# Worst & most common DM mistakes



## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 11, 2008)

Hi,

I remember reading several threads about this topic a few years back that were quite good, but don't remember where   

Anyway, I want to improve my DMing skills so please tell - what is the worst mistake that you think a DM can do, and what is the most common mistake.

Please don't write worst mistake is not making the game fun for all since it is obvious that if you make a big mistake in running the game then the game is not fun. What I want to know is what that mistake is so that I can think about it and how to avoid it.

I list below my own opinion:
Worst - Running the NPCs as major characters while the PC take a back sit (Boringgggg DM ego trip - "and then the Uber super DM pet sweeps down from the heaven to save your sorry asses AGAIN, you are so lucky he is your guardian angel!").

Most common - Paying to much attention to the players who yell the most and ignoring those players more intimidated and shy, thus not letting them shine and show their skills. ("oh sorry mate that we skipped your turn again, why didn't you say something?")


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## Rechan (Jun 11, 2008)

Worst - Separating the adventure from what the players, and the characters, care about. The adventure is just "What the DM thought", what the Dm cares about, and the players just "Took the job". 

On the flip side, it's very difficult to get adventures that are important to the PCs if the players aren't very forthcoming with what they want, or information about their characters. And if they _are_ the 'lead me by the nose' type, there's nothing you can do. 

Most common - saying no.  Not when a player wants to do something broken, but when they want to do something fun that's just not obvious in the rules. Many things can be negotiated - while I wouldn't let a player play a midget clown half tri-keen psion/swordsage, I'd talk with the player and find out what about the concept is intriguing, and try to meet them half way on something that doesn't, well, beat everyone's suspension of normalicy with a brick.


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## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 11, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Most common - saying no.  Not when a player wants to do something broken, but when they want to do something fun that's just not obvious in the rules. Many things can be negotiated - while I wouldn't let a player play a midget clown half tri-keen psion/swordsage, I'd talk with the player and find out what about the concept is intriguing, and try to meet them half way on something that doesn't, well, beat everyone's suspension of normalicy with a brick.




 This I used to do way back, before something clicked and I told myself, what the hell why not - let them have fun (within balanced framework) and I will wing it as usual. It certainly gets players more involved with their characters which is a good thing (though usually only those already involved have these non-standard builds they want to play).


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## sinecure (Jun 11, 2008)

One of the big ones I think most beginning DMs have is "Do not tell the players what their characters do not know".  

I mean, yes, you've got your stuff planned.  Yes, it is truly awesome.  And did they just walk by and miss that really badass thing on their first trip to the dungeon?  Or did you have to end the session just before some really cool stuff happened?  

Do not tell them!  Nothing.  Do not give in.  No hints. Nothing!

Sometimes I think a DM can be more buzzed about what might happen next than the players.  But if you're going to keep the game fun, not ruin it for the other guys, you absolutely have to keep your mouth shut.  

That's one of the most common mistakes I've experienced with new DMs.


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## mjukglass (Jun 11, 2008)

*1. The impossible thing before breakfast. *
Often not intended or understood but always suckiness delux at the gametable. If you want to write a book or a short story do so, if you want to facilitate a story about the protagonists DM. Not the same thing, please learn to understand the difference.  

*2. Saying NO to the players.*
Usually a sign that you are not being a good DM. Or atleast that you and your gaming group need to sit down and talk through the creative agenda of your game.


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## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 11, 2008)

mjukglass said:
			
		

> *1. The impossible thing before breakfast. *
> Often not intended or understood but always suckiness delux at the gametable. If you want to write a book or a short story do so, if you want to facilitate a story about the protagonists DM. Not the same thing, please learn to understand the difference.




I'm not sure I understand what do you mean by this. Can you explain more?


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## mjukglass (Jun 11, 2008)

Roger_the_jolly said:
			
		

> I'm not sure I understand what do you mean by this. Can you explain more?




Basically it's the problem that arises at a gametable when the DM have a already finished 'written in stone' story and the players play and believe that the game is about their character as protagonists.

Protagonist is someone that creates and leads the story. If the story already is there there is no protagonist per se.


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## Jeff Wilder (Jun 11, 2008)

Worst _and_ Most Common -- Failing to be descriptive.  A symptom of this is when a player asks, "What's the room like?" and the DM draws it on the battlemat and considers the question answered.

When I ask this, as a player, I'm not looking for extemporaneous prose.  I'm just looking for hooks that I can hang RP on ... stuff that will make this room stand out.  By all means, draw it on the battlemat and list the contents, but then I'd love to hear something like, "There's a cold draft at your backs, wafting into the room.  From somewhere beyond that far archway, you can hear faint, intermittent screams, and they sound humanoid.  You can smell mineral-heavy water."

When I realize as DM that my players are bored, I always notice that I've stopped being descriptive.  When, as a player, I begin to lose interest in what's going on in the game, I always notice that the DM is not offering description.

Boring the players.  The worst and most common mistake DMs make.


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## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 11, 2008)

mjukglass said:
			
		

> Basically it's the problem that arises at a gametable when the DM have a already finished 'written in stone' story and the players play and believe that the game is about their character as protagonists.
> 
> Protagonist is someone that creates and leads the story. If the story already is there there is no protagonist per se.




So you mean a situation where the story is rolling in its tracks regardless of the actions of the PCs - they have little or no influence on the story line?
Yes, I can certainly see where this is bad for moral   

I usually have a rather general plot line in the beginning of a campaign and wing it as we go along according to actions of players and what feels right, so I haven't encountered that problem - way to go for being lazy


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## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 11, 2008)

Jeff Wilder said:
			
		

> Worst _and_ Most Common -- Failing to be descriptive.  A symptom of this is when a player asks, "What's the room like?" and the DM draws it on the battlemat and considers the question answered.
> 
> When I ask this, as a player, I'm not looking for extemporaneous prose.  I'm just looking for hooks that I can hang RP on ... stuff that will make this room stand out.  By all means, draw it on the battlemat and list the contents, but then I'd love to hear something like, "There's a cold draft at your backs, wafting into the room.  From somewhere beyond that far archway, you can hear faint, intermittent screams, and they sound humanoid.  You can smell mineral-heavy water."
> 
> ...




I think actually this is my main problem that you phrase very well - I can see the settings in my mind eye all the time and I'm pretty good with words, but since I can "see" it all the time I think that i'm not describing it enough for the players. Good point! I will keep this firmly in mind.


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## Edena_of_Neith (Jun 11, 2008)

Roger_the_jolly said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> I remember reading several threads about this topic a few years back that were quite good, but don't remember where
> 
> ...





  Since you asked ...

  I believe the worst mistakes are:

  - Not talking to the players beforehand, and coming to an understanding with them concerning what they should expect in the game.
  For example, *do* they wish to be challenged to their limit?  Or *do* they wish a laxidasical game in which they mostly socialize?  Or ... do they want something else?

