I disagree with the options of the second one. I had a game and I specified some rules, the general 'unwritten rules' mostly. 'Roll dice where I can see them and ask before rolling' I had a guy come to my table with prerolled stats. 18, 18, 18, 17, 17, 16 Then all the players told me no he didn't have to reroll, even though he broke my rules and such. He even said "I won't redo them no matter how much you make me" So, I let them do that single thing. Because I'm smart, I ran a session 0 for them, to test the players as I'd already had comments from them about how they would 'put me in my place' if I did something they deemed slightly against them. One player rolled a 1, the same player who prerolled then assumed what I was going to say and started taking over, saying what I was just about to say. I went silent, forcing them to get slightly perturbed, I then just said 'This won't work, I'm done. You aren't the sort of players I'll work with' and walked out, not even 30 minutes into session 0. The third option for a GM, is to walk out, we don't have to put up with harassment.
I hate version fives. Here is one of my favorite memories of dealing with a Version Five. I shall merely refer to them as Player A,B,C, and D. Player A: I look for a barrel. *NAT 20* Me: There isn't a barrel. Player A: But I got a Nat 20. Me: Yes, and you are 100% certain that there is not a barrel in sight. Player A: But... Nat 20. Me: ...*Sigh* I know. If there was a barrel, no matter how hard it was hidden you would have found it. But! There isn't a barrel here! Player A: But-- Player B: I cast sleep on (player A) and leave him behind. Player A: You motherfucker-- Player C: I loot the unconscious (player A). Me: Ok you fiddle through his pockets and-- Player D: I pullout my crowbar and smack (Player C) on the back of the head. Me: Hold on (player C). Ok, (player D) roll your attack roll. Player D: *critical hit, max damage and knocks (Player C) unconscious.* I pick up (Player C) and (Player A). Then, I pause and growl at the passerby's before following (Player B) to meet the emperor. And that Is how two of four adventurers came to their private victory meeting with the emperor unconscious, and to this day I don't know why he was looking for a barrel. He wouldn't tell me after the ordeal.
On a side note, I can be a terrible rules lawyer and used to be the guy bringing up rules at the table all the time. Now I've reigned it in and act more like a living reference. If the question of a rule comes up and/or the GM asks me a rule, then I bring it up. Or if I'm teaching/reminding a fellow player the game mechanics.
I realized after watching your videos how toxic my old RPing group was. It came to a point I actually just stopped playing altogether because I felt drained and unhappy after each session. then I met a different group and my love of rping has been revived and I even started DMing after being a PC for 15 years! your videos have been amazing help :) thank you for all your hard work.
I've been there, and I was one of the 3 or 4 problem players, at the time. I was miserable and selfish, which was exacerbated by another player being the guy who would pick on a player for the entire session for fun, and I was his target for months, at least. Plus the guy with no volume control on his voice and little to no social graces. I miss the times when there were other players, who weren't jerks.
Try having to deal with Herman's example, but this guy was made GM and did vindictive things that could get them banned from most public PnPs if they ever tried their behavior there.
Derpsider Or a undead hybrid Turasque, Dragon and Beholder with Rage and 24 legendary actions per round. Yes my GM kinda of threatened us with that not out of malignance but as a plot driver. A necromancer's lair was filled with notes about aberrations and trying to make that chimera so we used our Fire Elemental Bloodline Gnome Sorcerer as a tactical nuke. And I the thrower of said Orc to Lair Balistic Gnome was too close to ground zero and permanently burnt off all hair on my orc character.
It's an extremely fine line, though. I heard the very same statement out of the worst GM bully I've ever had, just before he turned my Cold-War Era Super Hero romp I'd put together into a rise of Doctor Evil (the BBEG of the Austin Powers films) and the Underpants Gnomes (South Park reference alluding to an ill-conceived plan concocted by a bunch of garden gnomes, to steal underpants, in order to take over the world) campaign where dice rolls were completely arbitrary and every major american conspiracy theory from the last 80 years was an empirical fact, that he could use to his advantage.
Player: "GM! Can I do this? Can I roll for that? Or this?" These are my least favourite players. They just want to roll for everything. I had one who spent 5 minutes doing an extended action, rolling to lockpick a door. After which I calmly told him that if he had tried the handle, the door was open the whole time. They play the game as a roll-playing game, not a role-playing game.
Jordan Gilbert Oh my fucking god. this speaks to me on a spiritual level.. People who roll for everything are the thorn in my side. I usually know how to handle most annoying player habits.. except that one.
Why don't you just let them roll, if they fail then you just say "you notice the door was already open" and if they succeed then you tell them "nothing happens because the door was already open"
I like this video. Nice work 8) I would add that any discussion about bullying requires the following caveat: Everyone has moments where they exhibit some of these behaviours at one time or another. Bullying is a consistent behaviour over a length of time: let people have the off 'bad-day' without labelling them but if it becomes a pattern, tell them as Guy mentioned. Game on peeps!
My advice for dealing with Bullying Players: 1) Introduce them to 1st Ed AD&D 2) Let them run amok with character creation any class, race, level, magical items the works 3) 3 words: Tomb of Horrors They'll learn the lesson :D
i'm afraid to ask what exist in the tomb of horrors (or what is it ? i have been introduced to d&d from 3.5 and still continue on that edition from lack of others)
Tomb of Horrors is an adventure written by the late E Gary Gygax (who along with Dave Arneson basicly invented RPGs in general and D&D in particular). He created it in response to players endlessly bragging about how awesome their characters were and how many great magic items they had. It chews PCs up and spits them out. The dungeon was built by a Demi Lich (a sevrant of Vecna in fact) to collect magic items from high level adventures. It has multiple death traps through out some of which can kill an entire party off in one go. It's been redone in every edition since 1st but from waht I've seen 1st was the most brutal other then a couple direct conversions. Its bad enough you can know the entire adventure and still die horribly.
I had a player when I first started dming (literally the second session I ever ran) that had been playing since first edition dnd. He believed he knew everything about everything. He'd metagame like terrible, rules lawyer like whoa, and argue everything. Had a few times where he literally made me stop the game and explain how a magical item the enemy used works. Keep in mind this guy is a rogue who had 0 in spell craft and was level 1 he had no knowledge of magic or magical items. Eventually ended with me literally throwing the core rulebook at him and ending the group for a month. Came back without him and everything ran far smoother. Same player actually played 3.5 with me. It was him, and 3 new players to 3.5 entirely. He basically told everyone how to build their characters. So much so that our barbarian had 0 idea how the game mechanics worked he just knew that his sheet was updated and went off that. As for the type 3 player: I had a guy that was a very good friend. He loved combat but he HATED being taken by surprise. So when they were in a giant underground system of tunnels these bat like creatures kept attacking them from above. So the barbarian said he was going to start walking (at full speed mind you) while constantly looking in every direction. He then kicked open a door, walked in and when the creature that was above the door dropped down on him he flipped out. All the other players explain to him that his character should have a broken neck right now from the flailing his head around. I've had another player that was a rules lawyer but he was really good about only bringing that stuff up to me in emails after the game he very rarely interrupted the game. My biggest lesson as a DM when I started out was to learn to take control of my table. Early on I wanted to be a nice DM, I wanted people to be happy. But I had to learn to take control. Ultimately, bad players or bad DM's can ruin a game very quickly.
i'd say nice and taking control aren't exclusive i pretty much use a "reminder to decency" to my group, otherwise i rarely need to step in (authoritive figure-style) ---(bit of a ramble...) your disruptive player sounds pretty much like having a very, very different expectation of the game and trying to "correct you" or even check/control that you do your job right. Distrust / Insecurity are the key reasons here - just implying/saying "you're bad at this" is what made you so upset in the past, as it easily denies any chance to learn from these (supposed) mistakes. I want to expand on what was said in the video: it's about (self-)reflection! And Reflection can just as well be done in a group, as an individual - most of the time the knowledge gained is even greater. So your Ambush-hating Player - needs not only to hear "you bad/mad at ambush!" (he expects this from himself), but what he can do, (meta)gamewise: Discussing with other players how they/their characters see the situation / roleplaying his disdain for this tactic (to reduce his players actual tension*) / bring in why even a barbarian would benefit from ambushing or why this enemy type fights this way / or "role reverse" the situation (good opportunities for him to ambush) / real talk with the player, why he is so afraid of being "motion- / 'help'-less" for a suprise round or "why" he hates it soooo much. *which is what an ambush is about - never sure when the enemy strikes, but it will be a vulnerable moment. It's more a tool for storytelling, as in that one suprise round, usually nothing is really decided.
Good points. What I mean by being the "nice dm" is I didn't like telling people no and it let me get walked all over by the players. I think I've learned to maintain a good balance now. And yes you're ramble is very true. It was my second session i'd ever run and so the rules were still kind of new to me. That and, to be totally honest, that player is a jerk that I later gamed with in several different settings and he either left (after arguing with the dm) or was asked to leave because he pulled the same stuff. He insisted that he was the greatest dm ever and he knew all. I don't think it was an expectation of a different game or anything, just him trying to show off how much he knew and trying to control the table. As for the Barbarian. You're right expectation is a big deal. To him a fight should be "you walk to the edge of the tree line and see 6 kobolds sitting around a fire completely unaware of your presence". Anything else was bs. Now to his credit he has gotten MUCH better about stuff and grown as a player. For the last year or so that I DM'd I can think of only 1 instance that I had an issue with my table and that resolved itself quickly with in game roleplay.
Love GM sharing their stories ! Always inspiring. Finding the good balance between "yes man" and "Tyrant" is sometimes hard but i'dd say it's also a personal thing to find. One thing i wanted to add it that issue with Justin's first example. I call it "Ghost players", and they are really common in D&D3.5 and pathfinder especially. That player just not having enough of his own character invites a friend that knows nothing about roleplay or the system, makes his character and just tells him what to do all the time. It usually ends up with that player taking control of your game and i hate it. Even worse, the "Ghost" is not really engaged but because he is a friend and can't handle the complicated character his friend made, he just says nothing and doesn't even complain until he stops coming to the sessions. It's so hard to prepare good narrative with this type of situation, and hard to stop it once you agreed to let in the "Ghost". What do you think? That player hating being ambushed is really fun btw ^^
I have had a few of your "ghost players". Usually unfortunately happens when a guy gets his wife who has no experience in the hobby to try and play, or if someone is trying to get their kid to play. I had a guy that wanted to teach his 10 year old son so he joined my table. Good kid, but would spend 90% of the game asking when the next fight was and otherwise was not interested. They basically become a bot. Luckily they don't usually stick around very long. I had one couple that ended up in that situation. The wife loved to play though, she just got distracted by my kids and would run off to play with the baby and her husband would play both characters.
After witnessing a ton of bullying around 6 years ago from pretty close to the entire table, I did away with them and took up the DM position. It's hard work and there's always more to improve upon, but I've gotten to the point where I love DMing far, far more than being a player.
I like this topic-many GM guides and RP guides tend to emphasize how the GM might be dicks to players or players to other players. We usually don't talk about players being dicks to GMs.
i had someone always demanding me for magical items and better equipment so i gave him jus what he wanted. An enchanted sword. Its imbued with fire. The catch is the killing blow on any creature will lash that damage back to its wilder and cannot be unequiped once equipped. He died the first time using the sword.
i feel I'm very bad for some of this, and I've recently apologised to my DM for it :/ concious of the fact that i tried too hard and too long to get my point about a rules question across, and feel i was making him and other players uncomfortable... apologised to him after by message and told him I'd tone it down!
The only time I say oh that’s fine is if I rolled like a natural 19 and with my bonuses it’s like a 32 or if I rolled higher than someone else who I just saw pass their check
I've been a GM for a solid amount of time but always seemed to be blessed with good players until recently. I had just started up 5e and everything had been going smoothly until adding in an extra player who is also a GM. He has turned out to be a bit of a bully. So usually when I have doubt or are looking for ways to deal with issues that arise, I come to your channel because of your awesome advice in a myriad of situations. I have yet to be disappointed with any of your videos. Thank you for all of the help! These videos get me through tough decisions!!!
I had one of each kind of "GM Bully" at the start, but a year on and we've ironed out all the kinks, and are enjoying a better game for it. Some of my players DM their own games too, which lets them have a different style of game as well, which is awesome. Talking is way better than keeping frustrations cooped up.
I had a player be a loner character in a two person RP the other day, just me and him. He kept turning down all 5 or 6 of my NPCs plot hooks when a real person would have quit at one or two. I had to genuinely ask him what is he interested in twice and the reply he gave was barely enthusiastic. It took over an hour to get the plot started. And when it did get going, he ended up blocking me and then both he and I posted about it. Everyone was on his side and saw me as the bully. Well, excuse me for not knowing what you wanted to do when you were only giving one word replies and being all standoffish in the corner /by yourself/. He even apologized for not being as descriptive as I was during the RP. Ugh! I can't stand ninjas...
It sounds like no one had fun. One on Ones can be difficult and can most certainly require a different approach from both players (player and GM). Thanks for sharing this as a warning tale!
How to be a Great Game Master Yeah. I blame anime. It was a high school club RP in the same vein as Haruhi or Sket Dance where you help out random people. He came to me when my post wasn't specifically looking for an RP, with no ideas of his own and expected me to do all the work. He didn't even answer my original post. The plot hooks/problems were: Shoot a documentary for a frenshman girl's Biology project whose partner had flaked on her = Opportunity for him to bust out his best Steve Irwin impression or National Geographic/David Attenborough narration. Reward was NPC teaching player how to design a flag = which would have led to being a part of an Ouendan squad, these badass Japanese male cheerleaders who look like Jotaro from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The other reward was a date with her hot friend which would have lead to three or four more different plot points. She's someone's little sister, right? Could be the school bully or a Yakuza gang member with henchmen. Who knows? That would have led to a race to the death from my favorite Steve McQueen movie. When I asked him what he wanted to do he said, "idk". When the girl came in looking for help, "Why?" I tried to get more out of my NPC to sweeten the deal when in reality I was throwing out more plot hooks. When he heard them, it was either "No" or "everyone else is excited, he isn't". Repeat for an hour. When my NPC asked him what he was interested in, "Im interested in what no one is".(sic) I had to stop and give him the talk about loner characters and then later he posted that screencap out of context to turn me into a villain. "No, really. What are you interested in?" She seems genuinely interested in what you have to say. "Cars" "All right. My older brother owns a junkyard. Any part there. Yours." Would have based this sweet moment on the Iron Giant. His response was "he gets a little excited." When we got there, before I could really say anything, he started collecting frogs. Then blocked me afterwards, saying that it was weird and he didn't like it. Well sorry for you taking it on like a crappy Final Fantasy 15 sidequest. The other characters I was controlling were based off of Han and Leia. I've been GMing for 10-15 other girls one on one for the past four months and they all said I was amazing. I just simply asked them, "What do you wanna do?" and "What are you interested in?" Then tailor the entire game towards them. I thought it would be hard but your advice and TtheWriter's made it super easy. Star Wars, Jojo, Iron Giant, Bullit and then maybe turn it into a Yakuza story. Would have been awesome but he decided to not be and then blame me for not finding his own fun. You are right about loner characters. You were right all along.
I personaly prefer idealy at least two players because if I am GM, I can just throw some bone to them over which they can roleplay for a bit between themselve while I take short break to prepare for their next most probable actions. With one on one there is no plotting between players or thinking up some smart multipronged plans unless GM is running some helpfull NPCs that stick to player.
" for 10-15 other girls one on one for the past four months and they all said I was amazing." -taken out of context to turn you into a fuckboi/girl. I agree on loner characters though.
