Bryce said...

Pseudoephedrine

Should be playing D&D instead
Dude, you really don't know the kind of DMs I am talking about.

DM: Your 15th level character comes to a field, what do you do?
PC: I start walking across it.
DM: a 10' pit opens up in front of you and you fall in. You break every bone in your body, what do you do?
PC: From a 10' fall? For a 15th level character? I guess I try to climb out of the pit.
DM: You can't move, all of your bones are broken, what do you do?
PC: I look around to see what there is in the pit that might help.
DM: You can't see anything, you are face down. Your neck is broken and you can't move your head.
PC: I cast levitate.
DM: You can't cast spells, you are in too much pain.
PC: I call for help.
DM: You are too weak to do anything more than moan, what do you do?
PC: I pray to my god to help?
DM: You can't, it hurts to much to even think.
PC: [salty] Well I guess I lie there and bleed to death, then.
DM: Well don't take that attitude!
My go-to example of very bad DMing isn't quite this extreme, but also similarly negates player agency. Long story short, some NPC soldiers have been captured by the local villagers. Another PC and I decide to steal the highest-ranking prisoner so we can sacrifice him to our god and ruin a peace the villagers are trying to make with the local lord. When we do a quick inspection of him, the NPC is described as having a bandaged ear but otherwise able to walk, talk, etc. As we're hauling him out into the woods, he suddenly drops dead - he was bleeding out of his ear the entire time sufficiently badly that blood loss has suddenly caused him to keel over. We therefore can't use him as a bloody spectacular sacrifice to break the coming peace.

This led to a lot of debate, and created the term "bleeding out the ear bullshit" and "bleeding out the ear" as a shorthand for whenever a DM was seen as using arbitrary and unfounded claims about the world to undermine the players.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
My go-to example of very bad DMing isn't quite this extreme, but also similarly negates player agency. Long story short, some NPC soldiers have been captured by the local villagers. Another PC and I decide to steal the highest-ranking prisoner so we can sacrifice him to our god and ruin a peace the villagers are trying to make with the local lord. When we do a quick inspection of him, the NPC is described as having a bandaged ear but otherwise able to walk, talk, etc. As we're hauling him out into the woods, he suddenly drops dead - he was bleeding out of his ear the entire time sufficiently badly that blood loss has suddenly caused him to keel over. We therefore can't use him as a bloody spectacular sacrifice to break the coming peace.

This led to a lot of debate, and created the term "bleeding out the ear bullshit" and "bleeding out the ear" as a shorthand for whenever a DM was seen as using arbitrary and unfounded claims about the world to undermine the players.
Ah, yes, the "you didn't ask about this thing that should have been painfully obvious" screwjob, I know it well. Often accompanied by the "you failed to spot the non-intuitive thing that I did not even remotely hint at" screwjob, which form the main axis for the "teaching your players to pixelbitch" school of DMing.

EDIT: sometime accompanied by the "you didn't specifically say you were putting on your armor/wearing your sword/bringing your backback, therefore you do not have it" screwjob.

I have had one (very bad) DM, but I have talked to a LOT of people about theirs.
 

Pseudoephedrine

Should be playing D&D instead
Ah, yes, the "you didn't ask about this thing that should have been painfully obvious" screwjob, I know it well. Often accompanied by the "you failed to spot the non-intuitive thing that I did not even remotely hint at" screwjob, which form the main axis for the "teaching your players to pixelbitch" school of DMing.

I have had one (very bad) DM, but I have talked to a LOT of people about theirs.
I've had more than one bad DM, but more often it was an issue of low skill rather than malice. I think I've had one malicious DM over the years and just bounced on the campaign once I realised it. I definitely spent a great deal of time (roughly age 8 to 24) being a low skill DM myself, and one of the key realisations that helped me grow into a (slightly more skilled DM) was to consciously reflect on what my own decisions and behaviours were teaching the PCs and encouraging them to do.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Back in the day a lot of ink was spilled in the pages of pages of Dragon on the evils of running Monty Haul campaigns, and very little on good communication. Combine the failure to stress communication with the frequent admonitions not to "coddle" your players, and the number of DMs starting during a socially awkward stage, and I suppose these approaches to DMing bound to arise.

