Second Story: It's one of two things. One: The DM is an ultimate gatekeeper, to the point where they invite a girl to play with them just to tell them that girls, in and out of game, can't play, hoping that the girl will sit there and watch a bunch of men play to make themselves feel superior, and show the girl how stupid she was for even thinking she could be part of something as cool as D&D. Two: The DM wanted her to challenge the quest-givers to prove she had what it takes to be an adventurer, either to give her a story arc (which is stupid and sexist, forcing a female character to prove to everyone she has what it takes to be an adventurer on top of whatever reasons she already has to be one, versus having the males just have their reason to adventure as the driving force of their adventuring career), or to again be a gatekeeper and force her to fight to get into the adventure. The latter could've been to either dissuade her from playing, similar to option one, or to make her prove she knows how to play a "boys' game" so that the DM wouldn't have to explain the game to her. It's shitty all around, but that's what I think the intention could've been. DM's an idiot.
I think in the last one, the DM wanted very specific types of characters so they were being super picky about the back stories and then letting them play for one session, deciding they didn't like the players choices and killing them and making them redo it. They should have given a world primer if it was that specific. Or just chill out lol
That last one I have a couple ideas what it might be. The first one is psychological, that he’s overcompensating for a lack of control or power in his own life and is taking it out in a toxic way when he has that same power and control. The second is from an experience I had with someone I played with. They only ‘played’ with us for the end of one campaign and technically until the end of our second. They made their characters and had a picture in their head of how their story would go, how the campaign would go, and how our characters would be. When it didn’t line up because they had no say in our characters or how the DM ran the campaign, they would try to force it to be how they wanted it and it stemmed a lot from main character syndrome. The DM could be thinking the characters aren’t what they pictured for their campaign and instead of talking to the players or adjusting to the characters, he just kept wiping the slate clean after the first and into the second session when he likely decided they weren’t going to do what he wanted for his story. I have more reasons for why I think this is but my comment is already really long.
My worst DM had two big flaws: 1) Knowing what the endgame is but having no clue about the middle part and 2) not knowing how DC works. They thought up this epic dungeon which would be step Q in this chain. We're starting at step A in the tavern. Characters met each other and then sat there for 2 hours. DM didn't think of a way to begin the adventure. After the session, I asked where he wanted us to go. His response: "I dunno. You guys should have done something to get you to this unknown dungeon." Side note of things I suggested which were shot down: having a map to the dungeon (no one is supposed to know where it is), an NPC who heard rumors about this place (no one is supposed to know about this dungeon), randomly stumbling on the dungeon (if it was so easy for us to find, why wouldn't other people have found it before us?). Second part: we failed perception checks of DC 56
I had a DM punish me b/c they didn't like the name of my character. They kept killing me and then got mad when my new character goal to see all the different afterlifes
I'm so glad I found you through tiktok. I'm currently catching up while gaming and it's so much fun I don't have a DnD group and I'm way too anxious and terrified to try finding a group of strangers to play with so this has been such a lovely pocket of DnD to enjoy. Here's to binging over 100 episodes, yikes haha
Final Story: Yeah, that's a power-trip thing, but I wonder if the in-depth backstories were a ploy on the DM's part to get a bunch of in-depth backgrounds for characters that he could later steal for his own projects. That's the only reason I can think of for making the players go through writing such detailed stories, other than just forcing them to spend hours of time coming up with backstories to get some sort of weird pleasure out of knowing that the players wasted their time. That could be a weird thing of "I have to do all this work as the DM writing the game, so you have to put in an equal amount of work as players writing your characters' information." Which, no, that's not the case at all.
I have given new players a baby sitter a few levels above them, but often only 2 levels, often a ranger, because they have ass kicking and healing, just to make sure the baby sitter is not at risk of dying, and then I pass off the stats to a player, because I want them to have a chance to feel how a higher level character can feel. I also don’t want to kick my own ass. I have found players usually don’t need her and she wildly unbalances encounters despite my best intentions.
Fifth Story: Sounds to me like this DM wanted to kill the party in the prison, or had something queued up that required them to remain captured and couldn't get them recaptured again, so they got frustrated and gave up.
i wonder if the prison DM wanted them in prison SO he could send them into barovia to do CoS. That’s why he was so determined they wouldn’t escape. A case of railroading not lack of planning?
The 10 session spear campaign, if we weren't out of jail by the second session, I would have quit. I wanna know what actually happened in those 10 sessions because hours of combat seems insane. How would they have survived that long under constant fire?
Congrats again on both the nomination and 5k! Well deserved 💜 I would've spoken up if that I'mGonnaHitYouWithSpearsFor10Sessions would've lasted more than 2 because damn 😆
Omg. 10 sessions of jail. I don't even think that lack of planning should lead you there tbh. If you don't have any ideas there's a plethora of solo resources you, as a dungeon master, could incorporate into the game while you're figuring things out. Break out the mythic GME and wing it for a little bit. I'm with Jack: 2 sessions of that I'd be asking what we were doing.
Second Story: It's one of two things. One: The DM is an ultimate gatekeeper, to the point where they invite a girl to play with them just to tell them that girls, in and out of game, can't play, hoping that the girl will sit there and watch a bunch of men play to make themselves feel superior, and show the girl how stupid she was for even thinking she could be part of something as cool as D&D. Two: The DM wanted her to challenge the quest-givers to prove she had what it takes to be an adventurer, either to give her a story arc (which is stupid and sexist, forcing a female character to prove to everyone she has what it takes to be an adventurer on top of whatever reasons she already has to be one, versus having the males just have their reason to adventure as the driving force of their adventuring career), or to again be a gatekeeper and force her to fight to get into the adventure. The latter could've been to either dissuade her from playing, similar to option one, or to make her prove she knows how to play a "boys' game" so that the DM wouldn't have to explain the game to her.
