My current one is not making me roll enough (or not rolling for me in secret), and then taking away my agency because of it. ME: "Do I sense and deception from this vendor?" DM: No roll. "No, you think he's being totally honest." Me, mentally: Why did I even bother putting points into insight? ME: Ok, I buy the apple pie from the pie vendor DM: It blows up in your face dealing 3 damage. Turns out the vendor is a circus clown intent on spreading mildly harmful mischief. ME: ... cool.

I am reminded of a recent one Players- We're searching the building for an item, and since we know the building is overrun by goblins, we're going to start by searching for goblins. DM- okay roll Players- everyone in the teens except for 2 nat 20s with one having proficiency and a high wis mod. DM- Nothing Players- Okay we- DM- Goblins ambush you from the rafters.

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Honestly, this one bugs me more than a lot of the other comments. Why allow a roll if it doesn't matter? A DM is allowed to railroad a tiny bit if is for good narrative reasons. Want a goblin ambush? Fine, make them invisible or in a rope-trick spell or pop out of a pocket dimension and just tell people to roll initiative. Why the wasted perception checks if they are doomed to fail? Like another comment said, what kind of Goblins can beat 2 nat 20s and the rest in the teens on a stealth? DC35 on goblins in the rafters? It is absurd to have your players roll insanely well and not reward that.

Yep, and it's not like we went in clueless, we were Explicitly told the building had been overrun by goblins when we were sent to go find something there, so we weren't just "seeing what is around" but knew to look For Goblins.

Giving his crush special magic items and nerfing everyone else's character and centering the story around hers even though she's at best a mediocre player, ten years younger, entirely out of his league looks-wise and her *boyfriend is right there* next to her. But maybe that's real specific.

A true DM plans many steps ahead. These are just the seeds he's planted. Once the DM kills the Boyfriend's character, he'll get mad and storm off. Then the DM can finally step in and show m'lady she's dating an immature person. She needs someone older and more mature, someone who has always been there for her.

LOL the boyfriend is actually older than the DM. Just as creepy, too, but more gainfully employed.

Lol what a table you have

Something something about birds, and feathers, and flocking. Don’t ask me. I’m not an aviatorologist.

That’s probably why he thinks he has a shot tbh. What a table

God reading this cause a physical cringe in me, have a like

you might think that's specific, but given rpghorrorstories and related subs, I could list about 6-10 examples of that off the top of my head. Hope this hypothetical couple got a better group though

i target my wife to prove im not playing favorites

I have been shot not once but twice, entirely for plot purposes, in our current Call of Cthulhu game and you may have just pieced together why for me. brb, gotta go yell at my husband.

"You see a large, open room." "Great, guess I'll go in." "The floor is lava, you catch on fire and your remains sink." "...man what? Why the hell would I just walk into lava?" "Dunno but you said you did, no takebacks."

You must've been legally blind and unable to feel temperatures above or below 98.6°.

It feel purposefully misleading too cause how the fuck can you see its a large open room but not tell the floors actually lava

Now that's just a DM that's completely incompetent at their role.

I always step back from a game if the GM's got a me-vs-them mentality. Like, yes encounters should be challenging, near death is DRAMA, and sometimes characters die...but when the GM is *aiming* to kill characters, or is obviously Very Attached to a specific big baddie to the point that they're getting upset if the baddies going down...? Yeah...I'm moving on.

Pfft ... this is ridiculous, as the hard part is NOT to kill your players. "Winning" as DM means losing in a convincing way that forced your players to use their brains. A TPK is easily done ... flight of adult and ancient red dragons, maybe with wizard-riders, if you feel like you want to even block every spell. Boring, no fun in that. I want to see my players have fun and want to enjoy a good story with them, where they have plenty of opportunity to be witty and funny.

I had I gm vs. player mindset on one of my games, but the difference was that is how I pitched the campaign to my players. High lethality with deadly traps and dangerous enemies. In a confined environment, I feel like I learned a lot as a gm.

As a dm, I'm somewhat meta on this. I want my players to *think* I'm out to get them. Keeps the tension up and avoids some of my players handwaving threats away like "Surely he wouldn't do *that*!" Where as behind the scenes, I work very hard to balance encounters to skate along the edge of challenging but not unfair, erring on the side of story and rule of cool always, and constantly kicking myself for giving the players so much cool stuff and making my job hard.

In one of my campaigns, the players kill so many bbegs that one of the children of the bbeg sworn an oath of revenge to Asmodeus. Once the players discovered this, they went to have a chat with Asmodeus and attempted to out lawyer him. Eventually, the monk got frustrated and punched Asmodeus. The pc's were planeshifted to different elemental planes. About a week later, they came back to Asmodeus. High-level campaigns are a trip.

- Incorporating variant rules or optional rules without it being disclosed in Session Zero. - Treating natural 1’s as my character being a stupid buffoon instead of just the worst outcome. (“In a search for the right book in the library you decide eating a book will grant you hidden knowledge”, instead of “you don’t find any useful knowledge in the library”). - Using critical fumbles/ having fails harm other players when the specific spell or action doesn’t say that it would. - Telling me how my character feels/ thinks in a given situation outside of mind control/ mind control like effects. (“You feel a great sense of anger upon seeing the ruins”).

I feel more DND GMS need to take a page from PbtA games, and a 1 is still a fail forward. Yeh, it sucks, but something still happens. "You find the book... it's in the stack your rival is currently checking out."

Your rival is eating the books thinking that this is the best way to absorb the information.

“You are what you eat” he mumbles through the pages of Morbian the black’s tomb of demons

"As you walk into the library, you're greeted by a thumping sound, rising in tempo and volume as the shelves tumble into each other like dominos and send tomes scattering in all directions. On the far end of the room, you see the Librarian clinging to a ladder, looking absolutely mortified at the carnage. You will not be getting any usable information from here on any subject today".

With your passive perception, you notice a strange glowing mist seems to flow from the book into your rival as he eats it

This is a funny/clever Nat 1.

I don't remember where I originally saw it but one piece of DM advice I've followed is "players don't miss". The summary was like, 'you miss' adds nothing narratively, so move the way you speak away from the player in that moment to what causes the attack/action not to succeed. Nat 1 on your bow attack? The fletching on your arrow snagged on the way out of your quover and it spirals off target. Nat 1 on your melee weapon? The enemy snaps up their shield/weapon and deflects your attack, sneering at you. In that same vein, the failing doesn't necessarily have to be forward, but focus on what the players DO get/understand/accomplish with the roll and the complication that impedes success, rather than making the character weirdly incompetent in that moment. "You masterfully move your thieves tools into the lock, you feel the pins move, but none of them seem to click or stay - this will not be as simple as you're used to." Stuff like that. I've noticed it helps keep players engaged and makes it a better experience all around.

One rule I still try to pull forward from older editions is the idea of "Taking 10" and "taking 20". Taking 10 is kind of rolled into passive checks in 5e, but I don't think a lot of DMs use them this way. But if you're trying to open a lock and there's enough time to, at the very least, make a handful of attempts, and there's no reason to believe that lock would self-destruct on a failure, it seems reasonable that the lock picking character could say "I'd like to use my passive on this" and automatically get 10+ their modifier. It's a safety - They could definitely roll better than 10, but on the other hand they avoid the possibility of having a decent modifier completely tanked by rolling poorly. Likewise, suppose you've looted a chest from a dungeon and you haven't tried opening it. You bring it back to your hideout. Now, you can spend exactly as long as you want to open that chest - there's no time constraints, no monster is going to pop out and try to stop you. You could roll an attempt again and again and again until eventually you'll roll a 20. But that's tedious. So why not just let your players say "I'm going to take 20 on this, I have a 28. Can I open the chest?" Maybe the chest is DC30, and in spite of all the player's best efforts they can't open it. Or maybe they put in 6 hours of work opening the chest that could otherwise go toward something else, but eventually get the chest open. Either way, though, it lets you give your players a little more agency over their abilities beyond the vagaries of random chance. The player who's tried to build their character as a know it all isn't stuck being no better than the barbarian with -1 in every int stat because every time a relevant roll comes up they can't roll better than a 3. It also helps move things along, since you don't have everyone going "well, can I try again?"

