DM experiences thread

Can we have a DM experiences thread?

I started DM'ing a lot about a year ago when I bought the D&D 5e starter set and got my friends to play. I played Pathfinder around 8 years ago, but that was my only prior experience with the game.

I'm quite obsessive, and I prepare a lot. I enjoy reading about modules and how people run them. Without sounding arrogant, I'm fairly well-spoken irl, and strive to reward players for quick thinking and roll with whatever they do. It's a learning process, but I try to stay aware and improve.

I'm an extremely mellow person, but occasionally, even with my good friends, DM'ing can really test my patience. The players sometimes make it seem like it's me-vs-them (which is ironic, right, given that most Veeky Forums stories make it sound like crazy DM's foster a DM-vs-player environment). Yesterday there was a situation where I ruled that a player didn't get an attack-of-opportunity, and they went crazy and started talking about/joking about mutiny and "killing the evil DM". I managed to silence the entire table by acting delighted and suggesting that I'd be happy to let any one of them try DM'ing so that I could be a player. Queue the tumbleweed.

Mostly it's fine, but it requires so much patience rolling with the entitled mentality and their zero percent effort. We've played LMoP for *months* now, and they still don't understand that, yes, your attack bonus is the same EVERY. SINGLE. ROLL, or simple rules. I have six players, and none of them even invested in some cheap shitty dice but keep just using mine. It's fine really, but if there was just 1% effort on their part I'd be more interested in running these games. They have no idea about preparation or what it takes to sit on my side of the DM screen.

Sorry for the whiny blog, I just had to let it out. Do you guys have experiences? What have you done to appreciate your DM today?

one of my favourite moments as a GM so far:
>feel like the tone of the campaign has become a little all over the place between the different subplots
>bring this up to the group
>we spend the next session not playing the game but instead talking about subplots, characters, and conflicts we've each liked/disliked
>come to an agreement about what the campaign should be like
>course correct next session, everything runs much more smoothly and cohesively
it's nice knowing I can get this kind of feedback from my players and we can all work together to improve a faltering campaign if it's ever needed again

Meta-communicating is important. It's good that it all worked out for you. Sounds like you had a late session zero.

we have a regular session zero too, things just drifted from the original intention as it went on

Just DM’d for the first time this year using the find a group threads here, had an absolute blast making homemade charts for shops and special item rolls week after week. The campaign ended after only about 7-8 sessions, but we’re still playing together, albeit with a different DM because he had a fun idea.

Don’t automatically disregard those LFG threads, even if I’m the first success story.

my dm experience
>combat sucks
>planning things sucks
>players will go along with whatever bullshit you say and take it seriously
therefore I run very low prep games with one round of combat at most and my players have all loved it. now I'm out of players though since I moved.

Not a DM but PC in DM's campaign DM doing well doing the dragon horde campaign decides to add a fun little encounter with a random manticore while we were going to the next plot manticore does not kill anyone it instead Shanghais me party goes to rescue me they really do not want to cause my character is a bit abrasive DM had to entice them to go with treasure rescue party shoes up kills some fea plants we don't even fight the manticore just sneak and loot the place got a hunk of gold worth 500 gp and some random loot after a day of the session DM tells me in the one of players is whining cause they want more RP in the campaign than combat and the manticore bit was unnecessary and should have expanded the characters story not just to get loot the rest of the party liked the manticore bit it was a fun diversion the one player still bitches cause they do not like combat and like to wank their character in RP

What kind of crazy punctuation-racist are you?

God this kind of meta nigger bullshit is what I hate about nuRPGs just let the fucking game evolve, you stupid nigger. But no, you stupid apes have to put on your cuck glasses and squint real hard to center yourself then sit down at the table and discuss your upcoming game like the latest CVS drama show you shit out in a writers room. Newsflash, nigger: your game isn't a work of art. All your "subplots" and other shit is nothing original or interesting. It's fucking garbage. The only value in RPGs lies in their natural evolution. If you try to force shit, you are just writing a shitty book with board game combat thrown in. Consensual railroading is still railroading. Fuck the hell off with this session zero shit. It's for mothers who take their campaign way too goddamn seriously, and who are too untalented, uncreative, and bad at roleplaying to be able to create a believable game without four fucking hours of planning beforehand. Although you probably don't even get four hour sessions, more likely you get two hours to play every other Saturday when your wife gives you enough allowance that you can afford a babysitter for her son and sneak out to play RPGs with your mates. Fucking pathetic. Stop reading redddit and play the fucking game instead of having to plan it all out like the most boring fuck on the planet.

