ITT: GM confessions

I haven't GMed in years. I desperately want to, but I've since developed a crippling fear of any and all potential failure in basically any task I do.

You material probably is shit. Because you haven't play-tested it. Even the best written stuff will have a glaring flaw when run. I've run the same scenes and dungeons in different contexts for a dozen groups, trying to figure out ways to make them more interesting.

You could also have other GM friends (or people on Veeky Forums or a board of choice) give you opinions. Even the ones you disagree with will give you some insights.

I lie about all my dice rolls. I'm running LMoP for a party of mostly people who have never played.

They are stupid idiots and at least 3/5 of them should be dead.

Mostly this. The worst part is when I roll straight, or go directly from the book, and they accuse me of railroading.

I impose weird experimental DMing ideas on my guinea pig play group, and often "warn" them about it in ways that I don't think they'll quite realize what they're getting into.

I irrationally hate magic and magic-users on impulse in settings because I think it's lazy to just have a spell that solves a problem.
Ironic, since I'm a scrawny computer scientist.
If I had my way, magic-users would all be NPCs. All of them.
If your setting's magicians are doing their jobs, they should be in universities or towers researching the intricacies of transmutation instead of collecting 40 bear asses.
Magic or miracles are inherently the exception and not the norm, so it drives me up the wall that you can suddenly become magical by studying hard enough, without divine or infernal assistance.

>Their significant others/children are kidnapped Worst cliché. There are far better ways to get the players' attention without resorting to low-hanging fruit like kidnapping their families.

I wish I knew how to get my players thinking creatively.

I'm just curious, given the sorts of games I tend to run, why is magic in your conception this implicitly utopian all powerful thing?

Why not have worlds where magic is weak and very often less useful than just a mundane solution to the problem, where the magic user is a specialist of some sort, perhaps only hired to do a specific job related to his particular area of expertise in magic?

I tell them i run a hardcore game, i.e. you can and will die if you don't think, and this is mostly true but there are circumstances wherein i cannot bring myself to kill them, though they richly deserve it. Point in case one of my players elected to essentially commit suicide in the pregame character introduction session a week or so ago, not even the first session, the pregame session that lead into the first session, and i could not bring myself to kill him. Worst part is he figured it out, obviously, knew i let him off. I feel like a failure.

>Their significant others/children are kidnapped and held hostage by this evil mirror team

Fuck this shit. GM's who always do this are the ones responsible for the flood of murderhobos interested in killing things and taking their shit.

I really don't like killing my players' characters, not even because I feel sorry for them or because I'm soft, but because I don't want to waste time on player making a new character and having to somehow implement him into the ongoing story.

As long as they remain unaware of it and don't get bored, you're a fantastic GM.

I'd love to, I really would, but it's really, really rare in popular systems to have mechanics match the ideal.
I've had a history of bad experiences with powergamers that tend to more often than not use magical or mystic methods to boost their power with.
It's always that one fucker who wants to play a Jedi and pump his Force Lightning damage out the ass, or a minionmancer or a save or die master.

Entrap players in complex situations that has no "single correct" solution
For easy solutions (such as torturing an NPC who refuses to help them out or murdering anybody who stands in their path) give the players genuine consequences and make sure they understand that the effect is due to their cause. Reinforce that an eye for an eye will NOT end their problems.
Reward players for creative solutions.
Make impromptu play have better odds of working, for instance in a bar fight, picking up a bottle and clubbing and opponent with it should do more damage than regular punching.

I don't stat out any encounters. My encounter notes look like '3 Golems - 200 HP, Fort save or knockdown. 2d10 slam, 2d10 beam. 3 Control guys. 20 hp. One warrior, one rogue, one mage.'

Then we play the encounter out. I have no AC's for the party to roll against until dice hit the table. I make up the enemy's saves on the spot. I don't hold to the HP totals in the notes. if someone has an awesome crit and leaves the Golem at 189 HP, I just kill it. If they scratch damage it until it has 201 damage, it sticks around until someone gets a good hit on it. If a player asked me what feats the enemy was using, I wouldn't be able to say anything but 'it's a custom ability.'