This is very accurate to my table. Even though I’ve never been a gm, I’ve seen this so much and I was never sure what to do. Im so happy that I know what to do now. Thank you so much, -Kat
My advice to you is the famous quote: "Just Do It!" For me the best way to get confident in GMing is just playing the game. Originally I was the GM because I was one with the books and the interest to play roleplaying games in my circles, and only way to play a game was to run one. My first games were in retrospect quite cliche and lackluster, but both you and your players are going to get better and more confident over time. Your first game doesn't have to be an epic campaign. Just run a one-shot. Additionally: there is nothing wrong with familiar tropes, they are tropes because they work. TL;DR: Just do it!
Basically I'm in the same boat from a starting perspective. I'm the one with the books and the most interest. And while I agreee on the "Just Do It!" part, to some degree. I'd rather first be somewhat prepared and then "just do it" ;-) I guess I just want to avoid being the first game such a catastrophe, that it will be literally the only one, because everyone afterwards is like "mehhh, yeah, not doing that again..."
Go for it. I've been DMing for about 27 years now and I absolutely love it. How to be a Great GM has some fantastic adivce (makes me wish the internet was a thing back in the 80s to get me started on a better foot) so you've got a good basis to start with. You'll make mistakes (I've been at this 27 years and I still screw up) thats ok just focus on making sure everyone i shaving fun (yourself included because if you don't it'll show) and you'll be fine.
Drehmoment FPV you seriously need to try dming. it is easier than you think and insufferably difficult at the same time. i bet you would be great at it. i found that dming helped make me a better player. give it a go. its one of the most rewarding experiences in gaming.
I was part of a DnD group that my friend had organised. We were a lot of players and we had to be split into groups of 4-5 with a GM each. I'd never played before in my life, and was hoping to be in my friend's group so he could show me the ropes. However, because I was his friend I was given the role of GM in another group. I had no idea what to do, and ended up making a total fool outta myself in front of a group of people I didn't know, and who were being pretty awful and as unhelpful as possible. I don't know if that counts as bullying the GM, or just a case of the GM sucking and pulling the team down, maybe it was both? I was so ashamed I haven't played since, but I want to come back. I think your videos are giving me a confidence boost, and are teaching me how to play. Thank you!
I'm sorry you had that unpleasant experience. Taking the GM seat on your first time playing is an uncommonly brave thing to do, and it sounds like the people you were playing with failed to appropriately recognize and respect you for it. I encourage you not to allow those feelings of shame and frustration stop you from giving D&D another try. If and when you find a group of people who make you feel welcome and appreciated - because that's what supposed to happen when new players come around - then I am confident that your second experience with D&D will be the experience you deserve. Have fun, and roll high! :D
I think the main issue was really poor planning. I can't remember how many we were, but it was a lot with most of us being between 16-19, hens the awkwardness I suppose. I am planning on coming back, but this time on my own terms. I knew the whole thing was off when someone I only sort of knew told me to GM, yeesh! Thank you so much for your kind world! Roll high!! :D
My group had started out pretty rough but as time went on and i mastered the GM craft they all changed for the better and gave me more respect after i told them each to DM. All except for one player who perfectly encapsulates every bully archetype in this video. My group were too afraid of him and he dipped his hands into every game he could find. He had lots of rude remarks, passive aggressive insults and even paralyzing my character and stealing all my stuff and telling me all of it sucks because its not as optimized as his spells and stuff. The few chances I had to play D&D, it was always with him. One day I told him no more after he made a bad remark about me in front of the rest of my friends at dinner. He shouted at me throughout the entirety of dinner and as I was walking home he continued to shout at me as well. The scary thing is my friends acted like it was nothing and he said goodbye to my friends so nonchalantly i didn't think he was ever angry. Everyone else still lets him play at their games but thankfully I cut him out of my life.
I'm one of a small group of players, who take turns GM'ing adventures for the other three players. I see things like that from time to time. I find the best method is to discuss it before the gaming session starts, especially levelling up I usually advise him to announce level up at the end of the session so that we players can update our characters in between sessions.
I avoid bullying by stomping it out. If someone wants to make a check, I let them regardless of what it is. They also know the check was largely worthless (or failed) if I give a mundane description of what they saw, heard, or accomplished. To hint that players may want to look for something, I'll make a random and meaningless roll behind my screen. If noone catches it, too bad. If someone says "What was that for?" I reply with "Don't f***ing worry about it." This obviously gets them worrying (and cuts down on players fidgeting with their dice.) If someone starts quoting rules that are counter-productive and work against the group having a good time, I explain my decision to change or ignore the rule. If someone starts demanding goods or EXP, I give a "That's nice." reply if the group has been steamrolling through encounters. If they are having trouble, I give the same reply but give them a quick bonus after the next encounter to compensate (whether items, gold, or exp). They generally think their hardship is was all part of the plan and everything will come in due time. I simply do not yield to forced story. If a player makes a decision that has no overarching effect on the campaign but make sense for their alignment, I'll allow it. Occasionally it has started some encounters I had to make on the fly. One such event I actually had one of the mobs that ran off (now a named character) return seeking revenge.
Harlan Kempf a thing you could do is have NPCs say "what's wrong with you?" if they try to make the plot go their way P: "I constantly roll to hide from the guys that are following us" NPC: "cool down, kid, your way too jumpy" following a worse relation with a possibly important NPC, maybe someone that had fatal information or a merchant that devices not to trade with a weirdo.. things like that, you could even make a village's town film report them for suspect behavior to the local guard, making them keep a close eye on their actions or being less forgiving. allow them to be as strange or deviant as they want, they can't say they haven't seen it coming
I do let them roam and do whatever they want so long as they vaguely follow what their character would do / have been doing. I keep a couple level-appropriate dungeons on hand in case someone wants to ask about rumors and whatnot at the local tavern (I re-skin the mobs and dungeon setting to fit). Beyond that, "faceless" NPC interaction is kept to a vague level like "Most folks don't notice you. The rest look at you with either pity or worry." given your above situation. A couple situations broke down to violence and ad-hoc encounters fairly quickly. One was the group got into a thieves' dive bar via rumor searching. I had some "dialogue" lined up and a one-off quest with a moderate payoff lined up and everything. Sure as hell didn't survive the PCs. As soon as the group entered the ACTION-NAO player of the group started by killing the guard who looked at him funny. The decision kind of lined up with how his character had been acting so I wanted to see how it would play out. Ultimately, the quest reward was taken by authorities as it was stolen (made up on the spot), the thieves' dive bar was destroyed, the group was given some gold from bounties and had it subsequently taken away plus extra for damages to public property (also made up on the spot) and some exp.
As both a GM and a player, I could never understand GM hating players asking to do stuff in a game. Yes, it might go against what you prepared, but at the same time, it show players are invested in your story. If you can't adapt to your players' choices, you might not be that great of a GM. Let them be invested, let them make choice, it isn't bullying you, it's them investing themselves in your story!
I know this video is old, but I just barely found it. I've been playing D&D for decades as a forever DM. I never knew this wasn't my fault as a DM. Thank you for spelling it out for me so I can spot this and put an end to it. Hopefully, I can do so civilly from now on. It was so draining dealing with this and it kept burning me out as a DM and I though it was because I was being lazy. Now I know why I was getting burned out, thank you.
This video is great! I had a player who was a rather mild bully. His big thing was always asking for checks, and got mad when I sometimes wouldn't let him. I realize he had put a bunch of proficiency into Persuasion and min-maxed it to the best of his ability, but that doesn't mean I'm allowing him to change our cleric's beliefs and win morally complex arguments with a roll (Oh, and, he literally used the fact that "killing is always evil" to try to somehow, like, discredit the cleric? I don't know why he would do that, and besides he was wrong based on the sole fact that our cleric acted EXACTLY how his god would act). He'd always bring up some mechanic that would stop a monster's attack or give it disadvantage; it wouldn't have been an issue, but he only did so for monsters and never mentioned anything when he or other PCs made the check. And he got mad when my NPCs actually would lie, pretend, and not let him literally cat call them (I say literally since he was a Tabaxi) without consequences. Well, he left our group since he was mad I sent 1 CR 5 monster after them at 4th level and forgot to factor in one of its abilities until later (I will agree with him that saying "Oh, I forgot: you are on fire" is really pathetic, but I let the party retake their actions if they wanted to change them in response to this scenario, although they denied to). I hope he finds a group that suits his play style better. And I'm just going to snag his PC as a killable DMPC of sorts of dramatic tension. Heck, last session, that DMPC lost a sparring match to our cleric from earlier. Oh irony.
In the barrage one, I find that you could give the impression to a new player that he should not ask the GM if he can check something. Now veteran player doing that is another thing, but new players should be able to ask if they can, so that they can learn the rules.
Thank you and just subscribed. I had a similar thing when I was GM and one of the characters decided they had a relative in the starting town who would give free room and board to everyone. Though I have learned to be fair with the players and if anyone pushes too much, they tend to get a few bludgeoning damage from a falling branch or some masonry. But I like to do this by asking them to role a dexterity check first :-)
Recently, I've had to admit that I'm a DM bully. I'm the most experienced DM in my group, and I've been doing it for over a decade and a half. So I try and help them, but I've come to the realization that I'm an ass about it. I talk over them, I challenge them mid session, I have a really terrible habit of trying to tell them how to tell their story my way. I'm a dick, and a GM bully. Thanks for helping me realize that, so I can improve.
Thanks for the advice. Recently been going through a rough patch with my group as it has split into the 40% who think that they shouldn't have more than one negative but at the same time want to start with 20s at level 1 and the other part who will knowingly nerf themselves because it is a funny character idea or will lead to better to (bless these players I can't show my appreciation for them enough) but those 40% recently killed a session because they didn't agree with how I was doing stats and wanted to roll 2d8 +10 for stats and one of them said the group didn't like my GMing style and in D&D the sole purpose of the DM is to create a world and quests for the players to do and disagreed with my definition of the DM being the rules arbiter, storyteller, and narrator. Then proceeded to say they wanted a serious RP heavy campaign when getting them to give me their background was like pulling teeth.
One somewhat positive outcome to rules lawyers and the like is they are easily swept aside by homemade game settings/systems. Having to deal with power gamers and mechanics manipulators in my early years of being a GM prompted me to try my hand at creating my own game systems and settings. In doing so I discovered a great deal of enjoyment in this hobby well beyond what I already enjoyed in the games already. I now rarely use a published adventure module for anything but inspiration without ever actually running the module. Game settings too commonly produce players who have read all the source material and try to use that knowledge to unbalance the game in their favor (theirs, not the party). In my 30+ years of gaming now I have found creative ways to solve many of these issues without having to resort to direct punishment of players or their characters. Instead of some nasty monster appearing in the game to pass judgement on a bad player, I have instead tried to find the root cause of many problems and adjusted the games I run to eliminate the problem before it occurs. One thing I feel everyone should try at least once is to fully embrace the concept of this being a theater of the mind. Do away with character sheets beyond simple notes of information of what a "person" would know of themselves. All the core mechanic data known only to the GM, such as attributes, hit points, skill points, etc. The players only know they are fairly strong or pretty good at this task but not so good at another. In my experience (among select players who enjoy such full immersion) this has been some of the greatest gaming moments. It frees up a lot of the drudge work for players to simply act out their characters. Generally they provide a written backstory from which I will assign a logical bonus/penalty to stats above or below the average for their race. This does place a lot of work on the GM, but with practice and good organization it can run very smoothly.
When I was new to DMing I had a boss that used a column as a weapon. He would swing it around the entire boss stadium maybe twice during the fight. When he did, I had everyone roll Dex saves and give me their ac's. As long as they beat what the boss had rolled on one of those two, they were fine. This one guy though, this was the only session he played with us. Once I found out who got hit and who didn't, I started describing how the boss was attacking and who was getting hit. This guy, we'll call him Aj was like "I want to jump out of the way." I groaned, tried to explain why he was getting hit. He kept on about it though, so I eventually was like "Fine, just this one time. Roll. If you get an 18 or above you avoid. Don't do this again though." He kept trying to do the same dodge thing after every single attack that would hit him landed. Then he told me once the session ended that I was a horrible DM for not letting him roll to dodge attacks. Another time I had my step sisters boyfriend playing with us. (He invited himself.) He was playing an edgy loner and "I lean on the door and have my foot resting on the other side of the frame." when the crew got called to the bridge. Our loveable doofus of a player was coming in behind him, asked him to move and he didn't. So he kicked SSB out of the door frame then came in. SSB started threatening our Doofus in real life yelling things along the lines of "Oh no, you hurt you me SOB. I'm going to fing kill you!" It was a Star Trek campaign. Peaceful exploration. The session was going to be a political satire, but SSB would fight anyone that talked poorly about the politician I was satirizing. I had to cut 70% of my content because of him that time. It came that my regulars did everything they could to kill him, while he was looting an alien presidents house after brutally murdering him. Then once he died he started yelling at me that "You're a fing terrible DM. Blah blah blah." My group actually stood up for me and started insulting him until he drove off in anger.
g'day HtbaGGM, i enjoyed your rant. i think we all have met these, think i have done it myself sometime. But we where all doing it to ras up our DM at the time. ( was a laugh) I passed it on to my other DM cohorts. so Thanks mate.
The big difference between a GM and a novelist is that the GM has to be willing to accept the players input. If you hold your story up as some holy text that can never be deviated from no matter what. Well go write a book and let your players read it because clearly what they want out of the game and what their characters want to do have little to no meaning to you. You as a GM have to be willing to sacrifice sometimes, and a good GM will work the over all story back into the campaign somehow, to keep things moving along. I get that some players can poke the GM a little too much, because they hold their experience a little too sacred themselves, but it is a group game, the GM is just as important as any other player, not more so. He is there to direct the story and events, but the players will do things that will go completely against your story, and if that makes you angry and frustrated, you shouldn't be GMing. Find a way to work it back in, they decided to go treasure hunting instead of fighting off the evil wizard? Fine the evil wizard succeeded in whatever he was attempting to do, and now he has becoming a much bigger issue for the players, that will keep hounding them. Things will only get worse if they don't turn around and try and stop him eventually. Then it becomes personal for them, because they didn't care about him kidnapping people from the local villages, but now his antics are cutting into our treasure hunting time, and that will not stand! What you'e done is taken the situation, and molded the villain into someone the players actually have a legitimate issue with, instead of a superficial one that you made up for the purpose of "your" story.
I love how he says that there are not a lot of bullys out there and I seem to always have one or more anytime I tried to run a game. I eventually gave up and quit GMing
I remember running an AD&D 2e game on role20 and I mentioned in the campaign description that I was only using an easy selection of core rules, but I got these two players who started using all the garbage extra rules from Combat and Tactics: a book I explicitly said was not allowed. I reminded them of this and they simply said they didn't care and that it was my job to cater to them. That campaign didn't last long.
Haven't watched all the way through yet, but the first minute was hilarious. I definitely heard myself in there somewhere (in my thoughts, I'd never actually berate my GM like that).
I had to pull up our new dm and felt a bit like a bully, he had us battling a really tough battle with no options to not battle and it was so difficult even our highest hitter couldn't hit the boss, I rolled a 23 with mods and was told it still didn't hit so I had to say wtf, he had to modify his stats as they were ridiculously high. once we all finally beat the boss, we looted and got nothing at all. the whole group were visibly annoyed at that. I tried to be nice and mentioned we should get something, I mean it took 3 hours nearly to beat the encounter. does this make me a bully? on a side note this is the first time he has ever been a dm
My first ever character, who always challenged the gm, became the divine judgment of said gm. whenever another player (or me for that matter), my char would come and cause chaos and usually killing the party members that would just bully. It was always a blast when my char came because we all knew we were gonna die.
