Robin is just a little aggressive to them. The personality changes are kinda weird but everyone is just happy they're playing.

Everything is going well until the big bad of the short campaign they're all playing knocks them into a wall. Not hard, but hard enough they're scrambling and flailing and...splitting in half. By their own description. Immediately they start, with their respective character voices (they are committing to this bit) bickering about whose fault it is. And about what they should do now their cover is blown.

The table is silent.

Robin and Steve have been conning everyone the entire time. They're playing twin halflings, who alternated who sat on each other's shoulders pretending to be a human because they were goofing off the day they joined the party and were too embarrassed by the mix up to correct anyone about it until they had to. Their voices and personality changes are brilliantly embedded as not Robin and Steve not being able to keep consistent, it's because they've been playing different characters. It's brilliant. It's horrible. Everyone fell for it and the reveal essentially pauses play because everyone starts yelling at them.

[paperkoifish]

The mage has gone mad

[hoofpeet]

ALSO got commed to draw a Kabru 👍 ty @/ghost-himbo

[binnieonabike]

MDNI!!!

bf!kirishima who indulges in all your late night adventures

bf!kirishima who has you dye his hair every time

bf!kirishima who's known you since U.A and has always had a crush on you

bf!kirishima who is a pleasure Dom

bf!kirishima who doesn't leave the bedroom until you've had at least three orgasms

bf!kirishima who tries all the new things you want to do and occasionally asks you for new things he wants

bf!kirishima who loves you so much he doesn't care what the media says about you two