I let one of my players see behind the curtain once, when she wanted to learn how to GM. Completely blew her mind. She showed up with all these extensive notes and monster stats on index cards and long, NPC descriptions and setting notes. And I had to tell her 'I make pretty much everything up as we go. I think up an idea for a fun plot thread to follow or encounter to have during the week, and that's all the planning I do.' Pic is the look she gave me.

I round HP and fudge damage all the time.

>Your attack does 13 piercing plus 3 fire damage?
>okay, so it was at 105 health, and resists nonmagical damage, so that's... whatever, it's at 95 now

>debuff wanker: did you remember to make him take my 1 poison damage at the end of his turn?
>yeah, of course
>don't change his HP at all

>skeleton is attacking player
>can't find my d8
>roll a couple random dice, peer at them
>"you take 5 damage"

>boss has like 40 HP left
>players have been beating on him and think he's nearly dead
>someone rolls like 7 damage
>wow! exactly how much health he had left! good job buddy he's dead

it's usually in their favor more often than not. I just feel bad that they try to maximize every little point of damage they can do and I just sort of estimate what the enemies do, because I made up these encounters anyway, what's the difference between fudging a couple rolls or fudging a couple more/less enemies

kek

i dm'd to give my dm a break, and all the players did was dick around and give me shit for the campain not being good/up to snuff
i refused to dm from then on, and let them all know it was entirely their fault, rather than constructive criticism, or just criticism itself, they just made fun of it constantly

i dm'd for a different group later that year, it went great, the players had fun, and we kept doing it for a few months, nearly a year. and my first group (which i eventually left, they were irl friends is the only reason i stayed) never knew

>she

LONDON
O
N
D
O
N

I allow my players to use any homebrew they find on Dnd Wiki 3.5 edition.

why did you assholes climb a 1,000ft cliff instead of going through the castle front door?

They threw me completely off my game. I didn't have the back half of Castle Ravenloft well remembered.

88 plus rooms in that fucker!

Not them, but do you really think even Strahd would expect such batshit insanity?

they found Strahd's empty coffin,"defiled" it, and then threw it out the only window in the crypt and down 1000ft cliff

Holy fuck.
...Did they dead?

>shit on a gods bed
kek how many are dead

they had the holy symbol of Ravenkind and my dice are cursed.

Teach me your ways, Wise One!

I enjoy being the GM because it gives me the only power and control I'll have in my life. It's also easier than being a PC

Remind me, it's been a while since I had Strahd (or any Vampire to that matter) in a campaign, but:
Isn't it so that
a) The lords of Ravenloft are only immortal by merit of being too fucking badass to be killed,
and b) isn't a one of a Vampire's weaknesses that they die if they don't sleep in soil from their home for an extended period of time?

Did the party just manage to slay Strahd by tossing his furniture out a window? And then if the rules are as I remember them, scatter the dirt from inside the coffin in a nearby river or something?

It was a 5e conversion of I6 (Curse of Strahd wasn't even announced when I started) so strahd was just a tough vampire who just can't tell when a girl is just not into him

Wait, this isn't how everyone GM's? I've been doing basically this exact thing for decades now. Even in Shadowrun.

I mean I could bitch how Strahd deserves more gravitas, but right now I'm imagining Strahd as a vampiric Johnny Bravo, and I'm too busy trying to figure out how I can include in my current campaign without it being overly silly.

This is what I do. Dice rolls are mostly to keep things in perspective. Mechanics are to keep things under control. Neither should ever interfere with the tone and pace of a session.

I hate GMing, and wish I could stop.

But everyone else at my table is absolutely awful at it, fucking terrible, and I hate that even worse. So I keep GMing every game, except for the rare time when I let someone else try, which inevitably dissolves within 3 sessions.

