Top Signs that you need to rethink your GMing.

[Weldun]

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

 

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

[Remjin]

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

 

... your players are lost, confused, and getting angry and you have no idea why.

 

... you are lost, confused, and angry and have no idea why.

 

... no one understands the plot, least of all the GM.

 

... character development sounds like a dirty word.

 

... the words "tactical nuclear device" doesn't even get a rise out of anyone.

 

... when old soviet Gulag music is chosen as your campaign's theme music.

[David Blue]

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.

When, with scenarios / sessions that consistently finish around 10pm if the rules lawyers don't show up,

 

you consistently have 11pm or later finishes when the rules lawyers can make it to the session,

 

and then the non-rules lawyers, as if on signal, find familiar places to crash on couches, chairs and on the floor,

 

as the bitching goes to 12 midnight, 1am and even 1:30 or 2am, and you're still not ready to make the call and distribute experience points. (With those not present or who have departed of course missing out, or having post-game rulings and time-line revisions go against them.)

 

Because the non-rules lawyers, as they remind you individually from time to time, looking right in your eyes, have to work the next day.

 

-

 

The willingness or unwillingness of the gamemaster to say, "no, that's it, events will not be changed and I don't want to hear about any more one last things, here's your experience points, get out" can have a disproportionate effect on the enjoyment that some of your players (the non-rules-lawyers, those who work for a living, and those who have a long drive home) get from the game.

[nexus]

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:

 

And it was better than anything you'd come up with sober.

[nexus]

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

 

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

 

Gamers always need to vent about gaming. It's a very large percentage of Rpg.net's content.

[The Main Man]

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

 

Every game you play is a revenge ploy at your ex-girlfriend, whose character is so overpowered now from all of the lovey-dovey sucking up that you did that it's impossible to do.

[Remjin]

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

 

Every game you play is a revenge ploy at your ex-girlfriend' date=' whose character is so overpowered now from all of the lovey-dovey sucking up that you did that it's impossible to do.[/quote']

 

I sure wish I could have a girlfriend, but as a gamer, its just so hard to find a lady that understands me. Well, that, and the fact that my wife would really really hurt me.

[Cygnia]

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

 

Despite the appropriate equipment and/or abilities of the party, somehow the PCs are not allowed to just simply blow up the death-filled maze to get from Point A to Point B...and yet the "evil" NPC squad following said PCs ARE.

 

Yeah, I'm still not happy about that one...

[Battlestaff]

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

 

In an AD&D game (all the same GM)

 

When your GM tells you that your PC's hid in a cave for a whole year while a world-spanning war was going on, instead of participating in the war.

 

When your GM tells you that certain classes aren't allowed in the game since he isn't going to use them, whereupon you promptly run into three of those clasess in the first two game sessions.

 

When your GM tells you that you can't play a character unless he watches all rolls, etcs., and that he isn't going to stop the middle of a game if you are killed to watch you roll dice (okay so far). Then he tells you that he isn't going to watch you make the character during the week, but only on game days (before play starts), and that he has to have a week to review the character. In effect, if you died, the next week you rolled up a replacement character, and the week after that you could play again. (We did eventually force him to let us have backup characters pre-created so that if we died, we would at least be able to play again the next week, since if we did die, we were done for that week).

 

When your GM lets your players pick ANY alignment they felt like. Without explaining why PC's with such divergent alignments would work together, much less have hid from a war in a cave together for a whole year to escape the war.

 

When, after two game sessions, the most valuable items your party has found is a herd of ten cattle. Which you can acquire after killing the unarmed farmer and helpers who were driving the cattle to market.

 

When the GM joins in with another player making fun of your player, because while you were the only person who took the "swimming" skill, and thus the only person who could swim the river and kill the unarmed cattle owner and helper, you didn't have a "herdsman" skill (which the teasing player didn't have either).

[Remjin]

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

 

...mmmm... bitterlicious! =) Having had some pretty bad GMs, I can relate... and no, I won't tell the stories, I still want to punch people when I think about it... or cry uncontrollably in the shower in the case of a couple instances.

[Fireleaper]

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

 

When the GM makes illogical or inconsistent house rulings and calls them "common sense".

 

When the GM then changes said rulings "because it interupts the story".

 

When the Rules lawer points to Specific Rules in the book and the gm overrules him.

 

When someone is called a rules lawer because they just happen to remember where in the book to find the rule. (glossary/contense pages are useful)

 

when GM points to examples of said rules and says that the examples are the rules.

 

When the GM has not read the core books

 

When the NPC's can do epic world changing effects that ignore the rules of magic because it is dramatic or aids the story. (I don't mind the world changing effects so much just the fact that to do it they had to break how magic works and then PC's can't utilise the same breaks which exist for NPC's only)

 

When the combats are more of a chore than a challenge.

 

It takes a really long time before the GM and other players realise that your character is only a half brick.

