Ten Terrible Dungeon Master Traits in Dungeons and Dragons

greetings my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelley McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dews welcome to our channel where we cover everything Dungeons & Dragons including advice for players and guides for Dungeon Master's we upload new videos every Thursday so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode now we've spoken a lot about what makes a good dungeon master on this channel but a really critical question to ask yourselves are what are the traits of a terrible dungeon master we should all be looking out for it ourselves when we're on a game whether you're a new DM or an experienced DM there are so many pitfalls that even the best of us can fall into and today we're gonna look at a lot of the tips and tricks that you may want to avoid when running a D&D game very often players who are dealing with a problematic Dungeon Master are too can afraid or don't know what to do to confront the dungeon master when there is a problem so solving these kind of DMing issues does have to come from ourselves and that really begins with figuring out what the problems actually can look like there's a lot to discuss so let's get rolling Before we jump into our tips for the day there's one all-encompassing rule that we want to keep in mind that is impacted by everything we're gonna talk about today and that is the trust between the players and the DM and all of the things we're going to talk about today can lead to breaking that trust which can cause an imbalance at your table now having trust between the dungeon masters and the players doesn't mean the game doesn't have secrets and mysteries and doesn't mean that the dungeon master is always telling the players that there's a trap down the hallway or that there is a monster plotting against them no it's much deeper than that and it revolves around the social dimension at the table when you as a dungeon master break the trust that your players have in you it causes them to pull out of the game experience they become less willing to roleplay less willing to take risks and less willing to get into the mindset of their characters that makes Dungeons & Dragons so magical it might even impair the friendships that exist between you and your players outside the table as well so whenever we're evaluating what makes a good Dungeon Master and the things that get in the way of the humming a great dungeon master the things that break the trust of our players are always at the core of what we're looking for so while we keep all of that in mind let's talk about the first topic that we're gonna discuss today and that is not being prepared for the game now keep in mind that there is a very big difference between not knowing everything as a DM because trust me as a DM you're never going to have everything memorized and a lot of DMing is up to chance and improv and the randomness of what occurs at the table the biggest thing that not being prepared for the game tells your players is that you don't care about the game at all and how can they trust you to run a good game if you don't care about the game you don't want to be fumbling over rules or having your head in the book the entire time the idea here is that memorize what you can try to understand what you can about the rules of the game and if something comes up at the table that you aren't sure of and you're about to go for an hour digging through the book looking for the rules arguing with the players about it trying to figure out what the right idea to land on is you as the DM can just make a ruling what makes the most sense in the moment and then check it afterwards we've got some great tips about helping you stay prepared even if you're short on time in our video right up over here but a thing to bear in mind that not being prepared for the game is particularly problematic if you are running organized play or conventions not only is this a bad gameplay experience it is often really rude to the people that are participating in that store or convention style experience it is possible to run an excellent game with only 30 minutes of preparation time if you know what you're doing but if you are not confident in your ability to do that it might be better to postpone the game or ask if someone else is willing to jump in don't mistake not being prepared for being nervous and anxious about running a game because that's a very normal feeling and also the gradient on being prepared is quite large you can have a DM who just wrote down one sentence on a piece of paper goblin in a funny hat and now they're ready to run the game but not every DN can do that some require a lot more notes and advanced planning to get ready for their game and you need to decide what kind of DM you are whatever being prepared means to you as a Dungeon Master make sure that you're ready for that at your table and you will be fine if you're coming in with absolutely nothing however you define absolutely nothing that's when you're gonna get into trouble the next point that we're gonna look at today is showing obvious favoritism towards players now there is also the counter side to this where it seems like you're out to get a specific player these are both things that you want to avoid at your table as showing favoritism or being out to get a player can really imbalance the game and make some people at the table feel like they're not getting the spotlight that they deserve as much as some of the other players or that they are being picked on and this can encourage the entire table to join in on them it can be very difficult to diagnose whether you are picking on somebody or whether you're showing favoritism to somebody I've played in groups where the dungeon master liked several members of the group except for one or two players and those two