I love to collect and read tabletop RPG books, and I even love to try out GMing new games, but for some reason I keep coming back to Risus and tooling it for the games of my choice.

It's one way to GM, and technically the easiest way, so long as you can think on your feet a little bit.

But there are also obsessive planners and GM's that take disturbing pride in statting absolutely everything out.

Yeah, those GM's are the easiest to fluster. I pride myself on being able to crash a train right off the tracks if the GM can't improv even a little.

Naw, if you REALLY want your player's attention, have an NPC steal something from them.

You will inspire such homicidal fury, that your players will storm the gates of Hell itself to get back whatever was taken, and kill the thief in the most painful way possible.

This is the same reason I GM. Everyone else is so bad I'd rather just not play D&D at all than play under them

>I pride myself on crashing a game
My style is improv, myself, but come on, man. It's hard enough to pretend that you know what you're doing before someone decides to break your plans in half for shits and giggles.
I know how grating it is to play a railroad, but maybe you should DM if you don't like not being able to direct the plot. It's what I did.

That does happen to some vampires depending on setting. But remember that Strahd is immune to most things that are inconvenient for normal vamps.

If it fits your group, and you guys are having fun, go ham.

But I'm pretty sure I'd get bored with your game. I am 100% for making GMing simpler, I plan very little ahead, but that planning includes AT LEAST some generic stats I can use in a pinch that have a bit more consistency than your approach.

> Even in Shadowrun.
To be fair, I think its shadowrun that works best with such a technique. Such an autistic-oriented clusterfuck of rules.

I shoot, at medium range, a short burst of flechette rounds, medium spread. There's heavy rain, strong wind and it's a moonless night. I've got racial infravision and built-in smartgun system. I have a Strength of 4 (so 2 Recoil compensation), my gun has RC 1, and I've shot two rounds beforehand. I have 6 hit box of stun filled and 4 of physical, but I have toughness.

What's my attack roll modifier? Which of those modifiers apply to the defense roll? What is my opponent's modifier due to the spread / burst?

I'd be amazed if players can keep up with themselves, let alone scrutinize your things.

Oh, I forgot, both me and the defender run, and there's a bit of cover due to trash cans.

> I know how grating it is to play a railroad, but maybe you should DM if you don't like not being able to direct the plot. It's what I did.
Liked, upvoted, shared and subscribed

I drop games that involve lesbians. I drop them like a hot rock.

Completely cold. No warning.

I have zero tolerance for that cringey shit.

What if the actual player is a lesbian

I am running an online game that has everything it needs to be successful and legendary. I have excellent players who love everything I'm putting into it. I've managed to instill a great deal of detail into every aspect of the narrative without overwhelming myself. The players care about the world. I have a program that allows me to stat enemies relatively quickly. I am even able to create maps.

But at the end of the day, it's the maps that kill me. They are so fucking tedious to make and manage and edit, even if they're not honestly that hard. It just consumes my time and tires me out. It's been like this every single time I've tried to do maps in a game. Making maps makes me want to not GM. Because of maps, the game has been on hiatus for a couple weeks.

I would like to run a non-map using system, but the players have already put so much time and effort into their characters and frankly speaking I just plain like them a whole bunch and I like the direction this game is going in, maps disregarded. I would hate to disappoint these players, considering how wildly high quality they are.

Why is GMing like this?

>female players

If the actual player is a lesbian, I'd imagine that things would be more organic instead of the usual forced yurifaggotry type shit I'm used to.

Not that user, but no one would probably give a shit about that, it's just that it's a dude playing the lesbian about 9 times out of 10 is the stark reality of the situation.