Obviously, these examples are a bit extreme, but there are a lot of excellent players that demonstrate these behaviors to a lesser degree, and it's important to know how to deal with them because it's pretty common. In most cases, I find that a little gentle but friendly teasing regarding the matter in question does the trick. In more extreme cases, I think you'll want to have a firmer, private talk. But, anyways, great video:)
I usually only present the extreme so that people can do as you've just done - see the worst, look at your own and realize it isn't that bad and so maybe a chat or a tease or a mention would be sufficient. Yes, thank you for raising it!
A group I used to be a part of had one REALLY bad GM bully that did literally everything on this list. It got to the point where she forced one of our GMs to derail the campaign and do a story SHE came up with, yet she didn't want to be a GM herself. She would also question every little thing they did and not trust them at all. Only reason I stayed in that group for so long was because of everyone else.
My uncle, the first man I ever gamed with properly, actually eschewed the idea of giving out experience after encounters. Instead, at the end of every session, he would hand out levels to characters he felt had earned them throughout the session. Usually, the party would stay about equal in terms of levels, but sometimes we would split off and do different things that would earn different amounts of levels.
I'm the sort of GM that likes to reward roleplaying with tangible results, good roleplaying gets benefits as characters become more in tune with their surroundings and the subtleties of the setting whereas bad roleplaying doesn't get anything or worse yet gets punished. An example of good roleplaying being rewarded is the party was on a ship that was dead in the water for an entire week and change, however this wasn't a problem because it had oars. So everyone but two players decided their characters would help with the rowing until the winds came back and the sails could be used again. I decided after a week of solid rowing, eight hours a day every day... they got a permanent +2 to strength. One of the two players didn't have an issue with this, he was a spellcaster so getting stronger wasn't really an issue for him. The other person who was a spellcaster/fighter hybrid class however decided this was not going to stand and spent every session for the next three months until that character died ( I wouldn't say it was deliberate on my part but I wasn't shedding any tears for the following reason ) would spend at least ten minutes ( and often longer if we let him ) arguing how his character in retrospect would have been rowing with the rest of the party. He never outwardly said it but every time the argument came up, there would always be in parenthesis with his argument "If I knew I was going to get a permanent strength bonus I would have been doing this" and then would repeatedly cite that the "Gold/statistic value" of the party was becoming lopsided. Certain characters were "worth more" than others, like there was an invisible number over everyone's head and somehow he felt that his number wasn't as high as everyone else's. Bless this player's heart, I know I should reward roleplaying but I could never shake the feeling that he was only roleplaying in an attempt to appease me and get that tangible result from it after that point. Instead of focusing on the story and how his character was interacting with it, he saw roleplaying as a way to make me happy and reward him with experience points and loot, rather than what roleplaying is supposed to be - which in my opinion - and that is to get characters immersed in the story that's being told and get them to care on a personal level what happens to the NPCs and their own characters in relation to them. Do you agree? What do you think and what sort of dick would you classify that as, HtbaGGM?
I liked and subscribed, but I disagree on two points. 1. I like it when players add to the story and try to drive it in their own direction. It is a great source of ideas for me and I don't mind giving them narrative control like that since I know they are getting what they want out of the story. If what they are trying to add to the story doesn't fit, like a magic shop on an island of cannibals for example, then I let them know that. If they persist after that, they are nagging and "bullying". 2. I know that losing control over your only playing piece in the game is terrible. but many games, especially older games enforce this. If you are playing a fantasy game and a mage charms your character, or you are struck by a fear effect in a horror game, then you are compelled to act in a certain way, or not at all. Sometimes it isn't obvious to the character why this is happening. Sometimes the source of the compel is unknown and finding out about it is a part of the mystery. If your GM says "you feel an overwhelming sense of dread of dread as you approach the gates and you turn away from them in fear" then you as a player should ROLEPLAY that out and go with it. Don't ever assume your GM is trying to ruin your fun. There is a reason for whatever they are doing although it may not be apparent at that moment. Nothing is worse than having to give away facts like invisible spellcasters or cursed items, just because a fussy player wants an explanation to a situation where they feel you "must" be breaking the rules.
Welcome to the table! Glad you liked! I agree with your points - just not your examples :) So yes players must drive story through their own choice and decisions, however there is a difference to exploring and interacting, and dictating and forcing links when you feel they should be. Losing control of your character to mind controlling effects is very different to a GM saying - your character feels like a coward here and runs out the room (because that's what the GM thinks the character should do rather than because of an effect).
I dunno man, a magic shop wouldn't be too out of place on an island full of cannibals. It'd likely be barter-based and offer exclusively tribal voodoo type stuff, but a magic shop it would be nonetheless.
VikShade the Technolich right, you could make NPCs act negatively on a weird action of their doing, but then put an event that requires such action to prevent some outcome when the player finally gets a sense of safety walking down a road
VikShade the Technolich Well what you say is correct, but the video author wasn't saying that players shouldn't add to the story, he said that they shouldn't constantly pester and butt in with ideas all the time in a disruptive way when it's clearly not welcome.
I have a rule I go by when I'm running any type of game; if it seems like its just me who has a problem with a person I'll let it go because I can deal with it since, in general, it takes quite a bit to get me flustered/aggravated/angry. The moment other players start complaining about said person's behavior, I allow for one strike and only one strike and I make sure to talk to the person about. If their bullying continues, they're informed as succinctly and nicely as possible that they're no longer welcome at my game.
I walked away from a game once because everyone at the table was essentially being a low-key bully. Found out later that the game imploded a week or two later. Basically, the players complained they werent getting enough magic items (in a low magic campaign) and the GM dropped the Magic Item Compedium on the table, said "Whatever you can afford you find it." Well, guess how that ended. Everyone became overpowered and the game ended.
D&D is not balanced for "low magic." People who try to force it into a low-fantasy mold it wasn't meant for are mostly the same ones whining that casters are "overpowered" - no shit, they took away everybody else's access to magic via their balanced gear. Unless the GM in your story was handing out truly insane amounts of gold but no good items to ever spend it on, the group didn't "become overpowered," they became par and had a scrub GM who didn't actually understand how to run a game at the bar it was balanced for.
3.5 wasn't exactly a well balanced system in the first place. Forcing a style on it ontop of that only asks for a mess. 5th ed, in my opinion, could be run low (or at least semi-low) magic with less detriment to overall balance. But anyway, as I said in the first comment, I'd already walked away from the game well before it had imploded so what I had was mostly hear-say.
I actually found that the very high-end meta in 3 was surprisingly fair and balanced, although there were a handfull of infamous issues that did render the game unplayable without patching (Hulking hurler, iaijutsu, the sarrukh, some of the cheaper entries to lance pouncing). At that level you do need customized enemies with their own class builds to challenge a skilled group, which a lot of GMs just aren't willing to put the effort into. Makes the game *tremendously* more interesting, though.
I commend you for managing to pull that off. Every story I ever heard was the game getting wildly out of control by the high levels. I've got pretty much no experience with high-end DnD in any edition as all the games I ran/were a part of never made it past level 10.
The hardest bully for me to deal with is the 'forces his own story' bully. Partly because we are always being told to run a "sandbox" game / make the game about the players / let the players decide what the adventure is / etc. It's also difficult because it can be really subtle: while all the other players are engaging with the plots and trying to expand the map and solve the mysteries, this one player turns every situation into a way to tell his own story. I'm cool if a player wants to link things with character background and pursue personal character goals, but not make the whole campaign about that - especially at the expense of the other players not being able to engage in the GM's story or their own.
Guilty as charged. I tend to be overly enthusiastic and can probably be a bit pushy, both with "can I do a X check? can I do a Y check? Can I.. can I... can I...". Working on it.
My dad is a GM bully and he introduced me to D&D. He's also a terrible munchkin. He always, to my knowledge, plays a halfling thief and steals from the group on a regular basis (from casters in particular). He thinks his character is Sherlock Holmes and makes complex, grandiose assumptions about my plans for the oncoming story and conspires with the group based on those assumptions, which in turn makes the party believe that whatever he thinks about the story must be true, when in-fact, his theories are built on hypothetical information, about plot-lines I haven't even developed! Suffice to say, I don't play D&D with my father anymore...
I know a guy who sits at our table and he dies extremely often. But since he complains about everything, constantly, he explodes when he dies and the GM lets him survive a situation just to shut him up for 15 seconds. A mage created a blast over a battlefield that was the size of a nuclear blast and he died and complained, so the GM said that he survived because his mount covered him.
You shoud create characters for your videos ! Like the "Kind GM" and the "Evil GM", and the "Dick player" and the "Nice player", to make all theses impressions and situations ! it would work great in my opinion. ^^ Great plan having a video on this ! We had a good conversation about that, happy to see it developped ! I'll show this one around for sure !
Sorry if messed up... My english is still ramping up, let's say. What i meant is, most of the time, in the videos, Guy interprets the "annoying disrespectful player" or the "nice and diplomatic player" or other gaming stereotypes, that do come back in other videos. Just thought of the idea to have the "Good player" and the "Bad player" be identified figures, to illustrate theses situations. Guy already does that but perhaps having the stereotypes more fleshed out and identified would really be a cool feature for the videos. Sorry if i'm still not that... clear. You know what it is, ideas.
I had a player in my first-ever D&D group who was like this...he was constantly demanding to see the GM's rolls, he openly murdered another party member because he didn't like how the party member was playing (and, to a lesser extend, because of character alignment differences), things like that... I just remember the GM got sick of him one session, and had the monster the party was fighting be especially hard on the bullying player's character, to the point that this was the ONLY monster in our entire campaign that attacked an already-downed character, killing it...then when the player got angry and belligerent about it, we all just laughed and pointed out the player's bullying, while all still having a good time, and giving constructive criticism. The player rage-quit, and we were all better off, for it.
1:20 sounds like something sad music should be played over *In the arms of the angels...* "every day, hundreds of gms are bullied. Players always asking for more xp and magic items. Don't let this happen to your gm, adopt a better playstyle today"
When I first started out D&D, I was a DM and had to deal with some homebrew systems along the way of learning. Then comes the guy who had a pdf of the Player's Handbook at the ready 90% of the time-- and pretty much tried to find every little bit of an opportunity to make me look like an idiot in front of my players. We've had awesome game nights with the homebrew stuff we've made in this group. Although, now this snarky guy was elected DM since he was obviously the one who wanted to be one since the beginning. Now my PC was very unfortunate throughout the first session I played with him, but his other friends were on cushioned pedestals. But hey, I'm the healer and the party seems to somewhat appreciate my role at least.
My old GM was the kind of guy who'd rig the only staircase with a trap our characters weren't high leveled enough to detect because the rogue had dodged a plot point he'd planned with a lucky roll last session, or the paladin had tanked a shot meant to put the healer out of commission. Needless to say, I didn't spend long with that group.
For our group leveling took us a while as we got all our exp and stuff at the end of the quest we were on. but since it was so long we didn't just get one level we got 2 or even 3 depending on the quest and monsters we did or didn't face. as for gear i honestly don't know how magical/special items work but ours does all loot on rolls. sometimes we got a few wands and a suit of heavy armor but we have also gotten the same heavy crossbow 7 different times, and i will admit the only thing i have gotten is a ring that is worth more selling than using. i feel like that is the best way to get loot as it doesn't let the gm show favor or hurt any one player as for loot. Through out our game everyone in the group has gotten either an upgrade in armor or a weapon but i'm still using most of my starting gear and i don't feel cheated at all since i know its simply chance
I've never GM'd before, so these are things I'll have to watch out for when it comes my time. I do get this weird notion that I am bullying the other players. See, we have a sorcerer and a warlock who're both crime lords and business partners, and my character is a fighter who serves as the moral compass. Sure, we have our banter, but I worry that our banter is overriding the importance of the other players. One of the other players is a spectator, and the DM wants to talk to him about it for the next session, but I can imagine we're making it a bit harder on him.
I also had this player my first time I was a DM. He was the kind of guy who would point you at a rule in the rulebook every time someone did something slightly wrong, even if it was related to lore. I made the campaign in a made up world with made up magical stuff, yet "that monster doesn't exist, it shouldn't be in the game" and "that's not how curses work (lore wise curse, nothing affecting combat), it's not a curse". He also refused to cooperate with the other players. I had made their stories fit in the main plot by making their objective in the same place. Yet he wanted to go to another place and was pissed because he had to go with everyone... He also proceeded to purposely 'challenge' me as a DM instead of at least trying not to do everything he could to mess up everything I did and said and take the most bizarre, anti-logical actions just to frustrate me...
In regards to the bully telling other players what to do and get, it can go the other way as well. One time I joined the group a friend of mine was DMing (and I didn't know any of the other players). I played one single session and then already dropped out again right after. What happened was that after (not even during it) a fight that was pretty daunting I mentioned some things that we could have done better tactically, and how we could have improved teamwork to make the fight less daunting, but one of the players immediately started shouting at me and saying that I shouldn't tell them "how to play the game". That's when I kinda gathered I wasn't wanted at that table and decided to part ways since I doubt I would've been able to see eye to eye with someone who isn't able to reflect together with the group.
Red Arremer There's a player I used to play D&D with, and his name is synonymous with trying to control other player's characters by saying "you should do this that's the best action", to the point that other players would try to cut him off before he said anything. He had technically good advice, but the fact that he do that to every single other player every single turn every single time was what made him barely tolerable.
Well that's the thing, I waited until after the session was over to bring up what we could've done better. I made mistakes as well which I brought up. I wasn't constantly interrupting anyone or trying to tell them how to play the game, just give pointers as how we could've done better.
I'm a DM (though) I've not played in years. Fortunately, I've not had really any bullying from players. The closest I've had was a couple of anxious players who were just starting out. Once they got a hang of RPGs, they did fine.
I wouldn't consider myself to be a bully with it but I do relate some to the "making too many requests" bit. I just get excited and try to think of ideas, so I ask many things to see if I can give it a try. Luckily it hasn't been too much of a problem but there are times when I have to force myself to shut up.
Me as wizard: i shall invent the hoverboard, start a laundry mat, clean these streets of filth (both human and dirt), create assassin creed like items for the rouge , create a form of long range communication, set up trade routs and adventure to pay for it all
Some of our players are obsessed with Investigation checks and I was telling them about a desk with some items on it, I began to list them and they wanted an investigation check. Then they investigated the desk itself. Then they were going down some dimly lit corridors and investigated every 10 ft.
I run a Super Hero campaign with my friends at the library in my spare time. We always have fun, but my two best friends are the worst at bullying my game. My one friend is a VERY experienced player who I found out about role playing with him. Because of the hardcore rule learning we had to do to trail blaze our own campaigns and RPG knowledge, he's become what could be considered a rule lawyer. He'll constantly pause a very dramatic moment, like our heroes falling from the sky, to tell me that they should be using a Constitution bonus rather than Fortitude. (In our campaigns, things like will and fortitude are hardly ever used, so I try to shake things up a bit when it seems appropriate.) In reality, the fort bonus gave everyone a better bonus for survival than for the lone Constitution bonus. I made sure to give him extra damage in the fall ;) My other best friend, however is EVEN worse. He's a very new player. I try to do a good job helping him understand what he can and can't do. He CAN look for the terrorist, but he CAN'T make the terrorist appear where he wants him to be. It doesn't help when my rule lawyer friend constantly interjects and inadvertently feeds the idea that the players control the world just as much as the GM. But, in reality, everyone learns (I think) and we enjoy what happens, no matter how crazily off track the adventure goes. Your videos encourage me to keep Game Mastering despite the insanity of my party, and trust me, that is no small feat :D
I have a serious case of my players wanting the story to go their way all of the time... I think the best scenario is this where while playing space pirates, the player playing captain of the ship, hired two mercenaries to have extra brawns in an upcoming fight at a space station. The mercenaries we're picked on by other members of the crew, they were not allowed a part of the earnings, and their opinion was sistematically berated, which is fine by me. But then the captain asked them to go on front in a really dangerous situation. I just went with what I thought it was the most sensible answer. "well, if you trust your other crew members so much more than us, we wont go on front unless you come with us". That sprouted a violent discussion just right in the middle of enemy territory, they got ambushed. A PC died in the incident and only my good graces let the others live. The mercenaries died as I really wanted to send the message that if they weren't capable of treating npcs as people, well, they were better off without them. But the players just acted as If I was punishing them. Maybe I was, but it's not like there wasn't anything to learn from the punishment. They treat every other npc just like that, as something to slay or something to get free support from, I know I'm doing something wrong here... but I don't really know how to solve it. In my next game I'm taking for granted that any npc can be suddenly killed at their whim and I must have a cotingency plan for it... Even children. They've done it before. Next time it wont take me as a surprise...
