Ten Terrible Dungeon Master Traits in Dungeons and Dragons

TIME STAMPS
1:07 - Trust
2:20 - Not Being Prepared
4:56 - Showing Favouritism
7:24 - Listening & Accepting Feedback
10:25 - Respecting Player Boundaries (see links below for resources)
13:05 - Railroading
15:07 - Inconsistent and Unfair Rulings
18:28 - Deadly or Adversarial Encounters
20:59 - Alignment Policing
24:32 - Enabling Problem Players
27:21 - The “Forever DM”

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[dhawkeye]

“A lot of players who have never DM’d don’t really realize the amount of effort that you put into the game” I feel you brother

[adamalton]

“The rules are a tool, not a straight jacket.” I’m saving that one!

[olesmysiura]

Already feeling a bit awkward cause Monty not looking on Kelly when he talks. xD

[sigmish]

I played a half-elf fighter once. In my backstory I decided that my character was agnostic. Rather difficult in D&D. My character didn't care about the gods and was hoping that they wouldn't care about him. My DM was brilliant. He used that desire to screw with my character. The gods chose my character as a champion and kept trying to get involved. I kept trying to mind my own business and ended up becoming the champion of the god Pelor. My character was not happy about it, but I enjoyed it very much. This sounds like railroading and the DM meta-gaming, but the way the adventure unfolded my character performed the actions and then the gods came along later and rewarded me for my actions or offered to aid me in times of crisis. I never felt that the gods (DM) were limiting my actions or my choices, or trying to force me to follow a certain path. It was that DM was rewarding me with the gods' favor which my character didn't want, you know like getting socks for Christmas. All in all it was a very enjoyable campaign.

[JustinLaw]

I'm reminded of this one thing that doesn't really entirely concerns D&D but apologizing in general, I once played with a group of players at my local Adventures League and made a huge blunder with a spell ruling that resulted in a TPK. I apologized after the fact and, for some reason, got labeled as a terrible DM because I'm "weak" and can't "control my players". When I looked into my reputation there and asked some of the other people there, they tell me that the reason I got branded with that title was because I apologized because apparently, "great DMs don't apologize" and "apologizing is a display of weakness". This ended up being one of the main reasons why I left my local AL.

Apologizing does NOT make a person weak, instead it shows that they are capable of taking responsibility and is a sign of maturity. Only spoiled children make a big fuss when they're wrong and accuse everyone else of being wrong except them.

As far as controlling my players go, I believe that the DM's job is to control the table, not control the players. The players are not pawns of the DM to weave the DM's own story, instead both the DM and the players are co-creators in the group's story. The DM controls the table to ensure that everyone gets their time in the spot light, that everyone gets treated fairly, that things progress at an acceptable pace, and that the group's attention is refocused back onto the game or the current situation when people fly off on a tangent.

[Wyldbeard]

Early on in my DND career, we had a friend who was our DM. This was before I started DMing (which I love now) and was newer to the rules. He was an adamant believer that the game was the players vs the DM which goes against everything I know that a good DM should be. Every encounter would have not-so-surprising traps and new enemies appearing just so he could try and kill us. It got so bad that we would get into regular arguments about rules that his homebrew enemies would have, making them utterly infuriating to fight. After maybe 6 or so sessions of this back and forth and animosity growing we ended up in a dungeon room where we killed all the enemies, and he "surprised" us with a Beholder. Way over our level to fight.

Needless to say we all died and were pretty pissed. Instead of having us roll new characters and continue, I kid you not he packs up his things and says, "Well that was a fun campaign, I'll see you guys later." And just leaves, super oblivious to everyone's anger. As he was packing up too he was making jokes about killing our characters.


We're not friends with him anymore.

[idealm]

Am I the only one who just assumed these two lived together?

[Godoflegos]

In regards to respecting boundaries. I ran into an extreme example a while back where the group had a player who wasn't okay with ANY sort of conflict. At that point we just had to say "This might not be the right game for you."

[primeemperor]

DM: "Your character wouldn't do that. They're a Lawful Good paladin. They need to respect the laws."

Me: "My character holds honor in high regard. He has seen this ruler conduct several acts of tyranny against his own people. He would absolutely kick the doors to this dishonorable tyrant's palace down."

[floridachomps]

Not allowing players to utilize the strength of their characters. Example a GM attacked my paladin with unturnabke skeletons, dismisses players wanting to make checks, made every encounter a contest of brute force etc.

[Scott_Burton]

I had a campaign I was in as a player, that due to life changes I knew I was going to have to leave most of us expected the DM was going to find a way to write my character out of the game with some moment of sacrifice.

The DM took a hook from both my character's backstory, and the persona I had played through the campaign, to bring in a character from my own character's past that created a perfect opportunity for my character to bow out of the campaign in a meaningful way but left my character alive and pursuing his own path, simply no lobger with the party.

[SokiHime]

Some people don't like the "negative" videos
But you guys turn them into something positive.
Big ups ♥

[calvinjones]

I just started DMing, this video is a godsend

[Mechamorphh]

I once made my players fight a party tailored to counter their strengths and strategies. And they loved it. This is how I played it.