players never got good treasure they never go to opportunities to do anything awesome and the other players were being constantly showered with extra treasure more role-playing opportunities and moments to really make their characters shine in the story even though the dungeon master didn't have anything against those two players they just didn't shower them with the affection and attention of being the dungeon master now the other thing that can happen here is the favoritism could be on yourself as a DM and that's where the DM is going to prioritize their own enjoyment and what they want out of the game over the players and what they are looking to experience and really your job as a dungeon master is to be the guide and referee to the players experience this isn't your game where you get to be the great hero they're the heroes you're just the storyteller it's still your story but just keep that in mind and be aware of what your players want at the table as well part of the reason why Dungeon Master player characters are so problematic is because Dungeon Master player characters are often the object of the favoritism from the dungeon master running them and favoritism no matter if it manifests on a player or a dungeon master player character is always going to be a problem at the table and your players know it's happening particularly if you have an existing relationship with the player that is receiving the favoritism outside the table for example a spouse or a close friend or someone that you're in a personal another personal relationship with it's obvious to everybody at the table when that's happening even though it might not be obvious to the dungeon master and the object of the Dungeon Master's affections so that point lends itself really really well to our next point which is the ability to listen to your players and take feedback from them when you sit down to play Dungeons and Dragons as the DM your goal is to create an experience for the players at your table what kind of experience they want to have and what their idea of a fun game is is extremely important to you as a dungeon master running a great game for them and if they want to give you any feedback on what worked what didn't work even things like what made them uncomfortable or what made them super happy what they look forward to these are all important notes to take and to internalize those and come out better in the end for your group of players especially if you're running with the same group of players week after week it's really important to understand those players listen to them and know what they want out of the game listening to your players is one of the keys to running the best game you will ever run now sometimes you might have a specific vision in mind for your campaign and maybe you want to run a gritty campaign and bring in a whole bunch of House Rules maybe even do something drastic like ban certain classes or spells or feats or otherwise and your players come back to you and say but I really want to play a high-level wizard well then you might be an impasse but at that point you just need to talk it out and listen to each other and then you can figure out how you can make the game something exciting and valuable for everybody but if you instantly brush off the players concerns and say don't worry about it it doesn't matter that you want to play a high-level spellcaster you're gonna have fun that takes the power away from your players to own their own feelings and they're not going to trust that you know what they want out of the game I can assure you Dungeon Master's out there that if the players around the table are having a great time then you will also have a great time and you will feel proud for creating such an encouraging environment for your players to explore roleplay and experience this all comes from listening to them and acting on the feedback that you get from your players so it's a pretty simple skill but a lot of people forget about it and a lot of DMS even if you have a set idea be ready to expand or meet in the middle with what your players visions of that game are as a caller e2 this one of the hardest things about listening to other people and accepting their feedback is having the ability to own up to your mistakes and resolve them in some way and learn from them as well sometimes you might make mistakes as a dungeon master that do break your players trust or even hurt their feelings or lead to a bad game night and being able to own up to that apologize and try to make sure that doesn't happen again in the future is the mark of a great dungeon master well we're discussing listening to your players and accepting feedback on how to run the game it is also really important to attach to that our next point which is respecting your players boundaries this has to do with the content of your game and making sure that the proper expectations are set with everybody and that we all know what sort of environment we are getting into what sort of humor or situations should we expect at the table and is everybody who's playing the game comfortable with that this is one of the most important things to discuss in session zero of your campaign and make sure that everybody is on board and committed to it nothing is worse than having boundaries that you don't want to be crossed for whatever reason and then seeing someone flagrantly show disregard for your personal boundaries and overstep their and hurt you in some way this is one of the few things that can actually lead to a hurtful or really unpleasant experience at the game table and it's really important to be mindful of it don't assume that everyone sitting at the table is completely comfortable with graphic violence sexuality or other sensitive issues particularly ones that overlap with sensitive political issues of the day you should talk with your