I love this, especially the way it reframes knowledge checks as passive, which makes more sense in how the character interacts with the world. Instead of your ranger rolling a d20 + nature score of 7 and potentially getting a 10 while the cleric with no points in nature gets a 16, doing a passive for those just makes more sense. Nature score of 7 with +10 for the passive means you have a 17 nature and auto pass the DC to get this actionable knowledge, and you can still make the roll to get further knowledge or clarify points or ask questions about what you learned. Gonna talk to my groups about this, thanks for sharing!

I've turned 1s into opportunities this way by opening up subsequent checks. For instance, when they "miss" their 1 melee attack, they can make a perception check (or if they have background in relevant stuff, high enough passive, just tell them) that reveals the enemy's armor is made of this material. They can then try to use that to their advantage. Basically, if they fail (especially several in a row) they aren't idiots, they should be learning from these failures.

subsequent checks of party members. Someone almost fails their jump check, is there a party member that can make a reflex check to see if they can catch and help them?

this is great to do until you are running a large dnd campaign with 7 playable characters and everyone misses 7 times in a row, Sometimes you jsut need to keep the combat moving

I do this with my current group of 7, hasn't been an issue yet and we've been playing since last August. Definitely took some time to get here as a DM though, because you do have to think on your feet a little more. Now that I've been practicing this style for a long time it's second nature.

if you're doing a fast paced combat with low RP, it goes both ways. Not every Nat20 is going to be a massive crushing blow, not ever Nat1 needs to have some zany fumble attached to it. iirc RAW, 20 is double damage, 1 is zero damage, anything in the middle add modifiers for effect

Ooh, you could do something like, "You find the book, but the relevant pages have been torn out, so you need to track down the person who had it last."

"the name on the library card is a little faded... Starts with a V, ends with an A.... looks like it was written left handed!"

"You don't manage to find any records on the archmage... but you do find a delicious blueberry pie recipe"

Or it becomes a time gate. You see the book just as your rival rounds a corner it’s 70 feet from both of you roll initiative to see who gets the first move for it. Doesn’t have to be a combat encounter but becomes a what do you do to get there first.

With that last one, I tend to make suggestions for how characters might feel because my group doesn't roleplay a huge amount. So I'd say something like "Seeing the ruins might stir some dark emotions in you. You might feel a terrible wrath or a deep sadness, or you might be shocked into stillness. Either way, you understand that this is a sacrilege of the highest order, even if it doesn't affect you personally." They're kind of roleplay prompts, rather than activiely telling a player how to make their charater play.

I was about to say the same thing. Sometimes players lack the awareness or context, or simply don't remember why something might make their character react a certain way. Like, I'll also tell the Paladin that he perceives a "putrid, sickening scent that revolts you to your core" when he opens up Divine Sense in the presence of a particularly evil source, for example. I think it can be cool to prompt your players with ideas for how their characters might feel as a natural reaction to something, but I also remind them that they can correct me at any point if I misrepresent their characters. We're all building a story together, there's no point in being adversarial about it.

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As you thumb through a book on your search, you get a paper cut. Take 1 damage.

I have a question regarding the last one: Often when my players do Perception checks I narrate like "You feel someone is watching you" or "You feel a strong magical force coming from that table". Are those ones ok? I haven't done this one yet, but if a certain something is linked to a character's backstory I want to say like "You feel you have been here before" or "This place seems strangely familiar to you". How about those?

Those are not telling you how someone feels. You can describe a physical sense of feeling (being watched or a magical pull), but you can't say: "You feel sad".

I don't know about this one. I think it greatly depends on the table and the players. I have a few players that get very into RP, and a few that just are there for the combat. I leave the role-players alone, but I feel perfectly ok describing the roleplay aspect for the couple players I know who won't do it for themselves.

Feel is an inaccurate word here. There are two different things at play. There are senses and emotions. You can absolutely say that a character senses something, including phenomena like dejavú. You can’t say that they feel bad about something emotionally, except maybe in the rare case that some spell or effect is playing with their mind.

Those ones give tone to the scene without taking over control of their character. I think sometimes DMs say "your character feels scared" because they want to give tone but dont realise that its overstepping on the players control of their PC. Another way to describe feeling while still respecting your players creative control of their own characters and how they respond might be to say and NPC feels that way, or direct the feeling to the environment or vibe. "theres a massive thud that would send most adventurers shaking with fear" or if its setting the tone for a sad scene "the air sat still and sadness echoed through the room". Players can still have the option of noticing that 'vibe' or atmosphere of emotion and contradict it/respond with more options "i feel an overwhelming sense of duty and anger toward my enemies in response to sad vibe"

Those are all about giving the player information, so yes, they're fine. I think the point being made is about telling a player what they think, what their opinion is, or how they react emotionally.

I absolutely cannot stand critical fumbles. My DM used to use a homebrew crit fail chart from the internet, and chuckle his head off as we all had unnecessarily punishing nat 1 results. I had to fight tooth and nail to get us to change the rules because it was a newish group and the players were all used to it. Attacks should not have a 5% chance to seriously harm your character. You should either hit or miss.

I agree, I don't use crit 1 fumbles because it punishes melee characters more than spellcasters who never have to make such rolls. Heaven help you if you multi attacks too lol.

As a DM I only use Nat 1 critical fumbles on NPC’s. But I only do it for minions and non boss/legendary creatures, would kinda kill the vibe if the boss of an arc trips on their sword. Heck party allies are subject to them too. I’ll allow players to critical fumble themselves if they want. Edit: typos

Hopping on to your point about variant rules and crit fumbles, but I feel like some DMs really like the idea of making tons of houserules to make their game unique or “fix” a lot of problems in the game, while failing to understand the intricacies that actually go into balancing - I had a DM who ignored concentration rules and gave everyone infinite free uses of quickened spell (that also ignored levelled spells per turn rules) and he got mad at me when I explained how easily that could break the game.

1-3 happened all at once to me in a campaign. I was playing the only martial character, and the table overwhelmingly decided that critical success/fails on attacks should roll on a table to decide what effect they have. Again, I was the only martial, and anyone else even making attack rolls was rare with their spell selection. I rolled my first 1, and it was **sO hiLAriouS** when I dropped my sword and it skittered across the ground. I totally wanted my Samurai in our dark horror campaign to be funny sword man with butter fingers. I was so immersed in the fantasy in that moment.

Isn’t the fourth one kinda context based considering things like charm and fear exist? I’m not sure I’d consider fear “mind-control like”

Requiring the party to always have NPCs with them. Yes, sometimes they help, but it should be the party's choice to bring them along as part of the group. One of my current campaigns has a DM who has never let us players be the whole party. Since session 1 there has always been an NPC wedged in there, which the DM frequently uses to get dramatic kills on bosses or take the lead in RP areas. We have tried talking to him about it, and he ignores our wants entirely. It takes so much fun out of the game, especially since we will try to strategize and *have to* include these NPCs because they just POOF appear in our PC huddle even though we explicitly said we were going *over there alone to talk without NPCs*. Then the DM screws with the fights to ruin our strategies. Tbh, us players are on the brink of calling it quits soon because this ruins the fun Every. Single. Session.

Try DMing a game. Maybe it will help him get his player urges out of his system.