>Player likes thing X
>Other player likes thing Y
>Should we align expections!? No, says the idiot

You are the idiot.

The one that drinks at 10am

>run 5e campaign for new players
>their characters are all bland cardboard cutouts

>barbarian's personality: "barbarian"
>rogue's personality: "rogue"
>fighter's personality: "edgemaster, the head-severing torturer tiefling"

>but that's fine because they're learning the ropes
>they get a little bit better as the campaign matures

later

>starting Starfinder campaign with same group
>everyone gets together to build characters
>only one player can think of an interesting backstory, others are exactly the same character they played in the other game

>The campaign ended after only about 7-8 sessions
Why is Veeky Forums so full of these fucking casuals? God damn. I really don't understand how the hell you give enough of a shit to spend 60 bucks on some nu male game like Edge of the Empire, yet you can't find the fucks inside yourself to give to play more than four or five sessions. The shortest campaigns I've run have been ten, anything shorter would be considered a side game. I've played in at least three games that lasted for more than fifty sessions, although for two of those I was a GM. Actually I think it might be like four. Campaigns I'm currently in? One is at session 46, another at session 29, a third at session 43. I'm playing in a campaign that has lasted seven years and has easily had at least 100 sessions. It's just a string of old published modules but it's more than most of the sad fucks on this board will ever get, apparently. For Christ sake what happened to dedication to this hobby? Now people just want their "rule of cool" nat20 moment, not realizing that their bullshit softcore narrativist deal is one step up from playing pretend in the sandbox like a child.

dm who has never run more than a 4 session "campaign" here
usually I flake out because the players suck. I'm really picky.

...

>only liking one type of thing
>being this much of a close minded nigger
Good luck finding a GM willing to bend his dick around a knife and run shit he hates just to satisfy your desires for a 1940s steampunk Chinese royal intrigue campaign with psionics and elements of post modernism, go suck a dick. Your characters are probably massive fucking shit. You retards think you need a backstory from session 1, and it needs to be super unique and original but not too edgy but also not too cliche but also not too sentimental. And the GM needs to bring it into alignment with the rest of the campaign while maintaining the all important "tone" of a game that probably includes kobold dick jokes, what a load of bollocks. If you need to plan to maintain the tone beforehand like it's some kind of cooperative writing project instead of an RPG story that evolves organically, then you might as well just write a novel instead of wasting time "roleplaying" the most contrived shit imaginable.

As a GM, I plan for any particular campaign to last 7-8 sessions. 30-40 hours should be more than enough to see a good narrative arc through to its end, and having an endgame in mind from the beginning helps avoid GM fatigue.

I'm part of a few campaigns with no visible ending, and those are the campaigns where people are most concerned about having 'cool moments', because the rest of the narrative has lost all sense of urgency and momentum.

You remind me of a worse version of TheAngryDM (which is really saying something because that guy can't write to save his life). You can almost make yourself understood, but it's lost under a mountain of verbosity.

games are best when played with people who actually want to be playing that game. crazy shit i know. people who are only at the game because they want to socialise will ruin your game, because they don't care enough to pay attention and are just a permanent distraction and waste of space.

How the hell does my post imply no fun allowed? Because I actually play campaigns that last more than 2 sessions? Because I play with people who are actually committed to the hobby and enjoy it for what it is, instead of treating it like the latest fad to hijack for laughs, and post an open mouth selfie on Instagram to showcase that I am, indeed, having fun and laughing and if I'm laughing that means I'm having fun and am not fucking empty inside?

Coming on Veeky Forums just makes me sad. I'd say it's like a rich man being among the less fortunate, except that fortune has nothing to do with it. You chose to be this way. You chose to be inept, uncommitted faggots not willing to put in the effort. Worthless. This is why I value my game group, cause even though they are sometimes shitheads, they sure are a lot better than the kind of millennial trash that makes up most of the RPG community.