That being said, I have never felt the label "bad DM" should be applied to DMs who are merely "low skilled" or inexperienced. In fact, my "bad DM" had a lot of skill with writing, improv, worldbuilding, and just plain running a table; there were some really high highs, which is why he was able to hang on to players for so long.
 

Malrex

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Ah, yes, the "you didn't ask about this thing that should have been painfully obvious" screwjob, I know it well. Often accompanied by the "you failed to spot the non-intuitive thing that I did not even remotely hint at" screwjob, which form the main axis for the "teaching your players to pixelbitch" school of DMing.

EDIT: sometime accompanied by the "you didn't specifically say you were putting on your armor/wearing your sword/bringing your backback, therefore you do not have it" screwjob.

I have had one (very bad) DM, but I have talked to a LOT of people about theirs.
All the examples sound familiar. Had a few bad or high ego DMs growing up.

Probably why I liked to play my 'own game' of D&D as a player way back in the day--which was spending time making my character and reading about options/guidelines. That was fun to imagine stuff and be creative before my character was powerless to do anything. Seems most DMs had trouble maintaining neutrality and being a referee...most seemed to go on some ego trip about their NPC or monster. Thankfully, the group and DM I'm with now has been great for the last 20 years.
 

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I think a lot of us have horror stories from our youth because as Beoric pointed out, there wasn't a lot of choice. You wanted to play with your friends. The fact that an otherwise alright guy turned into a psychotic autocrat behind the screen sometimes couldn't take away from the fact that at least you were hanging out with your buddies all weekend.

Playing D&D, particularly back in the late 80's, was social death. Dragon articles advising me to find another group used to blow my mind. Where? The internet was in its infancy. Grabbing rando phone numbers off the corkboard at the local game shop was a total crapshoot. Most of us just knuckled down to get our fix of sweet sweet D&D even if all the pleasure was derived from building our character and writing up a huge backstory before stumbling on to our inevitable fate (or vice versa; writing up (or blowing our hard-earned savings on) an epic adventure with all the trimmings just to have a group of stoner burnouts turn it into a escalating shitshow of mutually assured destruction in the first 15 minutes. "I'm just playing my alignment!")

Fortunately for me, the worst of this happened in other systems. Car Wars and Paranoia never got past the character creation stage. Star Wars, WFRP, Shadowrun and Rifts didn't make it past the 2 hr mark, Rolemaster got 2 whole sessions out of me before I trashed the GM's scenario out of general frustration with what I would later learn is called a Marysue NPC.

A lot of the time too much leeway is given to weirdos in this hobby because we are all, to some degree, outsiders. It feels wrong to not accept others who are accepting you. So it takes a lot longer sometimes to realize you're sitting at the table with a truly screwed up person. Often, they've had so long to get their hooks into everyone, it takes an epic effort and vicious betrayal (and other operatic social drahma) to finally rid the group of them.

After I moved away, my old group back in Australia ended up with this manipulative, gaslighting douche of a DM, who they finally had to throw out of the car on a random street corner on the way to a game late one night. All of them relate this sense of a lifting weight as he chased after the car weeping. That's some cold, hard shit right there.

Or that min/maxing maggot with the 5x +5 darts/round. He used to be our DM, but he played an asshole 2.5e bard in that last campaign. When he told the group he would be moving down south soon, one of the other players assassinated his character down to dust (which he blew away with a windwall). Permadeath. In a manner that involved obvious connivance with the DM. His face as he looked around the table for help, meeting only blank stairs... Bon Voyage. Don't come back dude.

Ah toxic players. They make for great stories though...
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
Notably, people who disliked WvAC in 1E did not cozy up to the much-simplified 2E version either. Which is when I understood that complexity was a proxy argument for those also rejecting the simplified.
IIRC it was hidden away in the DMG as an optional rule "if you must". The text seemed to want to dissuade you from using it.

But also I think all those tables in the 1e PHB are probably what did in the idea. You don't usually get a second chance to make a first impression and those made a...very bad first impression.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
A lot of the time too much leeway is given to weirdos in this hobby because we are all, to some degree, outsiders.
I hear this so much, but most of the people I played with were not "outsiders". Is this experience really that universal?