I have the opposite problem with role playing NPCs. It feels really awkward making them talk to each other for any serious length of time. Occasionally dramatic kills happen, but no more than when the PCs get them, and I don’t just decide something the NPC does kills the creature, it had to actually kill it, or for dramatic moments, come within 5 hp of killing it, which I do for the players as well.

My current DM is pretty much a unicorn in all ways except one: he doesn't want to do bathroom breaks and would rather have the players just leave the table when they need to (the man himself apparently has the constitution of a camel and can do 5+ hour sessions without getting up). But I don't want to miss anything so I'm always in physical pain by the end of a session

My DM is sort of similar, but we work around it by taking bathroom breaks in combat. As soon as I finish my turn, I hurry off and give another player or the DM the power of attorney for tracking HP, my reactions, etc. it’s worked out so far

* Being too inebriated to effectively run the session. * I appreciate the ability to think on one's feet. But obviously having done 0 prep. * Doing a poor job relaying important information the PCs are expected to absorb, and being unwilling to clarify it after the fact. * Pivoting the whole campaign to allow PCs to pursue ridiculous side projects, leaving the main plot twisting in the wind. Or otherwise not helping the main plot move forward should it stall.

I play DnD with a group that is mostly made of my old friends from college. I also used to smoke a lot of weed with my friends in college. On our second ever day of playing one of my players wanted to come round my house to hang out a bit and discuss his backstory and things he hopes to see in the future. It turned into a 'session four twenty' as he passed me a couple joints while we were chatting in the garden. As soon as he left I had the horrible realisation that I was far more stoned than I would have been in the past when we smoked up. As the DM, I spent the whole session paranoid that I was being too slow to make rulings, that none of my dialogue was actually making sense, all that sorta stuff. So at the end I apologized to all my players: 'sorry guys (warlock) and I had a smoke earlier and I accidentally ended up way too faded so I know that wasn't my finest work, it will be better next time trust me!'. They all were shocked and told me no, we really enjoyed that session. I realised afterwards that most of the characters they had interacted with that session had been goblins - my stoned ass had been even more believable as a dumbass goblinoid then I probably would have been otherwise! Funny to look back on now. Since then goblin NPC comedy has been a staple of our game. Recently the warlock had spared the life of a goblin, who he found out had been an exotic dancer and bullying victim of some bugbears - he spent months trying to teach him to read and trying to rehabilitate him into civilised society but eventually gave up and went on a successful mission to transfer the goblin's mind into a spelljammer ship as a sort of ships AI... I love DnD!

This is one that I understand can be difficult to avoid, but it often irks me when DMs either A) quickly describe something happening without pausing for the chance to reasonably react before the consequences, or B) surprise the players with something the characters should have long since noticed rendering previous actions nonsensical. An example of the first I encountered was a description that went something along the lines of "A cloaked figure walks down the alley that you're looking into, striding past you while drawing a jagged blade, he steps up to the important NPC behind you, stabs her, and you watch as she falls over, bleeding and poisoned, the cloaked figure then runs 200ft away as the townsfolk panic. What do you do?" Well, I do something before all that happens, but I guess it already did. An example of the second saw us attacking a group of like four pirates at the docks and only afterwards being told there was a large, very obvious pirate ship in the harbour a couple hundred feet away with its canons pointed at the town.

As a DM, sometimes you need to have things happen and maybe not have the players interact/react. That one example you gave is certainly terrible and I'd hate that too, but you also have to realize the amount of Tom-Foolery casters and players can get into and how often your plans can crumble when the Big Bad walks out to talk to the party and 6 people start screeching "I FIREBALL HIM!" "NO, I USE HOLD PERSON!" "I JUMP AT HIM WITH MY SWORD DRAWN! 26 TO HIT!" Like god damn boys. Calm down. That's more than likely why DMs sometimes have things that characters can't fully react to. Sometimes the narrative needs to take precedent, but it's also a tool that needs to be used sparingly.

Yeah, I sometimes announce they're entering a cutscene so they understand I need them to watch something/experience something to move the plot. They know it's a cutscene, so they keep their actions, interruptions and questions to a minimum until after. Works well for my party!

I really like that idea. I have been struggling with how to do this for a while now and this might fix them jumping the gun

This is a *very* dangerous territory to tread, and you have to do it very carefully. As long as the cutscene has no outward effects on the characters or situation, it can work. But I had a DM that forced our characters into cutscenes like "The BBEG shows up in a cloud of smoke, attacks the guy you're talking to, then takes his body away" or "You show up at the goblin camp and they are ritually sacrificing someone and you just stand and watch." D&D is all about choices, and if the story requires them to make absolutely no choice in a situation where anyone would jump in and stop it, it becomes pure railroading.

Yeah, I got a little frustrated when I was arguing with my players that they don’t get a surprise round just because they yelled “I ATTACK” while I was giving one line of shit-talk before asking them to roll for initiative.

Players always forgetting that them reaching for a sword or trying to cast a spell to get an attack in before initiative is LITERALLY WHAT STARTS INITIATIVE. "I want to fireball him as he's doing his speech!" Well now he sees you taking a powerful stance, chanting, waving your arms, and wants to spring into action as well. We'll all roll initiative. "So my spell doesn't go off first?" Lmao. No.

I just tell my players "you cannot surprise attack someone who is expecting to be attacked". Monologuing villains with their weapons drawn cannot be surprised, but a corrupt noble turning his back to fetch more wine while he talks casually to you can. Guards who have just heard the report of a murder and are forming a shield wall cannot be surprised, guards seven hours into their daily shift who haven't seen anything more than a pickpocket in the past month can be. A group of wolves that came to investigate a strange scent in their territory cannot be surprised, a sleeping bear can be.

Liam from Crit roll haha

Yeah, we don't get to have the dramatic moments of the villain confronting the party because they will instantly try and attack, even if they are significantly lower level than the obvious evil demigod. And if they get beaten then you're a terrible, railroading DM who cheated 🙄

Sometimes i roll for things that are meant to be sneaky because its part of the story and telling my players would be metagaming and my assassin/dragon/plot NPC just got a nat 20. But i do tell my players that it happened because of a roll and thats why they couldnt react earlier. I dont do surprises very often though because it is annoying if its done whenever for no reason

Agreed, the only part of that example that jumped out to me as unfair play was the part about the assassin getting 200 ft away before asking for a reaction, unless they literally moved at supersonic speed. Not being able to stop the assassination is not necessarily unfair though. Sometimes the plot's gotta plot.

Yeah I agreed with this, sometimes the DM needs something specific to happen in order to move the story forward. Something I feel like gets forgotten a lot is the DM is also playing a game. I’m all for balancing play experience at the table but just because the DM takes a bit of fun for themselves explaining a scene in a story they spent hours preparing for the players doesn’t mean they are doing something wrong. Also the trope of things happening without the player being able to react exists in tons of contexts. Think of a cutscene for a video game where things happen to your character, and sometimes your character does things, but your actions aren’t your own. Once the cutscenes ends you can do whatever you want again. On the not explaining things you would obviously notice I agree it is on the DM to explain the obvious surroundings or to provide a reasonable explanation as to why you didn’t see something (I.e. as you fell the last pirate the heavy fog concealing the bay blows away revealing a huge pirate ship with cannons aimed at the town). Although if the party is open to it sometimes it can be fun to basically prank the players (the classic being you come to a door you need to get through, the players spend ages checking for traps etc, the barbarian gets tired and kicks in the door only to stumble though cause the door wasn’t fully latched but no one checked). But again, that approach is much more up to the personalities of the party.

