Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

[Cancer]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

... Your players don't show up for a session, you run anyway, things go a lot more smoothly, and the session after that nobody notices a discontinuity in game-world time or mentions some other unexplained game-world references.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

You need to rethink your GMing if...

 

...your players nickname you The Conductor or Amtrak.

 

...you forget whether it's the players or the player characters that are supposed to die.

 

...when you meet a player's SO or spouse, and (s)he says, "I always pictured you with a pitchfork and horns."

 

...you make your players roll for mundane activities, like brushing their teeth.

 

...you insist on even including "brushing teeth" in game play.

 

...you think the Hero System is worthless because "it's too hard to kill player characters." (I was actually told this by a game store employee/GM.)

 

...every female character in your game is guaranteed to get captured, sexually assaulted, and impregnated by a bad guy within two months of game play. (Same game store employee/GM was guilty of doing this in his games.)

[incrdbil]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

1st Place: You nail the table to the floor so you dont have to pick up stuff when players flip it over and leave the game not to return.

 

2nd place finisher: You just keep stealing WWYCD threads for this weeks plot.

[Darkfire]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

The GM don't bother reading the adventure he has decided to run until the session actually starts.

 

the GM's most often heard phrase "oh, Wait we need to go back."

 

THe Players try to get the GM drunk to in the hopes it might improve his performance cause it certianly couldn't get any worse.

[gojira]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

2nd place finisher: You just keep stealing WWYCD threads for this weeks plot.

 

Hey! I need to get my ideas from some where!

[Pariah]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

Every time you award XP' date=' at least half the players look towards raising their defences, DCs or both.[/quote']

 

Wait' date=' you mean they can spend on them other things?[/quote']

 

Your players don't seem to realize that it's okay to spend XP on things not directly related to combat....

[incrdbil]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

Your players try to spend XP, but you won't let them because there isn't enough time between combats. Ever.

[Darkfire]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

Sadly I was in a fantasy Campaign were for eight secessions we attempted to get through one game day. It was henceforth know as the day of Endless ambushes.

["V"]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

...if the most mild mannered, calm and polite person you have ever met suddenly stands up in the middle of a gaming session, hurls his dice to the table and accuses the GM at high volume of being the worst GM in the world.

 

It happened. Thankfully not to me though I was present at the time. He was right too. The GM was running one of those dreadful AD&D Forgotten Realms modules where the players were basically there to follow the characters from the books around and applaud.

 

We'd just arrived in a city in search of some useless magical crap and had deduced from a series of doggerel clues that the UMC item was hidden in a particular old tower. So we announced our intention to go search there. One of the Novel-NPCs said we shouldn't. The others all agreed. It was a bit odd. So we went somewhere else instead.

 

That night the same NPC suddenly had a brilliant insight, got us up in the middle of the night AND TOOK US TO THAT TOWER where we managed to find the UMC.

 

I mean, come on! The module was crap but how hard would it have been for him to improvise the NPC saying "Yes let's go now" when we suggested it and then running the exact same encounters?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

We'd just arrived in a city in search of some useless magical crap and had deduced from a series of doggerel clues that the UMC item was hidden in a particular old tower. So we announced our intention to go search there. One of the Novel-NPCs said we shouldn't. The others all agreed. It was a bit odd. So we went somewhere else instead.

 

That night the same NPC suddenly had a brilliant insight, got us up in the middle of the night AND TOOK US TO THAT TOWER where we managed to find the UMC.

 

I mean, come on! The module was crap but how hard would it have been for him to improvise the NPC saying "Yes let's go now" when we suggested it and then running the exact same encounters?

 

But then your character would have made a decision that at least seemingly impacted the story. We can't have that!

[GoldenAge]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

...When you wake up the next day with a horrendous headache and have to call your players to find out how YOUR OWN GAME ended last night.

:drink:

[gojira]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

...When you wake up the next day with a horrendous headache and have to call your players to find out how YOUR OWN GAME ended last night.

:drink:

 

Oh no. That's a good GM.

[Comic]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

At least you have to call them, as opposed to reaching over and waking them up.

[NestorDRod]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

You need to rethink your GMing if...

 

...you think the Hero System is worthless because "it's too hard to kill player characters." (I was actually told this by a game store employee/GM.)

 

...every female character in your game is guaranteed to get captured, sexually assaulted, and impregnated by a bad guy within two months of game play. (Same game store employee/GM was guilty of doing this in his games.)

 

Hmm, I wonder if that was the guy running the PBeM game I was in once. When he started going into loving detail exactly how the villains were raping, torturing, dismembering, etc. a pair of NPC female heroes, I decided to quietly back out of the game.

[Remjin]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

Oh no. That's a good GM.

 

No, that's a confusing GM. Nothing like asking a question and then noticing the pile of empties behind the chair, and being AMAZED at what you see.

[wcw43921]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

I think Aaron Williams has a few things to say about this topic--

 

http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2003-10-29

 

http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2005-01-12

 

Here's what could be a Champions game gone completely wrong--

 

http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2007-08-01

 

But all that said--

 

...When you wake up the next day with a horrendous headache and have to call your players to find out how YOUR OWN GAME ended last night.

:drink:

 

GoldenAge For The Win.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

At least you have to call them' date=' as opposed to reaching over and waking them up.[/quote']

[AdamLeisemann]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

You need to rethink your GMing if...

 

.........................................................................................................................

 

...you make your players roll for mundane activities, like brushing their teeth.

 

...you insist on even including "brushing teeth" in game play.

 

...you think the Hero System is worthless because "it's too hard to kill player characters." (I was actually told this by a game store employee/GM.)

 

...every female character in your game is guaranteed to get captured, sexually assaulted, and impregnated by a bad guy within two months of game play. (Same game store employee/GM was guilty of doing this in his games.)

 

Sounds like this could be a Fatalite you're talking about.

[Cold Steel]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

The second you start reading this thread.

[The Main Man]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

 

When two of your PC's are sock puppets.

 

You get into a car crash, knocking over your screen, making a player critically fumble, and the carefully constructed battle scene becomes a shambles.

 

You are playing CoH in the middle of the game.

 

You begin every session with walking across hot coals.

 

Every session, you vehemently let your players know that you never really wanted to be a GM; you always wanted to be... a lumberjack!

[Vorsch]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

when your unkillable (munchkin character) is killed. by a random guard

 

when for every 3hours of game play you invest 6 hours of bitching about the game.

 

where all uber villains and "teammate" npcs are just the gms wishfulfilment characters.

(try getting rid of a Worf with combat precognition and 2 really powerful guns)

 

When none of your PHd players can find/understand your simple "clues". cos there stupid

[incrdbil]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

when for every 3hours of game play you invest 6 hours of bitching about the game.

 

Thats a crossover from "You know you are a D20 or Games Workshop player when"....

[Darkfire]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

the Players ask to join VIPER so they can be on the winning side for once.

 

your players prefer reading 6-7th century German legal texts to your scenarios.

 

a player can take a four hour nap and miss nothing important.

[Weldun]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

:nonp:Wow. It looks like people really needed to vent a little.

[Rune]

Re: Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

 

When the players' whining stops being music to your ears.