  - If the players wish to be challenged, then not challenging the players sufficiently.  (If they ask to be challenged, then they - to use the proverbial saying - asked for it.  So, since they asked for it, let them have it!)
  Not challenging players who desire challenge leads to boredom, inattention, infighting amongst the players, quarrels over rules, and other undesirable things.

  - Misusing NPCs.  NPCs are just that:  NPCs.  They should not dominate the game.  They should not play the major role in the game.  Sometimes, they should not even play the minor role in the game.


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## Engilbrand (Jun 11, 2008)

Not understanding what the players want is probably the worst and most common.
I just quit a game and took a few other players. (I should probably tell the DM I'm done, but anyways...)
I showed up to my first game a few games ago. 2 guys are older and like to RP. 2 guys are annoying. Everyone regales me with how they almost wiped the game before on Hellhounds. Yay? By the end of that session, we've had 2 or 3 fights against ridiculous numbers of weak crap. 15 guys to our 5. 9 CR 1 dinosaurs while we're asleep. Basically, multi-hour combats that we couldn't win without multiple people going down and barely getting lucky to survive. The DM gives us a fraction of the XP we should get. 3 of us tell him that it's annoying and we would like some stuff to be changed. We lay out the problem and give numerous ideas.
Starting the next game, we start facing bigger and badder stuff instead of a lot of stuff. The game was finished for 1 of the guys last week when we started the game late with a 2 hour combat that was a random encounter. We have 5 ECL 3 guys. He sends 2 CR 7 Hellcats at us because it's what he rolled. There was a point where he rolled for a minute or so while nobody said anything, then looked up, knocked his NPC over and said, "She goes down." That's it.
After we then took an hour to figure out just how much poison a character could find in a week- using a calculator, of course- I decide to screw the game.
We get taken to the next area where we see 50 bad guys walking. The leader has 2 of the world-saving artifacts that we need. I have one. Remember, we're level 3. "We're taking those." I think that everyone was tired of the crap, too, because they quickly jumped on board. We explained what we wanted to do for the next hour while he told us we'd die. We told him that we didn't care. We also knew very quickly that they were all level 5 or more.
Our perfect plan didn't work out so well as he started ignoring rules just to kill us. It was also the most fun we'd had at the table as one guy jumped out of a tree at the leader and had a cinematic battle. Of course, 3 of us dropped from CHA damage pretty quickly. Thankfully, his DMPC was there to save us and get us out of there.


The Problem: He never paid attention to what we wanted. Everything seemed so rigid in his mind that he didn't change as we needed him to. Plus, he spent a lot of time talking about his high level game that he was running. That's what the other 2 annoying guys were involved in.


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## Pbartender (Jun 11, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Most common - saying no.






			
				mjukglass said:
			
		

> *2. Saying NO to the players.*




This should be revised to, "Not knowing when to say yes and when to say no."

Blanket approval can be just, if not worse, as bad as blanket denial.  The difference is blanket approval is bad for the DM, blanket denial is bad for the players, and both are bad for the group.


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## mjukglass (Jun 11, 2008)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> This should be revised to, "Not knowing when to say yes and when to say no."
> 
> Blanket approval can be just, if not worse, as bad as blanket denial.  The difference is blanket approval is bad for the DM, blanket denial is bad for the players, and both are bad for the group.




No. I disagree. Saying NO to a player is always bad. Saying NO to protagonist is ok if you just rolled some dices and let them decide.


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## Ashrum the Black (Jun 11, 2008)

> Originally Posted by: *mjukglass*
> No. I disagree. Saying NO to a player is always bad. Saying NO to protagonist is ok if you just rolled some dices and let them decide.




I'd have to say that here I disagree very stongly. 

It's the DM's job to judciate the game so that everybody has fun. To say no and enforce the rules when needed. And to say yes when the rules need to be broken to facilitate the fun.

The DM's job isn't simply provide cardboard XP cutout of creatures for the players to destroy. It's also his job to make the world a place that has its own internal consistency and is fun to adventrue in.

So, no, you can't play a gun wielding, cigar chomping fighter in our high fantasy game. But yes, you can when we're playing Iron Kingdoms. Now if the player has their aboslute heart set on the gunfighter archtype, we'll work to come up with a substitute, such as a knife fighter that fulfills the same function, or a wand weilding rogue. But full on gun bunny, no.

Yes the example is a bit extreme, but it's there to illustrate the point that sometimes the players requests are extreme and a no is appropriate. 

On the other hand saying no out of hand just because it is a player request is also out of line and is definitly the mark of a bad DM in my book.

-Ashrum


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## Pbartender (Jun 11, 2008)

mjukglass said:
			
		

> No.




You just said no to a player.

 

But my point is, as Ashrem illustrates, while denying the player should never be the default answer, there are times when it is entirely appropriate to tell them no...

"What's the DC to swim across a lake of boiling hot lava?"
"Do you have a resistances to protect you from the heat?"
"No..."
"Then you can't...  Or rather you can try, but you'll quickly and painfully die in cloud of barbecue-scented smoke and flame."
"Oh. Maybe the Wizard has couple of _fly_ spells prepared."
"Yeah, maybe he does."


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## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 11, 2008)

Ashrum the Black said:
			
		

> I'd have to say that here I disagree very stongly.
> 
> It's the DM's job to judciate the game so that everybody has fun. To say no and enforce the rules when needed. And to say yes when the rules need to be broken to facilitate the fun.
> 
> ...




Thanks, I agree with you on this.


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## N0Man (Jun 11, 2008)

From a recent game I played in, I'll list some bad mistakes, and some examples of the mistakes in action... all from one play campaign.

*Being railroaded into stories with no ability to change what is going. *  - In my game, we were jumped by a small army in a forest, but yet nobody was allowed to see them coming.  When we did see them, I said I wanted to attempt to try to persuade the leader to hear us out, and the DM responded with a club to my head that knocked me unconscious instantly, with no Save or anything.

*Don't play favorites* - In this same scenario, the DM's best friend wanted to put up a fight.  While everyone else was knocked unconscious, this guy at least got a chance to fight back before being taken prisoner.

*Don't arbitrarily render your players powerless and impotent* - When our party awoke, we were in a dungeon.  My social-skilled, smooth takling, acting, disguising investigative bard who had a voice related performance skill had his lips sewed shut.  The fast monk had his achilles heel cut.  The extremely charismatic and beautiful moonelf bard awoke with a gash across her face and one removed.

*Don't create a BBEG with ridiculous combinations of powers that make him totally unthwartable* - So our party manages an escape attempt.  The the use of disguise magic, the bluff skill, my acting ability, action point spent and exceptionally lucky rolls, I impersonate the BBEG to the captain of the guards.  The guard asks where our party was, and I respond something like, "How should I know?   It's your job to capture them!  Stop wasting my time and get to it!".   Suddenly the whole moment was ruined, because the Guard knew something that the party didn't...  The BBEG, in addition to being half-drow and half-giant, was also a psionicist, and would have ESP-like knowledge of where we were.  They instantly disbelieved the illusion.

