Bad DMs

ITT: Shit DMs do that pisses you off

>mumble a description directly out of a module while looking down at it
>presenting a game as sandboxy or even hexcrawl-ish, then two or three sessions in it's ALL ABOARD THE DM'S CRAPPY NOVEL EXPRESS
>favoritism in general
Never had pic related happen besides in Final Fantasy VII but that sounds awful too.

>new players enter the group
>always ask if they can perform a certain action rather than just saying, "I do this thing"
>DM points out they don't need permission to use their skills
>whenever they use their skills, DM interjects and says, "You can't do that!"

I mean, he could have explained some of the basic mechanics to the players first, like how initiative works, range of spells and weapons, etc. so they wouldn't be calling out all kinds of actions that they can't necessarily perform in a given situation. Instead, he practices alienating new players who end up losing interest in roleplaying altogether.

>inconsistent application of rules in similar situations
>fudging rolls
>ever uttering the words, "I want to tell a story" in reference to the campaign
>thinking it is clever or original to kill PCs' families
>not letting player characters die unless it's "dramatically appropriate"
>vague house rules
>refusal to let characters do anything that isn't on their sheet

Honestly, I think extensive skill lists lend themselves to this problem, where players look to their sheet for what they can do instead of thinking, "what could a person like my character do in this situation?"

>fudges rolls, ever
>has entire notebooks of shitty lore he wrote for the campaign, which of course he's going to force on his players whether or not they care
>won't allow players to deviate from some linear path of progression he's set out

What is this, theater? Essentially all you're doing is forcing players to act out a script.

So, a DM I play with had this insane mary sue that we met at lv.3 Here are some of the most memorable feats:
>When we first meet him we saw him shrunk an elder white dragon to the size of a sprite.
>Killed and reanimated as his pet an hecatoncheires we encountered casually scrolling in a forest. With a single spell. We were lv.6 at this point.
>Fought some sort of god under our own eyes (during the effect of some sort of global time stopping spell).
Other hilarious occurences:
At level 8 in an unprotected dungeon we find the sword and mantle of Corellon, a few sessions later we randomly encountered the egg of a prismatic dragon while walking through a plain, we are level 8 at this point.

I have a ton more stories but these are the highlights i think.

>Instructs players to create Intentionally Broken and/or overpowered characters.
>Asks for extensive detailed explanations of exactly *how* said character is overpowered and what it does.
>Creates encounters that are custom-tailored to fuck over those exact breaking points.
>Gets MEGA pissed off when those custom tailored encounters are flipped on their heads and the party stomps them because they are capable of more than just one gimmick.

And, all of the following after the phrase "So this campaign will begin..."
>"... in a gladiatorial slave arena, where player A must fight player B"
>"... with you shipwrecked on an island with no equipment."
>"... at a ritual sacrifice, where Player A) is strapped to a rock ..."
>"... in the severe rainy season, where all your horses have gotten stuck in the mud and you have to kill them."

and this one deserves it's own subsection:
>"... at the end of my last campaign, which Player A was the only one there for, so he's keeping his existing PC, with all his treasure. Wanna tell them what happened?"
"eh. Stuff. There was a guy with a face. Nothing new."
>"Great! Oh, did you finish drawing from the deck of many things?"
"Yeah, I got real estate, some warriors, a bunch of gold, and something called 'the void?" what does that do?"
>"Oh, just ignore that card. It's too complicated. Anyhow: On with the game."

>"... with you shipwrecked on an island with no equipment."
One of the best campaigns I ever played in, my grandfather created everything for, and it starts with that exact situation. You were aboard a slave ship and got let loose to help try to keep the boat from sinking, but broke loose with a life boat and ended up washing ashore. The tide is rising and you basically have to climb up this hill and enter a cave, into the setting of the campaign, which is basically entirely underground.

Agreed. It's almost always the players' fault, not the DM's.

TOO SOON

I was saying that certain systems are ones where the player and DM both need to look out for that kind of thinking. I think in the case I was responding to before, it's largely the DM's fault because evidently they were new players.

Just want to remind you shitlords of a few things.