>30-40 hours should be more than enough to see a good narrative arc through to its end, and having an endgame in mind from the beginning helps avoid GM fatigue.
The fact that you think like this, and that you consider GM fatigue to be an actual problem after 7 or 8 sessions, is why you are a shit GM and always will be.
>lost all sense of urgency and momentum
Again, this is because you are a shit GM who cannot invigorate his campaign with new plot lines. A campaign at session 10 is just getting started.

>You chose to be inept, uncommitted faggots not willing to put in the effort.

I'm an ultra-marathon runner and ironman triathlete, so a fat nerd calling me "uncommitted" and unwilling to put in "effort" is hilarious beyond what I can realistically describe.

Have you ever considered that the reason your tabletop situation is in such a great state might be because you have a good group? Not everyone does. Your sekrit-club rhetoric is pathetic. Write like a fucking human being. Nobody is impressed that you turned off the profanity filter on your mother's computer.

>ultra-marathon runner and ironman triathlete
>graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals

lol

You want me to make my point concisely? Fine. By planning out your campaign save for the minute details you are destroying any tension or sense of freedom the game has. You are basically playing a crpg on a tabletop. It's pathetic. There is nothing wrong with campaign planning, but the way that session zero shills go about it is close minded and retarded.

Would you like to see time-stamped proof?

>I'm an ultra-marathon runner and ironman triathlete, so a fat nerd calling me "uncommitted" and unwilling to put in "effort" is hilarious beyond what I can realistically describe.
You are unbelievable.
"Lol I'm stronger than you so I'm right"
Typical faggot nu male thinking.
You're full of shit, by the way.

See, that was a good post actually. I don't even disagree, and at least we can have a conversation now.

Sure. It has nothing to do with the argument at hand but if it will sate your ego and make you feel validated, go the fuck ahead.

People like you thinking my achievements are so far beyond what is possible is half the reason I even do it. Your mediocrity keeps me motivated.

it doesn't invovle planning out stuff ahead of time though, all most session zeroes consist of is stuff like:
>this is the gist of the setting
>this is the main kind of conflict (combat/social/mystery/whatever)
>this is the kinds of people the PCs should be
>these are some general dislikes people have that should be avoided
>these are some general likes people have that should be included if appropriate
what part of that is 'taking the tension out of the game'?

I've never heard of someone being so against a session zero. Plots, subplots, and scripted nonsense? That I'm with you on, I hate that story first mindset that a lot of people preach as the only way to play. The story is a result of gameplay, gameplay doesn't confine itself to the story. I use session zero it to tell everyone what they need to know about the setting so they can make an appropriate character and figure out why they're all together. Letting players go in blind tends to cause a bit of a mess otherwise.

Oh I believe it's possible. I have friends who do marathons and shit. The fact that you brag about it in an imageboard after I called you out for being a casual, is why I dont believe it is true for you.

Your first three points can be accomplished in a fucking email of one paragraph or less, and your last two are literal "trigger warning" tier shit. Though I'd expect nothing less from millennial snowflakes who feel entitled to having everything be to their exact specifications.

I less violently agree with this

your formatting and the kinds of mistakes you make make you really easy to recognize

Session zero is a stupid waste of time. Literally all you need is to say "we are doing x setting with y races and classes available and here is a doc you can read on your own time about the world. Don't make silly bullshit characters. Don't write a 2000 page backstory."

There you go. Session zero done in 2 sentences and a pdf attachment of a world document. Fuck, even apocalypse world does Hx shared history bonds shit in the first session. I am not going to waste an entire session on some retarded Redddit meme.

course it would have to do with the argument since its about HIS CHARACTER and how it's NOT THE THING YOU NEED FOR THOSE ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

You liberals have the argumentative prowess of a snail.

>not making characters together
that's what session zero is all about user. I think you've missed the point completely.

you do realize the thing that should be avoided could be "SJW bullshit" right?

>liberal
But I'm not, user. And yes, his character is garbage if he joins a hobby and has zero commitment to it. He should stick to running and lifting.

>Again, this is because you are a shit GM who cannot invigorate his campaign with new plot lines. A campaign at session 10 is just getting started.

do you know what a campaign is, user?

It's a course of action designed around accomplishing one major goal. If you end one plot thread and begin another, you've now ended one campaign.