*Let the players tell you what they are doing, don't force decisions on them.* - Despite that setback, we manage to get free.  We made our escape through a network of tunnels and caves.  As we made our way through them, the DM says, "you enter a chamber filled with a green bubbling smoking liquid on the floor.  You continue to run through the liquid and it burns.  You realize it's acid."    A player exclaims, "Wait!  No, I would NOT run through that!"

Here are just a few examples of bad DM'ing


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## Imperialus (Jun 11, 2008)

One that I haven't seen mentioned yet that used to be a big problem for me.

Don't ignore rules for the sake of the story.
Rules provide consistency, they let players know what can and can't be accomplished.  It's important that your NPC's follow those rules too.  Sometimes you'll need to bend them, very occasionally you'll need to break and depending on the system you'll often find yourself making them up on the fly but don't change things constantly to suit your needs.  Rules are the physics of the D&D world.  Just like how it would irritate you if suddenly gravity stopped working, it will irritate your players if they come across NPC's who can do things that break the rules.

This is not to say, don't houserule or don't overrule things that don't make sense to you but keep it consistent and make sure you discuss any rule changes with your group (or at least inform them of them) as early as possible.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 11, 2008)

Mary Sue NPCs and railroading.

The former is an NPC who is much more powerful than the PCs and either travels with the party or shows up a lot. All problems are solved by Mary Sue, rendering the PCs irrelevant.

Railroading is when the GM's plot is fixed and the players can't deviate from it no matter how hard they try.


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## Cadfan (Jun 11, 2008)

*Number One*

Not managing your player's expectations.

If they expect to come to the game session and have an adventure about an evil necromancer, and they do, they won't be upset.  If they come to the game expecting a game session about being pirates, and instead there is a game session about an evil necromancer, they will be upset.

If one player creates a character who is a pirate, and another creates a character who is an evil necromancer hunter, it doesn't matter what adventure you create.  Someone will be upset.

So TELL THEM UP FRONT what to expect!  And if they hate it, work it out amongst yourselves like equals.

*Number Two*

Thinking "I'm the DM, so I'm always right and what I want to do is the most important."

No, you're not.  You're just the guy at the table with the power to make everyone else obey.  If you abuse that power, expect that your friends will make you regret it once you take off your DM hat and you're all equals again.  With the great power of being a DM comes the great responsibility not to be a jerk about it.  That's not just the responsibility to make good rulings as a DM, its the responsibility _to do so in a way that doesn't make you a jerk._


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## roguerouge (Jun 11, 2008)

Getting burnt out. Buy some modules and use them sometimes. You're not cheating yourself and you're not cheating the players. You're refocusing your energies on things like character interactions, romantic entanglements, plot hooks, and RP instead of dungeon design and encounter creation.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 11, 2008)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> This should be revised to, "Not knowing when to say yes and when to say no."



One really tough thing a GM sometimes has to do is say no to something he has previously said yes to, such as a previously used ability he has decided is detrimental to the game.

I allowed a player to get an AC bonus from mage armor with the Abjurant Champion PC. At the time I thought it didn't matter as I was planning to end the campaign in a session or two. However the players wanted to continue so the campaign went on for many more sessions. I felt the Abjurant Champion's AC was getting out of hand so I nerfed the ability, which really p---ed the player off.

People really hate it when you're inconsistent because it means they don't know where they stand, but sometimes you have to be.


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## Pbartender (Jun 11, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> If one player creates a character who is a pirate, and another creates a character who is an evil necromancer hunter, it doesn't matter what adventure you create.  Someone will be upset.




Unless they are trying to track down and recover some stolen buried treasure from a a Voodoo Witchdoctor on an island full of his horde of Zombi minions.

Island of the Damned, a free adventure from Green Ronin for _Skull & Bones_ D20 setting.

 

But your point is correct...  You need make certain that both you and your players are on the same page about what kind of game you are playing -- genre, style, tone and such.


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## Roger_the_jolly (Jun 12, 2008)

roguerouge said:
			
		

> Getting burnt out. Buy some modules and use them sometimes. You're not cheating yourself and you're not cheating the players. You're refocusing your energies on things like character interactions, romantic entanglements, plot hooks, and RP instead of dungeon design and encounter creation.




Yes, I'm just realizing this myself and how much more inspiration you can get from a well written and executed module or setting.
My next campaign will be set in Eberron.


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## Ruslanchik (Jun 12, 2008)

N0Man said:
			
		

> *Don't play favorites* - In this same scenario, the DM's best friend wanted to put up a fight.  While everyone else was knocked unconscious, this guy at least got a chance to fight back before being taken prisoner.




I second this.  My example is much more egregious than yours, but I won't bore everyone with it.  Let's just say that playing favorites can kill a gaming group.


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## jeffh (Jun 12, 2008)

Some of the ones from the one game I ever quit entirely of my own free will have come up here (railroading, ignoring the rules in the service of same, failing to pay sufficient attention to what does and does not interest the players), but two big ones haven't. I think these problems are both common and serious, though I make no claims to having a comprehensive ranking of such things.

One is failing - or, worse, actively _refusing _- to tell the players things their characters would obviously know. Being unreasonably stingy with basic information results in nothing but frustration and resentment. If my character has been living in the city the game starts in his whole life, he shouldn't be caught by surprise by basic common-knowledge details of how the laws, government or major religions work simply because I failed to read the GM's mind. If a player asks - after going over a month without playing, mind you - why the PCs came to the town they're currently in (when this happened yesterday for the characters but over six weeks ago for the players), _*tell them*_ rather than going on an insulting rant about them "not paying attention". In fact, you shouldn't even wait for them to ask - it's generally best to start each session with a recap of recent events in the campaign.

(In all fairness, I catch myself doing this a bit sometimes, but nowhere near as egregiously as the GM I'm referring to. However, I start most sessions with a recap, tend to get more liberal with information if the players are obviously confused, never refuse to answer direct questions about things that would be _obvious_ to a character, and have a mechanic of memory checks in place for handling cases where this is not so obvious. If the players remember a thing, great. If they don't but their characters obviously would, I tell them. If they don't but their characters _might_ , one or more of them gets a check.)

The other is "mysteries" with no, or only very ambiguous, clues. Many GMs think the number and type of clues actually found in a typical mystery novel is enough. That attitude betrays a complete failure to understand the differences between RPGs on the one hand, and novels, television etc on the other. In other genres, the writer is free to determine what the protagonist(s) will notice or find significant and how he/she/they will interpret it. There's no way to guarantee this in an RPG, and it's very vulnerable to degenerating into a metagame-level exercise in reading the GM's mind. Every credible source of advice on this subject recommends at least three times this minimal amount of clues. Note that this combines especially poorly with the problem mentioned above; giving ambiguous clues and then refusing to give basic information about the world that might be relevant to interpreting them guarantees frustrated players.