If you don't care about the "shitty lore" of a campaign setting, why aren't you playing some action platform Vidya Gaem? Or go play a tactical miniatures game for the love of Gawd. Stop inflicting your short attention span and shitty need for instant gratification on the other players.

If the DM wants to run a crazy High-Magic campaign full of fantastical shit, and you want to mercenary around in the mud as a murderhobo, go find another game.

without judgement, positive or negative - do you play 4e?

OP here. I didn't say anything about "shitty lore." Hell, I explicitly said my problem was a bait-and-switch.

I like intricate worldbuilding and interesting cultures and architecture and such, but I like encountering it organically, not having it shoved down my throat.

Also, emergent stories that arise from the adventures of a group of characters are almost always more engaging than whatever story where I'm just paraphrasing lines that are fed to me the DM comes up with.

I'm also REALLY not sure where short attention spans and instant gratification come in. I like games where I have to improvise and decide what to do in difficult situations, working as a team with other people, becoming immersed in the story that arises from the difficult situation in which our characters find themselves. All of that takes time and attention.
No. I play OSR (especially B/X D&D and Swords and Wizardry).

Wasn't part of, but witnessed.

>party steals a religious artifact from a dragon
>demon shows up, saying each evil god is going to send demons after them to reclaim the artifact
>demon fucks up the party before being subdued.
>party decide to just baleful polymorph themselves and fly back instead of walking through the moria mines-esque route they'd taken to get there
>DM throws his shit
>party don't understand why
>DM says it's not the heroic or 'interesting' way
>party feels his excuse wasn't good enough in-character or out

this is what happens when you try to have a narrative game, but were stupid to do it in 3.0

>GM puts any sexual content or situations in the game, or worse, actually forces those situations on players

Really? It didn't occur to you that some people are going to be uncomfortable having this shit forced on them? A person certainly shouldn't be singled out and have to explain why something like that would even make them uncomfortable in the first place.

>has entire notebooks of shitty lore he wrote for the campaign, which of course he's going to force on his players whether or not they care

Oh no, the setting is well defined so the player can interact with the world and draw inspiration fromit! Why would someone do that?!

You realize that no one is going to be able to run a Perfect Sandbox World for you, right?
That no DM is going to have this immersive MMO style world designed where you can just fuck off through Forest X and have this great and immersive storyline that you've initiated with your improvised adventuring choices?

Even MMO's have driving plots, and those things are the result of thousands upon thousands of man-hours of development.

But you keep looking for that Special Unicorn campaign, or thinking that you've run it yourself.

Sometimes the lore really is shitty. I like good lore, like any person would. I do not like shitty lore, and most people wouldn't.

If the lore is so bad it detracts from the joy of playing a game with your friends, then it's time to play a different game.

>Oh no, the setting is well defined so the player can interact with the world and draw inspiration fromit!

You'd complain too if your DM forced the entire table to sit through 2+ hours of him reading fanfic-tier garbage from his lore notebooks to "preface" the campaign setting.

No, this is what happens when you try to run a game and can't be bothered to learn what the PCs can do.

>where you can just fuck off through Forest X and have this great and immersive storyline that you've initiated with your improvised adventuring choices?
This is literally what a hexcrawl campaign is, and I'm playing in one now.

>has entire notebooks of shitty lore he wrote for the campaign

See, I do this, but it's because I run multiple groups through the same setting and I like to be prepared in case they ask questions.

Plus worldbuilding is sorta fun.

Okay, you have a point.

>then it's time to play a different game.

Yes, if a DM just isn't doing it for you, it's time to pick up and bow out gracefully. You aren't everyone's idea of a great Player, either.

"Player's Complain Thread #3456" is just an excuse for lazy autists to bitch about less-lazy autists.

>le contrarian who selectively read what they wanted to in the post they replied to, and failed to intuit the tone meme

Every time.

I've reported your post as it does not meet the qualifications required to maintain a high level of discussion on Veeky Forums.

My DM did that once for a game. We all died, and went to hell and at then the game really started. I'm referring to the pic, not whatever you actually typed.