I tend to push my dm but never bully. I know this because if I was he wouldn't hesitate to punish me. The very first session we had with an entirely new group (we'd only played a one off before) one of our players fell asleep during combat and the dm promptly had ALL 20 bandits dog pile this guy until he was litterally nothing but multch. It was a running gag afterwards that we still had bits and pieces of him stuck to our boot every now and then. The player did not return for another session and we all learned not to piss off the dm lol
I find that a way to inspire awareness into players is to slowly make them adapt. Maybe if they're too enthusiastic to the point it bothers someone, curse some loot. Make a sword they instantly grab bind to their flesh for at least 48 hours, while it has a 50/50 chance to drain a health point every swing they take with it. Maybe if one player is being boring and constantly uses the same technique in combat, throw in an encounter in which the enemy has found their tactic out, causing the enemy to out-ambush them.
I was a DM and I had a big bully at the table (who was, no lie, a mix of all six versions). He would not be intimidated by the nobles, even going so far as to power game, having a wicked high Charsima so he can intimidate and lie his way through everything. Even if his checks didn't work, he would meta a lot (Version 4). Eventually, he bullied three other players into leaving my game, and I was left with one player. It was not fun at all.
You seem to have waited far too long to kick said player to the curb. I know it can be pretty hard having had to do that myself. I had a character apply a template to his summoned creatures without even asking me, and told me I was sorely mistaken when I told him he could not do it, this would have simply been a warning if not for all the meta-gaming and other rule breaking (communicating advanced tactics with summon creatures whose language he did not speak, as an example).
I think it would be interesting if the DM gives the player what they ask for but with a twist for example a stolen royal heirloom that later gets them thrown in the dungeon or giving them a personal challenge for them to complete.
Players don't get to bully the DM long... The "enforcers" show up and take out the problem. DM: "Damn the bad luck, you took on someone too powerful and they imprisoned your soul in the void. No, don't bother rolling a new one."
As from my experience, not everything that turns out to be bullying, startet out with that "intention". misunderstandings, differing expectations* (to the game/setting/system/fluff/players...), real-life troubles, play-stiles* or group dynamic overall it reflects a lot about the self-confidence of a gm, if s/he is bullied or bullying - and of course of the bully and other players. The first option that came to my mind was to say "we take a break here and clear this up - or this won't be fun for anybody" - instead of "i'll kill his *ffin character!". It is a really immature way to deal with this matter in such a way - as it won't get to the actual problem, instead possibly creating more frustration (potentially on both sides) and yes, you could just /kick-ban-ignore anyone that is ...inconvenient... just be careful to not light-mindly burn bridges and end up with only sycophants** around you *just imagine a gm and other players that "just want to casually play" vs. a person that is very storytelling oriented; a campaign about political intrigue and a number-crunch munchkin who is only used to summerize conversations etc. **if praise is heaped upon you - wheter as player or gm, you can become overall blinded. It's not being bullied, rather favoritism, but it can stiffle you just as well.
You are absolutely correct. On all points. And the usual form of bullying is from exuberance, enthusiasm, or desperation to have fun, not from malicious intent. Often times one can stop the game and talk about it, but if the person doesn't see what they're doing is putting strain on people, then it's time to cut the rope and find a group you like to play with. Your caution about simply removing difficult players who cause strife at the table - ten years ago I would have agreed. Now that I'm older and with the internet - I don't see why anyone should have to struggle or tolerate players who don't know how to behave in a decent manner.
i consider myself quite lucky with my group regarding GM bullying... very little problems with rules lawyers as the more experienced players seem to be hardly interested in rules at all and concerning the newer ones i am probably the biggest rulesjunky... as for demands on loot, we regularly left adventures with less then we started under our previous DM, so expectations are fairly low...
Those were drawn by Sean Isaakse -a Marvel Comic artist and an amazing friend and roleplayer! They're characters from a game I used to run called Bacon Battalion which you can check out on the same name channel here on TH-cam
I started a side for fun World/Campaign deigned for experimenting and trying out fun ideas that wouldn't fly in most campaigns and as a part of it I offered a my friends a chance to DM a session or two so I could be a player and regretting it now. The reason why is because my friend who decided to take up that off didn't do proper research on how the mechanics of 5e before hand an introduced some unblanced or even broken monsters, items, and npcs into the game. Like every NPC we have encountered is lvl 20, including a pacifist scitist and merchan, but the main issue is with a cult leader warlock we were lucky to pursuade to join us thanks to her knowing my friend's character. After we got her on our side he then has his character and this level 20 warlock get in a romantic relationship. Now, after his 1 session was stretched into 3, it's my turn to DM again and he is trying to get me to let him have this character follow his character around during the adventures. Trying to say that because of this romantic relationship she can't just stay on the boat as his character explores the islands. I try giving him possible reasons but he kept trying to find loop holes to let me let him have her tag along. Have her pretty much just sit on the sidelines until asked for help, nerfing her rolls, nerfing her levels, he just kept on trying. When I finally put my foot down and just said know he got furious, said that I wasn't appreciating him and his DMimg and says that because I didn't budge he isn't coming to the next session I DM. I can compromise, but this just feels like him trying to get special treatment to me.
so my first time as a GM. i had a tiny group because two dropped out. it was me and three players. one wasn't showing up, but that means nothing to this story. there was one that i was trying to be lenient with. i let him use a homebrew class. i said something against 100 gold (to put this in perspective, the thief came with only 10 gold.) he convinced me to let him have the gold. then i ask for a backstory. this is what i really disliked. he flat out told me "no". we had an argument about what Dungeon World is really about. he said it was solely about discovery, i agreed to an extent, but i felt as though it also is about story. during the session, he would disagree with me about a lot. from what move is what to LOGIC itself. yes logic. there was another that was better about it. they usually took each other's side, but this one was logical and presented facts and opinions that made sense.
I think my current GM has actual issues. He is putting a group of level 7s in encounters much above proper level. This week we had to go against 4 level 6 fighters with the undead template and full fighter feats. Each one had 9 feats. This one fighter had feats specifically designed to let him run thru the whole party regardless of layout of the group and do 3 attacks on anyone it overran. And they all had at least 26AC. Which for most of the group meant having to critical to hit. Forgot to mention all the undead fighters were skeletal and had a +15 to hit and I think a +10 to damage. Real kicker is he constantly targeting this one player's characters. Also all the loot is for the tank. The only non tank bit of magical equipment we got was a magical sword that only an elf could use. Also encounters that make half the party unable to do anything.
Have you ever done a video like this regarding when the GM is the one doing the bullying? Cause in all my years I've found that to be a much more common problem.
I don't think I bully my gm, but I sometimes like to present my point on how something should be with my character. I don't demand anything, I just show them something they might not have considered. Example is today, I was playing my 5e artificer lvl 7 and we were getting a couple weeks down time before our plot would come into motion and the npc would arrive back. I told everyone that I could modify my mechanical beast to be a plesiosaur rather than my current Allosaurus to help out in our naval battle that we were planning. The problem is, we had limited gold and it cost 1k gold and 1 week with 8 hrs a day to build a new one if the current one was destroyed beyond repair. The dm said that I needed to spend the 1k, 1 week and 8 hrs a day to modify it and I argued that I had most of the materials to modify it and it hadn't taken damage yet so it didn't need to be repaired. He had me make an int check and I got 19 and he said take 150 gold off of the 1k. Idk if it was good of me to ask that or bad to question the dm with something like that. To me, it seemed that my servant took no damage yet, didn't need to be repaired, so my artificer could simply reuse most of the parts to transform it into something we needed
ran into a few GM bullies, couple of them were friends with the DM so they didn't think too much of it, but they forced level ups every session and DM was clearly unhappy with that. Now the DM has salt against us when half of our group (me and another new player) didn't even ask for anything :( Then there was a guy who tried flavoring everything he did so it became overpowered as fuck and in the end the other players could literally feel the GM's soul leaving her body as she just gave up trying to control that player :( The GM had to place a rule that if you were new to the setting or game system, you'd have to go with a pregen. like seriously, It's literally in the game's character creation *requirements:* must be familiar with the system and read the lore handouts. WHY DO PEOPLE NOT READ DESCRIPTIONS.
i had a dm friend who literally said : if you annoy me in anyway except while playing your character (meaning if the character was suppose to be obnoxius so be it) he would kill us with a pegasus army (because who would be proud being killed by pegasi)
Good I'm not a bully! Im getting irritable, about my GM who is as a player plays as a Minmaxer/ powerplayer, playing a over powered character, in his own game... Finally it hit the point last game, that he's trying to make his character seem awesome, without taking rolls... and or ignoring rule or initive. I was just surprised he's been running a fun campaign, and it hadn't been a problem... until out third game in...
In my group we alternate between 2 main games with 2 different GMs. One guy is kinda a bully towards the GMs. For one game, i don't want to get after this guy because he has a temper and i've tried to calm him down before so i usually just go to the GM after the game and try to make sure he doesn't give into the guy's demands and to just ignore him when he acts like that. In the other game, im the GM and i ignore him or give him small teases and make him wait a long time before he gets any of what he wants.
I'd like some tips on balancing punishment and rewards without bullying, to keep the impartial-ness of being a GM, or, calling out the GM on a bad call and doing it correctly. I think the problem with bullying is that people can't understand the nuance of how to do that, and I think we've all (especially those who have been GMs) have done this.
Step 1) Never punish. Always reward. I could go on a psychology rant about pavlovian behavioral training here, or else cite auntie muriel's repository of southern folk wisdoms, or you could just trust me. If your characters are doing something that you don't like, try to shift your focus until you understand their goals, and then facilitate their role-play. As an impartial GM, you are there to facilitate the players. _ex. Player is "ruining" a GM's game by sneaking by all the GM's pre-planned encounters._ Option 1) Force them to do what I want anyway? Maybe at a disadvantage because *they are under-leveled and it's their own fault!* (Bad GM) Option 2) Give them some secret passages to find, some windows that can be grappled or some sleeping foes that can be dealt with in silence, and allow them to roleplay their campaign the way they want to? (Good GM) Step 2) Run your table. Remember that part of your job is to make sure that things are running smoothly, and also that everyone deserves equal time, and nobody wants to wait 10 minutes for a call. Make the call, if you are wrong, you are wrong. If another player can convince you that you are wrong in 10 words or less, you can change your call. If they cannot, make the call, and revisit the decision in the post game for next session. Keep things moving. Try to be consistent from week to week, and if you are going to change something, hang a bell on it. Clearly state that it was brought to your attention last week that the official rules state X and that from now on you will be doing X (or Y if you like it better your way)
I might be guilty of this to some degree as a GM but I hope there's a fine line I'm not crossing. I've often suggested to players how something might make their character feel. The player is always free to interpret that information how they see fit. But I make sure there are consequences be it good or bad. As an example: players enter a bog knowing the area is corrupted with foul magic. I then suggest, "wading through the bog is very unnerving and the nauseating stench of death hangs thick in the air testing your resolve". As a consequence of pushing on, I might impose disadvantage when combat occurs and secretly roll for any injured party member to see if they are infected with disease. In past campaigns I've ran for friends who know my style of GMing and will take descriptive queues like that example. But I no longer have that advantage and this topic has me wondering if I need to change. I don't think I'm a harsh GM or a bully but perhaps that's only because no one has approached me about it?
I ask to make alot of insite checks not because i want something to happen but my curent charactor is a manipulator and i like to gather info on npc and other charactors i can use for my advantage. I already asked the dm and other players if its ok and there all fine with it.
Am I bullying if I dispute the needed roles for being either too hard or too easy? Like sometimes I will demonstrate the action to show how easy or hard it would it would be.
The first and last time I ever tried to GM, was a savage worlds game set in fallout. I wanted to aim the atmosphere towards lovecraftian horror. I set up a shit ton of maps, built at least a hundred characters and names attached to them in case the players encountered them. I got a lot of amazing mood music, and had the general plot and encounter set up with multiple ways to handle it mapped out. I went hardcore on this bullshit. Then I eventually got a group together, I’m excited to run a game and expressed how I was new to GMing. We seemed to be on the same page, got a date set and all that. Then the day of session zero they all decided to bail on me to play a fallout game run on savage worlds by a different player. They then subsequently all left the group, and I was just there with all this work done, feeling miserable. I will never GM again from that cause that was by far the most shitty experience I ever had. Excluding my pedophile, and neo-nazis drug dealer run ins that is.
I disagree with the options of the second one.
I had a game and I specified some rules, the general 'unwritten rules' mostly.
'Roll dice where I can see them and ask before rolling'
I had a guy come to my table with prerolled stats.
18, 18, 18, 17, 17, 16
Then all the players told me no he didn't have to reroll, even though he broke my rules and such. He even said "I won't redo them no matter how much you make me"
So, I let them do that single thing.
Because I'm smart, I ran a session 0 for them, to test the players as I'd already had comments from them about how they would 'put me in my place' if I did something they deemed slightly against them.
One player rolled a 1, the same player who prerolled then assumed what I was going to say and started taking over, saying what I was just about to say.
I went silent, forcing them to get slightly perturbed, I then just said 'This won't work, I'm done. You aren't the sort of players I'll work with' and walked out, not even 30 minutes into session 0.
The third option for a GM, is to walk out, we don't have to put up with harassment.
I hate version fives.
Here is one of my favorite memories of dealing with a Version Five.
I shall merely refer to them as Player A,B,C, and D.
Player A: I look for a barrel. *NAT 20*
Me: There isn't a barrel.
Player A: But I got a Nat 20.
Me: Yes, and you are 100% certain that there is not a barrel in sight.
Player A: But... Nat 20.
Me: ...*Sigh* I know. If there was a barrel, no matter how hard it was hidden you would have found it. But! There isn't a barrel here!
Player A: But--
Player B: I cast sleep on (player A) and leave him behind.
Player A: You motherfucker--
Player C: I loot the unconscious (player A).
Me: Ok you fiddle through his pockets and--
Player D: I pullout my crowbar and smack (Player C) on the back of the head.
Me: Hold on (player C). Ok, (player D) roll your attack roll.
Player D: *critical hit, max damage and knocks (Player C) unconscious.* I pick up (Player C) and (Player A). Then, I pause and growl at the passerby's before following (Player B) to meet the emperor.
And that Is how two of four adventurers came to their private victory meeting with the emperor unconscious, and to this day I don't know why he was looking for a barrel. He wouldn't tell me after the ordeal.
On a side note, I can be a terrible rules lawyer and used to be the guy bringing up rules at the table all the time. Now I've reigned it in and act more like a living reference. If the question of a rule comes up and/or the GM asks me a rule, then I bring it up. Or if I'm teaching/reminding a fellow player the game mechanics.