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## OchreJelly (Jun 12, 2008)

sinecure said:
			
		

> One of the big ones I think most beginning DMs have is "Do not tell the players what their characters do not know".
> 
> I mean, yes, you've got your stuff planned.  Yes, it is truly awesome.  And did they just walk by and miss that really badass thing on their first trip to the dungeon?  Or did you have to end the session just before some really cool stuff happened?
> 
> ...




I agree with this but would go one further.  If your players bypass your neat encounter area you spent a bunch of time building, save it in your 'idea file'.  You can always find a creative way to reuse something for a later date.  Your time doesn't feel wasted and the players don't feel railroaded.  Everybody wins.


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## Soyokaze (Jun 12, 2008)

*Most Common*:
Don't let the player die if he didn't make a mistake. Noone likes to fail for no good reason.

In one situation, one stupid PC was bashing in doors in dungeon, ignoring stealth completely. He bursts into the obviously marked (the only fancy door with an obsidian skull decoration) bedroom of a sleeping (now woken) BBEG. The BBEG's first action is to fire a ray at the door, hitting both Smashy McAxeinhand and a PC who's been telling him how stupid he's being the whole time. 

So, he rolls enough damage to kill them both in one shot. This wasn't intended to be a straight fight. However, I fudge the numbers so that neither die. Next round, he kills the PC who made the mistake. Everyone else survives.


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## Graybeard (Jun 12, 2008)

As far as clues for a mystery game go, it depends on your players. Most of my players are highly intelligent and I quickly found out that the clues I was giving were too easy for them. In future situations, I started giving more difficult or even conflicting clues. The players were happier because it wasn't as easy to figure the clues out.

Also, don't let the rules get in the way of common sense. For example, the rules state that the PCs need the tracking feat to follow a trail (footprints, bread crumbs, etc.). I mostly ignore that rule. If it would be obvious to follow the trail, then I allow it with spot and/or search checks. If it would be too difficult for the average person to notice, then I use the tracking rules.


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## Afrodyte (Jun 12, 2008)

Jeff Wilder said:
			
		

> Worst _and_ Most Common -- Failing to be descriptive.  A symptom of this is when a player asks, "What's the room like?" and the DM draws it on the battlemat and considers the question answered.
> 
> When I ask this, as a player, I'm not looking for extemporaneous prose.  I'm just looking for hooks that I can hang RP on ... stuff that will make this room stand out.  By all means, draw it on the battlemat and list the contents, but then I'd love to hear something like, "There's a cold draft at your backs, wafting into the room.  From somewhere beyond that far archway, you can hear faint, intermittent screams, and they sound humanoid.  You can smell mineral-heavy water."
> 
> When I realize as DM that my players are bored, I always notice that I've stopped being descriptive.  When, as a player, I begin to lose interest in what's going on in the game, I always notice that the DM is not offering description.




I'm of a different mind on this. I love description, but I hate rambling. If you're going to use description, I prefer it to be evocative more than verbose.

My general rule of thumb: What would the average person pick up on within 10 seconds? Anything more than that would call for appropriate checks.

If there's one thing I hate as a player, it's sitting on my thumbs. If I'm spending more time waiting than I am doing interesting things or participating in interesting interactions, I get bored. Really bored. Boredom makes me fidgety.

That brings me to one of the most common GMing "mistakes" I come across: not making the plot personal. Too often, GMs use generic motivators for PCs, which doesn't often make for compelling protagonists. As a result, it often takes me longer to engage with what's happening. I go along with the plot because that's what the group's doing and what the DM wants, rather than because it's what either myself or my character cares about.

As far as worst mistakes?

Every party being some variation of, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . . "

It goes back to what I said above about being too generic. Parties almost always begin as professional relationships. What I'd do for something a bit more personal. Why not have the PCs be members of the same family? Or be from the same city? Maybe they could have been abducted and experimented on by the same aliens. Y'know, give the PCs a relationship or experience to link them together aside from working for the same guy. Better yet, let the PCs think of it and do some work for a change.


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## Pbartender (Jun 12, 2008)

jeffh said:
			
		

> The other is "mysteries" with no, or only very ambiguous, clues.




I used to have a lot of trouble with this...  I realized that part of the problem was that, even if I did my best to visualize the mystery from the Players' point of view, I still had all the answers to the mystery floating in the back of my mind.  Unconsciously, it made the clues seem easier than they actually were.

I've found a few solutions to this...  First, begin with tough clues, and slowly feed in extra information, so that the clues slowly become more and more obvious.

Second...  When the players are getting stuck, review the clues with them, "Okay guys, here's what you know so far."  Often, they're stuck, because they've forgotten a clue or didn't notice a piece of information as a clue.  Sometimes, they're just having troubles seeing all the clues together as a whole.  Reminding them of everything they've discovered can often help them see the big picture.

Last...  As someone mentioned above, pay attention to the players brainstorming over the clues.  If they're way off base, but are coming up with interesting and feasible scenarios to fit the clues, then adapt and adjust.  Rather than dashing their hopes with a wild goose chase, swallow your pride and change your plot to match the players' deductions, and save your current plot for another time.  The game moves on, the players feel clever, and everyone has more fun in the end.


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## Cadfan (Jun 12, 2008)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> Unless they are trying to track down and recover some stolen buried treasure from a a Voodoo Witchdoctor on an island full of his horde of Zombi minions.
> 
> Island of the Damned, a free adventure from Green Ronin for _Skull & Bones_ D20 setting.



Point taken, sir.  Point taken.


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## Graybeard (Jun 12, 2008)

Afrodyte said:
			
		

> That brings me to one of the most common GMing "mistakes" I come across: not making the plot personal. Too often, GMs use generic motivators for PCs, which doesn't often make for compelling protagonists. As a result, it often takes me longer to engage with what's happening. I go along with the plot because that's what the group's doing and what the DM wants, rather than because it's what either myself or my character cares about.
> .




I agree. It's okay to start off with a generic motivation such as you all meet in a tavern or you are all hired by NPC X but make it personal quickly. In my current campaign, I had the BBEG send gifts to the PCs families and even to the PCs themselves. It let the PCs know in a non-threatening way that the BBEG knew where the PCs families lived. The players loved it because it make them paranoid about what the BBEG could or would do to their families. It gave them a personal reason to hate the BBEG rather than a professional one.


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## Celebrim (Jun 12, 2008)

The most common mistakes are also the worst ones.  Since I'm not good at brevity, you are getting a list:

1) Not learning the rules:  This is the worst mistake and also the most common.  I don't know how many times I've set down at someone's table and suffered through a session where we crammed 10 minutes of fun into 4 hours because the stupid referee hadn't bothered to learn the rules of the game he was running.  