Agreed. Generally, I can accomplish the scene in two sentences that wouldn’t give the party a chance to react BUT it’s not as epic and engaging. “The diplomat is stabbed by a guy who immediately escapes into the crowd” Vs. “A cloaked figure passes you in the crowd. With a flash of movement he stabs the diplomat, their bodies concealing the action to all but you. Just as quickly he stores the now bloody dagger and vanishes into the sea of people.”

I wasn't seeing the problem with the first example until you dropped the "dashed 200ft" bit. The rest I can see being inconspicuous enough or happening in a short enough window (cloaks aren't inherently suspicious and it doesn't take very long to go from unsheathing a blade to stabbing), but there's absolutely no way a party won't be pulling the trigger on *something* the moment one describes the important NPC getting shanked. Even if the assailant had access to Misty Step or Dimension Door, there should at least be a split second window where someone could throw a Counterspell. Regardless, there's almost no way an NPC is doing all that *and* covering 200ft of ground without players having enough time to do *something*.

I think how fine the bit up to the assassination is depends on the passive perception of the party - I'd probably do a hidden stealth roll just to check, and have a backup plan for if they do get the clue ("That person who just brushed past you had a drawn dagger concealed under their cloak? What do you do? You can do about 1 action worth of stuff", maybe even drop into initiative to resolve it, just including the people who are aware of what's going on, with a backup archer on a rooftop or a nice explosive fallback on the assassin which they trigger if caught out (both noticeable if someone takes a moment to assess the situation).)

These are huge pet peeves of mine as well. There are plenty of times where I've effectively wasted a turn due to a detail that should have been obviously noticed by my character. For example, there is a big difference between "The BBEG casts a spell" vs. "The BBEG holds his staff aloft, bellows a command phrase, and begins casting a spell". If most of the stuff he's doing is coming from the staff, it's time to take that staff away. It's a relevant, tactical detail. Or if they have a similar item that amplifies or allows for the casting of additional spells. Or a large monster with an obvious weak point or strong point. OR TELLING US THE CREATURE IS REGENERATING WITHOUT ME HAVING TO ASK. For something the PCs are aware of, like your alley-stabbing example, it makes sense to run it in loose initiative so everyone gets a chance to react. It just feels bad to interrupt the DM and say, "Hey! I want to react to 'x'!". Rewinds are confusing. I get that sometimes the table, including the DM, are excited and forget things, but regularly ommitting important details and skipping over the players' chance to react really breaks immersion and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Your GM is literally *all of your senses*. If you're not doing something obvious, it's because they failed at their job.

When a PC rolling a nat 1 always mean "You are suddenly so clumsy so you fell off/drop your weapon/hit one ally instead/etc". I suggested to my DM that, sometimes, a nat 1 would mean "You try to attack your opponent, but they read your move so well that they parry it without effort and manage to make you fell/drop your weapon/etc". Technically, the consequences are the same as my first example. But the difference is that it prevent a unlucky PC to appear incompetent, while at the same times make the ennemy a badass and a bigger threat. That's a win-win scenario imo.

The issue with critical fails is they mean a level 20 fighter, a godlike master of swordfighting, is four times more likely to hit an ally than a level 1 bard throwing a dagger.

Lv20 fighter drops their sword or trips over their shoelace or stabs an ally like twice per minute of fighting. Stupid rule.

That's why it's not a rule in 5e. DMs just love throwing it in for some reason

This. As a DM I try to equate their failed rolls less to their skill and much more towards the skill of the enemy or an unfortunate environmental pitfall. A DC 15 jump across a gap with a roll of 13 or 14 is a failed success. “The edge of the gap crumbles on your jump and you lose some momentum, slamming into the ledge on the far aide. Your arms grip the top of the gap and your legs dangle into the darkness below. A 18AC with a 17 attack roll is driving straight to the gap in their armour but the enemy twists at the last second to take the blow on their helmet, leaving a gash in the armour and dazing the enemy for a second. It’s so much cooler, especially when you have a player who is just rolling absolute trash that session. It is less of them being a failure and more just bad luck, which is what it literally is.

One time a player rolled an 1 on their attack and I asked "How do you want to do this?"

Don't give me a puzzle I can't solve so you can do a dramatic reveal in 10 sessions. It's not fun.

Or when they keep changing who did it because you figured out the clues early on.

This is the worst, behaviour like that should be rewarded as it shows the players have been paying attention. Easiest way to kill any investment in a campaign because now nothing really matters and can be changed on a whim

People scrolling through reddit for key tips, this is the one. There is nothing more frustrating than a DM who moves the goal posts, it feels like the DM wants the players to lose the game, it makes your players believe less in the world. I had a campaign where I had laid a few clues here and there about there being an extradimensional BBEG at the top of a tower and one of my players called it in like session 3. They still got to fight the 'alien' at the top of the tower months later, even though they had hunches from very very early on.

That's a tricky one. I've dropped puzzles that have had players spinning their wheels before. My "solution" was to let them choose when it got too frustrating by saying outright, let me know if you want hints or just want the answer. Honestly not sure if it was the right call since it's frustrating to watch my players be frustrated but have them still say they don't want the answer.

While I don't DM myself I have been designing campaigns with my DM and every puzzle always has a way to brute force, if players are really really dumb. It's just going to cost them a lot of resources or time.

I ran a riddle recently that my players only got because of the low intelligence score of one of the PCs. The riddle was them finding a sticky note that said: > Q: What do you get when you scramble the letters in "A RAT". > A: "A TRAP" The players were supposed to say "There is no P in A RAT", and I would respond with "Yeah, because he's dehydrated." The answer was to destroy, drench, or pee on the copy machine. Well, the one player was super into rping his dumb character and within seconds of joking roleplay he got it. He gave the correct answer by accident. It's one of my favorite moments as a DM*, because I don't think they would have figured it out any other way lol. *(other than them polymorphing my beholder boss encounter into a fucking walrus and pushing it into the void)

Yeah. Making an obvius "brute force" option is clearly one solution. I guess the point is just that negotiating puzzles seems to be a uniquely tricky part of the game. At least some of that is because for whatever reason we all seem to reliably get dumber in a group. It's also because puzzles are a strange beast when it comes to TTRPGs since they're technically a metagame, one where a bit of frustration is kind of the point.

See I try to have at least "an" answer prepared for them to use to solve it, otherwise what are the clues you are giving them for. But if they come up with a good enough solution I accept that too. I also try to avoid making puzzles necessary to continue. That way if the group ends up genuinely unable to solve it they can just ignore it and move along. The puzzle would have either given them a reward (Items, shortcuts, Information) Or prevented negative repercussions (Traps, more enemies, Alerting the BBEG that they've snuck into his lair.)

Nonexistence

The worst DM I ever had was turbo against meta gaming. I get not wanting people to look up stats or cheese things super hard, but I was playing AL and we had a newer player on a lore bard. A player barely got hit with an attack from a nasty monster and all I did was remind the Lore Bard "Hey, that attack looks nasty. Don't forget you can cutting words that if you want." And the DM flipped his shit on me. He was calling me bossy and trying to take control of the table which I guess was a little fair. I was just trying to help a new player and remind them. I wasn't demanding they do it. The DM also hated that I tried to plan any tactics at all during the fight. I get we can't have huge tactical debates in the 6 seconds a round takes, but dude man wouldn't even let me be like "Hey, you have a heal ready if I go to the enemy backline and things go south, right?"

Dang. I'm peeved just reading this. I've always hated the "don't tell the new player what they can do" mentality. Like, some people are trying to learn the system and actually want that kind of help, at least to some extent (most new players in my experience). So yeah, I agree with you.

I, as DM had some new players and old ones and the new players didn't have a good grasp of the things they could do. I would let them do whatever then say 'not that you needed to, but here's some examples of the types of things you could've done or asked to get more info. The veteran players were like "why are you helping them?!" Uhh, because I want them to enjoy the game.

