GMs/DMs out there, list some big flaws you have

GMs/DMs out there, list some big flaws you have.

>terrible at improv. I need to spend a shit ton of time with plans and side quests in case the players get off the rails or I'm fucked
>I fudge rolls in favor of the players at times and it feels pretty cheating man
>I detest high magic and super heroic settings and refuse them
>I have some kind of autism where I feel like my NPCs are my children and feel odd about making them go in to a relationship with the players. I have no idea why, it's just a weird feeling. I still let them of course.

>horrible at organizing games and herding players
>basically a playtest after playtest with my shitty homebrew ruined player morale because they make new characters each session
>don't do voices, prefer third person

my one good attempt at a story based game died after 2 sessions. 60+ playtest one shots behind me tho.

>All my NPCs are assholes

My players have said all my games take place on planet asshole.

Are you my DM?

>combat is always too easy or too hard
>kinda bad at dungeon design but players don't seem to mind

>Don't know how to finish a campaign, it just keeps going until:
>Game grinds to a halt if there were more than 2 weeks since last game.
Basically I'm good at starting campaigns, so I end up with 20 campains that got 2-6 sessions in before ending without a good resolution.

>Literally the only two accents I can do are Irish and generic greaseball Italian
>I have the pension to throw Persona into every campaign, due to a need to have every campaign take place in the same universe.
>Will almost always try to run an open world campaign, with long winded on rails introductions that end up putting the campaign on rails
>Will literally try to kill the players in order to provide a sense of necessary strategy going into a fight, generally curb stomping the party into retreat

I wouldn't call #2 a flaw; the vast majority of players in the vast majority of games would not have a fun time being randomly murdered by a grick because you rolled three crits in one turn, or whatever. I will generally fudge things in favor of the players if they're presented with bullshit luck, unless they're 'asking for it', basically, by acting foolishly or etc.

>Get too hung up in wanting to get the rules right and will grind play to a halt so I can check an obscure rule rather than just ballparking it with DM fiat to keep the game moving.
>Get very frustrated if I feel like my players aren't being sufficiently threatened by combat/what have you

>I can't make my NPCs stand out from eachother. It's like Adam Sandler acting, it's not x character, it's Adam Sandler as x.
>I'm shit at gauging difficulty and don't like cockstomping my PCs so I tend to play it safe and make stuff a cakewalk.
>I can't do romance at all, and yet I always get the players who want to be involved in the world and makes a super invested backstory with a wife and shit, and then I feel like an asshole for not wanting to RP her.
>I make settings and campaigns way to grandiose and involved for my shitty GMing skills and they always fall flat.
>Playing less elaborate games make me lose interest after two sessions.

>I like giving players too much leniency
>Low patience
>Generally bad at multi character role play

I can do 1 type and its my favorite. I can only be an idiot who has half an idea whats going on so the players have to actually figure shit out. It unfortunately means bad role play though.

>Constantly feel like I don't create enough content, but don't wanna overwhelm.
>Less combat, more pseudopolitic and focus on story.
>I want my players to feel tough and god-like just so I can up the ante. Maybe rush character empowerment at times and maybe am too generous with rewards.

It's many complicated feels.

Bit of a humble brag but I think a lot of dms feel this way:

>I always feel my last session could have been done much better and I nitpick everything I think I’ve done wrong. This happens even when the players say they enjoyed it... possibly more so.

most of these I also have.

but generally:


>I stutter. I don't have a stutter in real life, but sometimes I just fucking start stuttering when describing stuff without realizing. This one I always feel as really bad but my players don't seem to mind as much
>Names. Names made up beforehand are fine, but on the spot somebody who just crept up is gonna be called Augustus Creeper and the guy they met on the bridge is going to be Larry Rivermeet. This one my players pick up on more readily than I'd have hoped.
>occasional railroading. I like setpieces and while I always resolve to just let them happen if they happen, I often look back and think: I probably pushed into that direction more than is seemly.

I can't describe what things look like to save my life. This is true for me in rl too though. Fortunately I have some players hooked on my storytelling and I'm gifted mechanically so games still happen.

("Fortunately" - Have to forever GM though)

Playing in games that use rules I wouldn't, or don't use ones I would, now bothers me more than I am willing to admit non-anonymously. The group I've been a player in for a year and a half now is great but I get the occasional itch to say "5e flanking is overpowered and invalidates a bunch of class and racial features, as well as making strength in numbers even stronger" whenever flanking comes up. And don't get me started on hitting allies on natural 1s in a different group that mercifully fell apart quickly. Level 1 is miserable enough as it is.

>can't handle combat for shit, even with simple system like Barbarians of Lemuria or Atomic Highway
>don't know how to properly track initiative, HP and turns
>I just end up winging everything
It doesn't seem to bother my players as they don't notice it but I feel like it removes all the stakes from the fights

I like those names. You're fine, user.