players about these sort of things and find out where people's boundaries lie you might find that people don't have any boundaries that you're playing with and pretty much anything goes at your table power to you and enjoy your graphically violent r-rated campaign all the way for the years and years to come but you might find that your players do have some boundaries and they do want to keep things at the table pretty PG and there's certain types of content that shouldn't even be referenced or referred to at your game don't assume that everyone is okay with this type of material at your game table and just because you might be comfortable you need to keep in mind that everybody has their own life their own history and their own story and you should be empathic towards these people on what sort of issues they may have you don't know why they might not like these things and it's not even your place to ask but if somebody at your table says I do not want to include blank just don't include it there's a lot of great resources about using safety tools in role-playing games and well a lot of them do boil down to don't be a dick to other human beings sometimes these tools are necessary depending on the environment and the people that you're playing with so if you are curious about how to implement these at your table will have some handy links for you below our next point is the pitfall of many newer DMS and even some experienced ones can fall into this trap every once in a while and that is railroading your players the definition of railroading can be a little bit nebulous many people often apply the definition of railroading to a campaign that has a very linear plot line or a very linear dungeon environment where the players don't have a lot of options or there's mainly one general pathway forward for the campaign to go that is linear but it is not railroading it is only crossing over into railroading when you are forcing the players to take a prescribed set of actions that is the only way to move things forward even though they are presenting alternatives that they might be more interested in as possible solutions being open to the players using social or exploration aspects of the game to bypass entire combat encounters is something that I had to get very used to and accept and realize that it was actually more fun for the players to find different ways to handle the situation rather than the way that I intended and forced upon them this is very important to not railroad your players always keep in mind all the aspects of Dungeons & Dragons and don't write a scenario where only one option exists to complete that scenario you might have only planned for one option or only considered a few obvious means that the players can go into but as long as you are open to the players creativity and then finding other ways of overcoming the problems you're not going to be railroading them even if your story is rather linear well there's still a lot of ways to approach that destination and that's what makes D&D so magical be open to that and you will never be railroading your players even if you have the most bog-standard completely linear plotline another terrible Dungeon Master trait that many new and experienced Dungeon Master's are often very guilty of and one that I keep running into time and time again unfortunately is dungeon masters who make inconsistent unfair and draconian rulings in Dungeons & Dragons the rules are a tool not a straitjacket and as the dungeon master are the final arbiter of how the rules work in play this places a lot of power in your hands but also a lot of responsibility to real the rules in an elegant manner the rules should not be something that binds and constrains you but rather the rules are something that should be working for you as a Dungeon Master to help you craft a memorable and awesome game to go back to an earlier point we talked about not being prepared for the game and the idea of making rulings and not rules if you're unsure about something when we talk about being inconsistent or unfair something that I think is very important here is that if you are going to make a call and you're unsure if it's the proper rules from the book let your players know that and you can say things like tonight we're gonna do it this way and I'll get back to you guys on what the proper ruling is and we will use that consistently moving forward this way at least you're setting the right expectations and you're not just blurting out random rules that are gonna change the next game and that's what you really want to avoid you suddenly make rules and decisions on the way that a spell might work or an ability might work because you're not sure how to run it at the table then the next time it comes up you make a different ruling on that same ability or spell because of the situation it's in and how it's going to benefit your story that you're trying to tell is a DM but you've changed it from the last time it came up being consistent and fair with the rules and impartial with your rulings lets you as the Dungeon Master act as a more neutral force this means that the players then focus on their adversaries as the antagonists rather than you the players feel like they are acting against Asmodeus or the forces of Tiamat or straud rather than thinking of you yourself the dungeon master as the villain along with that if you're making these sort of rulings and losing that truss of the table and confusing your players they are not going to be able to roleplay as well and you're gonna lose the aspect of improv that happens with Dungeons & Dragons improv is something that always should work on the yes and concept if your players are trying to do something cool with their abilities or their spells that you didn't foresee keep that in mind and learn the rules of improv and feed off of that and create a