[L. Marcus]

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

 

...mmmm... bitterlicious! =) Having had some pretty bad GMs' date=' I can relate... and no, I won't tell the stories, I still want to punch people when I think about it... or cry uncontrollably in the shower in the case of a couple instances.[/quote']. . . I know all there is to know of the Crying Game . . .

[Remjin]

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

 

. . . I know all there is to know of the Crying Game . . .

 

Well, I'm happy to note that I DO NOT have any experiences in THAT regard. Well, except for this one Man Show episode...

 

But to be back on topic, and give a sneak peek of the horrors previous...

 

You need to rethink your GMing if play is interrupted for your "porn breaks."

[Battlestaff]

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

 

But to be back on topic, and give a sneak peek of the horrors previous...

 

You need to rethink your GMing if play is interrupted for your "porn breaks."

 

Ladies and gentlemen, with that line, I think we have a winner for worst GM.

[incrdbil]

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

 

 

You need to rethink your GMing if play is interrupted for your "porn breaks."

 

What if your players are asking to stop for porn breaks?

 

Or perhaps you don't stop for breaks, and just put your porn in your game.

[Weldun]

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

 

It takes a really long time before the GM and other players realise that your character is only a half brick.

Considering that during an "emergency call", it took the better part of 48 hours for the team to assemble, I think that you should be glad that we realized at all.

[Remjin]

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

 

What if your players are asking to stop for porn breaks?

 

Or perhaps you don't stop for breaks, and just put your porn in your game.

 

If that's the case, then its a group preference, and hardly a problem. This was the case of a guy leaving the room, watching porn, and then being "affectionate" in a personal space violation type of way... and I think that's saying too much about it altogether. Time for another shower.

[David Blue]

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

 

This was the case of a guy leaving the room' date=' watching porn, and then being "affectionate" in a personal space violation type of way... and I think that's saying too much about it altogether. Time for another shower.[/quote']

OK, we have a "winner".

[Cygnia]

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

 

What is the sound of one hand fapping?

[Dreadnought]

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

 

I have a friend who once gamed with a GM who would watch porn on his laptop. During play. The truly worrying part of the story is that his GMing actually got better once he started watching porn during sessions.

[Remjin]

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

 

What is the sound of one hand fapping?

 

I hope you meant "clapping." For some reason, "fapping" worries me. A classical answer would be "a butterfly." Then again, I knew a guy who could clap with one hand.

 

I have a friend who once gamed with a GM who would watch porn on his laptop. During play. The truly worrying part of the story is that his GMing actually got better once he started watching porn during sessions.

 

Inspiration or excitement maybe?

 

OK' date=' we have a "winner". [/quote']

 

Umm... yay?

[zaras]

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

 

I hope you meant "clapping." For some reason, "fapping" worries me. A classical answer would be "a butterfly." Then again, I knew a guy who could clap with one hand.

 

Inspiration or excitement maybe?

 

Umm... yay?

 

This is starting to look disturbingly like a certain famous rpg.net thread about creepy gamers.

[Comic]

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

 

That's not Mountain Dew!

[input.jack]

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

 

In an AD&D game (all the same GM)

 

When your GM tells you that your PC's hid in a cave for a whole year while a world-spanning war was going on, instead of participating in the war.

 

When your GM tells you that certain classes aren't allowed in the game since he isn't going to use them, whereupon you promptly run into three of those clasess in the first two game sessions.

 

When your GM tells you that you can't play a character unless he watches all rolls, etcs., and that he isn't going to stop the middle of a game if you are killed to watch you roll dice (okay so far). Then he tells you that he isn't going to watch you make the character during the week, but only on game days (before play starts), and that he has to have a week to review the character. In effect, if you died, the next week you rolled up a replacement character, and the week after that you could play again. (We did eventually force him to let us have backup characters pre-created so that if we died, we would at least be able to play again the next week, since if we did die, we were done for that week).

 

When your GM lets your players pick ANY alignment they felt like. Without explaining why PC's with such divergent alignments would work together, much less have hid from a war in a cave together for a whole year to escape the war.

 

When, after two game sessions, the most valuable items your party has found is a herd of ten cattle. Which you can acquire after killing the unarmed farmer and helpers who were driving the cattle to market.

 

When the GM joins in with another player making fun of your player, because while you were the only person who took the "swimming" skill, and thus the only person who could swim the river and kill the unarmed cattle owner and helper, you didn't have a "herdsman" skill (which the teasing player didn't have either).

 

Dude, get away from that GM.

 

Punch him in the nose on the way out, if you can.

[Drhoz]

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

 

... the words "tactical nuclear device" doesn't even get a rise out of anyone.

 

Why should it?

 

Vitus

: "What's a tacky Kalnoo Clear Device?

 

*

rhubarbrhubarbrhubarb

*

 

Oh *

distant expression and slow grin

* Where can I get one, and are they easy to carry?"