Ten Terrible Dungeon Master Traits in Dungeons and Dragons

Comments · 1.6K

• AD

  @adamalton2436 · 6 years ago

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

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• ID

  @idealm477 · 6 years ago

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

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• DH

  @dhawkeye4439 · 6 years ago

  “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

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• OL

  @olesmysiura3788 · 6 years ago

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

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• WY

  @Wyldbeard · 6 years ago

  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 &quot;surprised&quot; us with a Beholder. Way over our level to fight.<br><br>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, &quot;Well that was a fun campaign, I&apos;ll see you guys later.&quot; And just leaves, super oblivious to everyone&apos;s anger. As he was packing up too he was making jokes about killing our characters.<br><br><br>We&apos;re not friends with him anymore.

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• PR

  @primeemperor9196 · 6 years ago

  DM: &quot;Your character wouldn&apos;t do that. They&apos;re a Lawful Good paladin. They need to respect the laws.&quot;<br><br>Me: &quot;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&apos;s palace down.&quot;

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• GO

  @Godoflegos · 6 years ago

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

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• HI

  @himwarrior · 6 years ago

  Replacing the word &quot;players&quot; with kids and &quot;DM&quot; with parent, makes this a great parenting video

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• 10

  @1003JustinLaw · 6 years ago (edited)

  I&apos;m reminded of this one thing that doesn&apos;t really entirely concerns D&amp;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&apos;m &quot;weak&quot; and can&apos;t &quot;control my players&quot;. 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, &quot;great DMs don&apos;t apologize&quot; and &quot;apologizing is a display of weakness&quot;. This ended up being one of the main reasons why I left my local AL.<br><br>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&apos;re wrong and accuse everyone else of being wrong except them.<br><br>As far as controlling my players go, I believe that the DM&apos;s job is to control the table, not control the players. The players are not pawns of the DM to weave the DM&apos;s own story, instead both the DM and the players are co-creators in the group&apos;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&apos;s attention is refocused back onto the game or the current situation when people fly off on a tangent.

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• FL

  @floridachomps2885 · 6 years ago

  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.

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• SI

  @sigmish · 6 years ago

  I played a half-elf fighter once. In my backstory I decided that my character was agnostic. Rather difficult in D&amp;D. My character didn&apos;t care about the gods and was hoping that they wouldn&apos;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&apos; favor which my character didn&apos;t want, you know like getting socks for Christmas. All in all it was a very enjoyable campaign.

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• SC

  @scytheakse · 6 years ago

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

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