beautiful scenario out of what your players are giving you don't shut down the players creativity and ingenuity if the players are going to try something and it's not going to work that is one thing but if the players have come up with an idea that within the narrative and within the world it should be a pretty flawless victory give it to them you don't need to quash it with a bad ruling that just makes the game way less fun for the players a lot of the things that we've just discussed can lend themselves to adversarial play the DM versus the players are even painting the players against themselves this is where we come to our next point which is avoiding deadly or adversarial encounter designs Dungeons & Dragons is not a game of the Dungeon Master's versus the players there's a lot of great games that are asymmetrical that you can play amazing board games and war games if you want a competitive miniatures battle sort of experience Dungeons and Dragons isn't one of them and so when you as a dungeon master are designing deadly encounters that are nearly unwinnable that rely on things like gotchas and undetectable traps or often directly countering the abilities of your player characters it really does not create an interesting and challenging experience it just creates a frustrating and boring one again there are right ways to do this and there are wrong ways to do this you want to avoid deadly and adversarial encounters that's not to say that you can't create difficult encounters or encounters that put your pcs in a situation where they need to work harder to overcome it however what you don't want to do is just add them in without an explanation or without a reason just to make your PCs have a harder time it a very strong difference between good storytelling or just messing with your characters for the fun of it it can be really difficult to determine when this is and is not warranted I've often seen a phrase bandied around these days about the dungeon master metagaming against the players if your players feel like you are metagaming against them you are definitely doing something wrong even though technically speaking I don't really believe the dungeon master can metagame because they're the ones that actually gets the to control what the what can and cannot be known within the context of the game world and I will say sometimes as a dungeon master metagaming is a really excellent tool to roleplay a highly intelligent villain but you have to use your discretion as a DM when you are using meta gaming and make sure that you are backing that up with some sort of narrative justification because if your players feel like you're pulling one over on them for no reason at all other than you just want to make your villain seem smart that's gonna create an adversarial experience and you haven't role played properly the intelligence and master planner that your villain actually is the next point we're going to talk about has to do with alignment policing now Monty and I have talked many times about our views on alignment in Dungeons & Dragons alignment is kind of a gray area and every person gets put into situations especially in a game of Dungeons & Dragons that can cause them to act outside of their alignment should the players be punished for this it's really not that big of a deal to punish your players and drive home this solid box that they need to fit inside because of the alignment that they chose we use the term alignment policing to describe moments when the players decide that they want to take a specific action but the dungeon master says your character wouldn't do that they're lawful good and therefore the player's alignment is used to railroad the players out of doing something an example of this might be a player is playing a lawful good paladin and they want to take up arms against an evil but legitimate Lord of a nation or Kingdom and the dungeon master says no no no you can't do that you're a paladin you're lawful good you have respect the laws this is alignment policing this is controlling the players actions by making assumptions about who that player character is based on their alignment personality traits or other other elements of the character I'm not a big fan of robbing a paladin or cleric player of their divine powers because they've acted against their alignment in the grand scheme of things good and evil are a gradient and deciding to do an action that the DM says well that's not part of your alignment but ends up being for the greater good at the end of the day I don't think it's worth it to get into an argument with your paladin saying well now you've broken your oath you're gonna lose all your powers now you can't participate in the game you might as well make a new character to me the most presumptuous thing about this whole thing is that you as the dungeon master have control of the entire world except the player characters it's not up to you to decide what the player characters would or would not do maybe it is completely justified that this lawful good paladin or chaotic evil blackguard would act against their alignment because of some other value that their character might have and changing their alignment changing their ideals changing their outlook that's character development don't let alignment and ideals get in the way of interesting character development and evolving the characters as the play proceeds for me this is a big reason to just throw out alignment and allow this focus to happen but in any case don't throw out the baby with the bathwater and use it as a blockade for interesting gameplay if you watch any movie TV show read a good book I can guarantee that the peak moment in the narrative is when one of the main characters decides to act against alignment I'm going to use Star Wars a new hope here when Han Solo flies back in on the Millennium Falcon and