If your particular group of autists enjoys needing an entire decade to resolve a single plot arc, that's fine, but most normal people are going to be willing to hang themselves out of boredom by that point.

>"Lol I'm stronger than you so I'm right"
>Typical faggot nu male thinking.

isn't that the exact opposite of typical faggot nu male thinking?

>I am not going to waste an entire session on some retarded Redddit meme.

My group just did a session 0 for Starfinder and it was actually tons of fun. We tossed ideas around, made sure everyone was on the same page about how the rules worked, came up with a group, and got completely drunk.

There's no such thing as "wasting a session" if you're actually friends with the people you play with; it just becomes "hanging out" (not that Veeky Forums is familiar with that kind of ritual)

Yo, we just wanted to try a system we haven’t ever used, it cost us nothing and was more about getting to know each other as players and people and shit. Set up five sessions, expanded into eight because of shit they wanted to do. Everyone had fun, realized the end, and left it open in case we ever wanna go again.

I’ve got ideas for long spanning games, but I’m not giving those to assclowns that I don’t think I’ll have fun putting the effort into building. The guys I’m playing with now? Definitely in the ‘People I’d build the world for’ category. Sorry I’m playing with your toys wrong, user.

What happens if you want to brainstorm with your players? Ask them what sort of things they would like, what themes? Is that a waste of time when you are going to be running this game for about 100+ hours of your life if you do 35 three hour sessions?

Why not check everyone is on board with the tone of the game before the game starts?

close your eyes and you can actually hear how fat he is

>If your particular group of autists enjoys needing an entire decade to resolve a single plot arc, that's fine, but most normal people are going to be willing to hang themselves out of boredom by that point.
Yeah, that's because most "normal people" are ADHD millenials with the attention span of a kitten on speed. And no, I am not going to say "ok guys it's a new campaign now cause you have new goals even though it's the same setting and same characters" just to satisfy bullshit semantics.

5'11" 170 lbs is fat? I thought it was considered skinny fat at best.

>What happens if you want to brainstorm with your players?
Because most of the time their ideas are shit? The only time I asked the players to help me create the campaign I gave them exactly what they asked for and they whinged and bitched about it but when I asked what was wrong they had nothing. Whereas when I just fucking ran something, they didn't complain once and even went out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed it.

>and got completely drunk
This is how I know you are trash.

>I’ve got ideas for long spanning games, but I’m not giving those to assclowns that I don’t think I’ll have fun putting the effort into building
Then stop playing with assclowns. They are my toys, either, faggot. I just find it sad that the RPG community is full of normoniggers who want to scalp it for what little entertainment value they can extract before moving on to the next thing. That's why the published 5e adventures are so popular right now. You don't even have to create anything to dm. Just run the same prepackaged crap as everyone else.

Why don't you just stop being a bitch and require them to learn the fucking rules of the game? Or buy their own dice? Players are everywhere and you can find good ones if you're a good GM. If you can't find any good players that'd be a pretty solid indication that you suck at this.

Or that you're in an area where everybody plays 5e and, as a good GM, you dont want to run it.

I'm sorry you don't have any friends, user ;_;

why is there a /pol/tard sperging out about this thread in particular?

Yeah it only works if some of your players are sometimes-GMs themselves. Forever-players don't have ideas, if they did they'd be running games.

......But user, I'm 28 and have been in the same Btech campaign for about 8 years, a L5R campaign for about 3, a Supers game I'm Dming for 1 and a half. We just keep getting new jobs and there's no real end I sight. We do occasionally break and take a one shot or a small foray into another game if it catches our fancy but we always come back to Btech. ADD/ADHD has fuck all to do with it. Sometimes life just calls for something else for a bit and we are just massively sick and burnt out of classic high fantasy in general. Though I agree that the campaigns should grow and evolve naturally. Part of the fun is becoming the character for all intents and purposes.

Don´t feed the troll guys

He's right though.

I'm glad I don't have a tard like you in my group. And I'd kick you out if you were.

Sad samefag.

I'm so sorry for your thread, OP.

b8

Holy fuck dude you are embarrassing yourself.

My dm is a lazy cunt.