I failed my roll to care.
But have a reply anyway.

>You realize that no one is going to be able to run a Perfect Sandbox World for you, right?

This is exclusively the type of campaign I run. It's admittedly a small world, but every corner of it has quests and hashed-out NPCs. There's a bigger plot, but the players would have to stumble upon it incidentally.

I plan for as many contingencies as I reasonably can. For instance, if the party decided to go the chaotic evil route, the plot and world have a kind of modular design that permits this. None of that material may actually get used, but it's there.

2 of them are known spectrum warriors who powergame, another is just an idiot and the final one doesn't do anything but roll dice when told to.

The GM had played with them before, and knew what they were like.

>This is literally what a hexcrawl campaign is

Then stick with hexcrawl campaigns, and realize they are a very specific niche of TTRPGs, and generally DMs don't run them.

Well, two hours IS a lot, but I do like a nice prologue part or something before the campaign begins. Isn't that what every DM does in some form?

Nice sparta meme by the way, Aunt Sally. I think they'd like it a lot more on Facebook though.

That's fine. But if you look at OP, I explicitly say that the DM claims that's what he's doing, then suddenly isn't. The problem isn't the game with a specific adventure planned for the party and a villain and all that, but the lie.

>it's going to take fucking forever to get somewhere on foot and we'll run into a random encounter most likely
"weeeeell, you can always take a boat road across the lake"
>mfw

I know that shit always leads to either fighting some goddamn lizardmen or the kraken. It pisses me off because it's become completely predictable at this point, Steve.

My DM is decent, but there's one strange thing that somehow happens in all his games (which have all been fantasy games, so far). No matter how hard we try, it is neigh-impossible for us to stock up food past two weeks ahead.

I think he's somehow gotten the idea that throughout the entirety of the middle ages food was scarce all the time, or something. He always comes up with some new excuse to limit our food supply, even in large cities. First of all, there's the house rule that all non-preserved food spoils after two days, meaning we have to purchase rarer preserved food. Then, when we get to a merchant he always claims there's little food to sell, even after a description of walking past wheat fields for hours. When we point that out, it's suddenly xenophobia, or some disease making the food inedible, or the village just had a large festival, or whatever.

We've tried raiding storehouses, and they always turn out to be half-empty. We've tried rolling checks, which always turn out to be so time-consuming we can't outproduce what we consume. We've tried investing in merchants to produce more rations, which they always flat-out refuse. We've tried buying a bakery, then suddenly wheat prices skyrocketed, meaning our investment only got us enough to raise our food stockpile to -guess what?- two weeks.

We've complained about it several times now, asking him to make food sources more plentiful, to which he always replies 'sure, I will in the future'. So far, we've still never gotten a stockpile larger than sixteen days each.

Yes, my Nehwon 5e Campaign is run fairly freeform, but with a little more emphasis on several main plotlines. There are "quests" or "threats" that resolve themselves over time if the PCs ignore them to pursue other challenges.

But that's the sort of thing that only very experienced and practiced DMs run, and it's a lot of work for them. You can't complain about not being in one of those, they are the exception, not the rule.

On that note
>Playing a Dwarven Druid.
>Prestige into Master of Many Forms
Master of Many Forms: No more druid spellcasting, instead you become an A-rank Wild Shaper, able to change into progressively more and more of the monster manual. eventually, you get the shapechanger subtype.
>Decide to specialize in appropriately Dwarfy animals.
>GM separates my PC and a halfling from the rest of the party by a giant underground chasm.
>Wild Shape into a giant bat, start to carry the halfling across so we can un-split the party.
>GM puts an undetectable anti-magic field in the middle of the chasm, to force me to shapechange back and fall to the bottom for loads and loads of damage.

...