2) Thinking you can wing it:  There are a few highly experienced DMs out there that can draw on thier past play experience, literary knowledge, imagination, and ideas that they've played with but never fleshed out to wing sessions, but YOU AREN'T ONE OF THEM*.  Wing it only when you have to, not by design.  The more work you've done, and the longer the campaign has been going, the easier it is to rely on the natural flow of the campaign to create story, but you always should have something worked out in advance to fall back on.  All the best ref's I've played under did a heck of alot of work preparing for thier games.  If you can get by with just one hour or preparation for each hour of play, you are doing good - and probably relying heavily on published modules.   BTW, published modules need lots of preparation time to.  If you don't want to put in the time, you probably aren't cut out for the job.

*(The more impressed by himself and the more a DM brags about his ability to wing it, the less impressed by them I've been in actual play.)

3) Not listening to your players:  It might primarily be your game, but it isn't just your game.  You might have this great idea for a combat light game of court intrigue, mystery, low magic and high simulation.  If your players are all beer and pretzels gamers who just want to take things and kill there stuff, everyone is going to be much happier if you switch campaign styles midstream and give the players the game they want to play.  That doesn't mean that you can't put your own stylistic spin on the campaign (you probably should), and it doesn't mean you can't write the adventures such that it challenges them to elevate thier play somewhat (you probably should) but it does mean that you probably shouldn't get in a battle of wills, or berate your players for not playing the game you want to play.  Listen to the players, and in particular watch thier body language.  If you've got consistant bored and distracted body language, you need to figure out what gets your players interested and give it to them.

4) Making things too big: The first impulse of any new DM is to create enormous mega-dungeons, massive cities, and globe trotting super adventures to save the world.  What you end up creating is a combination of pointless repetition in a low detail non-engaging environment, incomplete maps you never really finish, and lots of random encounters.  The eighth pointless fight against ghouls, or the tenth fight against darkmantles is not going to be nearly so fun as the first.  The twelth identical 20'x30' room containing 3d6 orc gaurds is going to create something of a player revolt in anyone over the age of 11.  Start small.  Poor some creativity into smaller environments.  Detail some NPCs.  Come up with some plots with twists.  Let the huge dungeons and massive cities grow organically as your campaign continues.  You'll have plenty of time to add another layer to the onion and detail the real ultimate BBEG when your players have leveled up a few times.

5) Waiting to hash out any potential problems during play rather than dealing with them during character creation:  This is a whole subcategory of problems that derail campaigns early.  Everyone wants to get play started.  You should want to get play started.  But take some time to talk with the players (privately if need be) about thier characters, and what they think character is going to be like in play.  Check off all the following points:

a) Is the character going to be a viable build, capable of contributing in the adventures you have in mind and which won't be outshone by the other players?
b) Does the character have a good hook which will consistantly get them involved in adventures?  'I'm a stay-at-home cowardly xenophobic loner' is probably not a viable character concept.
c) Is the character socially functional and capable of interacting with other PC's and NPC's with only managable friction?  Is the player good enough of a roleplayer to entertain himself and others in the role?
d) Is the player committed to playing the character in an anti-social manner?  'My character concept is an assassin that secretly plans to kill all the other characters' is not a viable character concept.
e) If the character is some sort of idealist (Paladin being the most common, but lots of things apply), do you and the player have a common agreement and understanding about what code or standard of behavior this implies?
f) Is it possible for the individual characters to be a cohesive party?  You may want to get players to work out ahead of time how they are going to handle intraparty conflict, especially if there are clashing character concepts.  The question of 'Why should this group stay together' is extremely important.  Don't leave it to chance.

Don't blame the player(s) for your failure to foresee obvious problems in intraparty dynamics.   It's alot easier to work this out ahead of time than wait and hope for an argeement to be arrived at during play.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jun 12, 2008)

Threads like this remind me why ENWorld is such a great place. You just have to listen to all this experienced guys and you'll learn a lot. 

After that, you only have to apply it in game. 
Some things you actually might have already learned or known. But seeing it repeated reminds you keep looking out for it...


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## Rackhir (Jun 12, 2008)

1) EN World is a resource use it.

Read story hours for plot, BBEG and NPC ideas. Pay particular attention to SHs that are using your setting. Even if it isn't a good read, it may still have ideas you can use.

Some DMs have suggestion threads for their campaigns, where people suggests encounters, monsters and challenges for the players. You may wish to start one for your campaign. This is particularly valuable for mid to high level campaigns, where it can take a substantial amount of time to create monsters/npcs and there are lots of people who will happily create and stat out that advanced half-Daelkyr beholder strike team for you.

There are also "Rogue's Galleries" where characters and sometimes NPCs are described. You can file off the serial numbers and retread them for your campaign.

2) Talk to your players and solicit feedback. Very few campaigns have failed because people discussed what they liked and didn't like or because everyone was on the same page as to what to expect from the campaign.

3) If your "House Rules" get much past a page of text, you need to seriously think about if you should be using a system other than D&D. If you have to substantially change the rules of the game, then another system might be a better fit.

4) Actions have consequences - This doesn't mean punish the players for doing or not doing something, just that what has happened in the past should have an effect on what happens in the future. Have NPCs show up repeatedly (where it makes sense). If the PC's are kind or helpful to an NPC, they may return the favor down the road. Helped out the halflings rather than the elves, maybe the elves's villiage is a smouldering ruin the next time they pass that way. Just avoid making everything a dammed if you do/dammed if you don't choice. They have their place and PCs can't do or be everywhere at once, but they shouldn't be screwed over by every choice they have to make.


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## Doug McCrae (Jun 12, 2008)

Afrodyte said:
			
		

> That brings me to one of the most common GMing "mistakes" I come across: not making the plot personal. Too often, GMs use generic motivators for PCs, which doesn't often make for compelling protagonists. As a result, it often takes me longer to engage with what's happening. I go along with the plot because that's what the group's doing and what the DM wants, rather than because it's what either myself or my character cares about.



I think that's expecting too much of the DM. The typical D&D campaign has a variety of adventures and situations. It can't be solely focused on killing the BBEG who killed all the PCs' fathers for example, that's too limited. You need more general motivations like a desire for gold or fame or altruism to get the PCs down monster and trap-infested holes.


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## Serensius (Jun 12, 2008)

Graybeard said:
			
		

> As far as clues for a mystery game go, it depends on your players. Most of my players are highly intelligent and I quickly found out that the clues I was giving were too easy for them.




True. Also, something I learned last session: be careful what you mention to the PCs in terms of how they will interpret it. They talked to an NPC, and he mentioned The Ruby Cave casually, I don't even think it was related to what the PCs wanted to find out (which was to find out who has the divine focus item that has caused perpetual rain over the valley yadayada), and suddenly they are all like "dungeon! Let's go!", even though I had anticipated that they'd investigate first and discover where the item came from (and subsequently the plot which would foreshadow the heroic tier act). Because I said something that was misunderstood by the players, I had to restructure the entire adventure (not that I was particularly prepared, au contraire), and I have to find some other way to introduce the plot. So, I guess my advice is: *Be careful about what you say to your players*


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## Afrodyte (Jun 13, 2008)

*nudge*


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## Rackhir (Jun 13, 2008)

Don't feel like you have to have a grand over arching plot from day one. I know with my characters it always takes me a while to get a good "feel" for the character and for a "personality" to really develop for a character. In part because one of the things that defines a character is the interactions with other party members and that takes some time to really gell.