It was harder to find players than it sounded like it ought to have been from the magazines, but I attributed that to growing up in a much less populous country than the USA.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
I hear this so much, but most of the people I played with were not "outsiders". Is this experience really that universal?

It was harder to find players than it sounded like it ought to have been from the magazines, but I attributed that to growing up in a much less populous country than the USA.
It's complicated, and it is certainly regionally dependent.

When I was growing up in the 80's, there was a brief bit of time when D&D was the IT thing and EVERYONE played it. It was cool. Then it became passe, a pastime for nerds only. You'd get made fun of if you were known to play it. This was especially bad in fashion conscious southern California where I grew up.

My cousins in Wisconsin had it a lot easier. The only issue they had was with parents falling for the Satanic Panic. I chalk acceptance up to the fact that the area is more rural and to it having cultural cachet for being the birthplace of the hobby.

I suppose it's like any subculture, it has its stereotypes. They are rooted in truth (after all, what rock star didn't do drugs and have sex with lots of groupies).
 

Malrex

So ... slow work day? Every day?
It's complicated, and it is certainly regionally dependent.

When I was growing up in the 80's, there was a brief bit of time when D&D was the IT thing and EVERYONE played it. It was cool. Then it became passe, a pastime for nerds only. You'd get made fun of if you were known to play it. This was especially bad in fashion conscious southern California where I grew up.

My cousins in Wisconsin had it a lot easier. The only issue they had was with parents falling for the Satanic Panic. I chalk acceptance up to the fact that the area is more rural and to it having cultural cachet for being the birthplace of the hobby.

I suppose it's like any subculture, it has its stereotypes. They are rooted in truth (after all, what rock star didn't do drugs and have sex with lots of groupies).
Heh...man, I remember having to hide my books...play in the shadows! My parents tried to throw my stuff away.
 

Pseudoephedrine

Should be playing D&D instead
I hear this so much, but most of the people I played with were not "outsiders". Is this experience really that universal?

It was harder to find players than it sounded like it ought to have been from the magazines, but I attributed that to growing up in a much less populous country than the USA.
Two of the guys I play with nowadays have been playing (together) since they were about 12, and definitely saw it at the time (the early-mid-1990s) as expressive of being nerdy outsiders, and they retain some of that impression about the hobby even today. On the other hand, I, growing up only about 40km away from them and being only a few (3ish) years older, never felt that way.

I would say that in terms of finding players, the only times I've had difficulty were connected to the dislocations of attending and then graduating from university in a college town (moving there not knowing anyone at first, and then my entire group moving away as they graduated and left the town). I'm very happy to play with total newbies tho', whereas a number of people I've met through the hobby really seem to dread the idea of having to deal with people who've never played before.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I would say that in terms of finding players, the only times I've had difficulty were connected to the dislocations of attending and then graduating from university in a college town (moving there not knowing anyone at first, and then my entire group moving away as they graduated and left the town). I'm very happy to play with total newbies tho', whereas a number of people I've met through the hobby really seem to dread the idea of having to deal with people who've never played before.
You're in Ontario, right? Alberta in the late 70s/early 80s was a lot less populous than Ontario in the early-mid 90s.
 

PrinceofNothing

High Executarch
Staff member
I feel like we have this conversation at least once a year. This forum has been hijacked by canucks...
Can't even get a fucking frikandel or a decent fries and mayonaise (in a pointed paper sack, not a tray, thank you, we are not savages) around here without slipping in a puddle of maple syrup or stepping in a tray of mexican-fusion poutine. The pleasantly inebriated pub howls of my proud people have been drowned out by a litany of prophylactic apologia and the burring of mooses (meese?). And don't get me started on the fucking ice-hockey games. It is called Ice-Hockey. It is on Ice. Regular Hockey is on a field. Of gras. Fuck.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Can't even get a fucking frikandel or a decent fries and mayonaise (in a pointed paper sack, not a tray, thank you, we are not savages) around here without slipping in a puddle of maple syrup or stepping in a tray of mexican-fusion poutine. The pleasantly inebriated pub howls of my proud people have been drowned out by a litany of prophylactic apologia and the burring of mooses (meese?). And don't get me started on the fucking ice-hockey games. It is called Ice-Hockey. It is on Ice. Regular Hockey is on a field. Of gras. Fuck.
A Møøse once bit my sister...
 
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