>Party outdoors with oncoming blizzard that is going to spell imminent doom.
>Literally, we have about a minute before conditions start dealing environmental damage to us.
>Nobody has any camping supplies because we have not had to track things like food or water or sleeping arrangements since the damn campaign started, or cared about the weather, or anything like that.
>Oh, and we're about level 8 right now.
>We're on a field of rough packed snow over regular earth.
>Wild Shape into a dire badger.
>Dire Badger has a Burrow speed of 5.
>I can excavate a 5'x5'x5' cube every turn, in 3.5 rules. But I just dug a small tunnel and started opening up a living space about 10' back from the
>Proceed to start digging a survival shelter.
>Make a "First night in minecraft" in-ground living space.
>Whole party can be comfy underground, set up sleeping bags, and have a small fire to keep the place warm.
>GM spends the rest of the evening sulking because i bypassed his big set piece snowstorm.

...

>GM puts us in a big, empty warehouse.
>But all the floor tiles are teleport traps!
>They send you to random other spots in the warehouse.
>Wild Shape into giant Bat.
>Attempt to fly across the floor to turn off the damn teleporters.
>"There's also an invisible wall of force, 5' above the floor."

>You can't complain about not being in one of those
But OP complained about being TOLD he was in one of those when he wasn't. That's entirely different.

>DM is secretly using yours game sessions to write a novel based on them

please see But also

>Nehwon
10/10 good taste, I want to be friends now.

Sounds like a compliment to me.

That happened to my DM once, I didn't mind. I thought it was kinda cool actually.

I fucking hate this shit when GMs get belligerent or petulant because you sidestepped their MASTER PLAN. Nigga, you're not writing a movie script, nature of the beast guarantees players get input and will more often than not throw a wrench in your plans. Just walk it off and learn to plan in open ended manner.

Even the troops in Napoleon's age had serious problems not-starving. Their trick with bottles of wine basically saved their asses.

If you want to have a month+ supply of food, roleplay farmers and build a granary, or become nomadic murderhobo herdsmen or something.

I don't mind. Shit, I'll help if he needs more insight into my character. That also explains why he's keeping so many notes and expanding on lore so much.

Food in general shouldn't be hard to come by; it just spoils somewhat easily.

Also, jerky has been around longer than writing.

tbf, that once happened to me because i had a brief moment of that guyishness where i essentially thought "hey you know what would be a good plot point, if my paladin destroyed the arcane artifact that allows for most of the dm's plot in this campaign, because arcane magic would be scary and confusing to him" to be fair, at the time i was 12 drinks into game night and more susceptible to stupidity. though he did allow me to roll an even 50/50 to see whether the spell worked, though it did end up failing. and thus Samyaza the prideful paladin met his end, seared into oblivion by a weird crystal.
back on topic, when my dm once fudged a roll for his gf's character to stay alive specifically because he was erping with her with his dmpc was very fucky.

>multiple, consecutive sessions with nothing but random encounters
>PCs are railroaded into doing the bidding of a patron (probably a metallic dragon) who treats them with nothing but disrespect

I agree with every one of his points. I mostly play Exalted, for what it's worth.

Army logistics vs small group food supply is vastly different, though. Salted food alone can, for all intents and purposes, last you a REALLY long time with proper storage.

>Scripted unwinnable combats

I once had a GM say to us "I'm not here to tell you a story. I'm giving you guys the tools to write a story yourselves."

On the surface, it's a great philosophy to have. I'd go so far as to say that's the sort of mindset that leads to great games, and that I'd encourage GMs to go about things from that perspective.

However, we later found out he was publishing a novelization of our adventure as his own original work, which kind of put a new perspective on how happy he was about us "taking the reigns to create the story" and "doing most of the hard work for him" during the sessions.

I fucking hate that. Why even GIVE the players a chance to fight then? Or did you genuinely underestimate their fighting prowess and they surprised you?

>kill a BBEG
>his boss, usually some kind of malevolent force, revives him saying "you're still useful to me" and he runs away
So what exactly did our hour long combat encounter do exactly? Did we just waste our time?

It's a trick to make your BBEG seem truly badass, and it appears in lots of other media. See: Final Fantasy 7, most action movies, etc.

It's hard to establish a bad guy if you can't show him for fear of assassination, but RPGs just don't work like films do.