>be me, hanging out with two friends in the group and the dm
>discussing when we will have our next session
>all four of us agree to play on X date
>I inform the rest of the party via our group text message conversation, in which the other two players and dm are also a part of, nobody objects to playing on x day
>x day arrives, dm no-shows, no session happens
>try to reach him, no response whatsoever
>x day+1, message the group and try to figure out what happened
>dm says he doesn't know what i'm talking about, he claims he never agreed to play on day x

he does this shit all the time and it drives me mad. there's nothing i can do because my friends in the group like him, so i have to put up with him pissing on our legs and calling it rain every other week.

their efficacy unwitnessed by their own eyes

if none of thats muscle thats pretty tubby my dude.

I hope you aren't serious

I have friends, faggot. We even drink together. We just don't get drunk during games because we aren't literal degenerates who need alcohol to enjoy ourselves.

Are you the same dude I replied to? Shitting on long campaigns then saying you run them yourself? Wtf ...

Is the campaign at least enjoyable when he runs it? When I was in college my friends dad would run d&d for us but he started making us do his chores so he would DM and we were too sentimental attached to the campaign to stop. Then he stopped DMing entirely and I took over. I miss his campaign. We never even finished it....

Why would I not be serious?

Had a bad DM experience recently. My main campaign is drawling to a close and thus contains a lot more Combat. My players don't like tactical stuff even if I love it. So I've been shortening the game to be done a little faster.

Anyway we get three callouts a day before the game. So I decided we'd run a one shot as our group is large and that's still enough to play with.

Trying to come up with a RP heavy oneshot with new characters is really tough though so the game ends up poorly made.

To boot it's a players birthday so I make them a center piece for the conflicts after they agree. Because of the lack of time and how little of the mystery I was able to put together everyone especially birthday pc ends up angry or doesn't care and is on thier phone. I don't ban phones or distractions but I generally talk with them after to see what I did that lost them.

Anyway because the NPCs were three groups blaming each other for the current conflict and I let BDPC know what the villian was to an extent they ended up playing this awful game of get rid of the NPC trying to protect BDPC in some of the worst unconvincing ways possible. The game just died in frustration and miscommunication.

I fully accept a good part of this failure was my fault so don't think I'm hoping for pitty.

These are the best kind of copy pasta bait. It has to be over the top but at the same time it has to have some truth deep down. If you take the insults and exageration from it, it has a spark of truth, this is why it makes people butthurt.

...

What are your experiances with shifting the GM every few sessions?

>tried out pathfinder with a few friends about a year ago
>first two quests are DMed by the guy who had the idea of playing pathfinder
>we are a group of 7 but usually about 4 people show up
>the PCs drop in and out of the party whenever someone doesn't come, we come up with an in universe excuse
>some of us love drawing and draw all the NPCs, some like writing and world building and write histories/in universe books
>the sessions are usually quests that are pretty confined spaces but usually have an effect on the world at the end
>whoever wants to DM a quest can do so, so we're uncovering a fish-man revolution in the north one day and fighting orcs the other
>the enthusiasm for the game varies in between players, everybody puts as much effort in it as he likes

Has anyone ever played a campaign like that? How did it compare to more traditional campaigns?

>tried out pathfinder
Trash
>we are a group of 7 but usually about 4 people show up
Trash
>the PCs drop in and out of the party whenever someone doesn't come, we come up with an in universe excuse
Trash
>the sessions are usually quests that are pretty confined spaces but usually have an effect on the world at the end
Trash
>whoever wants to DM a quest can do so, so we're uncovering a fish-man revolution in the north one day and fighting orcs the other
Trash

Holy shit I would not like to play at your table, you sound like a bunch of shitty millenials with no comitment or idea of what you are doing.

I also less violently agree. Too much fear of letting go and seeing where it takes you

>shifting the GM every few sessions
Jesus Christ how horrifying

He's right, you know

Good friends make for shit players

It's not so much That Guy as That Autist.