Living References are AWESOME! I love my LR at the table. A true lifesaver - as long as they remain a reference when asked :)
I realized after watching your videos how toxic my old RPing group was. It came to a point I actually just stopped playing altogether because I felt drained and unhappy after each session. then I met a different group and my love of rping has been revived and I even started DMing after being a PC for 15 years! your videos have been amazing help :) thank you for all your hard work.
That is a terrible space and I'm glad that you are in a new group!
I've been there, and I was one of the 3 or 4 problem players, at the time. I was miserable and selfish, which was exacerbated by another player being the guy who would pick on a player for the entire session for fun, and I was his target for months, at least. Plus the guy with no volume control on his voice and little to no social graces.
I miss the times when there were other players, who weren't jerks.
Try having to deal with Herman's example, but this guy was made GM and did vindictive things that could get them banned from most public PnPs if they ever tried their behavior there.
I'm way to scared to bully my GM because, I know he'll return the fire with a dragon on the doorstep in the next morning.
Live in FEAR! Mwahahahahaha
Derpsider for me it was "I'm sick of your guys shit, Cuthulu in power armor shows up, roll for initiative bitch!"
Derpsider Or a undead hybrid Turasque, Dragon and Beholder with Rage and 24 legendary actions per round. Yes my GM kinda of threatened us with that not out of malignance but as a plot driver. A necromancer's lair was filled with notes about aberrations and trying to make that chimera so we used our Fire Elemental Bloodline Gnome Sorcerer as a tactical nuke. And I the thrower of said Orc to Lair Balistic Gnome was too close to ground zero and permanently burnt off all hair on my orc character.
or time Dragon could arrive. That's a thing that can happen.
I know its late, but i finnaly have a purpose to this link now: i.imgur.com/H49bKdJ.png
Very important to note: there's a difference between adding to a story and bullying the story to go in your direction.
It's an extremely fine line, though. I heard the very same statement out of the worst GM bully I've ever had, just before he turned my Cold-War Era Super Hero romp I'd put together into a rise of Doctor Evil (the BBEG of the Austin Powers films) and the Underpants Gnomes (South Park reference alluding to an ill-conceived plan concocted by a bunch of garden gnomes, to steal underpants, in order to take over the world) campaign where dice rolls were completely arbitrary and every major american conspiracy theory from the last 80 years was an empirical fact, that he could use to his advantage.
Player: "GM! Can I do this? Can I roll for that? Or this?"
These are my least favourite players. They just want to roll for everything. I had one who spent 5 minutes doing an extended action, rolling to lockpick a door. After which I calmly told him that if he had tried the handle, the door was open the whole time.
They play the game as a roll-playing game, not a role-playing game.
Jordan Gilbert Oh my fucking god. this speaks to me on a spiritual level.. People who roll for everything are the thorn in my side. I usually know how to handle most annoying player habits.. except that one.
What you should have done: "You unlock the door, but after you remove the lock pick, you realized you actually locked it."
Why don't you just let them roll, if they fail then you just say "you notice the door was already open" and if they succeed then you tell them "nothing happens because the door was already open"
I like this video. Nice work 8)
I would add that any discussion about bullying requires the following caveat: Everyone has moments where they exhibit some of these behaviours at one time or another. Bullying is a consistent behaviour over a length of time: let people have the off 'bad-day' without labelling them but if it becomes a pattern, tell them as Guy mentioned. Game on peeps!
Yes! Everyone does and it really does make sense to see it for what it is!
My advice for dealing with Bullying Players:
1) Introduce them to 1st Ed AD&D
2) Let them run amok with character creation any class, race, level, magical items the works
3) 3 words: Tomb of Horrors
They'll learn the lesson :D
Alternative suggestion:
Run Paranoia (and give everyone nukes and bazookas and other things that will kill eveyone)
i'm afraid to ask what exist in the tomb of horrors (or what is it ? i have been introduced to d&d from 3.5 and still continue on that edition from lack of others)
Tomb of Horrors is an adventure written by the late E Gary Gygax (who along with Dave Arneson basicly invented RPGs in general and D&D in particular). He created it in response to players endlessly bragging about how awesome their characters were and how many great magic items they had. It chews PCs up and spits them out. The dungeon was built by a Demi Lich (a sevrant of Vecna in fact) to collect magic items from high level adventures. It has multiple death traps through out some of which can kill an entire party off in one go. It's been redone in every edition since 1st but from waht I've seen 1st was the most brutal other then a couple direct conversions. Its bad enough you can know the entire adventure and still die horribly.
To give you a perspective you know the names of several of the people to originally survive the Tomb. They have famous spells named after them.
like Mordekainer and such ?
I had a player when I first started dming (literally the second session I ever ran) that had been playing since first edition dnd. He believed he knew everything about everything. He'd metagame like terrible, rules lawyer like whoa, and argue everything. Had a few times where he literally made me stop the game and explain how a magical item the enemy used works. Keep in mind this guy is a rogue who had 0 in spell craft and was level 1 he had no knowledge of magic or magical items. Eventually ended with me literally throwing the core rulebook at him and ending the group for a month. Came back without him and everything ran far smoother.
Same player actually played 3.5 with me. It was him, and 3 new players to 3.5 entirely. He basically told everyone how to build their characters. So much so that our barbarian had 0 idea how the game mechanics worked he just knew that his sheet was updated and went off that.
As for the type 3 player: I had a guy that was a very good friend. He loved combat but he HATED being taken by surprise. So when they were in a giant underground system of tunnels these bat like creatures kept attacking them from above. So the barbarian said he was going to start walking (at full speed mind you) while constantly looking in every direction. He then kicked open a door, walked in and when the creature that was above the door dropped down on him he flipped out. All the other players explain to him that his character should have a broken neck right now from the flailing his head around.
I've had another player that was a rules lawyer but he was really good about only bringing that stuff up to me in emails after the game he very rarely interrupted the game.
My biggest lesson as a DM when I started out was to learn to take control of my table. Early on I wanted to be a nice DM, I wanted people to be happy. But I had to learn to take control.
Ultimately, bad players or bad DM's can ruin a game very quickly.
i'd say nice and taking control aren't exclusive
i pretty much use a "reminder to decency" to my group, otherwise i rarely need to step in (authoritive figure-style)
---(bit of a ramble...)
your disruptive player sounds pretty much like having a very, very different expectation of the game and trying to "correct you" or even check/control that you do your job right.
Distrust / Insecurity are the key reasons here - just implying/saying "you're bad at this" is what made you so upset in the past, as it easily denies any chance to learn from these (supposed) mistakes. I want to expand on what was said in the video: it's about (self-)reflection! And Reflection can just as well be done in a group, as an individual - most of the time the knowledge gained is even greater.
So your Ambush-hating Player - needs not only to hear "you bad/mad at ambush!" (he expects this from himself), but what he can do, (meta)gamewise: Discussing with other players how they/their characters see the situation / roleplaying his disdain for this tactic (to reduce his players actual tension*) / bring in why even a barbarian would benefit from ambushing or why this enemy type fights this way / or "role reverse" the situation (good opportunities for him to ambush) / real talk with the player, why he is so afraid of being "motion- / 'help'-less" for a suprise round or "why" he hates it soooo much.
*which is what an ambush is about - never sure when the enemy strikes, but it will be a vulnerable moment. It's more a tool for storytelling, as in that one suprise round, usually nothing is really decided.
Excellent advice - Reminder to Decency. And yes, bad players = bad game. Bad GM = bad game. It's not a difficult equation sadly.
Good points. What I mean by being the "nice dm" is I didn't like telling people no and it let me get walked all over by the players. I think I've learned to maintain a good balance now.
And yes you're ramble is very true. It was my second session i'd ever run and so the rules were still kind of new to me. That and, to be totally honest, that player is a jerk that I later gamed with in several different settings and he either left (after arguing with the dm) or was asked to leave because he pulled the same stuff. He insisted that he was the greatest dm ever and he knew all. I don't think it was an expectation of a different game or anything, just him trying to show off how much he knew and trying to control the table.
As for the Barbarian. You're right expectation is a big deal. To him a fight should be "you walk to the edge of the tree line and see 6 kobolds sitting around a fire completely unaware of your presence". Anything else was bs. Now to his credit he has gotten MUCH better about stuff and grown as a player.
For the last year or so that I DM'd I can think of only 1 instance that I had an issue with my table and that resolved itself quickly with in game roleplay.
Love GM sharing their stories ! Always inspiring. Finding the good balance between "yes man" and "Tyrant" is sometimes hard but i'dd say it's also a personal thing to find.
One thing i wanted to add it that issue with Justin's first example. I call it "Ghost players", and they are really common in D&D3.5 and pathfinder especially. That player just not having enough of his own character invites a friend that knows nothing about roleplay or the system, makes his character and just tells him what to do all the time. It usually ends up with that player taking control of your game and i hate it. Even worse, the "Ghost" is not really engaged but because he is a friend and can't handle the complicated character his friend made, he just says nothing and doesn't even complain until he stops coming to the sessions. It's so hard to prepare good narrative with this type of situation, and hard to stop it once you agreed to let in the "Ghost". What do you think?
That player hating being ambushed is really fun btw ^^
I have had a few of your "ghost players". Usually unfortunately happens when a guy gets his wife who has no experience in the hobby to try and play, or if someone is trying to get their kid to play. I had a guy that wanted to teach his 10 year old son so he joined my table. Good kid, but would spend 90% of the game asking when the next fight was and otherwise was not interested. They basically become a bot. Luckily they don't usually stick around very long.
I had one couple that ended up in that situation. The wife loved to play though, she just got distracted by my kids and would run off to play with the baby and her husband would play both characters.
After witnessing a ton of bullying around 6 years ago from pretty close to the entire table, I did away with them and took up the DM position. It's hard work and there's always more to improve upon, but I've gotten to the point where I love DMing far, far more than being a player.
Welcome to the world of the GM - it's more fun on this side of the table! Glad you stuck with the hobby though!
I like this topic-many GM guides and RP guides tend to emphasize how the GM might be dicks to players or players to other players. We usually don't talk about players being dicks to GMs.
And it happens sadly. It's happened to me several times.
i had someone always demanding me for magical items and better equipment so i gave him jus what he wanted. An enchanted sword. Its imbued with fire. The catch is the killing blow on any creature will lash that damage back to its wilder and cannot be unequiped once equipped. He died the first time using the sword.
i feel I'm very bad for some of this, and I've recently apologised to my DM for it :/ concious of the fact that i tried too hard and too long to get my point about a rules question across, and feel i was making him and other players uncomfortable... apologised to him after by message and told him I'd tone it down!
It is only an apology if you do actually tone it down in the next session! But seeing that you recognize it, and want to fix is is AWESOME!
DM: "please roll a wisdom check"
Player: "i rolled a 15. oh yeah, i'm fine. that's fine."
Me: -_- oh dangerous and arrogant presumptions.
in that particular case it is actually gm's fault- don't make useless rolls, 15 should be in most cases a pretty save number
The only time I say oh that’s fine is if I rolled like a natural 19 and with my bonuses it’s like a 32 or if I rolled higher than someone else who I just saw pass their check
I've been a GM for a solid amount of time but always seemed to be blessed with good players until recently. I had just started up 5e and everything had been going smoothly until adding in an extra player who is also a GM. He has turned out to be a bit of a bully. So usually when I have doubt or are looking for ways to deal with issues that arise, I come to your channel because of your awesome advice in a myriad of situations. I have yet to be disappointed with any of your videos.
Thank you for all of the help! These videos get me through tough decisions!!!
I had one of each kind of "GM Bully" at the start, but a year on and we've ironed out all the kinks, and are enjoying a better game for it. Some of my players DM their own games too, which lets them have a different style of game as well, which is awesome.
Talking is way better than keeping frustrations cooped up.
I had a player be a loner character in a two person RP the other day, just me and him. He kept turning down all 5 or 6 of my NPCs plot hooks when a real person would have quit at one or two.
I had to genuinely ask him what is he interested in twice and the reply he gave was barely enthusiastic. It took over an hour to get the plot started.
And when it did get going, he ended up blocking me and then both he and I posted about it. Everyone was on his side and saw me as the bully.
Well, excuse me for not knowing what you wanted to do when you were only giving one word replies and being all standoffish in the corner /by yourself/. He even apologized for not being as descriptive as I was during the RP. Ugh! I can't stand ninjas...
It sounds like no one had fun. One on Ones can be difficult and can most certainly require a different approach from both players (player and GM). Thanks for sharing this as a warning tale!
How to be a Great Game Master
Yeah. I blame anime.
It was a high school club RP in the same vein as Haruhi or Sket Dance where you help out random people. He came to me when my post wasn't specifically looking for an RP, with no ideas of his own and expected me to do all the work. He didn't even answer my original post.
The plot hooks/problems were:
Shoot a documentary for a frenshman girl's Biology project whose partner had flaked on her = Opportunity for him to bust out his best Steve Irwin impression or National Geographic/David Attenborough narration.
Reward was NPC teaching player how to design a flag = which would have led to being a part of an Ouendan squad, these badass Japanese male cheerleaders who look like Jotaro from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
The other reward was a date with her hot friend which would have lead to three or four more different plot points. She's someone's little sister, right? Could be the school bully or a Yakuza gang member with henchmen. Who knows? That would have led to a race to the death from my favorite Steve McQueen movie.
When I asked him what he wanted to do he said, "idk". When the girl came in looking for help, "Why?" I tried to get more out of my NPC to sweeten the deal when in reality I was throwing out more plot hooks. When he heard them, it was either "No" or "everyone else is excited, he isn't". Repeat for an hour.
When my NPC asked him what he was interested in, "Im interested in what no one is".(sic)
I had to stop and give him the talk about loner characters and then later he posted that screencap out of context to turn me into a villain.
"No, really. What are you interested in?" She seems genuinely interested in what you have to say.
"Cars"
"All right. My older brother owns a junkyard. Any part there. Yours." Would have based this sweet moment on the Iron Giant.
His response was "he gets a little excited."
When we got there, before I could really say anything, he started collecting frogs. Then blocked me afterwards, saying that it was weird and he didn't like it. Well sorry for you taking it on like a crappy Final Fantasy 15 sidequest.
The other characters I was controlling were based off of Han and Leia.
I've been GMing for 10-15 other girls one on one for the past four months and they all said I was amazing. I just simply asked them, "What do you wanna do?" and "What are you interested in?" Then tailor the entire game towards them. I thought it would be hard but your advice and TtheWriter's made it super easy.
Star Wars, Jojo, Iron Giant, Bullit and then maybe turn it into a Yakuza story. Would have been awesome but he decided to not be and then blame me for not finding his own fun.
You are right about loner characters. You were right all along.
I personaly prefer idealy at least two players because if I am GM, I can just throw some bone to them over which they can roleplay for a bit between themselve while I take short break to prepare for their next most probable actions.
With one on one there is no plotting between players or thinking up some smart multipronged plans unless GM is running some helpfull NPCs that stick to player.
Well... what was his side?
" for 10-15 other girls one on one for the past four months and they all said I was amazing."
-taken out of context to turn you into a fuckboi/girl.
I agree on loner characters though.
This is very accurate to my table. Even though I’ve never been a gm, I’ve seen this so much and I was never sure what to do. Im so happy that I know what to do now. Thank you so much,
-Kat
Thanks for your videos man!
After watching a lot(!) of them in the last months I almost feel confident enough to try GMing.
My advice to you is the famous quote: "Just Do It!"
For me the best way to get confident in GMing is just playing the game. Originally I was the GM because I was one with the books and the interest to play roleplaying games in my circles, and only way to play a game was to run one.
My first games were in retrospect quite cliche and lackluster, but both you and your players are going to get better and more confident over time.
Your first game doesn't have to be an epic campaign. Just run a one-shot. Additionally: there is nothing wrong with familiar tropes, they are tropes because they work.