I actually had one of my Roll20 players rewrite one of my original adventures and published it on DriveThrugRPG for the exact same game system I was running. Didn't even bother changing names of NPCs or locations. He denies to this day that he knows who I am or what I'm talking about.

that actually has a really sinister potential to go wrong if DM is some sort of a dick, but also really great if you're all aware of it and it a collaborative effort.

Holy shit, user.

We had a combat that we labeled "the fight that shall not be talked about" because it was so clearly unwinnable.

>Playing Pathfinder
>Party of 3 level 13
>Druid, Gunslinger, Optimized Dragon Disciple
>Start fight vs CR 15 encounter
>Tear shit up
>Reinforcements arrive
>CR 15 -> 19
>reallynigga.jpg
>Begin fighting through them as well
>Gunslinger drops
>Druids hp ~50%
>D.Disciple ready to fight
>Continue fighting
>More reinforcements
>CR 22 vs 12th level 3 man party
>whut.jpg
>Continue fighting
>BBEG comes in
>DC 40 Hold Person
>Dragon Disciple crit succeeds
>DC 40 Hold Person
>seriously.jpg
>BBEG comes to take macguffin item from D.Disciple
>Polymorph means macguffin is melded into him
>BBEG spams DC 40 Hold Person until polymorph ends
>3 hour fight for a sour taste in our mouths

We told the DM we'd never play with him again if he pulled that shit ever again

Food in the middle ages was
-hard to transport
-hard to keep
-produced in nowhere near post-industrial quantities or reliability.
So, assuming his world doesn't have all the low-level utility spells of d&d that effortlessly prevent any kind of non-heroic drama, he's right in treating it as a valuable commodity. Shit wasn't cheap, and mass starvation in large wealthy cities with strong commercial connections wasn't unheard of. If Florence has a 50000 ton shortfall in grain production one year, probably the whole region had a similar problem, and there's nowhere to buy grain in that quantity, nor the capacity to transport it.

From your description he does seem to jump through hoops to maintain the status quo, which I don't understand.

At this point, i would start metagaming about the ways and means of food preservation *hard*.

Or, I would just write "Three weeks worth of rations for everyone" on my character sheet in pen.

Because that shit don't come off.

Unless you can prove the idea was yours first, he didn't do anything wrong, legally speaking.

Not necessarily, you're just thinking about it from a modern standpoint. You basically had) quick expiration date food that was consumed in one or two days and B) long expiration date food which was preserved by smoking, salting and drying in various methods. I assume party would get so called "trail food" when they're out in the wilds; hard twice-baked bread, salted meat that has to be soaked to be edible, etc. You're not really packing a picnic lunch as much as a very early MRE.

Most threads about bad DMs seem to boil down to hate for any sort of preparation. Most people seem to use all these little buzzwords like "railroading" to describe the fact that the DM doesnt have anything planned for the PCs when they all insist on exploring the woods described as: "Nothing in that direction except forest for many many miles". Almost every new player wants to do something dumb because of the PHB saying they can do anything. I told my forever DM friend to just let another player be a tree then and just cut back to her once per session for about a minute and describe in detail the various boring things that go on in the life of a tree.

Also, it's not that hard to hunt if you know what you're doing.

did he say why he did it?

I'm not too worried about it. It's up as a free download, so it's not like he's making money off it. And it's a VERY obscure game, so hardly anyone will ever see it. He's since left the game's forums after a few of the other Roll20 players busted him out about it. It's just the nerve to do something like that in a tiny ass game community and then deny it.

>this is a strange, mystical world, teeming with magic, where danger lurks around every corner
>but there's no danger or magic for hundreds of miles in any direction besides north by northeast

Also, when you play in a railroad campaign you might as WELL be playing as a tree, because it's not like these fuckers ever allow you to be proactive in any way.

>monster attacks town
>combat
>town elder tells you to take this letter to the noble north of town
>take letter
>combat on road
>talk to noble
>he sends you on a quest

And if you don't follow that exact trail of breadcrumbs and do exactly as the DM says, literally nothing will happen.

Something about wanting to show how powerful the endgame BBEG was. To make us hate the BBEG even more so it was more satisfying to finally kill him. I understand that a little, but it was just a little ridiculous.