Gross, yet fun

> tell players about a paladin who went missing when he went to defend against a "god".
They find a man in armor and weilding a greatsword standing in a large room. It's in the temple where the god is. 3 of the 4 players spend the first two rounds trying to snap him out of mind control. I didn't even say it was the paladin. Gave him wight stats mixed around and +5 to hit greatsword attack. The warlocke proceeds to get fucked while they try to grapple him and convince him to snap out of it for bis mom. I set the DC at 30 for persuasion. The get him to have disadvantage on attacks and then to drop his weapon and use his fists before they finally decide to knock him out. It was the paladin. I expected them to just knock him out and then heal him. But they just let the warlock get fucked. It was pretty funny. The point was that I gave him around 40 health but then let him use cure wounds and second wind because I wanted to see them stop trying to break his mind control. He was probably 2x harder than the god because of them trying to talk to him.

My first campaign has been a mess. I've made so many mistakes.
>Railroaded PC's into signing a magical contract in order to further what I wanted to do with the game (which they signed offscreen and only found out about it at the end of a hangover-session)
>allowed one of my players to use a pants-on-head retarded homebrew race he found on the internet (skeleton race from somewhere), and had to adjust his race bonuses a couple of times
>gave my players an inn as property after the first session, despite having no clue how to work property/businesses into the game yet.
>had an antagonist show up to interrogate them on some shit they had done the previous session, but didn't really let their rolls affect the outcome of their interactions because i wanted them to actually think through the situation, and i wanted him to be super-intimidating
>barely roleplay NPC's

i mean there's positive stuff i did too. i think they really enjoy the combat encounters i throw at them, and they were really into the NPC's i introduced. starting fresh on a new campaign soon with some newer players joining up as well. starting my prep with asking them what they want out of a campaign, how they want to play, and more descriptive backstories i can use to engage their characters more in the story. here's hoping it goes better this time

I include my flat mate in my group because he's just there.

I told him it's because he's a good player.

I do GM. Almost exclusively. And I always improv it. It's why when I *do* get to play I have a zero tolerance policy for heavy handed railroading.

I'm a cooperative player, but when it's obvious the GM has only one absolute intended direction for the game with zero deviation? Fuck that. We're going off the rails.

-4 (-6 since you're both running).

I usually only apply the largest bonus and the largest penalty when shit gets that ridiculous.

Be less of a little bitch and talk to the DM.

Or just quit, if you don't like it. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you should ruin it for everyone else.

>Inbe4 but all the other players love it!

I'm not talking about being intentionally disruptive for no reason, you fucking idiot.

I'm talking about shit DMs with no imagination who insist on "their way or the highway" type of railroading. Fuck people who do that. They deserve to have their games ruined.

No, you want to be disruptive because YOU dislike something, you petulant little cunt.

Other people can have fun with it, but because you dislike it it means time to throw a bitchfit and waste EVERYONE'S time rather then being an adult and walking away.

Fuck YOU, That Guy.

youtube.com/watch?v=rVxkpOolpKw&list=PLpaNqz1vDmSis_9xewWD8t-vpVDsbnxcg&index=9

> -4 (-6 since you're both running)
So I am spending 3 Flechette Rounds for absolutely nothing?

There's options' cost for a lot of those modifiers, like the Dwarf's "C" metatype to ignore the darkness' penalty, or the Essence cost of a smartgun system in your eye or the karma cost of the Toughness Quality.

If you're going to ignore them, might as well focus solely on Initiative passes, high skill, high stats, and high accuracy weapons as the worst I'll have is a -6.

This is the kind of thing that push players to instantly reroll into murderhobos.

That should be: (Lighting/Visibility/Wind and Range: two at -3, step up at) -6, -7 from non-compensated recoil, -2 from wounds, -2 from running.

So -19 to the attack roll.

Likewise, my opponent got -2 from the Burst Fire, -3 from the medium spread, probably -6 from the light/visibility and +2 for Light Cover, and +2 for running himself.

That's a -7.

Those greatly increase one's chance to glitch, and thus affect one's ability to get away. Besides, waving off these effects remove player agency.

Seconded.
Take some time and write out your shit, then split it up and whip up a thread.
Let us in, we care about you and your game.
You don't have to keep drinking to be hap... wait, that's something from my own time.