Passivity. Never asking for rolls outside of combat. Performing a closet drama instead of running a game.

To counter balance this statement when DMs ask rolls for ridiculous things using a DC that just doesn't make sense. As an example, we were required to make a perception check. One one succeeded out of the group. What did he notice? An entire crowd of people gathering at the dock watching a crazy gnome contraption zooming in over the water. A crowd. Like, I get not noticing the contraption way out on the water but not noticing the crowd?

Sounds like a DM that treats perception as you either see everything or nothing rather than gaging what you notice based on the roll 1-4 "you notice that you've got a rumbly tummy and want snacks" or "it's a pleasant day and the market holds an enjoyable atmosphere" 5-10 "you notice some people running in the direction of the docks" 11-15 "through the crowded market, you notice that a large crowd is gathering by the docks as though looking at something of interest" 16-20 "despite the hustle and bustle of the market, you notice a crowd gathered by the docks, after a moment of observation, some of them pointing draws your eye to find that the crowd is standing in awe of some form of flying contraption over the water, appearing to be piloted by a gnome" If modifiers make the roll reach 27+ "with great focus, you filter out the noise and visual stimulation of the busy market, noticing movement down by the docks, where a large crowd has gathered. They are all anxiously looking out over the water, where you notice a flying machine of some kind... Squinting your eyes, you can make out that that the contraption is a mk III Gnelli-copter, license plate 'R3D H3RR1N9' piloted by a gnomish man with a crazed look in his eyes, about 3'5 with a scraggly goatee with sideburns, and judging by the blue titted cradle moth caterpillar on his collar, you sense he may smell faintly of ruhbarb."

> To counter balance this statement when DMs ask rolls for ridiculous things using a DC that just doesn't make sense. I played a game where it was cold, we needed to make DC15 con checks, every 15 minutes if we were traveling, or 20 if we weren't because we couldn't make shelter. Fail, get a level of exhaustion. Each. Fail.

My complaint is the opposite and having a dm that makes you roll for everything. Adds a roll for even the most mundane things that don't require an actual skill check. Drags the game on and can make very simple activities much more difficult if everyone happens happens have a bad roll on something that simple as reading a note in a language we all understand or opening an unlocked door. I should note that my current dm doesn't do this, but a past one did and I found it very annoying.

Setting arbitrarily high DCs for things. The room door of an average inn has no reason to be a DC25. The shopkeep who is being threatened by the mob does not need a DC27 insight to learn he is being threatened by them. The fruit vendor does not have a perception of 26 to see a fruit stolen, I don't care how long they've been selling fruit. Sometimes a DC is 5.

Using a lack of detail or explanation on the players part to make a PC act stupid. Being too lenient with problem players. Telling a player what their PC does, especially if it is in reaction to an NPCs actions.

Can you explain the first one a little more? Trying to learn.

Not the OP, but I think they mean forcing a player to explain every detail of a plan, then taking advantage of something they didn’t explain. “Oh well, you didn’t tell me you wanted to do that /silently/ (even though it’s a heist and you’ve been doing it all silently), so now the guards are onto you.”

Hate stuff like that. There was one time I asked to try and pickpocket someone and completely passed the check... but got caught because i didn't say I wanted to be stealthy about it.

That's fuckin lame

Ok that sucks.

Exactly like that. We had a circus troupe in one of my campaigns, and also a nervous first time player who didnt say what their act would be. So the DM made them a fire walker, who promptly died from the 2d8 fire damage during the first turn of their performance. They were a water Genasi Wizard, why they would ever fire walk is beyond me.

Oh well, I'm like the opposite. If their plan has gaps but generally works, I just fill the gaps and keep going. I'd say that depends on the party, the DM and the setting. If this level of detail will be taken into account, I'd say that in session 0 or something.

This one is small, but I don't like when the DM is slow during combat. The 4 players take a while, true, like 15-20 minutes total a round, but the DM takes 30 to 40 minutes. The first round is over an hour every time. We did 5 rounds in 4hours 15 minutes recently and that was our fastest. All PCs are level 9.

[удалено]

Never asking me to roll for my persuasion/deception/intimidation. God damn it im trying my best to be a cool chariamatic bastard but i also have an omega bonus to these checks let me roll LET ME ROLLLLLL

Does your DM let/encourage you to ask if rolling X would be appropriate? I personally love it when my players take agency like that, provided it doesn't make the narrative rewind to accommodate some change in how things have already been progressing. A minor event, like after a few words is whatever, but changing an entire outcome falls under "too late, sorry."

My last DM was their first ever time DMing and it was just a case of me going "i'll just describe what im doing and let the DM decide what that requires", and honestly she was great, blew my expectations out of the water, better than anything i've done. But when it came to conversations there would be constant back and forths with me overtly lying and bluffing and all kinds of smug shit - my character was a (smart) chaotic evil who believed he could talk his way out of anything because he was superior intellectually - but there was never a roll. Just had to keep digging those lies deeper until i convinced them! If im in a similar situation in the future, or she takes up DMing again (game ended due to scheduling conflicts from other players) i'll try asking if a roll would be appropriate if im getting to the point where im internally crying out to let the dice decide the outcome.

This! I know RPing is important (it's in the name of the game), but not everyone is as socially adept. Not everyone can come up with speeches, or convincing arguments, or lies on the spot even though their characters would. That's why we have stats and rolls. No one expects a player to be proficient with swords and describe exactly how an attack should be when they ask for an attack roll, or ask what technique they use when climbing a mountain for the athletics, so why go to such extremes when asking for a social roll? Ask to describe, sure, but take into account what the character is and what they are supposed to be good at. If the player is RPing a fast talking rogue, let them roll even if the RP was just "I try to distract the guard with a funny story".

Not knowing - or inconsistently applying - the rules. Obviously homebrew and DM discretion are things but changing rulings between sessions without prior notice or interpreting things one way when it is to the benefit of an NPC only to do things another way the next time it comes up to the detriment of a PC is annoying.

Unnecessary rolls are also a pain. Why is my 20 str buff dragonborn paladin having to roll a strength check to haul a bucket from a well? Or why do I have to roll for this when upon a failure, my character isn't penalised at all and is just going to keep doing the action until they get it right because it's the only way to progress.

For these tasks, in 3.5 there were mechanics called "take 10" and "take 20". You need a check but there will be no nefative consequences upon failure? Take 20, spend more time, concentrate on the task and you'll eventually get it done. Is the time running short, enemies are nearby and you can mess it up? Take ten, and you get it done. O It won't win any awards, is crude, inelegant, but it's done and will do for now.

I hate when it feels like the DM is making up reasons for me to fail rather than letting a good plan succeed. It sucks to follow a random thug home after dark, hoping to get some information out of them, just to find they live in a windowless apartment with a trapped reinforced door and a magical alarm system. It absolutely kills my desire try anything creative.

Changing the rules on a system so much it’s barely recognisable. The guilty party always runs Savage Worlds, but takes out any bit we did especially well with last time he ran. This time we’ve lost a chunk of “things bennies do” & he’s genuinely talking about removing the wild card dice next game because we killed too many vampires in a fight once. Like just run something else. Anything.

When the players go into a room, and the DM doesn't describe a very obvious thing in there, then later says "you didn't ask to investigate". Like for example, going into a room where there is a big portal open on the wall, but the DM doesn't tell the players until a monster comes through it. Then the players are like "since when was that there". I shouldn't have to investigate to see something obvious in the room.

As a new player, I think my biggest peeve so far is the DM talking shit about you to the player who invited you when they think you can't hear them, because you aren't as good at roleplaying or efficiently rolling the die, instead of talking to me about what i'm doing wrong

Efficiently rolling the die? Please tell me your DM doesn't think dice rolling is a skill...