I can only assume the GM really needed the BBEG to get his hands on the mcguffin for the sake of his plot and needed to bullshit into infinity in order to have it trade hands.

are we really equating "GM prepared quests" with "GM is railroading" now?

I see a lot of stuff about DR'S getting upset about players trying to be clever and avoid a problem and I can't help but think "Why?"

When I DM I get really excited to see how my players are going to react to a problem. Will they flee, will they straight up fight, will the make a tactical plan and attack the next day or set up traps. I have no problem with whatever my players due I just want them to have fun.

Of course not. But if you can have four totally different parties do the same quest and the differences in what actually happens are very minor, then the quest is too linear.

>Let's make deathwatch about nothing but combat! All these skills you have are useless!
>Reduces deathwatch to a no story dungeon crawl
>Rogue trader? Rolling for profit factor? Fuck that, we're not following the rules. Also, I determine your skills in deathwatch, and we're going to half them. Fuck you.

By far the shittiest GM i've ever played with. Every skill besides shooting is useless besides the side missions someone else ran.

>DM confuses you by making you at least understand the BBEG's point of view if not outright sympathize with him

I don't need that shit in up to that point perfectly clear cut story.

You could try, like, running away? You know, the opposite of fighting a losing battle? Maybe even not engage the fight to begin with?

I'm not going to assume anything about that situation, but at least from what I've seen on here a lot of PCs tend to be the headstrong, take what they want, murderhobo types. And really I think its fair to say that when you play a headstrong, rush-into-battle type that you need to accept that youre going to run into fights you can't win.

1. That's a good thing.
2. That's a bad example because the Operative was outright wrong.

>I can't help but think "Why?"
Because making more content is hard. The newbie DM is very inefficient at prep, and usually writes a story instead of possibilities. The result is that every encounter negated in five minutes leaves a forty minute gap to fill and nothing to fill it with.

I genuinely think that's not even made in malicious intent as much as so many DMs simply get swept in a story they want to tell and forget players are actually the interactive element with wills of their own. That's where a lot of those "well I'll show them for messing up my story" kneejerk reactions come from once you throw a wrench into their carefully arranged sequence.

>the Operative was outright wrong
River having the Alliance brass' dirty laundry in her unregulated head was totally fine and dandy?
The Miranda incident couldn't reignite the war?

> you're just thinking about it from a modern standpoint
About what, exactly?

It is if you want to do anything other than hunt and forage all day every day. 3e's survival checks are absurdly generous.

Adventure Hook would take you East:
>"This is railroading, I'm going West."

20 minutes into that "on-the-fly" adventure:
>"Thought you could lay down tracks over here eh? Time to go South!"

20 minutes into new new adventure:
> "There's no rhyme or reason to any of this game, we're just wandering in a big circle."

I'll fill you in on some details.

The DM created a separate race designed to murder every other humanoid race & gods. We were fighting a crusade against them and it brought us to a castle in their secondary capital. We snuck in via sewers to avoid genociding all of the elves forced to work for them. That fight all happened in the throne room of the castle where the Captain and his right hand man were waiting for the Emperor of the killer race to arrive. Once the fight started, the doors were barred from the outside to stop us from leaving.

The Alliance was, despite what the Operative said, actually an empire, in the most literal sense. It tried to expand to engulf everything, to force the outer planets to its will. It experimented on people while claiming they were free. At the very best, he was fighting for what he saw as the "lesser of two evils," and when it comes down to it, independent planets seem far less evil than a singular entity which sees people as numbers to be rearranged as it sees fit.

>I see a lot of stuff about DR'S getting upset about players trying to be clever and avoid a problem and I can't help but think "Why?"
Because they're not there to share a collaborative story, they're there to have a power trip.

So to try to take things in a constructive direction.

How would you handle telling new players the wide range of things they can do ingame without oberwhelming them with rules ?

How would you convey an interesting world and history that the players can be part of without bombarding or punishing players with fluff?

How would you give players freeform control over the game without things turning into an unstructured mess? Especially new players who have no clue what is going on anyway.