Just, let us help, you cunt.

House-rules nigga.
Write up the rules you want to run by and tell them to stick that in their books.

I've known about this for a long time, but Spoony was the first to put this into words.

Arcane Casters in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5
Enough said

I'm not actually a GM, though I wish to be one. My main problem is maps, I can't find good maps for ANYTHING ANYWHERE
That and the only thing I could use to DM is Roll20, because I have no IRL friends

You must be so fun to have at the table.

LOL

I'll bet you put on lip gloss before you crawl under the table and suck the GM's cock.

I think a balance of these two styles is the best way to gm.

I only fully plan out major events fully. We are talking about just the big hooks, twists and reveals.
Beyond that the setting is in place and the different regions and settlements are fleshed out to a decent degree. The players may do whatever they wish in my little homebrew sandbox. Eventually I will steer them into the important events... And if I did it correctly they wont even notice that I "corrected" their direction.

>But I'm pretty sure I'd get bored with your game

But the whole point is that players don't see behind the curtain. To them the GM is juggling all the stats and has them all. They can't see it, but they expect it. That it's all smoke and mirrors is not something they realize. You have to be pretty attached to stats and have an encyclopedic knowledge of foes to know something's up, and it can all be deflected by 'custom class.' 'Not using the Monstrous Manual, so you guys can be surprised' etc.

Beyond that, how would you get bored? I mean, sure, if every encounter was 100% off the cuff, sure - it'd just be a disjointed jumble of encounters with no overarching story. That'd be the worst form of 'no-plan-GMing.' But that's not what I do. There is an overarching story, I just have no idea how precisely it will advance beyond a week out.

> and it can all be deflected by 'custom class.' 'Not using the Monstrous Manual, so you guys can be surprised' etc.

You see, this basically means there's no consistency. If something would give us the victory "too easily", there'll be a bullshit excuse for it not to work. If you feel we've been outmatched, suddenly the monster was weak enough to be slain by a 7 damage attack.

I am a DM most of the time (66%+), part of the fun is to try and figure out how you DM, how you design your NPCs and encounters. It's something that get sniffed out easily by someone with experiences.

Look. The DM can't cheat. And your players seem to enjoy it, hence the "If it works with your group, and you all enjoy it, full speed ahead". Call me an autistic fuck, but I have fun when the game is fair, when variables could technically become knowable, when there's a universe to be known and bested.

Your style would cause the verisimilitude to shatter, and me to leave politely between sessions.

> vampiric Johnny Bravo being overly silly
That sounds fucking amazing, go for it.
Swing for the cheap seats.
I believe in you, you cunt.

Really, he kind of his. He's an selfish douchebag without self awareness. He just has serious stern face going for him...Strahd, even played straight, is a pathetic fool.

My first campaign was a nightmare.
>I hardly wrote anything ahead of time
>Situations only had one or two solutions
>Railroad attempts were obvious
>I let someone play as a gunslinger
>He was so overpowered at level 3
>I gave everyone all these bullshit magic item so they could catch up
>The damage got so high it turned into a game of who gets the first hit
>The main story ended up changing about 3 times

We had no rulebooks at the time and we were all new. The game was 2.5 but some people were playing 3.5 classes.

This is pretty much what I need to confess. Nobody knows. It is kind of hard for me because I don't like keeping secrets/etc - it makes it impossible for me to talk to anyone about the game.

But, yeah, all that shit is made up. Even when I write stuff down (monster stats) prior to the game - making them up, forget the monster manual - the battle goes the way I think it should go.

Im hacking together an amalgamation of abominable add ons for Saga because FFG and Wedge Star Wars makes my cunt dry.

Happened to me recently. To be fair, though, in Ars Magica that's pretty much expected because the magic system is batshit nuts.

I make up every number on the spot. Hit points, difficulty checks, armor classes, everything.