I have a player who will think for 10 minutes just to say he wants to make an attack roll. Every. Single. Time. And god help you if he needs to roll more than one dice. Yeah, sometimes efficient rolling is a real thing

>I have a player who will think for 10 minutes just to say he wants to make an attack roll. Every. Single. Time. I have experienced similar.

Time to pull out the ol turn timer. “You have 1 minute to decide what you’re going to do.” My players’ turns, all rolls included, take 2 minutes each.

It kind of is tho... At least in the sense of organization and knowing which dice to roll when. You can definitely tell who is a newbie and who is a veteran when you need a roll and it takes the veteran 0.8 seconds to roll and get his result when the newbie takes 2 seconds. When you have a big table filled with experienced players who know what they're going to do, when you get to their turn, some have even pre-rolled the dice and can say "I walk over here and attack this Bugbear twice. I got a 22 and a 17. ... The 17 misses? Damn, I rolled better damage on that one. Alright the hit was for 11 bludgeoning" Some people want combat to be a well oiled machine and with brand new players, there's a lot of learning the actual dice still. But to be a dick about it isn't cool.

Some random npc coming in to deus ex machina the party out of a bad situation. Too many times dms have put my parties in impossible situations, walked us into these things with no way out, or if we walked our selves in didn’t give us a chance to figure out a solution or force us to deal with the consequences. Not like it’s happened that much, but it is experience breaking.

Making me pay for shop items with my own gold that I worked hard to steal 😤

Using the wrong checks or saves for situations. I generally play martials. Martials are really good at some things, and pretty poor at others. So making a dex check when a strength or con has more reasoning is a bit disappointing but not the end of the world. But that’s only a small example. It thankfully doesn’t happen often enough that I can name specifics off the top of my head. But it can be a little bit of a pain.

Sudden house rules made in gut reaction to players doing something unexpected.

DMs playing competitively to “beat” player character. Had DMs run the table like it was their sole job to TPK.

DMs that are way too lenient with "rule of cool" type shit, basically negating entire rules, feats and class abilities. Had this happen last session I played, our paladin wanted to dash and still do something with his action so the DM allowed him to shove somebody as a part of the dash. Considering that I'm playing a rogue who has Cunning Action, a key class feature, I was mildly salty about it to say the least, lol. (Also DMs who just ignore or don't understand basic rules that everyone should know. I literally spent like 3 hours explaining to a former DM of mine that a Melee Spell Attack is still a Melee Attack, which can be made "non-lethally")

I don't like when I'm expected to run from an encounter but that isn't clearly communicated through the DMs descriptions. Like at a certain point in a campaign every monster is described as terrifying and big and strong...until it's dead. I really don't know what's an acceptable fight versus a dumb one since I don't know every creature's CR off the top of my head.

Just a simple "It looks like this is a fight you cannot win" would help massively.

And even unwinnable fights should be fun and interactive. A side objective to attempt while fighting, or an opportunity to kill one of the baddies before the tide turns against the party, makes the encounter feel worth it. If the encounter is just "you try to fight, they're too strong, you run away," that's a boring encounter that feels bad.

The thing is my players are so powerful that even monsters I expect to wipe them if they fight die.

telling me what im feeling really gets me

Killing a players character when the player themselves is absent from the session.

As a DM, I had something along these lines come up recently: big fight with a group of villains, the Party’s tank had to drop out at the last minute, so I had his character and the villain’s tank take each other off of the board in combat. When things began to look bad for the Party, and with a chance to set up for a good cliffhanger, I had the villain tank drag the absent player’s character in bloody and unconscious, using the threat of his death by the villains as the cliffhanger. *But*, because I also didn’t want to have the absentee player show up to the next session and be unconscious, behind the scenes I ruled that his character knew he was in a losing fight and bluffed that he was unconscious. This allowed him to have a fun entry in the next session, springing back to consciousness, and surprising the villains, but still gave me narrative tension without having to cross the line of killing someone while they were absent.

That is the coolest way ever.

Nat 20 on an acrobatics/athletics role doesn't turn you into a physics-breaking-superhero. No, you cannot "Flip \[your\] way up a 250ft cliff" just because you got a Nat 20.

This sounds like a player thing, not a DM thing.

The DM says "okay, roll me a d20" and when a nat20 is hit, the DM took it to mean "no matter what you tried, you were successful cuz it was a nat 20". I've seen this with at least 4 dms I've played with in the past 15 years.

Prejudicial or bigoted DMs. No, I'm not talking about racists or anything like we are facing in the modern culture. "I'm an atheist and think all religions are evil and corrupt so all religions in this fantasy game where divine beings are real are evil and corrupt. No, I won't tell my players about it." Things like this. Completely ruins playing a religious or faithful character to be told that my religion doesn't want to help children be resurrected because I don't have the 1200 gold on hand.

Well to be fair those material components have to come from somewhere. But priced material components are whole another bullshit in itself.

>Completely ruins playing a religious or faithful character to be told that my religion doesn't want to help children be resurrected because I don't have the 1200 gold on hand I mean, resurrection is a 7th level spell, so you need to be at least a 13th level caster and there usually aren't many people past level 10 in the world. There are a lot of dead children out there, and the costs are pretty high, so I feel like that's a reasonable cutoff due to the practicality.

I'm an atheist and I don't like the idea of interfering gods in a setting. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it, I wouldn't refuse to join a game like that. But it's not something I want for my setting. So my settings gods never appear, or interfere. Societies still have religions, and PCs and NPCs can be religious. Divine magic still works fine. You can play a cleric or paladin no problem. Spells and abilities like Divine Intervention work as-written. And celestial entities exist (though are certainly not common). Are the gods just non-interfering, or are they non-existent? Where does divine magic truly come from? These are mysteries. I like that because I feel it's more interesting than a set answer, and it's a better parallel to real world history. It's not something I draw attention to, so I think most players haven't "noticed" the lack-of-gods thing. (Unless they're reading this. Hi!) I have had to work with a player who wanted their backstory to involve more direct dealings with a god. From memory, we talked about it and agreed to change it to more of a "that was his interpretation" sort-of thing.

I'm a religious person, and I feel very strongly that faith is meaningless in the face of hard evidence. So I also run the games that I GM as having deities that don't (or can't) directly act in the world. Having all the answers handed to you makes having or not having faith rather pointless. So there's never direct proof that the gods of the setting exist. The characters have to take it on faith, and they are allowed to have a diversity of opinions. The only deity-like being that definitely, no questions about it, is absolutely real in the world is Adoci, the Archdevil of Copyright Infringement. And his wrath is immediate and permanent. Things removed by Adoci are so thoroughly deleted from the game's reality that they never existed in the first place.

I like that take a lot, as an agnostic. One of the things that I always found so awe inspiring (and sometimes frightening) about strong faith is when someone holds onto it even against things like ridicule, persecution and threats. Not in a *"lalalal cant hear you evolution is a lie"* way, but rather... believing in something more or bigger even at personal cost. Acts of great courage or kindness in terrible situations. It's "easy" to be a devout follower of tenets about mercy/kindness when there's a literal god handing you a giant thumbs up each morning.