Also low level characters tend to be fairly limited in what they can do. So you can just do "dungeon-y" stuff for a couple of levels and once people have their characters more defined, start building a "story" for the campaign.


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## Graybeard (Jun 13, 2008)

Absolutely. Let the plot grow over time. I started my current campaign with a few basic ideas and let the PCs go from there. The first thing that happened was they became involved in stopping an attack upon ordinary commoners. They soon discovered that to be a cover for child kidnapping. From there it grew into a bigger conspiracy with hints of a mastermind. My players love conspiracies. I've been gaming with some of them for about 8 years now as a player and a DM. Others I used to work with so I knew what they liked in a game from friendly conversation at work during lunch. I would have to agree with a previous poster who said that you must know what your players like in a game and tailor it to them. Without players, there is no game.


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## pawsplay (Jun 13, 2008)

Worst - shameless favoritism.

Most Common - Confusing story with "plot." RPGs are definitely about stories, but they don't have future plots.


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## Mallus (Jun 13, 2008)

Rackhir said:
			
		

> So you can just do "dungeon-y" stuff for a couple of levels and once people have their characters more defined, start building a "story" for the campaign.



Excellent advice.


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## Nellisir (Jun 13, 2008)

Worst?  Pick one: DMPCs, railroading, ignoring the players in favor of the story (all of these are essentially the same thing).

Most common?  Being too complicated, too complex, and holding too much back.  The players never ever have all the information that you have.  Complicated DM schemes never work.  Also, don't hold stuff back.  It's the surest way to make sure the campaign ends before you get there.  If you have a cool idea, go with it.  Make the game FUN for you AND the players.  Make sure something happens every session.


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## Storm Raven (Jun 13, 2008)

Nellisir said:
			
		

> Most common?  Being too complicated, too complex, and holding too much back.  The players never ever have all the information that you have.  Complicated DM schemes never work.  Also, don't hold stuff back.  It's the surest way to make sure the campaign ends before you get there.  If you have a cool idea, go with it.  Make the game FUN for you AND the players.  Make sure something happens every session.




A corollary to this is an error I see a lot of DMs make (and which I have made in the past, but try to avoid now) - designing backstory and campaign material that never affects the players. This is not, in and of itself, a problem, but it is often accompanied by a lack of development in areas that _do_ affect the players which _is_ a problem. I think the problem stems from published adventures, where writers seem to relish in giving this sort of unnecessary detail.

"The farmer dislikes his neighbors" - that's nice, but who cares, the players aren't his neighbors, and unless there is something more, they won't care about this sort of village dispute.

"The orcs have recently elected a new chief" - great, why do the players care?

"The evil cult is framing a group of bandits, who don't appear in this adventure, and have all been killed and their bodies sunk to the bottom of the swamp, but here are their stats and personalities" - if they don't appear, why bother detailing them?

"A thousand years ago, this altar was used for sacrifices to the rat god, in rituals that . . . [insert three paragraph description of the rat god cult] . . . but no one knows anything about this cult any more, and the only thing remaining is this altar, which cannot be identified by anyone."

And so on.

And then you get incomplete material that _could_ be useful:

"The curate is suspicious of the traveling priest" - Really? Why? If the players ask him about the priest, what will he say? Does he have specific things that make him suspicious? Did he see him do something odd, or hear him say something strange?

"The barkeep has heard rumors about the abandoned keep" Okay. What rumors? That is exists? That it houses an evil tribe of goblins? That is has pink bunnies living in it? Give something concrete.

What a DM needs to do is make sure that they prepare the information that will be of use to the players - "the shopkeep is suspicious of the traders next door" is not usually useful. "The shopkeep thinks the traders are up to something because he has seen them having late night meetings by the stables with people he doesn't recognize" is a better background.


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## EATherrian (Jun 13, 2008)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> A corollary to this is an error I see a lot of DMs make (and which I have made in the past, but try to avoid now) - designing backstory and campaign material that never affects the players. This is not, in and of itself, a problem, but it is often accompanied by a lack of development in areas that _do_ affect the players which _is_ a problem. I think the problem stems from published adventures, where writers seem to relish in giving this sort of unnecessary detail.
> 
> "The farmer dislikes his neighbors" - that's nice, but who cares, the players aren't his neighbors, and unless there is something more, they won't care about this sort of village dispute.
> 
> ...




All of those have a hook that can be used for them.  I agree that the things that the players will most likely focus on should be most developed, but who's to say that the player don't want to find out why the orcs have a new chief, or what is causing the feud between the farmers.  I both agree and disagree with your point.  I think any possible hook you throw out there should have enough detail with it that it can be used.


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## Rackhir (Jun 13, 2008)

EATherrian said:
			
		

> All of those have a hook that can be used for them.  I agree that the things that the players will most likely focus on should be most developed, but who's to say that the player don't want to find out why the orcs have a new chief, or what is causing the feud between the farmers.  I both agree and disagree with your point.  I think any possible hook you throw out there should have enough detail with it that it can be used.




I think he's talking more about random background details (ie. the tree is green) more than actual plot hooks (ie. your sister has been kidnapped).

Also I think a good reason to avoid excessive background details is that there's a strong tendency to want to use stuff you've invested a lot of time and effort in creating, which can easily lead to one of the cardinal sins of DMing - Railroading your players. So that all of your hard work is used.

If the players take an interest in one of the aforementioned details, sure by all means expand upon it. Just don't try to detail every possible plot hook or at least no more than you would need to occupy the players until you get a chance to flesh out a plot line they pursue.


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## EATherrian (Jun 13, 2008)

Rackhir said:
			
		

> I think he's talking more about random background details (ie. the tree is green) more than actual plot hooks (ie. your sister has been kidnapped).
> 
> Also I think a good reason to avoid excessive background details is that there's a strong tendency to want to use stuff you've invested a lot of time and effort in creating, which can easily lead to one of the cardinal sins of DMing - Railroading your players. So that all of your hard work is used.
> 
> If the players take an interest in one of the aforementioned details, sure by all means expand upon it. Just don't try to detail every possible plot hook or at least no more than you would need to occupy the players until you get a chance to flesh out a plot line they pursue.




I can see your point.  But those details sound pretty darned interesting.  I don't know if I'm the only one, but I keep notes as my adventures go and mention these things to the DM if we ever find a slow patch.  Plus I'm anti-railroading as a DM and see having most information you give as a possible hook to be the best anti-railroading device.


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## Storm Raven (Jun 13, 2008)

EATherrian said:
			
		

> I can see your point.  But those details sound pretty darned interesting.