Every so often, the party would notice a tabby cat wandering around. It was an urban campaign, it was no big deal. It was often accompanied by other cats. I made them a tad paranoid until they killed the tabby cat. Then suddenly, animals would take notice of them when they entered an area, whenever they got into fights especially.

When they finally confronted the big, bad evil guy, he swore revenge for the death of his wizard familiar (the tabby) and his wife was a dark druid. He had been watching them fight, watched how they solved problems and came up with counter strategies. The PCs were saved when his rival launched an attack at a most inopportune time, giving them an opportunity to escape.

From then on it was an information war. They spent a great deal of time and resources researching the bad guys. Who their friends were, who their enemies might be, their quirks and relationships. Needless to say, the next confrontation was a lot less one sided. The PCs even managed to piece together about 3/4 of the wizard's spellbook by information gathering in places he once was and hunting down his old mentor via Speak with the Dead spells.

Nothing lights a fire under a party quite like personal revenge. It boils down to foreshadowing. A warning that they are being watched. It removes the sting of the DM basically meta-gaming and gives an in-game reason why the NPCs fight this way. Wizards are intelligent; they will control the battlefield and seek every advantage in a confrontation. If a fight is inevitable, they will conspire to have one on their own terms.

One trick I have found useful as a DM is to tailor encounters to the monsters' behaviour rather than meta-gaming. Animal-level intelligences tend to attack the most threatening or nearest PC. They will go after anyone who hurt them terribly. Brutes like orcs, trolls and giants are smart enough to go after "squishy" characters first, targeting healers and spellcasters. Human and higher intelligences? They plan, they strategize and if they can help it, they will never give the party a fair fight. You should never encounter three illithids standing shoulder to shoulder. They should attack the party from three difference angles, throwing mind blasts in sequence to have the best chance of stunning at least some of the party, some of the time. They will try to force the party to split their attention using misdirection, spatial magics and illusions. Illithids aren't scary because they eat brains, they are a nightmare to fight because they are evil geniuses and should act like such.

[krimzonghost]

I actually like the way Matthew Mercer dealt with alignment in Critical Role when Pike went against her character and showed cruelty. He didn't strip her of her powers outright but showed signs that she was losing favor with a cracked amulet.

[HienNguyenHMN]

re: Alignment.


I don't see it as acting "out of" alignment, but shifting alignment. I let my players do whatever they want, but I do warn them that repeatedly acting a certain way will shift their alignment and the world will perceive them differently. I also make it clear that one act doesn't shift an alignment. I certainly don't force them to stay true to one alignment. I don't think disregarding alignment entirely is the correct solution; my solution is to discuss the alignment chart in session zero and what it means to be good vs evil, chaotic vs lawful.

[scytheakse]

im trying my first run at dming this saturday
wish me luck

[carmillakarnstein]

Props for doing the responsible thing and keeping the quality content at the same time guys

[goliathcleric]

I love these videos. Even if we aren't always having these bad traits, and even fewer of us are being toxic, just keeping these types of things in mind improves the game for everyone.

[Chaosmancer]

One thing I want to add to the idea of alignment policing, and something that bothers me during these discussions is that sometimes it isn't policing so much as reminding. For example, I once had something like this discussion with one of my players.
Me: "So, you guys are planning on breaking into the temple and stealing the artifacts from the Bishop?"
Player 1: "Yeah, man, I'm excited for this, we can sell them to finally pay off [Player 2's] debts and deal with that Guild."
Me: "Right, the temple of the Raven Queen, your patron diety?"
Player 1: Looks at their sheet and remembers they are playing a devoted cleric from a pious family who greatly supports the church, "Oh. Right, my character wouldn't be okay with this, would they?"
Me: "Probably not"
See, players can get over-excited, or have enough characters they are running, I've legit seen people forget things like their patrong diety, or the fact that their backstory included a long and devoted service to the crown. Now, I never tell them they can't do something, but I do ask them to justify it, "Why is your devout cleric suddenly willing to steal from their own temple in direct defiance to a perfectly reasonable order from their superior?"
And, I think this is where the examples in the video fell flat. The LG paladin taking up arms against an evil, but lawful king, makes sense. How do you justify the LG Paladin holding down a shopkeep while the rogue tortures them for the combination to their safe?
This is also why I sometimes hate the discussion of "you agreed to adventure with the party, so it is your responsibility to make your character's participation make sense." I had a really toxic group once, that murdered an innocent woman in front of my doctor and big G Good Gnome Cleric. Well, I revived her, spent an hour casting Raise Dead and using my own money to bring her back from the dead.
So the party killed her again. Directly in front of me.
They wanted to keep killing her so Strahd would keep showing up and they could kill and end the side mission early (metagaming hard, I note). Why would my character be okay with that? Or with a previous scene where one of the party members who hated the gods smashed the lost shrine my character found as proof of his Pantheon having female goddesses, which was his lifelong quest to prove?
Still bitter about that game, I guess, but the point is, sometimes, done gently, this can be a good thing, to make sure the story stays consistent.