TL;DR: Just do it!
Basically I'm in the same boat from a starting perspective. I'm the one with the books and the most interest. And while I agreee on the "Just Do It!" part, to some degree. I'd rather first be somewhat prepared and then "just do it" ;-)
I guess I just want to avoid being the first game such a catastrophe, that it will be literally the only one, because everyone afterwards is like "mehhh, yeah, not doing that again..."
Alternative join an online system like Fantasy Ground of Roll20 and run a game where you make it clear you are a NEW GM and looking for experience.
Go for it. I've been DMing for about 27 years now and I absolutely love it. How to be a Great GM has some fantastic adivce (makes me wish the internet was a thing back in the 80s to get me started on a better foot) so you've got a good basis to start with. You'll make mistakes (I've been at this 27 years and I still screw up) thats ok just focus on making sure everyone i shaving fun (yourself included because if you don't it'll show) and you'll be fine.
Drehmoment FPV you seriously need to try dming. it is easier than you think and insufferably difficult at the same time. i bet you would be great at it. i found that
dming helped make me a better player. give it a go. its one of the most rewarding experiences in gaming.
I was part of a DnD group that my friend had organised. We were a lot of players and we had to be split into groups of 4-5 with a GM each.
I'd never played before in my life, and was hoping to be in my friend's group so he could show me the ropes. However, because I was his friend I was given the role of GM in another group.
I had no idea what to do, and ended up making a total fool outta myself in front of a group of people I didn't know, and who were being pretty awful and as unhelpful as possible. I don't know if that counts as bullying the GM, or just a case of the GM sucking and pulling the team down, maybe it was both?
I was so ashamed I haven't played since, but I want to come back.
I think your videos are giving me a confidence boost, and are teaching me how to play. Thank you!
I'm sorry you had that unpleasant experience. Taking the GM seat on your first time playing is an uncommonly brave thing to do, and it sounds like the people you were playing with failed to appropriately recognize and respect you for it. I encourage you not to allow those feelings of shame and frustration stop you from giving D&D another try. If and when you find a group of people who make you feel welcome and appreciated - because that's what supposed to happen when new players come around - then I am confident that your second experience with D&D will be the experience you deserve.
Have fun, and roll high! :D
I think the main issue was really poor planning. I can't remember how many we were, but it was a lot with most of us being between 16-19, hens the awkwardness I suppose.
I am planning on coming back, but this time on my own terms. I knew the whole thing was off when someone I only sort of knew told me to GM, yeesh!
Thank you so much for your kind world!
Roll high!! :D
My group had started out pretty rough but as time went on and i mastered the GM craft they all changed for the better and gave me more respect after i told them each to DM. All except for one player who perfectly encapsulates every bully archetype in this video.
My group were too afraid of him and he dipped his hands into every game he could find. He had lots of rude remarks, passive aggressive insults and even paralyzing my character and stealing all my stuff and telling me all of it sucks because its not as optimized as his spells and stuff. The few chances I had to play D&D, it was always with him.
One day I told him no more after he made a bad remark about me in front of the rest of my friends at dinner. He shouted at me throughout the entirety of dinner and as I was walking home he continued to shout at me as well. The scary thing is my friends acted like it was nothing and he said goodbye to my friends so nonchalantly i didn't think he was ever angry.
Everyone else still lets him play at their games but thankfully I cut him out of my life.
I'm one of a small group of players, who take turns GM'ing adventures for the other three players. I see things like that from time to time. I find the best method is to discuss it before the gaming session starts, especially levelling up I usually advise him to announce level up at the end of the session so that we players can update our characters in between sessions.
I avoid bullying by stomping it out. If someone wants to make a check, I let them regardless of what it is. They also know the check was largely worthless (or failed) if I give a mundane description of what they saw, heard, or accomplished. To hint that players may want to look for something, I'll make a random and meaningless roll behind my screen. If noone catches it, too bad. If someone says "What was that for?" I reply with "Don't f***ing worry about it." This obviously gets them worrying (and cuts down on players fidgeting with their dice.)
If someone starts quoting rules that are counter-productive and work against the group having a good time, I explain my decision to change or ignore the rule.
If someone starts demanding goods or EXP, I give a "That's nice." reply if the group has been steamrolling through encounters. If they are having trouble, I give the same reply but give them a quick bonus after the next encounter to compensate (whether items, gold, or exp). They generally think their hardship is was all part of the plan and everything will come in due time.
I simply do not yield to forced story. If a player makes a decision that has no overarching effect on the campaign but make sense for their alignment, I'll allow it. Occasionally it has started some encounters I had to make on the fly. One such event I actually had one of the mobs that ran off (now a named character) return seeking revenge.
I started keeping giant sized mini bases by the gm screen just to mess with my players.
Harlan Kempf
a thing you could do is have NPCs say "what's wrong with you?" if they try to make the plot go their way
P: "I constantly roll to hide from the guys that are following us"
NPC: "cool down, kid, your way too jumpy"
following a worse relation with a possibly important NPC, maybe someone that had fatal information or a merchant that devices not to trade with a weirdo.. things like that, you could even make a village's town film report them for suspect behavior to the local guard, making them keep a close eye on their actions or being less forgiving. allow them to be as strange or deviant as they want, they can't say they haven't seen it coming
I do let them roam and do whatever they want so long as they vaguely follow what their character would do / have been doing. I keep a couple level-appropriate dungeons on hand in case someone wants to ask about rumors and whatnot at the local tavern (I re-skin the mobs and dungeon setting to fit). Beyond that, "faceless" NPC interaction is kept to a vague level like "Most folks don't notice you. The rest look at you with either pity or worry." given your above situation. A couple situations broke down to violence and ad-hoc encounters fairly quickly.
One was the group got into a thieves' dive bar via rumor searching. I had some "dialogue" lined up and a one-off quest with a moderate payoff lined up and everything. Sure as hell didn't survive the PCs. As soon as the group entered the ACTION-NAO player of the group started by killing the guard who looked at him funny. The decision kind of lined up with how his character had been acting so I wanted to see how it would play out. Ultimately, the quest reward was taken by authorities as it was stolen (made up on the spot), the thieves' dive bar was destroyed, the group was given some gold from bounties and had it subsequently taken away plus extra for damages to public property (also made up on the spot) and some exp.
As both a GM and a player, I could never understand GM hating players asking to do stuff in a game. Yes, it might go against what you prepared, but at the same time, it show players are invested in your story. If you can't adapt to your players' choices, you might not be that great of a GM. Let them be invested, let them make choice, it isn't bullying you, it's them investing themselves in your story!
I know this video is old, but I just barely found it. I've been playing D&D for decades as a forever DM. I never knew this wasn't my fault as a DM. Thank you for spelling it out for me so I can spot this and put an end to it. Hopefully, I can do so civilly from now on. It was so draining dealing with this and it kept burning me out as a DM and I though it was because I was being lazy. Now I know why I was getting burned out, thank you.
This video is great! I had a player who was a rather mild bully. His big thing was always asking for checks, and got mad when I sometimes wouldn't let him. I realize he had put a bunch of proficiency into Persuasion and min-maxed it to the best of his ability, but that doesn't mean I'm allowing him to change our cleric's beliefs and win morally complex arguments with a roll (Oh, and, he literally used the fact that "killing is always evil" to try to somehow, like, discredit the cleric? I don't know why he would do that, and besides he was wrong based on the sole fact that our cleric acted EXACTLY how his god would act). He'd always bring up some mechanic that would stop a monster's attack or give it disadvantage; it wouldn't have been an issue, but he only did so for monsters and never mentioned anything when he or other PCs made the check. And he got mad when my NPCs actually would lie, pretend, and not let him literally cat call them (I say literally since he was a Tabaxi) without consequences. Well, he left our group since he was mad I sent 1 CR 5 monster after them at 4th level and forgot to factor in one of its abilities until later (I will agree with him that saying "Oh, I forgot: you are on fire" is really pathetic, but I let the party retake their actions if they wanted to change them in response to this scenario, although they denied to). I hope he finds a group that suits his play style better. And I'm just going to snag his PC as a killable DMPC of sorts of dramatic tension. Heck, last session, that DMPC lost a sparring match to our cleric from earlier. Oh irony.
In the barrage one, I find that you could give the impression to a new player that he should not ask the GM if he can check something. Now veteran player doing that is another thing, but new players should be able to ask if they can, so that they can learn the rules.
Thank you and just subscribed.
I had a similar thing when I was GM and one of the characters decided they had a relative in the starting town who would give free room and board to everyone. Though I have learned to be fair with the players and if anyone pushes too much, they tend to get a few bludgeoning damage from a falling branch or some masonry. But I like to do this by asking them to role a dexterity check first :-)
That's awesome! Welcome to the channel! Them dexterity checks... we gotta love em!
Recently, I've had to admit that I'm a DM bully. I'm the most experienced DM in my group, and I've been doing it for over a decade and a half. So I try and help them, but I've come to the realization that I'm an ass about it. I talk over them, I challenge them mid session, I have a really terrible habit of trying to tell them how to tell their story my way.
I'm a dick, and a GM bully. Thanks for helping me realize that, so I can improve.
Thanks for the advice. Recently been going through a rough patch with my group as it has split into the 40% who think that they shouldn't have more than one negative but at the same time want to start with 20s at level 1 and the other part who will knowingly nerf themselves because it is a funny character idea or will lead to better to (bless these players I can't show my appreciation for them enough) but those 40% recently killed a session because they didn't agree with how I was doing stats and wanted to roll 2d8 +10 for stats and one of them said the group didn't like my GMing style and in D&D the sole purpose of the DM is to create a world and quests for the players to do and disagreed with my definition of the DM being the rules arbiter, storyteller, and narrator. Then proceeded to say they wanted a serious RP heavy campaign when getting them to give me their background was like pulling teeth.
One somewhat positive outcome to rules lawyers and the like is they are easily swept aside by homemade game settings/systems. Having to deal with power gamers and mechanics manipulators in my early years of being a GM prompted me to try my hand at creating my own game systems and settings. In doing so I discovered a great deal of enjoyment in this hobby well beyond what I already enjoyed in the games already. I now rarely use a published adventure module for anything but inspiration without ever actually running the module. Game settings too commonly produce players who have read all the source material and try to use that knowledge to unbalance the game in their favor (theirs, not the party).
In my 30+ years of gaming now I have found creative ways to solve many of these issues without having to resort to direct punishment of players or their characters. Instead of some nasty monster appearing in the game to pass judgement on a bad player, I have instead tried to find the root cause of many problems and adjusted the games I run to eliminate the problem before it occurs.
One thing I feel everyone should try at least once is to fully embrace the concept of this being a theater of the mind. Do away with character sheets beyond simple notes of information of what a "person" would know of themselves. All the core mechanic data known only to the GM, such as attributes, hit points, skill points, etc. The players only know they are fairly strong or pretty good at this task but not so good at another.
In my experience (among select players who enjoy such full immersion) this has been some of the greatest gaming moments. It frees up a lot of the drudge work for players to simply act out their characters. Generally they provide a written backstory from which I will assign a logical bonus/penalty to stats above or below the average for their race. This does place a lot of work on the GM, but with practice and good organization it can run very smoothly.
I'm pretty new to the game, and I'll be GMing soon. My group wants me to give it a shot. This channel is saving my life. Still absolutely terrified.
Just have fun! I'm sure you'll do great.
how did you do
Just wanted to say I absolutely love your videos. So many issues have rang true in my last groups.
I'd like to say I'm glad you love the videos, although if you're struggling with these issues then I am sad!
The more videos like this that I watch the more I know I'm lucky to have the players that I do.
I always love hearing about good groups! Makes me happy. I love my current groups too!
When I was new to DMing I had a boss that used a column as a weapon. He would swing it around the entire boss stadium maybe twice during the fight. When he did, I had everyone roll Dex saves and give me their ac's. As long as they beat what the boss had rolled on one of those two, they were fine. This one guy though, this was the only session he played with us. Once I found out who got hit and who didn't, I started describing how the boss was attacking and who was getting hit. This guy, we'll call him Aj was like "I want to jump out of the way." I groaned, tried to explain why he was getting hit. He kept on about it though, so I eventually was like "Fine, just this one time. Roll. If you get an 18 or above you avoid. Don't do this again though." He kept trying to do the same dodge thing after every single attack that would hit him landed. Then he told me once the session ended that I was a horrible DM for not letting him roll to dodge attacks.
Another time I had my step sisters boyfriend playing with us. (He invited himself.) He was playing an edgy loner and "I lean on the door and have my foot resting on the other side of the frame." when the crew got called to the bridge. Our loveable doofus of a player was coming in behind him, asked him to move and he didn't. So he kicked SSB out of the door frame then came in. SSB started threatening our Doofus in real life yelling things along the lines of "Oh no, you hurt you me SOB. I'm going to fing kill you!" It was a Star Trek campaign. Peaceful exploration. The session was going to be a political satire, but SSB would fight anyone that talked poorly about the politician I was satirizing. I had to cut 70% of my content because of him that time. It came that my regulars did everything they could to kill him, while he was looting an alien presidents house after brutally murdering him. Then once he died he started yelling at me that "You're a fing terrible DM. Blah blah blah." My group actually stood up for me and started insulting him until he drove off in anger.
g'day HtbaGGM, i enjoyed your rant. i think we all have met these, think i have done it myself sometime. But we where all doing it to ras up our DM at the time. ( was a laugh) I passed it on to my other DM cohorts. so Thanks mate.
Great advice for a terrible situation to find yourself in. You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.
That's not what she said... hur hur hur... I'm also 16 stuck inside a 36 year old lol. Thank you though for your kind words :)
The big difference between a GM and a novelist is that the GM has to be willing to accept the players input. If you hold your story up as some holy text that can never be deviated from no matter what. Well go write a book and let your players read it because clearly what they want out of the game and what their characters want to do have little to no meaning to you.
You as a GM have to be willing to sacrifice sometimes, and a good GM will work the over all story back into the campaign somehow, to keep things moving along. I get that some players can poke the GM a little too much, because they hold their experience a little too sacred themselves, but it is a group game, the GM is just as important as any other player, not more so. He is there to direct the story and events, but the players will do things that will go completely against your story, and if that makes you angry and frustrated, you shouldn't be GMing.
Find a way to work it back in, they decided to go treasure hunting instead of fighting off the evil wizard? Fine the evil wizard succeeded in whatever he was attempting to do, and now he has becoming a much bigger issue for the players, that will keep hounding them. Things will only get worse if they don't turn around and try and stop him eventually. Then it becomes personal for them, because they didn't care about him kidnapping people from the local villages, but now his antics are cutting into our treasure hunting time, and that will not stand! What you'e done is taken the situation, and molded the villain into someone the players actually have a legitimate issue with, instead of a superficial one that you made up for the purpose of "your" story.
I love how he says that there are not a lot of bullys out there and I seem to always have one or more anytime I tried to run a game. I eventually gave up and quit GMing
I definetly recognice myself in the overly excited player I'm sad to say. But being aware of your faults is half the battle. Right?
Without doubt! Next time you play, see if it improves your game and let us know!
I remember running an AD&D 2e game on role20 and I mentioned in the campaign description that I was only using an easy selection of core rules, but I got these two players who started using all the garbage extra rules from Combat and Tactics: a book I explicitly said was not allowed. I reminded them of this and they simply said they didn't care and that it was my job to cater to them. That campaign didn't last long.
Haven't watched all the way through yet, but the first minute was hilarious. I definitely heard myself in there somewhere (in my thoughts, I'd never actually berate my GM like that).
Hehehe. We have enthusiasm which sometimes bubbles over!