.>absolutely can't herd a bunch of players together, because I insist that our RPGs should be played with the entire party, and whenever someone flakes out on a given day, there's no session
>bouts of depression in the past would have me call in sick before the game to cancel it
>I have absolutely no sense of scale. Chain link fence with a barbed wire around an encampment? Three meters long. Wall around a private mansion? So fucking long that if you wanted to enjoy a view from that supposed luxurious mansion, fuck you. Archer on a hill raining arrows from above? He is a step away from Mt. Everest. Length of a believable trade route between a few towns? Like travelling to another state.
>hate killing off my players and if they roll low on something critical I will go "welll, you alllmost succeeded" and will fudge hidden rolls a lot.
>prefer crunchy systems because I like game mechanics, but my players don't, so they usually feel overwhelmed
>my handwriting is absolutely atrocious and passing notes to my players is
>get self-conscious if my players make fun of the tropes I use in game OOC or don't take something I made seriously when it was meant to be on the serious side of things
>have a problem with a player who is a fine bloke but tends to play wacky characters and always be the comic relief, has the tendency to speak over my descriptions and interrupt me, sometimes completely overtakes everyone's attention, and I get stressed
>have trouble regaining my group's focus if they end up asking me a barrage of questions and talking over one another

I'm generally a trash DM and haven't had a game in months, plus the issue with flaking caused me to become King of Oneshots as there's no point in starting a campaign with me, which is a shame, because over like 12 years my record for most sessions in a campaign was 4.

A while ago some user told me I should just drop it because I have no talent.

>don't know how to properly track initiative, HP and turns
I had similar issues when I first started playing, mostly because I wanted to keep things moving and spent enough time on other aspects of battle that keeping track of that sort of minutiae bogged me down to the point where I'd just kind of wing shit. You can, however, easily lighten your load. Do team initiative. It's so much easier. One team goes and then the other. If you want to balance shit out so the first team to go doesn't have a significant advantage, have everybody on the first team to go roll a d6 on the first round of combat only. If they get a 1-3, they can't act that round. That means that, on average, only half of them will get to act that round. So half of Team A acts (putting them up by 1/2 by the end of them going). Then all of Team B acts (putting them up by 1 - the 1/2 Team A was ahead = 1/2 by the end of them going). Then all of Team A goes (putting them up by 1 - the 1/2 Team B was ahead = 1/2). So whoever has just gone is up half a team's worth of actions.

As far as turns go, I try to avoid or amend powers that require precise counting of rounds. It's okay if something lasts 1 round or even 2 (because then it's just a round, and the next one -- you don't really have to count). For longer term stuff, I prefer shit that simply lasts for the rest of the battle, or maybe something that has a 1 in 6 chance to end each round, or something. But if you don't want to tweak shit, consider getting a stand-up abacus, where you can just slide a bead over at the end of each round. Or maybe that's not necessary and you just want to count off spell effects or something, in which case you could pull over a number of beads equal to the spell's duration, and just slide one away each round until they're gone.

Essentially what I'm saying is: simply until shit is simple enough for you to manage. There's no sense having a bunch of sophistication you don't use.

>Do team initiative.
If you're running BoL, doing away with initiative, invalidates the combat ability of the same name, so you might want to drop it and split Defense into Guard (vs. melee) and Dodge (vs. ranged).

I kind of like those names. They provide contextual details that allow the players to remember them. If you're players aren't into making notes then those names are wonderful for them.

You're fine user. I think you just need to find a group that's down for crunch, and maybe lighten up on how concrete the group has to be.

Maybe make it so that one player who flakes a lot is cursed inside of the gem of another player's necklace. He can randomly pop in and out, but sees everything, so he doesn't need a recap. There are ways to make flakes work.

>refer to my players by their names not their character because i consider it autism

>I have the pension
Well I'm glad one of us does

I have a penchant
Do you GM online?

>I have a hard time remembering subtle things about the players like their race or status, so all my campaigns basically take place in a world with no racism or strict sociatal rules or expectations because I can never remember that stuff.

>weak at NPCs.
>can't keep a consistent accent
>its really obvious when I fudge
>suck at improv

Is your name Travis?
>Occasional tripping over my words, fucking up narration
>Nervous about going full ham with dialogue, which really fucks over the characters that need it
>Have relied on players to shame the one asshole

>I stumble over improv-ing NPCSs so I have to plan ahead every single one
>any accents I try and pull for different characters end up wavering, even if they're pretty okay when I start out
>I have a nasty habit of getting hyped to play and run something, then I get anxiety about running it, then I get stressed from the anxiety about running it which makes the whole thing feel like a chore
>I get hyped for a dozen systems and settings at once and then I can't commit to one until I talk my party into playing one

None of it's too awful reall but man, some of it is frustrating

>doing adventures online, I effective only update once or twice a day
>have a bad habit of creating "shooting galleries", with little social interactions
>sometimes forget things that players have to remind me of

I'm still learning, so I'm nowhere near as experienced as I'd like to be.