>laying a single adventure hook in anything but a one shot, rather than letting the players take their pick in a world that appears to be teeming with adventure
There was your first mistake.

>thinking players who don't suck your dick and do exactly what you want are literally doing the opposite of what you want to spite you
This is idiotic.

>How would you handle telling new players the wide range of things they can do ingame without oberwhelming them with rules ?
I wouldn't. We're playing a roleplaying game, not a wargame - you tell me WHAT you want to do and we'll figure out HOW to do it.

>How would you convey an interesting world and history that the players can be part of without bombarding or punishing players with fluff?
Organically, mainly from various NPCs talking, and over time. No need to exposition dumb on them. They'd get the in-universe version, though.

>How would you give players freeform control over the game without things turning into an unstructured mess? Especially new players who have no clue what is going on anyway.
I don't of freeform control and if you're not alright with this is not a game for you. So many problems come from not establishing the ground rules first.

I know what I've seen and heard. I've played with a lot of people and the loud and boisterous players are usually the ones to intentionally do dumb shit because they think it's funny or edgy to be the fly in the soup. It usually starts with a little smirk and you can see it coming if you know what to look for.

This. When I give lore, it's never in big dumps or walls of text or miniature novels. I give Dark Souls item description sized bits and pieces of lore. Smaller chunks are much easier to digest.

I mean, that sucks, and I'm sorry you have had bad experiences with That Guys, but that isn't what I was saying when I criticized railroading.

I hate:

>problems with only one solution
>being fed a single adventure hook in a world where supposedly there's adventure under every rock, then called a shitty player when that particular adventure hook doesn't capture my attention (or I even just miss it)
>games that basically feel like JRPGs because the world is only interactive in a few very specific ways the DM came up with in advance
>when DMs refuse to improvise or get mad when you do too well

>So many problems come from not establishing the ground rules first.

This is especially true for troublesome players and class choices. Do DMs not read and approve shit before game begins? I mean, if it's anything goes it's anything goes, but if you're running a specific game you need to screen shit.

Can you define "freeform control" in this context for me? Depending on what you mean, I may like it or dislike it.

I mean, I personally enjoy a small amount of lewd in my games, and I know my players do too. If you don't enjoy that sort of thing, just be honest with the GM and tell him up front. If he's not a piece of shit, he'll be understanding.

Literally one of my PCs.

>Campaign starts as a typical "you meet in a set order of circumstances".
>Fast forward 2-3 sessions. The PCs have liberated a castle from some undead.
>Wew lads, seems we're going for an open-ended campaign with fiefdom management?
>4 out of 5 PCs decided that they will take the castle over and start their quest to lordship. >5th accuses me of railroading as I apparently somehow knew the other PCs were going to set up shop in there.
>Ok.jpeg
>Give them tons of stuff to do, plot hooks left, right and center. They pick the one to dispatch local bandits threatening the neighboring villages.
>OMG railroad! Let's just leave the castle guys!
>Throws a bitchfit when confronted by other players.
>"C-cant you see?! He's purposely steering us towards the bandits."

They literally heard about the bandits from a passing bard, whom they questioned for rumors.

>Alliance was, despite what the Operative said, actually an empire
So is America, what's your point?

I fucking love it when railroading conspiracy nuts actually get it their way.

>alright, you win. so what do you want to do?
>uhmmm... uhmmm.... I ask the barkeep for rumors?
>gm proceed to just get his story back on track

most players actually have no idea what to do with freedom once they have it

>Am I allowed to ride a horse?
>Yeah I don't see why not
>alright, I roll athletics to ride the horse

Am I wrong for pointing out the riding skill?

>So is America, what's your point?
That aiding America in its imperialism is not actually a morally good act. But I feel like we're getting off topic at this point.

Well, yeah, that's shitty, but there's a difference between having a detailed world and forcing every ounce of purple prose you can vomit up in everyone else's collective faces. Of we're walking through a mystical forest, I'd like to know if it has a name, and I'd be particularly interested in the history of the ruins we're exploring.