I had to pull up our new dm and felt a bit like a bully, he had us battling a really tough battle with no options to not battle and it was so difficult even our highest hitter couldn't hit the boss, I rolled a 23 with mods and was told it still didn't hit so I had to say wtf, he had to modify his stats as they were ridiculously high. once we all finally beat the boss, we looted and got nothing at all. the whole group were visibly annoyed at that. I tried to be nice and mentioned we should get something, I mean it took 3 hours nearly to beat the encounter. does this make me a bully? on a side note this is the first time he has ever been a dm
There is a difference between bullying and correcting someone or helping them improve.
In your case I don't see it as bullying.
Fauna Spectrum I leave criticisms for after the session and actively request them usually
My first ever character, who always challenged the gm, became the divine judgment of said gm. whenever another player (or me for that matter), my char would come and cause chaos and usually killing the party members that would just bully. It was always a blast when my char came because we all knew we were gonna die.
Often as a GM I make sure one player doesn't get anything until they find one thing that is totally badass compaired to the rest of the players.
Obviously, these examples are a bit extreme, but there are a lot of excellent players that demonstrate these behaviors to a lesser degree, and it's important to know how to deal with them because it's pretty common. In most cases, I find that a little gentle but friendly teasing regarding the matter in question does the trick. In more extreme cases, I think you'll want to have a firmer, private talk. But, anyways, great video:)
I usually only present the extreme so that people can do as you've just done - see the worst, look at your own and realize it isn't that bad and so maybe a chat or a tease or a mention would be sufficient. Yes, thank you for raising it!
A group I used to be a part of had one REALLY bad GM bully that did literally everything on this list. It got to the point where she forced one of our GMs to derail the campaign and do a story SHE came up with, yet she didn't want to be a GM herself. She would also question every little thing they did and not trust them at all. Only reason I stayed in that group for so long was because of everyone else.
My uncle, the first man I ever gamed with properly, actually eschewed the idea of giving out experience after encounters. Instead, at the end of every session, he would hand out levels to characters he felt had earned them throughout the session. Usually, the party would stay about equal in terms of levels, but sometimes we would split off and do different things that would earn different amounts of levels.
sounds awful
I'm the sort of GM that likes to reward roleplaying with tangible results, good roleplaying gets benefits as characters become more in tune with their surroundings and the subtleties of the setting whereas bad roleplaying doesn't get anything or worse yet gets punished. An example of good roleplaying being rewarded is the party was on a ship that was dead in the water for an entire week and change, however this wasn't a problem because it had oars. So everyone but two players decided their characters would help with the rowing until the winds came back and the sails could be used again. I decided after a week of solid rowing, eight hours a day every day... they got a permanent +2 to strength.
One of the two players didn't have an issue with this, he was a spellcaster so getting stronger wasn't really an issue for him. The other person who was a spellcaster/fighter hybrid class however decided this was not going to stand and spent every session for the next three months until that character died ( I wouldn't say it was deliberate on my part but I wasn't shedding any tears for the following reason ) would spend at least ten minutes ( and often longer if we let him ) arguing how his character in retrospect would have been rowing with the rest of the party. He never outwardly said it but every time the argument came up, there would always be in parenthesis with his argument "If I knew I was going to get a permanent strength bonus I would have been doing this" and then would repeatedly cite that the "Gold/statistic value" of the party was becoming lopsided. Certain characters were "worth more" than others, like there was an invisible number over everyone's head and somehow he felt that his number wasn't as high as everyone else's.
Bless this player's heart, I know I should reward roleplaying but I could never shake the feeling that he was only roleplaying in an attempt to appease me and get that tangible result from it after that point. Instead of focusing on the story and how his character was interacting with it, he saw roleplaying as a way to make me happy and reward him with experience points and loot, rather than what roleplaying is supposed to be - which in my opinion - and that is to get characters immersed in the story that's being told and get them to care on a personal level what happens to the NPCs and their own characters in relation to them. Do you agree?
What do you think and what sort of dick would you classify that as, HtbaGGM?
I liked and subscribed, but I disagree on two points.
1. I like it when players add to the story and try to drive it in their own direction. It is a great source of ideas for me and I don't mind giving them narrative control like that since I know they are getting what they want out of the story. If what they are trying to add to the story doesn't fit, like a magic shop on an island of cannibals for example, then I let them know that. If they persist after that, they are nagging and "bullying".
2. I know that losing control over your only playing piece in the game is terrible. but many games, especially older games enforce this. If you are playing a fantasy game and a mage charms your character, or you are struck by a fear effect in a horror game, then you are compelled to act in a certain way, or not at all. Sometimes it isn't obvious to the character why this is happening. Sometimes the source of the compel is unknown and finding out about it is a part of the mystery. If your GM says "you feel an overwhelming sense of dread of dread as you approach the gates and you turn away from them in fear" then you as a player should ROLEPLAY that out and go with it. Don't ever assume your GM is trying to ruin your fun. There is a reason for whatever they are doing although it may not be apparent at that moment. Nothing is worse than having to give away facts like invisible spellcasters or cursed items, just because a fussy player wants an explanation to a situation where they feel you "must" be breaking the rules.
Welcome to the table! Glad you liked! I agree with your points - just not your examples :) So yes players must drive story through their own choice and decisions, however there is a difference to exploring and interacting, and dictating and forcing links when you feel they should be. Losing control of your character to mind controlling effects is very different to a GM saying - your character feels like a coward here and runs out the room (because that's what the GM thinks the character should do rather than because of an effect).
I dunno man, a magic shop wouldn't be too out of place on an island full of cannibals.
It'd likely be barter-based and offer exclusively tribal voodoo type stuff, but a magic shop it would be nonetheless.
VikShade the Technolich
right, you could make NPCs act negatively on a weird action of their doing, but then put an event that requires such action to prevent some outcome when the player finally gets a sense of safety walking down a road
VikShade the Technolich Well what you say is correct, but the video author wasn't saying that players shouldn't add to the story, he said that they shouldn't constantly pester and butt in with ideas all the time in a disruptive way when it's clearly not welcome.
I have a rule I go by when I'm running any type of game; if it seems like its just me who has a problem with a person I'll let it go because I can deal with it since, in general, it takes quite a bit to get me flustered/aggravated/angry. The moment other players start complaining about said person's behavior, I allow for one strike and only one strike and I make sure to talk to the person about. If their bullying continues, they're informed as succinctly and nicely as possible that they're no longer welcome at my game.
I walked away from a game once because everyone at the table was essentially being a low-key bully. Found out later that the game imploded a week or two later. Basically, the players complained they werent getting enough magic items (in a low magic campaign) and the GM dropped the Magic Item Compedium on the table, said "Whatever you can afford you find it." Well, guess how that ended. Everyone became overpowered and the game ended.
Yeah. That is a sad tale of caution!
D&D is not balanced for "low magic." People who try to force it into a low-fantasy mold it wasn't meant for are mostly the same ones whining that casters are "overpowered" - no shit, they took away everybody else's access to magic via their balanced gear. Unless the GM in your story was handing out truly insane amounts of gold but no good items to ever spend it on, the group didn't "become overpowered," they became par and had a scrub GM who didn't actually understand how to run a game at the bar it was balanced for.
3.5 wasn't exactly a well balanced system in the first place. Forcing a style on it ontop of that only asks for a mess. 5th ed, in my opinion, could be run low (or at least semi-low) magic with less detriment to overall balance. But anyway, as I said in the first comment, I'd already walked away from the game well before it had imploded so what I had was mostly hear-say.
I actually found that the very high-end meta in 3 was surprisingly fair and balanced, although there were a handfull of infamous issues that did render the game unplayable without patching (Hulking hurler, iaijutsu, the sarrukh, some of the cheaper entries to lance pouncing). At that level you do need customized enemies with their own class builds to challenge a skilled group, which a lot of GMs just aren't willing to put the effort into. Makes the game *tremendously* more interesting, though.
I commend you for managing to pull that off. Every story I ever heard was the game getting wildly out of control by the high levels. I've got pretty much no experience with high-end DnD in any edition as all the games I ran/were a part of never made it past level 10.
The hardest bully for me to deal with is the 'forces his own story' bully. Partly because we are always being told to run a "sandbox" game / make the game about the players / let the players decide what the adventure is / etc.
It's also difficult because it can be really subtle: while all the other players are engaging with the plots and trying to expand the map and solve the mysteries, this one player turns every situation into a way to tell his own story.
I'm cool if a player wants to link things with character background and pursue personal character goals, but not make the whole campaign about that - especially at the expense of the other players not being able to engage in the GM's story or their own.
Guilty as charged. I tend to be overly enthusiastic and can probably be a bit pushy, both with "can I do a X check? can I do a Y check? Can I.. can I... can I...". Working on it.
My dad is a GM bully and he introduced me to D&D. He's also a terrible munchkin. He always, to my knowledge, plays a halfling thief and steals from the group on a regular basis (from casters in particular). He thinks his character is Sherlock Holmes and makes complex, grandiose assumptions about my plans for the oncoming story and conspires with the group based on those assumptions, which in turn makes the party believe that whatever he thinks about the story must be true, when in-fact, his theories are built on hypothetical information, about plot-lines I haven't even developed!
Suffice to say, I don't play D&D with my father anymore...
I know a guy who sits at our table and he dies extremely often. But since he complains about everything, constantly, he explodes when he dies and the GM lets him survive a situation just to shut him up for 15 seconds.
A mage created a blast over a battlefield that was the size of a nuclear blast and he died and complained, so the GM said that he survived because his mount covered him.
You shoud create characters for your videos ! Like the "Kind GM" and the "Evil GM", and the "Dick player" and the "Nice player", to make all theses impressions and situations ! it would work great in my opinion. ^^
Great plan having a video on this ! We had a good conversation about that, happy to see it developped ! I'll show this one around for sure !
Trying to wrap my head around your plan - you want different character sheets of the roles?
Sorry if messed up... My english is still ramping up, let's say.
What i meant is, most of the time, in the videos, Guy interprets the "annoying disrespectful player" or the "nice and diplomatic player" or other gaming stereotypes, that do come back in other videos. Just thought of the idea to have the "Good player" and the "Bad player" be identified figures, to illustrate theses situations.
Guy already does that but perhaps having the stereotypes more fleshed out and identified would really be a cool feature for the videos.
Sorry if i'm still not that... clear. You know what it is, ideas.
I had a player in my first-ever D&D group who was like this...he was constantly demanding to see the GM's rolls, he openly murdered another party member because he didn't like how the party member was playing (and, to a lesser extend, because of character alignment differences), things like that... I just remember the GM got sick of him one session, and had the monster the party was fighting be especially hard on the bullying player's character, to the point that this was the ONLY monster in our entire campaign that attacked an already-downed character, killing it...then when the player got angry and belligerent about it, we all just laughed and pointed out the player's bullying, while all still having a good time, and giving constructive criticism. The player rage-quit, and we were all better off, for it.
1:20
sounds like something sad music should be played over
*In the arms of the angels...*
"every day, hundreds of gms are bullied. Players always asking for more xp and magic items. Don't let this happen to your gm, adopt a better playstyle today"
When I first started out D&D, I was a DM and had to deal with some homebrew systems along the way of learning. Then comes the guy who had a pdf of the Player's Handbook at the ready 90% of the time-- and pretty much tried to find every little bit of an opportunity to make me look like an idiot in front of my players.
We've had awesome game nights with the homebrew stuff we've made in this group. Although, now this snarky guy was elected DM since he was obviously the one who wanted to be one since the beginning. Now my PC was very unfortunate throughout the first session I played with him, but his other friends were on cushioned pedestals.
But hey, I'm the healer and the party seems to somewhat appreciate my role at least.
My old GM was the kind of guy who'd rig the only staircase with a trap our characters weren't high leveled enough to detect because the rogue had dodged a plot point he'd planned with a lucky roll last session, or the paladin had tanked a shot meant to put the healer out of commission. Needless to say, I didn't spend long with that group.
For our group leveling took us a while as we got all our exp and stuff at the end of the quest we were on. but since it was so long we didn't just get one level we got 2 or even 3 depending on the quest and monsters we did or didn't face. as for gear i honestly don't know how magical/special items work but ours does all loot on rolls. sometimes we got a few wands and a suit of heavy armor but we have also gotten the same heavy crossbow 7 different times, and i will admit the only thing i have gotten is a ring that is worth more selling than using. i feel like that is the best way to get loot as it doesn't let the gm show favor or hurt any one player as for loot. Through out our game everyone in the group has gotten either an upgrade in armor or a weapon but i'm still using most of my starting gear and i don't feel cheated at all since i know its simply chance
I've never GM'd before, so these are things I'll have to watch out for when it comes my time. I do get this weird notion that I am bullying the other players. See, we have a sorcerer and a warlock who're both crime lords and business partners, and my character is a fighter who serves as the moral compass. Sure, we have our banter, but I worry that our banter is overriding the importance of the other players. One of the other players is a spectator, and the DM wants to talk to him about it for the next session, but I can imagine we're making it a bit harder on him.
I also had this player my first time I was a DM.
He was the kind of guy who would point you at a rule in the rulebook every time someone did something slightly wrong, even if it was related to lore. I made the campaign in a made up world with made up magical stuff, yet "that monster doesn't exist, it shouldn't be in the game" and "that's not how curses work (lore wise curse, nothing affecting combat), it's not a curse".
He also refused to cooperate with the other players. I had made their stories fit in the main plot by making their objective in the same place. Yet he wanted to go to another place and was pissed because he had to go with everyone...
He also proceeded to purposely 'challenge' me as a DM instead of at least trying not to do everything he could to mess up everything I did and said and take the most bizarre, anti-logical actions just to frustrate me...
In regards to the bully telling other players what to do and get, it can go the other way as well. One time I joined the group a friend of mine was DMing (and I didn't know any of the other players). I played one single session and then already dropped out again right after. What happened was that after (not even during it) a fight that was pretty daunting I mentioned some things that we could have done better tactically, and how we could have improved teamwork to make the fight less daunting, but one of the players immediately started shouting at me and saying that I shouldn't tell them "how to play the game". That's when I kinda gathered I wasn't wanted at that table and decided to part ways since I doubt I would've been able to see eye to eye with someone who isn't able to reflect together with the group.
Red Arremer There's a player I used to play D&D with, and his name is synonymous with trying to control other player's characters by saying "you should do this that's the best action", to the point that other players would try to cut him off before he said anything.
He had technically good advice, but the fact that he do that to every single other player every single turn every single time was what made him barely tolerable.
Well that's the thing, I waited until after the session was over to bring up what we could've done better. I made mistakes as well which I brought up. I wasn't constantly interrupting anyone or trying to tell them how to play the game, just give pointers as how we could've done better.
I'm a DM (though) I've not played in years. Fortunately, I've not had really any bullying from players. The closest I've had was a couple of anxious players who were just starting out. Once they got a hang of RPGs, they did fine.
I wouldn't consider myself to be a bully with it but I do relate some to the "making too many requests" bit. I just get excited and try to think of ideas, so I ask many things to see if I can give it a try. Luckily it hasn't been too much of a problem but there are times when I have to force myself to shut up.
Me as wizard: i shall invent the hoverboard, start a laundry mat, clean these streets of filth (both human and dirt), create assassin creed like items for the rouge , create a form of long range communication, set up trade routs and adventure to pay for it all
I shared this video with my friends. Just as a good reminder. :)
That's really cool, I hope it does that and keeps the table happy!
Some of our players are obsessed with Investigation checks and I was telling them about a desk with some items on it, I began to list them and they wanted an investigation check. Then they investigated the desk itself. Then they were going down some dimly lit corridors and investigated every 10 ft.