>I can't do accents. Wish I could, but I generally say 'Orion becomes angry at what you said and...' instead.
>I can't get myself to be Evil. I don't like it and I don't play playing a character who is wrong.
>I give 0 fucks about mapmaking
>No self-esteem
>I don't really know how the game works

>Don't really build worlds, settings or NPCS outside of what the players will experience
>Awful at name improvs
>Make my own items and opponents for fights thus fucking with the scaling they make in the core books on my own
>Generous with XP give outs
>Also don't heavily roleplay voice act. More of a narration of how character's feel then what they say.

I don't know if that last two are super bad, but shit. Sometimes I feel like a shitbum for not following the rule book more closely.

>cant design dungeons for shits
>sometimes complettly drop plot points or planned locations when i figure out it doesnt fit the story
>cant organize, hope my players do it for me.
>sometimes i overplan things, while sometimes i have to improv the entire session
>really super poor at describing locations

At least im good at NPCs and drama.

>Start really nice descriptive NPC banter but spaghetti halfway through every time
>Start multiple small games because days where some cant make it i whip up a new story in two hours for whoever is there
>Ask my players to please talk to eachother in game, don't just say "I ask ____ (who is sitting next to me) if.." and get flustered when they do it three times in the same sentence
>Meet up at 4:00, plan to play until 10:00. Through the group trying to get one liners and jokes in before hand, the game doesn't start until 8:00

>tfw softie
I can't stand their frustation face

>Never do voices
>Fudge rolls all the time
>Run every part of every session off the top of my head
>Come up with ways of fucking with players while they're busy planning their next move
>Forget the names of NPCs I named in prior sessions
>Blame players for not writing that shit down

>Autisticaly cling to some of the rules
>Throw out rules I don't like
>Overplan
>Cant cope with even the slightest derailing antics my players get into
>Players tease me about all of the above
>New guy runs a better game on the days I take off from running the game
>The way he homebrews half of the time triggers me

>terrible at improv. I need to spend a shit ton of time with plans and side quests in case the players get off the rails or I'm fucked
I'm pretty much the opposite. I need my players to be motivated to figure their own shit out and go off the rails, because when I'm forced to railroad them I tend to lose interest. As a GM, I'm at my best when I get to play off what the players are doing rather than just feeding them a premade story and hoping they'll pay attention.

>GMs/DMs out there, list some big flaws you have.
0.00000% poker face.
The only saving grace is that I love it when things go really good or really bad so the players don't know what's going to happen, just that something is.

>rely way too much on fiat
>especially in the player's favor
>fudge rolls
>spend way too much time on details and NPCs

>Bad at roleplaying at the start of the session. But when I warm up I do fine
>Any interaction related to flirting/seduction/love/anything sexual is terribly awkard for me and I can't do it
>I feel like my plots are good, but they can never appreciated by the players either because we don't finish the campaign or because they do a completely unexpected thing.

Seriously, last session I had a bunch of dudes take the obviously mind controlled mob on their offer to "go meet the Master". They should have died, but

>I feel terrible if characters die / players lose

My settings have basically no children because I have absolutely zero ability to role-play kids.

i'm awful at organising sessions so the games tend to fizzle out

I am a 6'4" land-whale who's been a second bass since middle school. I absolutely cannot DM female NPCs without feeling utterly ridiculous.

>I feel ridiculous
I wouldn't necessarily say that. Are you a cute landwhale? Like a landporpoise?

>forget about stuff in the rules, especially when it comes to what spells do
>forget about enemy abilities and make combat encounters too easy
>accidentally skip PC's turns sometimes
>basic arithmetic takes me forever, usually have to use a calculator
>most maps are kind of crappy and/or improvised, leading to occasionally stupid layouts or lapses ("Hey, user-GM, isn't this supposed to be a jail? Where are all the prisoners?" "Er...")

I have the same problem, and not just with female NPCs, but for a lot of setting details.
>autistically plot out the cultural ins-and-outs of a society the players are going to come into contact with
>players have mentioned interest in setting details before so I'm excited
>game time comes
>can't explain shit out loud because it's all overcomplicated chuuni bullshit
>oh god why did I do it like this, just simplify it quickly so they don't get bored you awkward fuck
>"Uh, uh, it's a lot like China where you are. There are pagodas and stuff."
>can't meet anyone's eyes
I used to be even more awkward so I figure I'll keep getting better about not getting embarrassed with practice, but it's still hard

>I can't imitate regional accents for shit with normal NPCs, but I really enjoy roleplaying creatures when someone uses "Speak with animals"
>All my female NPCs who are willing to directly fight alongside the Players are unsexualised Judge Dredds, regardless of their class or background. I get this dirty feeling that I'm injecting shitty waifubait of I add anyone with a more explicitly caring personality who is regularly following the PCs. I'm fine with giving variety to more "stationary" or reoccurring NPCs; it's just party followers I take issue with.
>On that note, I can't roleplay explicit romance or flirting for shit, and will fade to black ASAP.
>I don't want my Players to die, but I get bitter and petty if they start to win too easily and take challenges too lightly.
>I don't trust my players with online or app-rollers, despite relying heavily on them myself.
>I love witches and hags, both of the blatantly evil and the "just misunderstood" variety. Expect to find one or two, or at least a stand-in for one in any campaign I run.