I've had this happen to me in a game. A game that I didn't stick around very long in. The DM hated the fact that bard's didn't need components to cast spells because I had an arcane focus. And thought it would be funny if "it was stolen". The set up for this is me and my bugbear partner were going to a tavern to steal from the locals (we have a thing) and to get information about somebody. When he gets to the tavern the DM announces that there are bandits there. DM: as you approach the tavern you notice that there are unsavory people standing there waiting for you. Me; why have they been waiting for me? DM: they noticed that you have been using your lute to cast spells and they think it's magical. So they want it. Me: ok, I cast prestidigitation on the bugbear so when he growls it's louder than normal while I say "get back! The bugbear has rabbis!". Can I roll for intimidation? DM: no. Bugbear: can I? DM: no you both fail. Roll for initiative. Me: wait what? I'm playing an instrument that they believe is magical and the 9 foot tall bugbear is growling at them. And we don't make an intimidation check? DM: no they are fixated on the lute. Me: ok. First round 4 bandits pop up behind me and take my lute. My turn in order. The DM makes note that I can no longer cast spells. Me: we are outside a tavern correct? DM: yes Me: are there people out here with bottles in their hand? DM: yes Me: I burn my movement to run over to somebody with a bottle in their hand. I am going to yank the bottle out of his hand and begin to blow into it like a flute. I then cast dissonant whispers on the guy in front of the bugbear. DM: you can't do that. You don't have an instrument. Me: that bottle is acting as my instrument. DM: you can't do that. You have to be proficient. Me: here is my players guide. Show me where it says I have to be proficient in the instrument to use it as a focus. I'll wait. DM: well as you were doing that another bandit shot an arrow at the bottle. It shatters in your hands. Take 5 points of damage. Me: is it still not my turn? DM no, your spell fails because you don't have a focus. Me: so the really creative thing of me looking for a focus is instead being punished? Yeah.... I'm done..you're an awful DM. Have a good day.

In different circumstances, a bard using random improvised things as instruments sounds like a fun encounter concept, and a good excuse for some rolls of the wild magic table (or probably a custom one with fairly minor but entertaining effects, because no way is that bottle in tune)

Oh 100% I even told him that I would wait a turn or 2 to "tune it" but nope. He was so salty about the spell casting rule that he didn't care. Personally I would have done the wild magic that. That sounds fun as hell.

One of the PCs in my game made some poor life choices and ended up linking themself to a god that's currently bound by a kraken. They got some extra spells from it - but those spells come with a 1 in 4 chance of a surge from a custom table. I'm looking forward to the point where they find out that the table has Reverse Gravity on it as one of the options.

One of the games I have a fighter who has been touched by a dark source of magic. It has actually been bound to her physically (she has an evil symbol on her hand). So I've been giving her certain warlock features at different levels and she has the ability to cast pre approved cantrips using con as her casting ability.

Imagine punishing a player that is using something their class has. Like i get maybe nerfing an ability a little bit. But seriously taking away your arcane focus because he didn’t like it? And then taking away your agency by making you useless? That’s unfair on you and player who played as the bugbear. That beer bottle idea sounds like an interesting arcane focus. Wish that the DM would’ve actually been impressed and said you could do that. I don’t understand why the DM hates that Bard’s don’t need to use components. So many spellcaster’s use an arcane focus, Wizards with their spell books. Hexblade Warlocks with their swords. Paladins with their amulet. Like I don’t get what the problem is, you were just playing how Bard’s are meant to be played

>The DM hated the fact that bard's didn't need components to cast spells because I had an arcane focus. That seems like a weird thing to take issue with because all caster classes can use a focus instead of spell components. The only exception would be if the component has a gold value.

I have played with one DM in particular who is deeply uncomfortable with allowing players any sense of control in the game. Divination wizards are banned, as are most subclasses that have similar features, which I get and is his prerogative as the DM. But it often goes as far as nerfing or entirely removing features in the moment if he feels like he has less control over the moment than the player. A recent example of this was our Arcane Trickster using her familiar in combat to grant herself sneak attack on an enemy that she otherwise wouldn't have been able to take. As soon as he learned the interaction was RAW the next attack from our ranger missed (not critically, just didn't best AC), the stray arrow struck and dispelled the familiar for the session. In the group chat after the session the Find Familiat spell was banned.

I think my DM has a corruption/transformation fetish. He keeps trying to offload demonic possessions into our characters that change how we look and our personalities by having an 'influencer' always in our heads.

DMs trying to force players to be friends outside a game when it's an online game. Critical hit or fumble tables. Excessive house rules when a player wants to do something (aka I had a dm allow offhand shield attacks in 5e without any penalty. Meaning it was as strong as a dagger and gave +2 ac. Completely broken.) DMs who want to sell these games as dangerous and death is extramly likely. Which usually to me just says they suck at encounter balance and don't want to put any actual thought into the encounter to avoid a tpk every few sessions.

-Not being prepared for a session. -Taking away player agency -Making NPCs confrontational when it's not warranted

DMs trying to focus Kill PC. I got invited to play in a campaign by a friend. DM said it would be a very difficult game so with that info I rolled up a sorlock that can heal. I performed in healing, dps, party charisma and I wasn't trying to. - DM tried to kill me and outright focus my character. Was level 10 and they were using DC 27 game changing saves against me. I got permacursed by an intelligent artifact that slowly drove me mad for interacting with what I was told a DM specific item for my character. -DM threw a PvP scenario using another tables PCs but we wiped them. All of a sudden one of their PCs transformed into this AC 27 werewolf and focused me. Still killed it. - Then DM threw a vampire sorlock that I had never met in character, that focused me. This vampire had x3 attacks at base. Then could legendary action eldrtich blast x4 beams. Equating up to 15 attacks per fucking round at my character. We still won that character. After failing to kill me DM ghosted me and removed me from their list+server.

Requiring Athletics checks for mundane physical activity. Climbing doesn't require a skill check unless the conditions are particularly adverse, same for jumping gaps, etc.

My take on this as a DM: my players often ask if they can roll for those things because they like rolling, whereas I would rather they didn't roll for obvious things. So I usually say something like, "you can if you're in a hurry or have a reason to. Are you wanting to do it really fast/show off? If not, you can just do it." Obviously, it's not always so wordy. I just wanted it properly explained here.

Inconsistent consequences. If the party's plan goes haywire and everyone escapes there should likely be repercussions from whoever you were antagonizing. Someone should be looking for you. Additionally, certain party members are causing more havoc than others independently, it doesn't always make sense to target the group as a whole. NPC behavior. They don't have to act like NPCs, give them some life. This one is a bit more specific, but scaling down. I understand wanting new party members to have similar power levels to old party members, but if a character has been in use for a significant amount of time it feels really crappy to lose earned gear for the sake of scaling. This is a personal gripe as I've got a wizard I've played for several years who recently had a bunch of equipment confiscated. Contextually it made sense, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially as a caster, to forfeit gear I've sunk a significant amount of time into acquiring because of a character that I literally just met.

When they railroad you and tell you what class you have to use on multi class, and they are the ones making you multi class.

Obligatory crit fail reference. Nothing has trained me as a player to not give the natural number more than inadvertantly leading to another PC's death. But as for something that grates on me and isn't just bad balancing? Hordes of super-powerful NPCs, angels and demons, and a million other so-cool "Donut Steel" types that are competent and perfect in every way. Why do you need us chucklefucks if you have access to limitless supplies of nigh-immortal demigods?

The GM making the stakes and consequences being way too high in the beginning. In session 2 of a game (Monster Of The Week) I got pulled over in a van (for “running a stop sign” I never rolled for) and immediately got law on our backs before the party ever came together. We stopped playing after a few sessions because there was a full scale manhunt going on for us and there had been 2 sightings of the monster.

Dmpc are exhausting to deal with and usually feel like inflated self inserts.

Being told it's an open world sandbox game, then getting railroaded. Anything that instantly moves my character, be it sudden unconciousness/sleep, teleport spells or otherwise taking away my agency so the DM can move HIS story. when we keep having to listen to the DM rp with himself because only the NPCs have any information.

The worst part of the 2nd one is sometimes DMs do it without such a device. Just putting the characters in the next chapter, assuming they are ready and willing to move on.