I run a Super Hero campaign with my friends at the library in my spare time. We always have fun, but my two best friends are the worst at bullying my game. My one friend is a VERY experienced player who I found out about role playing with him. Because of the hardcore rule learning we had to do to trail blaze our own campaigns and RPG knowledge, he's become what could be considered a rule lawyer. He'll constantly pause a very dramatic moment, like our heroes falling from the sky, to tell me that they should be using a Constitution bonus rather than Fortitude. (In our campaigns, things like will and fortitude are hardly ever used, so I try to shake things up a bit when it seems appropriate.) In reality, the fort bonus gave everyone a better bonus for survival than for the lone Constitution bonus. I made sure to give him extra damage in the fall ;)
My other best friend, however is EVEN worse. He's a very new player. I try to do a good job helping him understand what he can and can't do. He CAN look for the terrorist, but he CAN'T make the terrorist appear where he wants him to be. It doesn't help when my rule lawyer friend constantly interjects and inadvertently feeds the idea that the players control the world just as much as the GM.
But, in reality, everyone learns (I think) and we enjoy what happens, no matter how crazily off track the adventure goes. Your videos encourage me to keep Game Mastering despite the insanity of my party, and trust me, that is no small feat :D
It is always about learning and patience. Though it can be difficult sometimes!
I have a serious case of my players wanting the story to go their way all of the time... I think the best scenario is this where while playing space pirates, the player playing captain of the ship, hired two mercenaries to have extra brawns in an upcoming fight at a space station. The mercenaries we're picked on by other members of the crew, they were not allowed a part of the earnings, and their opinion was sistematically berated, which is fine by me. But then the captain asked them to go on front in a really dangerous situation. I just went with what I thought it was the most sensible answer. "well, if you trust your other crew members so much more than us, we wont go on front unless you come with us". That sprouted a violent discussion just right in the middle of enemy territory, they got ambushed. A PC died in the incident and only my good graces let the others live. The mercenaries died as I really wanted to send the message that if they weren't capable of treating npcs as people, well, they were better off without them. But the players just acted as If I was punishing them. Maybe I was, but it's not like there wasn't anything to learn from the punishment. They treat every other npc just like that, as something to slay or something to get free support from, I know I'm doing something wrong here... but I don't really know how to solve it. In my next game I'm taking for granted that any npc can be suddenly killed at their whim and I must have a cotingency plan for it... Even children. They've done it before. Next time it wont take me as a surprise...
I tend to push my dm but never bully. I know this because if I was he wouldn't hesitate to punish me. The very first session we had with an entirely new group (we'd only played a one off before) one of our players fell asleep during combat and the dm promptly had ALL 20 bandits dog pile this guy until he was litterally nothing but multch. It was a running gag afterwards that we still had bits and pieces of him stuck to our boot every now and then. The player did not return for another session and we all learned not to piss off the dm lol
I find that a way to inspire awareness into players is to slowly make them adapt. Maybe if they're too enthusiastic to the point it bothers someone, curse some loot. Make a sword they instantly grab bind to their flesh for at least 48 hours, while it has a 50/50 chance to drain a health point every swing they take with it. Maybe if one player is being boring and constantly uses the same technique in combat, throw in an encounter in which the enemy has found their tactic out, causing the enemy to out-ambush them.
I agree! Great points (especially since I've used the cursed sword that sometimes wounds the wielder and sometimes the enemy).
I'm extremely happy that, in our Patreon session, we both work more on the story and the fun than on math and numbers.
It's always about the story - Barbarian in a dress and Priest ignoring the Parade Directors best laid plans lol!
I was a DM and I had a big bully at the table (who was, no lie, a mix of all six versions). He would not be intimidated by the nobles, even going so far as to power game, having a wicked high Charsima so he can intimidate and lie his way through everything. Even if his checks didn't work, he would meta a lot (Version 4). Eventually, he bullied three other players into leaving my game, and I was left with one player.
It was not fun at all.
You seem to have waited far too long to kick said player to the curb. I know it can be pretty hard having had to do that myself. I had a character apply a template to his summoned creatures without even asking me, and told me I was sorely mistaken when I told him he could not do it, this would have simply been a warning if not for all the meta-gaming and other rule breaking (communicating advanced tactics with summon creatures whose language he did not speak, as an example).
I think it would be interesting if the DM gives the player what they ask for but with a twist for example a stolen royal heirloom that later gets them thrown in the dungeon or giving them a personal challenge for them to complete.
Players don't get to bully the DM long...
The "enforcers" show up and take out the problem.
DM: "Damn the bad luck, you took on someone too powerful and they imprisoned your soul in the void. No, don't bother rolling a new one."
fantastic vids thank you for making me smarter player and game master
Hahah xD when one of us behaves paranoid in our game sessions our DM just make sure the player really feels paranoid. Always fun ^^"
As from my experience,
not everything that turns out to be bullying, startet out with that "intention".
misunderstandings, differing expectations* (to the game/setting/system/fluff/players...), real-life troubles, play-stiles* or group dynamic
overall it reflects a lot about the self-confidence of a gm, if s/he is bullied or bullying - and of course of the bully and other players.
The first option that came to my mind was to say "we take a break here and clear this up - or this won't be fun for anybody" - instead of "i'll kill his *ffin character!". It is a really immature way to deal with this matter in such a way - as it won't get to the actual problem, instead possibly creating more frustration (potentially on both sides)
and yes, you could just /kick-ban-ignore anyone that is ...inconvenient... just be careful to not light-mindly burn bridges and end up with only sycophants** around you
*just imagine a gm and other players that "just want to casually play" vs. a person that is very storytelling oriented; a campaign about political intrigue and a number-crunch munchkin who is only used to summerize conversations etc.
**if praise is heaped upon you - wheter as player or gm, you can become overall blinded. It's not being bullied, rather favoritism, but it can stiffle you just as well.
You are absolutely correct. On all points. And the usual form of bullying is from exuberance, enthusiasm, or desperation to have fun, not from malicious intent. Often times one can stop the game and talk about it, but if the person doesn't see what they're doing is putting strain on people, then it's time to cut the rope and find a group you like to play with.
Your caution about simply removing difficult players who cause strife at the table - ten years ago I would have agreed. Now that I'm older and with the internet - I don't see why anyone should have to struggle or tolerate players who don't know how to behave in a decent manner.
i consider myself quite lucky with my group regarding GM bullying...
very little problems with rules lawyers as the more experienced players seem to be hardly interested in rules at all and concerning the newer ones i am probably the biggest rulesjunky...
as for demands on loot, we regularly left adventures with less then we started under our previous DM, so expectations are fairly low...
What are those character pics behind you? those are brilliant! Who did those?! :D
Those were drawn by Sean Isaakse -a Marvel Comic artist and an amazing friend and roleplayer! They're characters from a game I used to run called Bacon Battalion which you can check out on the same name channel here on TH-cam
I started a side for fun World/Campaign deigned for experimenting and trying out fun ideas that wouldn't fly in most campaigns and as a part of it I offered a my friends a chance to DM a session or two so I could be a player and regretting it now. The reason why is because my friend who decided to take up that off didn't do proper research on how the mechanics of 5e before hand an introduced some unblanced or even broken monsters, items, and npcs into the game. Like every NPC we have encountered is lvl 20, including a pacifist scitist and merchan, but the main issue is with a cult leader warlock we were lucky to pursuade to join us thanks to her knowing my friend's character. After we got her on our side he then has his character and this level 20 warlock get in a romantic relationship.
Now, after his 1 session was stretched into 3, it's my turn to DM again and he is trying to get me to let him have this character follow his character around during the adventures. Trying to say that because of this romantic relationship she can't just stay on the boat as his character explores the islands. I try giving him possible reasons but he kept trying to find loop holes to let me let him have her tag along. Have her pretty much just sit on the sidelines until asked for help, nerfing her rolls, nerfing her levels, he just kept on trying.
When I finally put my foot down and just said know he got furious, said that I wasn't appreciating him and his DMimg and says that because I didn't budge he isn't coming to the next session I DM.
I can compromise, but this just feels like him trying to get special treatment to me.
All in all, Roleplaying with a group is about the good times, and the fun had with the group.
Bullies ruin that fun for everyone involved.
so my first time as a GM. i had a tiny group because two dropped out. it was me and three players. one wasn't showing up, but that means nothing to this story. there was one that i was trying to be lenient with. i let him use a homebrew class. i said something against 100 gold (to put this in perspective, the thief came with only 10 gold.) he convinced me to let him have the gold. then i ask for a backstory. this is what i really disliked. he flat out told me "no". we had an argument about what Dungeon World is really about. he said it was solely about discovery, i agreed to an extent, but i felt as though it also is about story. during the session, he would disagree with me about a lot. from what move is what to LOGIC itself. yes logic. there was another that was better about it. they usually took each other's side, but this one was logical and presented facts and opinions that made sense.
I'm very glad I don't have anyone close to this in my game.
That is something to be grateful for!
I think my current GM has actual issues. He is putting a group of level 7s in encounters much above proper level. This week we had to go against 4 level 6 fighters with the undead template and full fighter feats. Each one had 9 feats. This one fighter had feats specifically designed to let him run thru the whole party regardless of layout of the group and do 3 attacks on anyone it overran. And they all had at least 26AC. Which for most of the group meant having to critical to hit. Forgot to mention all the undead fighters were skeletal and had a +15 to hit and I think a +10 to damage.
Real kicker is he constantly targeting this one player's characters. Also all the loot is for the tank. The only non tank bit of magical equipment we got was a magical sword that only an elf could use.
Also encounters that make half the party unable to do anything.
Have you ever done a video like this regarding when the GM is the one doing the bullying? Cause in all my years I've found that to be a much more common problem.
I don't think I bully my gm, but I sometimes like to present my point on how something should be with my character. I don't demand anything, I just show them something they might not have considered. Example is today, I was playing my 5e artificer lvl 7 and we were getting a couple weeks down time before our plot would come into motion and the npc would arrive back. I told everyone that I could modify my mechanical beast to be a plesiosaur rather than my current Allosaurus to help out in our naval battle that we were planning. The problem is, we had limited gold and it cost 1k gold and 1 week with 8 hrs a day to build a new one if the current one was destroyed beyond repair. The dm said that I needed to spend the 1k, 1 week and 8 hrs a day to modify it and I argued that I had most of the materials to modify it and it hadn't taken damage yet so it didn't need to be repaired. He had me make an int check and I got 19 and he said take 150 gold off of the 1k. Idk if it was good of me to ask that or bad to question the dm with something like that. To me, it seemed that my servant took no damage yet, didn't need to be repaired, so my artificer could simply reuse most of the parts to transform it into something we needed
ran into a few GM bullies, couple of them were friends with the DM so they didn't think too much of it, but they forced level ups every session and DM was clearly unhappy with that. Now the DM has salt against us when half of our group (me and another new player) didn't even ask for anything :(
Then there was a guy who tried flavoring everything he did so it became overpowered as fuck and in the end the other players could literally feel the GM's soul leaving her body as she just gave up trying to control that player :( The GM had to place a rule that if you were new to the setting or game system, you'd have to go with a pregen.
like seriously, It's literally in the game's character creation *requirements:* must be familiar with the system and read the lore handouts.
WHY DO PEOPLE NOT READ DESCRIPTIONS.
i had a dm friend who literally said : if you annoy me in anyway except while playing your character (meaning if the character was suppose to be obnoxius so be it) he would kill us with a pegasus army (because who would be proud being killed by pegasi)
Good I'm not a bully! Im getting irritable, about my GM who is as a player plays as a Minmaxer/ powerplayer, playing a over powered character, in his own game...
Finally it hit the point last game, that he's trying to make his character seem awesome, without taking rolls... and or ignoring rule or initive.
I was just surprised he's been running a fun campaign, and it hadn't been a problem... until out third game in...
I was sooo scared i'd fit behaviours mentioned in this video, but it seems I'm more or less alright.
In my group we alternate between 2 main games with 2 different GMs. One guy is kinda a bully towards the GMs. For one game, i don't want to get after this guy because he has a temper and i've tried to calm him down before so i usually just go to the GM after the game and try to make sure he doesn't give into the guy's demands and to just ignore him when he acts like that. In the other game, im the GM and i ignore him or give him small teases and make him wait a long time before he gets any of what he wants.
I'd like some tips on balancing punishment and rewards without bullying, to keep the impartial-ness of being a GM, or, calling out the GM on a bad call and doing it correctly. I think the problem with bullying is that people can't understand the nuance of how to do that, and I think we've all (especially those who have been GMs) have done this.
Step 1) Never punish. Always reward. I could go on a psychology rant about pavlovian behavioral training here, or else cite auntie muriel's repository of southern folk wisdoms, or you could just trust me. If your characters are doing something that you don't like, try to shift your focus until you understand their goals, and then facilitate their role-play. As an impartial GM, you are there to facilitate the players.
_ex. Player is "ruining" a GM's game by sneaking by all the GM's pre-planned encounters._
Option 1) Force them to do what I want anyway? Maybe at a disadvantage because *they are under-leveled and it's their own fault!* (Bad GM)
Option 2) Give them some secret passages to find, some windows that can be grappled or some sleeping foes that can be dealt with in silence, and allow them to roleplay their campaign the way they want to? (Good GM)
Step 2) Run your table. Remember that part of your job is to make sure that things are running smoothly, and also that everyone deserves equal time, and nobody wants to wait 10 minutes for a call. Make the call, if you are wrong, you are wrong. If another player can convince you that you are wrong in 10 words or less, you can change your call. If they cannot, make the call, and revisit the decision in the post game for next session. Keep things moving. Try to be consistent from week to week, and if you are going to change something, hang a bell on it. Clearly state that it was brought to your attention last week that the official rules state X and that from now on you will be doing X (or Y if you like it better your way)
Exactly what TheBrothergeen said. Don't punish (well not often anyway :)) and take notes. That's the key. Discuss those notes after the session.
I might be guilty of this to some degree as a GM but I hope there's a fine line I'm not crossing. I've often suggested to players how something might make their character feel. The player is always free to interpret that information how they see fit. But I make sure there are consequences be it good or bad.
As an example: players enter a bog knowing the area is corrupted with foul magic. I then suggest, "wading through the bog is very unnerving and the nauseating stench of death hangs thick in the air testing your resolve". As a consequence of pushing on, I might impose disadvantage when combat occurs and secretly roll for any injured party member to see if they are infected with disease.
In past campaigns I've ran for friends who know my style of GMing and will take descriptive queues like that example. But I no longer have that advantage and this topic has me wondering if I need to change. I don't think I'm a harsh GM or a bully but perhaps that's only because no one has approached me about it?
I ask to make alot of insite checks not because i want something to happen but my curent charactor is a manipulator and i like to gather info on npc and other charactors i can use for my advantage. I already asked the dm and other players if its ok and there all fine with it.
Am I bullying if I dispute the needed roles for being either too hard or too easy? Like sometimes I will demonstrate the action to show how easy or hard it would it would be.
The first and last time I ever tried to GM, was a savage worlds game set in fallout. I wanted to aim the atmosphere towards lovecraftian horror. I set up a shit ton of maps, built at least a hundred characters and names attached to them in case the players encountered them. I got a lot of amazing mood music, and had the general plot and encounter set up with multiple ways to handle it mapped out. I went hardcore on this bullshit. Then I eventually got a group together, I’m excited to run a game and expressed how I was new to GMing. We seemed to be on the same page, got a date set and all that. Then the day of session zero they all decided to bail on me to play a fallout game run on savage worlds by a different player. They then subsequently all left the group, and I was just there with all this work done, feeling miserable. I will never GM again from that cause that was by far the most shitty experience I ever had. Excluding my pedophile, and neo-nazis drug dealer run ins that is.