I figured my players knew this, but they talk sometimes like they don't.

> My first campaign was a nightmare.
All first campaigns are. You learn from your mistakes and you keep going.

> I hardly wrote anything ahead of time
> Railroad attempts were obvious
Nice combo there, railroading into uncharted lands. Thing is, you're very close to the sweet spot where PCs get to set their own objectives!

>I let someone play as a gunslinger
>He was so overpowered at level 3
There's definitely something you were doing wrong. All that is required to make a ranged character OP are basically denied to the Gunslinger.

>I gave everyone all these bullshit magic item so they could catch up
>The damage got so high it turned into a game of who gets the first hit
Not that bad, next time calculate every CR as being 1 or 2 lower, should balance out. Of course, you might need bullshit DEFENSIVE magic items.

>The main story ended up changing about 3 times
That's actually not a negative. Main stories change, sometimes part of the old plot rear its face. It's all good.

I am sure in the next attempt or the one after that, you'll have a legendary campaign that will be talked about for years.

>flood of murderhobos interested in killing things and taking their shit.
Weird. I thought reading lots of sword and sorcery was responsible for my interest in roleplaying characters who kill things and take their shit.

See Great that you've got a group that matches your playstyle. But if you have to recruit, try to find casuals or new players. Because players like me will leave within the 4 first sessions.

What don't you like about FFG star wars?
Genuinely curious because I used to GM a saga game for about two years and im currently playing in FFG and I like it so far.

That means you aren't drinking enough. Sounds like you're letting everyone else get too drunk to notice your numbers when you have to make sure YOU are too drunk to see the numbers and then slur whatever you wished you'd rolled instead.

Your players are my heroes.

> This paladin's a family man. He leaves home and fight threats to the region because someone has to do it, and nobody else would be able to do it.
> Evil cleric raising undeads.
> Within' the three first quest, have to fight a monstrosity made of wife and two sons.

There is so much more that could be brought into a campaign, and all the DM does with it, with no buildup whatsoever, is destroy it for a cheap hook.

Yup, murderhobo factory right there.

I mean, I don't disagree with you that that's idiotic. I'm just saying that I like playing murderhobos because Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are my two favorite fantasy characters.

I have no idea who those are. Nor whatever appeal a novel about a murderhobo would have.

What I do know is that there's a comic out there mocking murderhobos. Called "Goblins". Frequently ridiculed for the "Saaaad factor". Well, their Murderhobo, MinMax the unstopable fighter, actually does have character development.

Is it the case with "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser"?

Beautiful! Bravo!

Ive used my bosses named as the last 4 BEG and had my players kill them all in terrible ways. I dont feel bad

In my metaphor for DMing, the DM is the director of a TV series. The players are the actors, and the PCs are the in-game characters.

As in a real TV series, the 'director' makes or breaks the series as a whole. He sets the scene, he puts down the props, he makes the 'actors' look good and gives them opportunities to shine by playing to their strengths and putting up compelling situations for them to play their characters. He designs the non-leads (NPCs and any villain) to act as foils and complements to the main characters and introduce the plot. If the DM sucks, the players can only work with what they're given with and usually end up acting like a parody of their characters because it's the best way to cope while playing.

However, the whole point of all of this isn't that the director looks good- because the leads are the show. All of the trappings of the background and the NPCs are there so that the players can pick up the ball and run with it. If the players don't do anything interesting or never develop their characters, the whole 'show' is flat and unsatisfying because no matter how good the backgrounds look or the non-leads act, there's no tension and no reason to play.

A DM always has the final word, because that's his job, but the whole point of his veto power is to get the players to accept a situation that looks awful for the full payout later. It's like asking an actor to get 'shot' on-screen and leave for a whole season for a dramatic reveal down the road that makes the show grow the beard and him wind up nominated for an award. If your players don't trust you, it's going to suck when you ask them to grit and bear it, but you have to give them a reason to believe in your skill.

(Cont)