Yes, they do sound interesting - but the players will likely never know about a lot of them. "The orcs have recently elected a new chief" sounds cool, but it is usually what I would call false detail, because the characters will _never know about it_. They are going to track down the orcs and kill them all in a big battle. Orcs they encounter will probably just end up on the end of a sword, and if they capture any, they probably aren't going to ask questions that will lead to them finding out. In the end, they almost certainly aren't going to worry about orcish tribal politics on the way.

The problem with a lot of this type of information is that it is either (a) inaccessible to the players as a practical matter, (b) not relevant to the players, or (c) not fleshed out enough to be useful. Some of these types of background details are all three.

Unless information is accessible to the players it is always useless to include it. Unless information is relevant to the players, it is usually useless to include it. Unless information is useful to the players, it is often useless to include it. The problem with a lot of these tidbits of information is that they look good _on paper_ when writing up the adventure scenario, but in actual play, they simply aren't useful in any meaningful way.


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## Celebrim (Jun 13, 2008)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Unless information is accessible to the players it is always useless to include it. Unless information is relevant to the players, it is usually useless to include it. Unless information is useful to the players, it is often useless to include it. The problem with a lot of these tidbits of information is that they look good _on paper_ when writing up the adventure scenario, but in actual play, they simply aren't useful in any meaningful way.




I agree with the general complaint, and it very much matches what I said earlier about not knowing what your scope is and trying to do too much.  But at the same time, you aren't always able to know what information will be available, relevant, and useful to the players.

Consider the second module in the sinister secret of Saltmarsh series - U2.  It contains a wealth of information about the tribal politics of the Lizardman tribe.  But if the PC's end up killing off the Lizardmen in an efficient commando blitz, most of that information is inaccessible, irrelevant, and largely useless to the players.  I don't think you can argue though that the information about the tribal politics of U2 isn't important.

The problem with your list is, without a lot of context, we can't tell if such information is useful or not.  One thing we can certainly say though, is that if such information isn't available then the adventure only supports one style of play and if the party deviates from that style of play, then the DM has to invent the detail on the spot.  If the information isn't there, most new DMs won't invent the information on the spot - they'll just simply say 'no'.

Take the example of: "The orcs have recently elected a new chief" 

Most parties may approach the orc problem as having a single solution - 'Kill the Orcs'.  But if a party intends a more subtle approach, if information like 'The orcs have recently elected a new chief' isn't available, the neophyte DM is likely to look at the available information, whether self-created or provided by a published work, and decide that the orcs aren't meant to be approached by any solution but 'Kill the Orcs' and narrate the response to any contrary proposition as, in some form or the other, "The orcs resist all attempts at negotiation, attack immediately, and fight to the death."


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## Storm Raven (Jun 13, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I agree with the general complaint, and it very much matches what I said earlier about not knowing what your scope is and trying to do too much.  But at the same time, you aren't always able to know what information will be available, relevant, and useful to the players.




Yes, but U2 also provides ways for the players to obtain that information - in other words, the information _has_ been developed.

Most of the examples I gave are from background created by DMs in adventures I've seen. Some are from old published adventures - the curate example is from B2, and that's about all the information it gives about the curates' thoughts on the "evil priest". That's poorly designed  background.

Here's one from T1: a particular family is from out of town and will be considered outsiders "until their hair turns gray". Well, that's a neat little detail, but so what? Why will the characters care about the thinking of the village concerning a carpenter they probably won't meet more than cursorially? In the meantime, the bulk of the NPCs in the village aren't even named, being listed as "goodwife" or "leatherworker". Which do you think is more likely to come up in play: (a) the name of the leatherworker they might buy boots and armor from, or (b) that people in the village are outsiders until they become grey-haired?


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## pr1 (Jun 13, 2008)

Soyokaze said:
			
		

> *Most Common*:
> Don't let the player die if he didn't make a mistake. Noone likes to fail for no good reason.
> 
> In one situation, one stupid PC was bashing in doors in dungeon, ignoring stealth completely. He bursts into the obviously marked (the only fancy door with an obsidian skull decoration) bedroom of a sleeping (now woken) BBEG. The BBEG's first action is to fire a ray at the door, hitting both Smashy McAxeinhand and a PC who's been telling him how stupid he's being the whole time.
> ...




I totally disagree.  I think the far more common problem is characters don't die enough for stupid things that they do.

The scenario you talked about?  Well, not to get too personal, but it's tricky.  As you explained it, I would have let the two die.  Big whoop.  Sometimes you make mistakes, and there are consequences to others for your actions.  I might question why there was a guy who could so easily kill party members from bed if stealth wasn't used to sneak up on him, but there's a place for that sort of thing, too.

A big problem I see is that characters take so long to write and are so tediously fleshed out (or the attempt is made to do so, at least), that you really feel like you're doing something bad to the players in letting their characters get killed.  It's D&D.  Every game I ever had fun in, character death was a real threat, and there wasn't some high & mighty story or multi-step module to have its solvency threatened because of it.


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## Rackhir (Jun 13, 2008)

pr1 said:
			
		

> Soyokaze said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Well I don't believe you should ever let a _*PLAYER*_ die and you might be liable for some sort of manslaughter charge if you did, irregardless of if they made a mistake.   

Legal advice aside, it's perfectly possible to run a terrific campaign where character death is essentially banned, you really only need to have consequences for failure. Often players would far prefer to have the characters die if it meant succeeding.

Besides once you get past low levels, it's a rare party/campaign where they can't get characters raised one way or another. So character death is really more of a penalty than a permanent condition.

Lastly, if you kill the characters then the suffering stops...


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## Afrodyte (Jun 14, 2008)

Rackhir said:
			
		

> Legal advice aside, it's perfectly possible to run a terrific campaign where character death is essentially banned, you really only need to have consequences for failure.
> 
> (snip)
> 
> ...if you kill the characters then the suffering stops...




Precisely.


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## Grazzt (Jun 14, 2008)

pr1 said:
			
		

> I totally disagree.  I think the far more common problem is characters don't die enough for stupid things that they do.
> 
> The scenario you talked about?  Well, not to get too personal, but it's tricky.  As you explained it, I would have let the two die.  Big whoop.  Sometimes you make mistakes, and there are consequences to others for your actions.  I might question why there was a guy who could so easily kill party members from bed if stealth wasn't used to sneak up on him, but there's a place for that sort of thing, too.
> 
> A big problem I see is that characters take so long to write and are so tediously fleshed out (or the attempt is made to do so, at least), that you really feel like you're doing something bad to the players in letting their characters get killed.  It's D&D.  Every game I ever had fun in, character death was a real threat, and there wasn't some high & mighty story or multi-step module to have its solvency threatened because of it.




Yep. I would've let them die as well....definitely the one bashing down the door for sure. No question about it.