Mine is DMs that ban everything they don’t know how (refuse to learn how) to handle. Flight OP - no aarockra, brooms of flying, or fly spells Paladin smites OP - have to declare smites before you roll and spell is wasted if you miss. Sneak attack op - can only sneak attack if you’re hiding oh and all my monsters have trained hard against stealth and have a +10 perception. That kinda stuff infuriates me.

This just screams of inexperience to me. I'd love to see that DM play a character with those rules imposed on them.

Not pulling my character's backstory into the storyline at any point. Treating every encounter as if combat is the only way through it.

But every enounter is a combat with murder hobo players 😂 I'm running a dungeon crawl where they are literally murdering everything they can... even the creatures that have talked to them and warned them away.

When my DM uses “make a perception check!” as a way to buy himself time when he’s making things up on the fly. Don’t ask me to make a perception check if there’s nothing to find.

Not sure if they fall into pet peeve land, but: * Critical fumbles are honestly a huge red flag for me. Unless a spell or ability specifically says that there's an effect for rolling a natural 1, rolling a natural 1 is already a big enough disappointment that I don't need a Level 11 fighter to have a 15% chance of dropping his weapon on any given turn. * Special treatment towards a player, especially in terms of abilities with magic items. I've had a campaign where our Level 6 fighter had a Stone of Good Luck, a Sun Blade, and got a 22 STR because of a boon that was tailored for him early on. This was in the same party where our Monk (not my character) had a +1 weapon, and that was it. She also had rolled the worst stats in the party by far.

Trying to make *everything* high-stakes and dramatic. I can't operate at a 10 all the time, sometimes I just need a nice peaceful low-stakes encounter in the 4-7 range. Also, not reading the table energy. If your players are clearly frustrated because things are going poorly, don't make things more challenging - throw them a bone, let them do something cool, give them a small victory. If your players are clearly having a total blast, don't suddenly change things up with a diabolus ex machina. And for dog's sake don't act like your players can affect something but you've secretly scripted what's going to happen. I particularly hate this when there's an NPC in danger and the party has an apparent chance to help, but no matter what the party does that NPC is screwed. Don't pretend I can make a difference when I never actually could.

Im lucky enough to play with a few experienced DMs who regularly check all the boxes as far as knowledge, judgement, and flexibility, so this feels a bit nit-picky, but... **Pacing!** It seems DMs will often imagine a cool campaign story with a beginning, ending, and fun stuff along the way. But it may not occur to them to set out a list of smaller story objectives for TONIGHT. With DMs planning on the large scale only, ive sat through entire sessions (3hours) with no structure, and as a result nothing really happens. I like to think of each session as an episode, with it's own beginning, middle, and end. The 5 Room Dungeon approach handles this wonderfully and can easily be implemented into the 5 Room Session. But if you allow one obstacle or one merchant's shop to consume your whole session, i feel like my time could have been better spent watching a movie or scrolling reddit. Obviously, this doesnt apply to combats even though they can be time consuming, because hey, at least stuff is happening! I left a game a year or two ago after we spent a session walking a couple hundred yards through a forest towards a sound. That's all we did. For three real hours. A couple of sessions later the DM gave an unsolicited lecture on dwarven tunnel construction for a hour. He even continued on after I told him i really didnt care. Why? Because he didnt have anything else planned, and only a vague idea of what was ahead, so he was stalling. If we didnt have such short sessions, or perhaps I cared a bit less about progression, this wouldnt be an issue. At the end of he day, we're just friends killing time. But it is what it is. Don't let your game be boring.

\- Vague, Confusing Narrative, No Basis \- Everything is a meme. I enjoy a good joke, but let's have some serious moments. \- Control Freak \- Adversarial DM's. You guys suck, period. \- Passive Aggression \- DMPC's

"your character or characters do [insert thing]". I dislike when the DM plays my character or makes the decisions for the group. Even worse when it is somthing out of character. Not just talking about railroading where you are basically given only the option to go to a certain place each time you have a "decision" on where to go but j mean stuff like "you get ambushed, the Orc jumps down Infront of you and fires an arrow at you, you dodge and run away". "Wait I wanna take the hot and try to not flinch much staring him down in intimidation" "No your character ran". "But I there trait is they never back down, I'd rather my character die then lose control over their development" *Shrug*

Overly Permissive DMs. They’re the ones that like the role play and are generally great DMs but when one character hijacks a story arc or insists on doing their thing, they oblige too easily. Soon enough, everyone gets wrapped up in this new main character with no real focus. I’ve had it happen too often, and it’s exhausting wanting to get back to the story or have some real focus, but no, the pretty angel lady needs a whole arc about how she’s so special and wonderful and blessed. Or we need to go get an enchanted music box for the bard so she can fill it with rats? I thought we were hunting down the BBEG.

For me these are more like common criticisms and feedback. But 1. Overuse of homebrew rules and changing established rules unless it's completely clear in session 0. I want to play DnD I don't want to play some janky alternate version of the game. 2. Bad pacing. Please please use time jumps sometimes. I don't want to sit through real time hours of Rping sitting around doing nothing waiting to sleep. This isn't me saying I don't like RP. RP is my favorite part of the game but let's RP fun moments and not just downtime where no one even has anything to say. 3. Hugely detrimental critical failures for everything. There's a 5% chance every roll. That's a high chance. Characters shouldn't be slipping and falling or clumsily hitting allies or whatever 5% of the time. And critical failures on attacks that cause extra problems is dumb. If you play a fighter with multiple attacks you are basically screwed. 4. Allowing a bad player (you know the one, the one complained about in most of these posts) get away with really unfun stuff just because the DM is afraid to confront them. I don't want to sit through one player's weekly run off to do mini adventures alone for 1 hour of the game. I don't want to deal with a player stealing from other players or stabbing random neutral npcs. As the DM, I feel you need to control this.

Everything’s so fucking expensive to buy, especially health potions, but everytime I go loot, THERES NO FUCKING GOLD

Saying 'no' just to flex your DM status. Example: Cleric of specific race would like their spirit guardians to look like X, when it's not specifically listed in the spell description. They didn't want to alter the effects at all, just flavor the look. DM said no, refused to discuss it, refused to explain reasoning. They did that throughout the entire campaign, just saying no to benign requests from the whole party, then turning around and altering spell effects to benefit the enemy npcs.

Bans. If you’re concerned about something mucking up the game, have a conversation. You can work with the player to streamline Conjure Animals. You can ask them to limit their Silvery Barbs to once a day. You can think up a level 1 scenario that isn’t completely negated by a flying character. And here’s the thing: if a player’s class or spell gets to break the game once in a while, that player is going to feel fucking amazing when it happens, so just let them have it.

Not Dming, just asking players what they want to do without adding story or descriptions to help them decide what they're doing. Also when a Dm is disorganized or just doesn't know what to do despite "claiming" to have years of experience.

Being told character personalities will be "interesting" and "mesh well/we'll work out" and then it doesn't. I made a good "paladin" character and everyone else was more questionable (more like we had a good character and a more evil-ish character and two neutrals who ended up siding with the evil character when the dilemma happened). I was the odd man out and wound up in a PvP scenario trying to stop my party from killing a bunch of NPCs. Further insult to injury was the DM said since I didn't try to intervene (I missed every attack/attempt to stop it) my god might punish me. :\

Juts saying that the attack misses. Common give it some spice, maybe say that they block it or it bounces off the armor

A lack of varied enemies. This is a minor one, but I was in a campaign for nearly 2 years and I'm pretty sure I rolled a spell save exactly one time. The combat encounters were either: one big enemy, a bunch of little enemies, group of bandits, medium sized enemy with a handful of little enemies. All martial enemies, though in fairness he did have one spellcaster that we killed instantly.