It's shitty all around, but that's what I think the intention could've been. DM's an idiot.
I think in the last one, the DM wanted very specific types of characters so they were being super picky about the back stories and then letting them play for one session, deciding they didn't like the players choices and killing them and making them redo it. They should have given a world primer if it was that specific. Or just chill out lol
Voting is easy but it can take a while if you go through all the categories and vote in a lot of the them.
You can skip between them!
I’ve been listening for a couple weeks now and don’t know why I hadn’t subscribed yet but I did today
That last one I have a couple ideas what it might be. The first one is psychological, that he’s overcompensating for a lack of control or power in his own life and is taking it out in a toxic way when he has that same power and control. The second is from an experience I had with someone I played with. They only ‘played’ with us for the end of one campaign and technically until the end of our second. They made their characters and had a picture in their head of how their story would go, how the campaign would go, and how our characters would be. When it didn’t line up because they had no say in our characters or how the DM ran the campaign, they would try to force it to be how they wanted it and it stemmed a lot from main character syndrome. The DM could be thinking the characters aren’t what they pictured for their campaign and instead of talking to the players or adjusting to the characters, he just kept wiping the slate clean after the first and into the second session when he likely decided they weren’t going to do what he wanted for his story. I have more reasons for why I think this is but my comment is already really long.
First DM: 14:05
Second DM: 15:40
Third DM: 21:45
Fourth DM: 27:32
Fifth DM: 33:30
Sixth DM: 42:42
THANK YOUUUU
My worst DM had two big flaws: 1) Knowing what the endgame is but having no clue about the middle part and 2) not knowing how DC works. They thought up this epic dungeon which would be step Q in this chain. We're starting at step A in the tavern. Characters met each other and then sat there for 2 hours. DM didn't think of a way to begin the adventure. After the session, I asked where he wanted us to go. His response: "I dunno. You guys should have done something to get you to this unknown dungeon." Side note of things I suggested which were shot down: having a map to the dungeon (no one is supposed to know where it is), an NPC who heard rumors about this place (no one is supposed to know about this dungeon), randomly stumbling on the dungeon (if it was so easy for us to find, why wouldn't other people have found it before us?).
Second part: we failed perception checks of DC 56
I've been very lucky to find good tables and never had a nightmare DM... Now nightmare player is a whole other story that I'll share another time.
I had a DM punish me b/c they didn't like the name of my character. They kept killing me and then got mad when my new character goal to see all the different afterlifes
I'm so glad I found you through tiktok. I'm currently catching up while gaming and it's so much fun
I don't have a DnD group and I'm way too anxious and terrified to try finding a group of strangers to play with so this has been such a lovely pocket of DnD to enjoy. Here's to binging over 100 episodes, yikes haha
Final Story: Yeah, that's a power-trip thing, but I wonder if the in-depth backstories were a ploy on the DM's part to get a bunch of in-depth backgrounds for characters that he could later steal for his own projects. That's the only reason I can think of for making the players go through writing such detailed stories, other than just forcing them to spend hours of time coming up with backstories to get some sort of weird pleasure out of knowing that the players wasted their time. That could be a weird thing of "I have to do all this work as the DM writing the game, so you have to put in an equal amount of work as players writing your characters' information." Which, no, that's not the case at all.
I have given new players a baby sitter a few levels above them, but often only 2 levels, often a ranger, because they have ass kicking and healing, just to make sure the baby sitter is not at risk of dying, and then I pass off the stats to a player, because I want them to have a chance to feel how a higher level character can feel. I also don’t want to kick my own ass.
I have found players usually don’t need her and she wildly unbalances encounters despite my best intentions.
Fifth Story: Sounds to me like this DM wanted to kill the party in the prison, or had something queued up that required them to remain captured and couldn't get them recaptured again, so they got frustrated and gave up.
i wonder if the prison DM wanted them in prison SO he could send them into barovia to do CoS. That’s why he was so determined they wouldn’t escape. A case of railroading not lack of planning?
My worst DM story was already covered by you guys in like episode 25 or so.
Vocal warm ups are the noises I make when I'm reading emails at work
LOVE so exciting when it's the first on my feed because CZcams knows I NEED ahahaha.
The 10 session spear campaign, if we weren't out of jail by the second session, I would have quit. I wanna know what actually happened in those 10 sessions because hours of combat seems insane. How would they have survived that long under constant fire?
Congratulations on your nomination 🎉
THE MAG-ALADON!
Congrats again on both the nomination and 5k! Well deserved 💜 I would've spoken up if that I'mGonnaHitYouWithSpearsFor10Sessions would've lasted more than 2 because damn 😆
22:03 WERK!!!
I voted before seeing this episode, I won't tell you who I voted for.... Ok, ok, of course I voted for you guys!
Yay! The highlight of my week ❤
ITS CLOGGIN TIME!
JarJarMigs
Omg. 10 sessions of jail. I don't even think that lack of planning should lead you there tbh. If you don't have any ideas there's a plethora of solo resources you, as a dungeon master, could incorporate into the game while you're figuring things out. Break out the mythic GME and wing it for a little bit.
I'm with Jack: 2 sessions of that I'd be asking what we were doing.
Also I voted for you in The Crit Awards!
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