saves Luke Skywalker well he's in the trenches about to blow up the Death Star that's one of the greatest moments in that whole movie we didn't expect that from Han Solo we thought that his alignment meant that he was only going to care about money and didn't care about anybody else but guess what he did and moment when he breaks that alignment is the pillar of his character in that movie so don't downplay acting against alignment as a great moment for that character one of the things that you do have control over at the table and one of the things that you should act upon is the social dynamics at your table and recognizing when you have a problem player on your hands one of the worst things that you can do as a dungeon master is enable a problem player's behavior there's a lot of different kinds of problem players out there from meta gamers to cheaters to power gamers to spotlight hogs and more and having one of these players at your table and continuing to cause problems game session after game session after game session will eventually bring the whole experience down for everybody it's your responsibility to step in and if you're not the one stepping in you're allowing that behavior to happen under your watch now I can admit that this is actually one of the harder rules to follow the reason being that a lot of times when we're playing Dungeons & Dragons we are playing with our friends and having your group of friends around the table sometimes you can have somebody who's on a phone or checking Facebook and I know that I personally have a bit of a hard time getting up the guts to look my friend in the face and say I know that what you're doing is fun for you right now and we're all hanging out as friends but I need you to focus on the game that I put a lot of work into but you are completely justified in doing that a lot of players who have never deemed don't really realize the amount of work that we put into the game and having everybody around the table respect that and telling them to stop being distracted by things around the table or to play the game in a way that isn't adversarial or isn't causing issues at the table is just you trying to protect the environment that you wanted to create for you and your friends to have an excellent time some dungeon masters try to adjust problem players by using house rules and table rules that apply to everybody at the table but don't address the core problem and specifically don't address the real problem player directly but in my years of experience the truth of the matter is is that a problem player won't get it even when you do that you need to tell them directly that they are being a problem and tell them to fix it or get out then back that threat up by kicking them out of the game if they don't get it together that doesn't mean that you can't be understanding and helpful and work with them as they overcome it some problem players really have a difficult time recognizing that they are causing a problem on the table and they do deserve your patience and respect as they work to overcome that but ultimately keeping a problem player at your table who refuses to make it honest change at addressing their behavior is bad for your game and you should ask them politely to leave with all of this in mind we come to our last and final point there's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot on the internet that Monty and I have both discussed and generally we don't like using this term but it's the forever DM this refers to somebody who maybe isn't enjoying the DM experience feels that they are stuck being the dungeon master because if they don't run the game nobody will run the game the problem here is this puts a really negative spin on the idea of being a dungeon master and makes it sound that it's less fun than being a player if you're not getting the enjoyment you want out of being a dungeon master if you're not having fun doing it you'd rather be playing the game then maybe it's time to step down and look for somebody else who's interested in running your game for me being a dungeon master is more fun than anything else I can do playing Dungeons and Dragons and I absolutely love doing it but not everybody feels that way and some people get burned out and just aren't currently having fun with their campaign and some people don't like DMing at all and that's completely legitimate I think you should give it an honest college try if you have never done so before but if DMing is not right for you don't drag your players along with you because you think that you're the only one that's gonna make D&D happen if you're not the one running the game give up the mantle to maybe a player that might be interested in they might fall in love with it themselves so this has been a look at ten terrible dungeon master traits if you have any dungeon master horror stories of your own tell us about them in the comments below all the videos that we make on our Channel are made possible thanks to the generosity of our patreon supporters if you are enjoying our show and wants to contribute to our work please consider supporting us on patreon you can find out how by following the links in the description below don't forget to check out our live play dragon hime series which airs Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes you can find all of the episodes from those series right up over here and we have plenty more tips and tricks for Dungeon Master's indie and e5e right up over here don't forget to subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thanks so much for watching and we will see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

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Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: FaO1JaUKmec

Length: 29min 42sec (1782 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2020