>Characters running around.
>One in particular is this stone-based mage who has wound up in command of a fairly reasonably sized army.
>Character is smart, clever with his tactics, and good at picking engagements, in large part aided because he's ranked up several spells that let him reconnoiter to a very advanced degree for the world, which allows him to pick and choose when he fights.
>Also, he has the other three party members to do hatchet jobs, and they're damn tough at this point.
>Over the past in game year, he's fought 5 major battles, as well as a bunch of smaller skirmishes, and won all of them, mostly with minimal losses
>Make a ruling that his banner with his personal heraldry now causes a morale boost to soldiers who can see it; it's not magic, but just a natural consequence of the army's own confidence and their long string of victories. The Stone Fish NEVER loses, and if you're in the army that always wins, you're willing to push a bit harder and act more boldly than you might otherwise do so.
>That Autist constantly gets confused by this. Why isn't it magic? How can Obaden do this if he has only an average Presence? What happens if an enemy casts a countermagic on the banner? What do you mean nothing, it's not actually magical, ins't this guy a mage?

I'm not even picking up hostility, just bafflement, and it's starting to irk me.

Session Zero is literally cancer.

...

I have some bad news for you, OP: your players don't actually enjoy playing the game. If they haven't bothered to pick up on the rules or invest even a bit in the game, then they're just showing up so they can tell other people they play D&D since it's in-vogue right now. Once the game's popularity fades from the mainstream in a year or two they'll stop playing altogether, if not sooner.

>look at all these swear words I learned on the internet!
5/10, you got me to respond.

How the fuck do you play LMoP for *months*?

do you have any idea about session zero? idfk whats our damage or where session zero has touched you, but I use it to explain my general campaign setting idea to the players (e.g. "world war 2 special agents working behind enemy lines in small groups. What time period and theater of war would you like to see?") and help them make characters, tie the group together and shoot down stupid ideas ("no, you cannot play a german and a soviet together, but your 'german' can be a soviet spy, you pass most background checks but have to pay attention not to blow your cover"). This kind of basic shit. Dunno where you got the idea that session zero is some kind of grand foreplanning. If bait, 10/10 you exceeded yourself.

The most annoying DM experience I've had is the increasing frustration of one player as the recurring and much loved joke character is brought out to bail the party out of TPK situations.

It's just the one player, the rest of my players love the character. They know that when he turns up they done fucked up and this should be an ass whooping and they know to try to not fuck up harder but at the same time they don't start feeling resentment or anger.


Except this one fucking autismatron. I'm probably being too harsh, I have known the sperglord since secondary school and he is a decent person but holy fuck he needs to learn to lighten up, not everything is srs bsns all the time.

But when the Gnome of Last Resort gets brought out to bail him out I can hear the teeth grind and see the fists clench so hard they must be drawing blood from the nail in palm.

It's incredibly uncomfortable for him, it's uncomfortable for me but it is all on him.

Everyone else loves it and sings along and it's not my fault he's such a fucking stick in the mud.

>need alcohol
He never said that though, just that it happened on the occasion. Do you need to be an asshole all of the time just because you're being one here, or did it just happen on this occasion?

ha

...

Want me to repost it without the swear words and destroy your "argument"?

I know i am wrong about this, but this kind of talking about the game is difficult for me as player, because i have to admit it is just game and that DM is merely pretending things for us - instead of interfacing us with world that 'objectively' exists somewhere.

(Urelated: I think True Love myth is in similar vein. Talking about the relationship and how it bothers you when the other leaves unwashed dishes on table is not very romantic - but absolutely vital. )

look at this incredibly specific prejudice

It's either pointless shut that can be accomplished in an email, or it's meta narrative discussion faggotry that belongs in a FATE game and not in a normal RPG.

If you were a GM and wasted a 2 hour session on explaining your world to me and getting my input and we all have to build characters at the same time so that they are all butt buddies from childhood, I would quit your campaign. I've done session zero type prep but none of this faggy backstory and collaborative world build shit. Fuck that. Why don't you just write a book if you need that level of control and certainty before the game even starts? For Christ sake just fucking play. And dont make some shitty buzzword like session zero to try to seek special, like how reddditors call homebrewing "hacking" to make themselves sound cool. Fucking idiot nigger. Before long any RPG that doesn't let you affect the game world during charge and bend it to your special snowflake shit as well as include trigger warnings, will be banned from drive thru like the rape games were. What a fucking joke.

If that was you, all you said when the buzzwords are stripped away is that other people's campaigns suck too much for a session zero, everything else was bad insults. Assume what you want but I'm glad I don't play in your campaigns.

Sound like west matches with rotating character roster and self contained sessions. So long as they link up, sounds good to me.

I'm jealous of him too, user.

Absolutely false in my experience.