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## Reynard (Jun 14, 2008)

Soyokaze said:
			
		

> *Most Common*:
> Don't let the player die if he didn't make a mistake. Noone likes to fail for no good reason.
> 
> In one situation, one stupid PC was bashing in doors in dungeon, ignoring stealth completely. He bursts into the obviously marked (the only fancy door with an obsidian skull decoration) bedroom of a sleeping (now woken) BBEG. The BBEG's first action is to fire a ray at the door, hitting both Smashy McAxeinhand and a PC who's been telling him how stupid he's being the whole time.
> ...




This is a big fat no-no in my book: do not fudge the dice.  The uncertainty of the dice is not only a huge part of the fun of the game -- otherwise we'd be playing Amber -- but by doing so you are arbitrarily rewarding and punishing players, doubly so if you only save the one who didn't screw it up.  Let the players enjoy the rewards and suffer the consequences of their choices, their actions and the dice..

Now, that said, one big mistake that I used to make is overusing the dice.  it is easy to call for a check, even an easy one, when a player asks to do something.  however, if it is an easy or natural thing for the PC to do, asking for a roll is just asking for complications if the dice turn up low.  "I want to find a seedy bar so we can stake out those warf burglars we heard about." "Make a Gather Info check." Crap, I got a 7."  "Um..."  Just tell the character he finds the place and get on with it.  Mostly because if you give it to him with the 7, players don't know what to expect as a "good roll" and when they roll a 7 for something else and don't succeed, they'll wonder what's going on and why you're being inconsistent.


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## Reynard (Jun 14, 2008)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Unless information is accessible to the players it is always useless to include it. Unless information is relevant to the players, it is usually useless to include it. Unless information is useful to the players, it is often useless to include it. The problem with a lot of these tidbits of information is that they look good _on paper_ when writing up the adventure scenario, but in actual play, they simply aren't useful in any meaningful way.




I disagree.  Those kinds of details provide the DM with context for his antoganists and the world in which the PCs live and allow the DM to run the world with a level of internal consistency that the players will appreciate, even if they don't realize it.  The one piece of advice in the 4E DMG that I really wish they hadn't put in there was telling DMs not to bother detailing backgrounds or setting details beyond a simple sketch -- it makes for very shallow worlds and very cardboard NPCs and villains.


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## Ruin Explorer (Jun 14, 2008)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Unless information is accessible to the players it is always useless to include it. Unless information is relevant to the players, it is usually useless to include it. Unless information is useful to the players, it is often useless to include it. The problem with a lot of these tidbits of information is that they look good _on paper_ when writing up the adventure scenario, but in actual play, they simply aren't useful in any meaningful way.




Whilst I agree completely, and your points are well-made (also the dead bandits with stats/personalities scenario seems awfully familiar), I do think in a PUBLISHED adventure there is something to be said for amusing/interesting the DM with this sort of info, sometimes. Especially if it's useless in a direct fashion but provokes ideas and unveils concepts to the DM. Thus an adventure can sometimes provide more than just the adventure, but ideas for entirely unrelated adventures inspired by the useless information.


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## Reynard (Jun 14, 2008)

Ruin Explorer said:
			
		

> Whilst I agree completely, and your points are well-made (also the dead bandits with stats/personalities scenario seems awfully familiar), I do think in a PUBLISHED adventure there is something to be said for amusing/interesting the DM with this sort of info, sometimes. Especially if it's useless in a direct fashion but provokes ideas and unveils concepts to the DM. Thus an adventure can sometimes provide more than just the adventure, but ideas for entirely unrelated adventures inspired by the useless information.




If it is true for published scenarios, it is true for homemade adventures.  The only difference is a simple logistical one: if the DM is heavily pressed for time, then it is probably not the most efficient use of that time.  However, if the DM has the time, it can only enhance the game.


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## pawsplay (Jun 14, 2008)

Grazzt said:
			
		

> Yep. I would've let them die as well....definitely the one bashing down the door for sure. No question about it.




Getting other PCs killed is an important consequence. I would have let them die.


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## IanB (Jun 14, 2008)

Answer only valid for me, but the thing I find I hate the most as a player these days is a lack of direction. I used to be able to play open ended, do what you want type games, but I find that as I get older and my gaming time is more and more constricted, I don't want to waste 2 hours of a 4 hour session trying to figure out something useful to do.

Railroad me, please!


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## Vegepygmy (Jun 14, 2008)

Reynard said:
			
		

> Now, that said, one big mistake that I used to make is overusing the dice.  it is easy to call for a check, even an easy one, when a player asks to do something.  however, if it is an easy or natural thing for the PC to do, asking for a roll is just asking for complications if the dice turn up low.  "I want to find a seedy bar so we can stake out those warf burglars we heard about." "Make a Gather Info check." Crap, I got a 7."  "Um..."  Just tell the character he finds the place and get on with it.  Mostly because if you give it to him with the 7, players don't know what to expect as a "good roll" and when they roll a 7 for something else and don't succeed, they'll wonder what's going on and why you're being inconsistent.



This is a good one.  3.5 attempted to solve the problem (at least partially) with the "Take 10" rule, but in my experience, few players take advantage of it; instead, they roll, foul it up, and leave the DM with this conundrum.

As DM, I usually just treat such skill checks as automatic Take 10's, without even telling the player that's what I'm doing.


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## GSHamster (Jun 15, 2008)

1. Don't be afraid to be heroic. A character doesn't have to be high-level to do important things.  It's perfectly okay to rescue Princes/Princesses at level 1.

2. Cliches are cliches for a reason.  People respond strongly to archetypes, so use them!  Every once in a while, throw the PCs a twist, but if you never play it straight, the twists lose their power.


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## Afrodyte (Jun 15, 2008)

Vegepygmy said:
			
		

> This is a good one.  3.5 attempted to solve the problem (at least partially) with the "Take 10" rule, but in my experience, few players take advantage of it; instead, they roll, foul it up, and leave the DM with this conundrum.
> 
> As DM, I usually just treat such skill checks as automatic Take 10's, without even telling the player that's what I'm doing.




I wish more GMs would do that. I can count the number of times I've been allowed to take 10 on my hand. For whatever reason, whenever I ask about something my character would pick up on or gain through general awareness, I have to make a roll as if I'm actively searching. *shrug* 

Perhaps it would be a good idea to give DMs a guideline about that.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 15, 2008)

I thought the Take 10 thing was allowable any time when it wasn't a stressful sitaution. HAve I been misinformed?

If a player did insist on rolling in a non-stress situation and missed I'd let the player role again. It just takes longer. So in the example above about finding a bar to base the stake out in they might miss some interesting tidbit. (As they reach the bar they see a carriage leaving the area but can't make out the crest on the carriage's door as it's too far away.)


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## Afrodyte (Jun 15, 2008)

DrunkonDuty said:
			
		

> I thought the Take 10 thing was allowable any time when it wasn't a stressful sitaution. HAve I been misinformed?




I don't think so. I guess it's something about human nature. We often act like we want to make things more difficult for ourselves.


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